The United Nations’ expert panel on climate change based claims about global warming and disappearing ice from mountain tops on anecdotal evidence from a student’s dissertation and an article in a mountain climbers’ magazine.
The purpose of the UN climate science panel is to provide an authoritative assessment of scientific evidence on climate change; however, in the section “Selected observed effects due to changes in the cryosphere produced by warming” from its benchmark 2007 report, the panel cited two papers as sources to prove that global warming has caused reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and Africa.
One of the cited sources was a feature article published a popular mountain climber magazine in 2002 that was based on anecdotal evidence from climbers who discussed the changes they witnessed on the mountainsides.
The panel’s other cited source came from a climate change campaigner studying for a geography degree the University of Berne in Switzerland who wrote a Master’s Degree dissertation based on interviews he conducted with mountain guides in the Alps.
Neither the geography dissertation nor the climbers’ article was subject to the painstaking scientific review process that is customary for research published in scientific journals.
Professor Richard Tol, one of the authors of the report, accused Working Group Two (the panel of experts within the IPCC responsible for drawing up this section of the report) of sloppy work.
“Why did they do this? It is quite astounding….These are essentially a collection of anecdotes. There is no way current climbers and mountain guides can give anecdotal evidence back to the 1900s, so what they claim is complete nonsense,” Tol said.
Earlier this month Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) officials were forced to retract inaccurate claims in their report that most of the Himalayan glaciers would be melted by 2035. The panel’s claim came from a news report published in 1999 by New Scientist magazine.
The climate science panel has also been roundly criticized for linking global warming to increases in the frequency and the severity of natural disasters. The panel’s claims were based on an unpublished report that had not undergone typical scientific review and was later withdrawn for insubstantial evidence by its authors.
The IPCC report is published every six years and is used by world governments to create policy decisions that affect billions of people.
A retired black maintenance engineer will be the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging Chicago’s 28-year-old handgun ban. Otis McDonald, a 76-year-old resident from the city’s southwest side filed suit because he wants a handgun to protect himself from the hoodlums preying upon his neighborhood.
A little over 18 months ago, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the handgun ban in Washington D.C., ruling that the Second Amendment protects the individual’s right to self-defense. But the Court’s historic “District of Columbia v. Heller” decision did not apply to states and other cities because Washington, D.C., is a federal district. Now the energized gun-rights movement has shifted the battle to Chicago, which has one of the strictest handgun laws in the nation, second only to Washington D.C’s.
McDonald is poised to become the public face of one of the most important Second Amendment cases in the nation’s history.
“Regardless of how this case goes, Mr. McDonald’s name is set in legal history, at the same level as Roe v. Wade and Plessy v. Ferguson.”—Nicholas Johnson, Fordham University law professor
McDonald v. City of Chicago is scheduled to be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on March 2.
“This a representative republic, not a banana republic and let me remind you: Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky are not our Founding Fathers…
You are an agitator and an organizer, and a process guy, but you are not a leader. It is you who are doing something wrong.”—Rush Limbaugh
On his radio show today, Rush Limbaugh read aloud his penned message to Brother O in response to last night’s State of the Union polemic. Read the complete transcript of the message below.
I penned a message to Obama that I would like to deliver now. Because Mr. Obama, I think it’s time we had a heart to heart talk. Let me be the father that you never had or never really knew, because I think you need some guidance. It’s time to man up. It’s time to grow up. That speech last night was an embarrassment. You couldn’t focus, you lashed out in all directions, you refused to accept responsibility for your own actions, and you were angry.
And he was, folks! He was mad. Being president is a big job. It’s a big responsibility. You wanted the position, Barack. You campaigned for it. You told the public to trust you with it, and they elected you — and you’re now president of the greatest country mankind has ever known, and yet you act like this was all coming to you, like you deserve it, that you’re better than the people you are supposed to serve and that you have no tolerance for debate or dissent. That’s not the way it works as president, Barack. We have a Constitution, we have checks and balances, we have separation of powers, we have states — and most of all, we have the people. You don’t get to impose your programs and policies on the nation and the people without our consent.
