For anyone who’s worried about Al Qaida coming after you: Did you know that it’s much safer for you to live in the crown of the statue of liberty than by your neighborhood donut shop?Also, be sure you stay away from your local bean fest. Al Qaida apparently hates beans. You’d be much safer going to the top of the Empire State Building, apparently.Y’know, our current leaders operate with such brazen ineptitude and thievery that it’s almost as if they feel they don’t have to worry about elections…

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Nabbing a few poor Black people from the projects who surprisingly aren’t fond of the government wasn’t scary enough. Neither was foiling a boneheaded plot to flood Manhattan by bombing the Holland Tunnel – a scheme that didn’t take into account the fact that New York is above the water level (you never know when water’s going to decide to flow up though, so thank God Homeland Security was on the ball on that one). No, the latest election-year scare has been ratcheted up severeal notches on the Rove scale.If they’ve already pulled an international large-scale plot out of their hat in August, they’re going to have to top themselves in coming months. Expect American and British intelligence to thwart an attack on Disneyland by aliens from the rings of Saturn around, oh I don’t know, late October.Still, this could all be real, of course. Even the boy who cried wolf was eventually eaten.**UPDATE: Surprisingly, the White House is seeking to capitalize on the alleged plot.

“I’d rather be talking about this than all of the other things that Congress hasn’t done well,” one Republican congressional aide told AFP on condition of anonymity because of possible reprisals. “Weeks before September 11th, this is going to play big,” said another White House official, who also spoke on condition of not being named, adding that some Democratic candidates won’t “look as appealing” under the circumstances.

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Dick Cheney and others in the G.O.P. (which, for all intents and purposes, includes Joe Lieberman), are trying to use the recently-foiled, alleged terrorist plot for partisan gain. According to them, Connecticut Democrats who voted against Lieberman last week are America-hating, terrorist-supporting surrender monkeys. The G.O.P. is blanketing the nation with the message that Democrats — who keep suggesting that Bush obtain warrants before prying into Americans’ private lives in violation of the Fourth Amendment — oppose policies like the ones that foiled the recent terrorist plot. I suppose that means policies such as Bush’s illegal domestic surveillance programs.

Only one problem with that message: The British investigation didn’t come across this plot through the wiretapping and datamining of millions of people. The British uncovered this plot because of a tip. In Britain, the authorities don’t have to present a court with probable cause in order to obtain a wiretapping warrant. But in America, a tip like this would be all the probable cause a court would need to allow surveillance without violating the Fourth Amendment.

Far from rationalizing the White House’s illegal surveillance programs, the thwarting of this alleged terror plot demonstrates why such illegal programs are unnecessary.

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First the crocodiles are denied their chance to bring Steve Irwin to justice, and now this…

The information purporting the death of the world’s most sought after terrorist is based on what the newspaper calls “a usually reliable source,” stating that Saudi intelligence sources “are convinced” of bin Laden’s death.The French intelligence report goes on to say, still according to the French daily, that bin Laden died in Pakistan on August 23 after suffering “from a severe bout of typhoid fever,” and a bacterial infection provoked a paralysis of his lower body.

The Saudi intelligence report states that bin Laden’s geographic isolation “rendered all medical assistance impossible. Indeed, U.S. intelligence sources have long believed bin Laden was hiding in remote parts of Pakistan, close to the border with Afghanistan, areas where sophisticated medical help would be difficult to obtain.

The news of bin Laden’s death reached the Saudi capital, Riyadh, on Sept. 4. If confirmed, that, in part, might explain the complete absence of Osama bin Laden from making any appearances on the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon just outside Washington, DC.

The U.S. is skeptical, of course, as this wouldn’t be the first time OBL has been reported to have gone to find his 72 virgins in the sky.

