Dinah Lord

Plea deal likely for Pantybomber?

That's the rumor - not like we didn't see this coming a mile away from the 'roll over and play dhimmi" Obama justice department...

From the Washington Post:

Public defenders for the Nigerian student are engaged in negotiations that could result in an agreement to share more information and eventually a guilty plea, the sources said.

Negotiations could still collapse before the next scheduled court date, in April, the sources said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. But senior members of the administration's national security apparatus have publicly said that a plea deal is likely, given the virtual life sentence that Abdulmutallab could face on charges of using an airplane as a weapon of mass destruction.

Miriam Siefer, a federal public defender in Detroit, declined to comment on the case this week, as did a Justice Department spokesman in Washington.

What kind of sentence could he receive in exchange?  Richard Reid pled guilty and received a life sentence with special restrictions but the Obama Justice Department relaxed those restrictions last year.

Reid was placed under tight restrictions known as Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) that were renewed each year on the ground that his interactions with others posed a "substantial risk" of resulting in death or serious injury to them.

But last June Attorney General Eric Holder allowed the security directives to expire following a 2007 civil lawsuit by Reid in which he claimed that SAMs violated his First Amendment right of free speech and free exercise of religion.

He said the restrictions prevented him from practicing his Sunni Muslim faith or to learn Arabic, order books and magazines, watch television news and speak to anyone except his family and lawyers.  He was moved out of isolation in August, but he was subjected to new restrictions that barred him from writing to anyone except his immediate family and lawyer.

Where the hell is the High Value Detainee Interrogation Group?

For the record...

From Charles Krauthammer:

We have since learned that the decision to mirandize Abdulmutallab had been made without the knowledge of or consultation with (1) the secretary of defense, (2) the secretary of homeland security, (3) the director of the FBI, (4) the director of the National Counterterrorism Center or (5) the director of national intelligence (DNI).

The Justice Department acted not just unilaterally but unaccountably. Obama's own DNI said that Abdulmutallab should have been interrogated by the HIG, the administration's new High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group.

Perhaps you hadn't heard the term. Well, in the very first week of his presidency, Obama abolished by executive order the Bush-Cheney interrogation procedures and pledged to study a substitute mechanism. In August, the administration announced the establishment of the HIG, housed in the FBI but overseen by the National Security Council.

Where was it during the Abdulmutallab case? Not available, admitted National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, because it had been conceived for use only abroad. Had not one person in this vast administration of highly nuanced sophisticates considered the possibility of a terror attack on American soil?

It gets worse. Blair later had to explain that the HIG was not deployed because it does not yet exist. After a year!

Bin Laden joins Al Gore in global warming crusade

Urges boycott of US goods, abandonment of US dollar and even gives a shout out to Noam Chomsky.  Also blames Boooosh!

From al Jazeera:

Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, has condemned the US and other industrial economies, holding them responsible for the phenomenon of climate change.

In an audio tape obtained by Al Jazeera, bin Laden criticised George Bush, the former US president, for rejecting the Kyoto pact and condemned global corporations.

"This is a message to the whole world about those responsible for climate change and its repercussions - whether intentionally or unintentionally - and about the action we must take," bin Laden said.

"Speaking about climate change is not a matter of intellectual luxury - the phenomenon is an actual fact." (Bwa-ha-ha!)

[...]

In the new recording, bin Laden said: "Noam Chomsky [the US academic and political commentator] was correct when he compared the US policies to those of the Mafia. They are the true terrorists and therefore we should refrain from dealing in the US dollar and should try to get rid of this currency as early as possible.

"I am certain that such actions will have grave repercussions and huge impact."

While continuing to attack America, bin Laden's comments mark a shift from his earlier, more regionally focused commentary.

"Where the hell is Secretary Napolitano?"

From CNS News:

"Top Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee publicly scolded Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for failing to show up at a Wednesday hearing where the committee examined the attempted Christmas Day suicide bombing of Northwest Flight 253. One Democrat on the committee said he wanted to know “where the hell” Napolitano was.

Putting the Nap in Napolitano - Janet attends the State of the Union address.    ----->

That evening, Napolitiano did prominently show up at the Capitol to attend President Barack Obama's State of the Union address. But earlier in the day, she dispatched Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Jane Holl Lute to testify on her behalf in the Homeland Security Committee on what went wrong in the homeland-security process that allowed would-be suicide-bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board a plane bound from Amsterdam to the Detroit.

The committee has primary oversight over Napolitano’s department ..."

 

Obama's Closing Gitmo? To al Qaeda it's no big deal.