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As anyone who’s seen a brilliant trailer and then gone to find out that the movie was total crap knows, it’s easy to give a false impression with a few simple editing tricks. For the past couple days, the Drudge Report and other right-wing sites have been downright orgasmic over a 50-second clip that they claimed showed Clinton coming unhinged and being forced by Fox News to admit he failed to prevent 9-11. Watch a longer version of that interview, which has just a little bit more substance following the “I failed” part than the Fox promo would suggest.

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There are times when being right makes you the happiest person in the world, and then there are the times it makes you crap your pants. Guess which one of those times this is. I want every angry, slogan-spouting flag-waiver who’s ever written in ordering me to “leave the President alone, he’s making us safer” to take a second, put down your copy of the National Review (the one with the Sean Hannity centerfold), and write to me again. Write to me and explain why our intelligence agencies now say the Iraq occupation has increased the threat of terror.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 — A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,’’ it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.An opening section of the report, “Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,” cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology. The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,” said one American intelligence official.More than a dozen United States government officials and outside experts were interviewed for this article, and all spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were discussing a classified intelligence document. The officials included employees of several government agencies, and both supporters and critics of the Bush administration. All of those interviewed had either seen the final version of the document or participated in the creation of earlier drafts. These officials discussed some of the document’s general conclusions but not details, which remain highly classified.Officials with knowledge of the intelligence estimate said it avoided specific judgments about the likelihood that terrorists would once again strike on United States soil. The relationship between the Iraq war and terrorism, and the question of whether the United States is safer, have been subjects of persistent debate since the war began in 2003.National Intelligence Estimates are the most authoritative documents that the intelligence community produces on a specific national security issue, and are approved by John D. Negroponte, director of national intelligence. Their conclusions are based on analysis of raw intelligence collected by all of the spy agencies.More…

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So Rudy’s in.In the days after 9-11, America needed a hero and it picked Rudy. Talk of “President Giuliani” began just a few days after 9-11, and I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me just what Rudy Giuliani has done to indicate he deserves to sit in the Oval Office. He was an unpopular, scandal-ridden mayor known mostly for his police department’s torture and murder of unarmed Black men. But then the terrorists brought down the towers. He didn’t soil himself and hide under his desk on 9-11 (or even fly around aimlessly like our current President). He kept his cool and did his job. That’s expected, not extraordinary.**UPDATE: Doug comments,

Darrin, I don’t know where you are getting your information about the NY police “torture and murder of unarmed Black men.” Truthfully, it sounds like something that was reported in the National Enquirer, rather than a legitimate source! 

For some reason, I’m not able to respond in the “comments” section right now, so I’m updating the main post with my reply:Here you go. This (and his arrogant response to it) is what Giuliani was known for until 9/11:The Diallo and Louima casesGiuliani took credit for falling crime rates, but crime rates fell in all big cities at the time, due in no small part to Bill Clinton’s COPS initiative, which put 100,000 new cops on big city streets across the country. Other Giuliani achievements:• He tried to have Yasser Araft booted out of NYC (despite Arafat having been invited by the UN), nearly causing an international incident.• He decided, over objections, to place the anti-terror command center in the World Trade Center, which was as smart a decision as placing an earthquake response center on the San Andreas Fault. Perhaps the constant video we saw of Giuliani bravely roaming the streets of Lower Manhattan were due to his having no command center to go to.• He caused a big stink about a museum that hung an African artist’s painting of the Virgin Mary that was made with elephant dung (insisting on mischaracterizing it as a deliberate insult, despite elephant dung being sacred in that artist’s culture — I don’t know about you, but politicians who mischaracterize to score political points lose points with me).• He tried to use 9/11 to advance his own political career when he proposed cancelling the mayoral elections so he could stay on indefinitely.

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“Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb [Iran]…”-John McCain

All I have to say about that is:

Thank God this guy has little chance of winning the primary, let alone the election.

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I still have no idea why Barack Obama believes the current administration’s violations of our Constitutional rights do not constitute “grave breaches.” I’m sure his desire to not be impeached himself, should he win, has nothing to do with it. Watch this recent Bill Moyers special (in 5 parts) for a less self-interested assessment:

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