Lost in the shuffle of the Obama administration's rush to throw their left wing base a bone by closing Gitmo is the inconvenient truth that the AQ terror homeys don't give two hoots about WHERE it's located.  As soon as the facility opens in Thomson IL it will just present a more inviting, softer target. 

From the Daily News:

President Obama still insists he will close Guantanamo Bay’s terror prison because it’s a “tremendous recruiting tool for Al Qaeda” — but it’s not much of a tool anymore, a Daily News analysis has found.

Terrorism experts agree with Obama that the blight of past abuses of Gitmo detainees once helped Islamists draw followers to join their radical anti-Western jihad by mentioning the U.S. prison camp in Cuba in its propaganda videos — which are the most visible tool Al Qaeda and its allies use for recruitment.

But Al Qaeda has rarely complained about Guantanamo Bay since Obama pledged to shut it down on his first day in office a year ago, a meticulous scrubbing of jihadi propaganda has revealed.

Botox: the latest tool in bio-terror?

Uh-oh. With all the botox in that mug of Nancy Pelosi she could be classified as a weapon of mass destruction.

<----  Botox gone bad.

From the Times of India:

Terrorists are exploiting a surging black market for the popular anti-wrinkle drug botox to develop bioterrorism weapons, experts say.

Al-Qaida is known to be seeking the deadly botulinum toxin that comprises the active ingredient in botox, and officials say they believe terrorists in Chechnya and elsewhere have established illegal factories to churn out the raw toxin, the Washington Post reported.

Kenneth Coleman, a biodefense expert, said his probe hints that a biologist of modest means and education can easily tap the counterfeit botox market to manufacture 1g of pure toxin, which would be sufficient to kill thousands of people.

The black market for botox has spawned illicit networks of suppliers who mostly work online and don't demand prescriptions. "There are no major obstacles," said Coleman, who authored a study for the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. "It's not hard to get the bacterial strains. But you don't even have to make it. You can buy it from makers to cause widespread harm."

Afghanistan Reconciliation conference: Selling out and getting suckered - AGAIN.

And here I thought that the US didn't negotiate with terrorists.  Silly me.  Turns out that the Obama administration "toyed with the idea" early on in their tenure.  (Interesting how they 'toy' with the lives of American soldiers, isn't it?)

Patrick Cronin, a senior advisor at the Center for New American Security, said on "Washington Unplugged" Thursday that United States officials first toyed with the idea of negotiating with the Taliban in Afghanistan early on in the Obama administration, though they did not act.

He said that early debate over possible negotiations – as part of an effort to combat al Qaeda – came during a "point of weakness" for the United States. Things have changed since then, he argued.

"Now that we have committed to a new Afghan policy, if not strategy," Cronin said, "...we are in a relatively strong position to at least talk about the tactic of reaching out to at least some members of the Taliban." Cronin said the administration can now differentiate between rank and file and Taliban leadership.

How can we be in a "relatively strong position" if we are talking about cutting and running?  How can we be negotiating with the Taliban in advance of the troop surge?  And why would we even consider such a thing given the miserable failure of the last such reconciliation attempt?

Thousands of Taliban militants laid down their Kalashnikovs and signed up for the old program, which lasted 41/2 years and cost $3 million. But many fighters didn't get the money and land they were promised and rejoined the insurgency. Others took the cash and returned to the Taliban anyway.

"That program was ridiculous," said Mohammad Arsalan Rahmani, a former Taliban deputy minister and now a senator in Afghanistan's parliament. "Taliban fighters who surrendered have been arrested. They never got the land and money that were promised.

[...]

Britain and Japan will head a new, much larger international fund aimed at persuading fighters to switch sides, British officials said Tuesday. Japan, Britain and the U.S. are expected to be the largest contributors initially. The fund, which will be formally announced during an international aid gathering in London this week, is expected to reach $500 million.

Part of the grand plan?  Sewing lessons.

Vice Admiral Robert S. Harward Jr., the commander of the military task force that assumed oversight of the prison system Jan. 7, (and the person tasked with reintegrating captured Taliban inmates to society) said a crucial part of his job is to separate hard-core Islamic extremists from detainees who can be reintegrated into Afghan society.

For the latter group, Harward plans to beef up education and training programs, teaching detainees masonry, cooking, sewing and other skills. "If we can give them a skill, when they come back to their village they can contribute and, at the end of the day, have a higher purpose in life," he said.

Unfortunately Vice Admiral, they already have a higher purpose in life - the death cult of ISLAM and all the sewing classes in the world will not change that.

For their part the Taliban reject the idea of peace talks out of hand.

Avoiding any discussion of compromise, the Taliban leadership council called for "the full withdrawal of the invading forces," the release of all prisoners from Afghan, Pakistani, and US jails, and the removal of all names from the United Nations terrorist sanctions list.

The Taliban said they had no intentions of negotiating with the Afghan government, which they described as "traffickers of intoxications items, human rights violators, corrupt persons, national traitors and usurpers of people private properties." Instead, Mullah Omar, the Taliban's leader, seeks to reinstall the Islamic Emirate.

It looks like the Taliban are already getting some of their demands met:  UN eases sanctions on 5 Taliban leaders.

And the rights of Afghani women?  Look for them to be thrown under the bus.

Interested in reading the key points of the communique? (A largely boilerplate document which glossed over the major issues and was leaked by the Germans before the participants even sat down to their lunch of goat cheese and sea bass!)  See below.

While I was swanning around New Orleans...

All the charges were dropped against the five 9/11 terrorists.

Just so you know.

From Fox News:

All charges have been withdrawn in the military commissions against the five suspects in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks being held at Guantanamo Bay.

The charges were dropped "without prejudice," according to the Defense Department -- a procedural move that allows federal officials to transfer the men to trial in a civilian court and also leaves the door open, if necessary, to bring charges again in military commissions.

"This action comes in light of the announcement by the attorney general of the United States that the Department of Justice intends to pursue a prosecution ... in federal court in the Southern District of New York," says a release from the Defense Department.

Currently no suspects stand charged in the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11. U.S. officials sent notification to Congress and families of 9/11 victims Friday afternoon. The order dropping charges was made Thursday.

Breaking: Holder ordered to find new venue for KSM trial?

What a clusterphuk.  "Like a half baked souffle.  The plan is collapsing."

Update - January 29, 2010:  Possible alternate sites for the KSM trial are now being leaked:

Topping the list, the source said, is upstate Otisville -- home to a federal penitentiary where the terrorists, now at Guantanamo Bay, could be housed. Other cities being considered, the source said, include White Plains in Westchester County and New Haven, Conn.

From the Daily News:

The White House ordered the Justice Department to consider other places to try the 9/11 terror suspects after a wave of opposition to holding the trial in lower Manhattan.

The White House took the action hours after Mayor Bloomberg called Attorney General Eric Holder to say he would "prefer that they did it elsewhere."

"It would be an inconvenience at the least, and probably that's too mild a word for people that live in the neighborhood and businesses in the neighborhood," Bloomberg told reporters.  "There are places that would be less expensive for the taxpayers and less disruptive for New York City."

State leaders have railed against a plan to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Manhattan federal court since Holder proposed it last month.

The order to consider new venues does not change the White House's position that Mohammed should be tried in civilian court.

"President Obama is still committed to trying Mohammed and four other terrorist detainees in federal court," spokesman Bill Burton said Thursday.  (The same Bill Burton who called KSM a 'murderous thug' - no mention of his being an Islamic terrorist, of course.)

"He agrees with the attorney general's opinion that ... he and others can be litigated successfully and securely in the United States of America, just like others have," Burton said.  Burton referred questions about the location debate to the Justice Department.

Officials there have apparently been caught off guard by the fiery opposition in New York, an insider told the Daily News.  "They're in a tizzy at Justice over Bloomberg," a federal law enforcement official said. "It's like a half-baked souffle - the plan is collapsing."

Meanwhile, a source told The News that Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly was the driving force behind the push by Manhattan business leaders to change the mayor's mind on the trial.  Kelly made an "extremely powerful" speech to a roomful of 150 prominent business leaders about how disruptive and costly the trial would be for lower Manhattan at an annual police charity event on Jan. 13, the source said.

"What turned this around was when Ray made a presentation to the Police Foundation," the source said. "Everyone went from thinking, 'Justice will be served' to thinking 'We are screwed.'"

Phew.

Between Bourbon Street pub crawls, the Iris Ball and the Saints win over the Colts - I'm still recovering from my New Orleans trip.

Highlights included:

Vizard's, the King Pin, the National World War 2 Museum, Antoine's, Galatoire's, the Court of Two Sisters, Jean Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, the Parkway Bakery, Plush Appeal, Dos Jefes Uptown Cigar Bar, Audubon Park, the Camellia Grill, Brigtsen's, and Patois.

And just think - two weeks from today we journey back to New Orleans for Mardi Gras and do it all over again!