This is a representative republic, not a banana republic, and let me remind you: Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky are not our Founding Fathers. This is a nation built on individuality, built on liberty, free markets, and faith. Yet you, Barack, demand fidelity to a different belief system: A system that crushes individual initiative and free will. The president does not berate Supreme Court justices who are guests of the Congress and who have no ability to respond to your attacks. You’ve made such a mess of things, Barack, and it’s time to stop deluding yourself. It’s time to stop blaming others. You are delusional. You are delirious. It’s time for you to assume the responsibilities of a president rather than pretending to be one.
You’ve driven the nation’s debt over the edge. It is your responsibility to fix it now. Otherwise, our young people will have no future. You were wrong to grant terrorists constitutional rights. Even the libs in New York don’t want the trial there now! You, Mr. President, are endangering the security of this nation. Now fix it! Reverse course, and end the terrorists — all of them — back to Guantanamo Bay, where they belong. You are wrong to nationalize one industry after another from automobiles to banks. You are destroying competition and jobs. You need to stop what you were doing before million of more families go broke from your misguided policies. It’s not too late to stop this. I know you’re not going to stop it because last night you said you don’t quit, and I know what you mean.
You’re gonna keep plugging for the same agenda, which is going to destroy this country even more — which makes me think, Barack, that’s your objective. You know, Barack, unlike most presidents you’re dealing with a Congress that has super majorities in both houses, fellow Democrats. It amazes me that with all the talk about your ability to persuade and communicate, that you can’t even hold your own party members together anymore. Is that Bush’s fault, too? Is it is fault of the banks and the insurance companies and the lobbyists that you can’t keep your own Democrat Party unified — or is it a problem with your leadership, Barack, or lack of leadership? It’s the latter, Mr. President. I’ll tell you, you are not a leader. You are an agitator and an organizer, and a process guy, but you are not a leader. It is you who are doing something wrong.
The people in Virginia don’t like it. The people in New Jersey don’t like it. The people in Massachusetts don’t like it. The people in Massachusetts and all over the country have the ability to inform themselves outside of your sycophant press corps, and they are doing so. Members of your own governing majority don’t like what you are doing. I mean, this calls for some self-reflection and some circumspection. Has it occurred to you, Mr. President, even once that you’re not as cool as you think you are? Has it occurred to you that you are screwing up? And if it has, are you happy about that? Has it occurred to you that you have a great deal to learn and that you need to take your own measure, or are you Mr. Perfect? Are you God-sent?
Are you The One that you’ve been waiting for? See, I have a little concern there may be a psychological issue at play here. I don’t say this to demean you, Barack. I say it because I’m concerned. I mean, Tom Daschle was always “concerned” and I like the word. I’m concerned. You seem to have a whole lot of enemies, at least in your own mind. A partial list would include Fox News, insurance companies, banks, oil companies, the “special interests,” the Supreme Court, Republicans, talk show hosts, executives, anyone or any business that earns over $250,000 a year, mortgage companies, credit card companies — and the list goes on and on and on. You have the longest enemies list of anybody I’ve ever known.
These people are not your enemies, though, Barack. They are Americans. They are part of this country. They are part of what makes the nation work. You are not. You have nothing to do, and have had nothing to do, with this nation’s greatness. You can’t lay claim to greatness on any scale, not even rhetorical. But you have no direct relationship to the greatness of this country. You are damaging the possibility of further greatness. Nevertheless, like a bully, you continue to threaten all of these people. The Supreme Court, Big Oil, Big Pharmaceutical, Big Retail, talk show hosts, Fox News, the list goes on. You threaten anybody who does not agree with you. You try to intimidate them. You smear them. Your sycophantic media goes right along and carries your water. But this is not what presidents do…
Click here visit Limbaugh’s website and read the message to Obama transcript.
Propagandists in the mainstream media erupted with glee when the story broke of activist filmmaker James O’Keefe’s arrest for an alleged attempt to tamper with phone lines in Senator Mary Landrieu’s (D-La.) office.
The Associated Press insinuated there might be a conservative conspiracy behind O’Keefe’s alleged crime, and one of MSNBC’s talking asses, David Shuster, condemned O’Keefe in a retweet saying:
“a) you are not a journalist b) the truth is you intended to tap her phones c) it’s a felony d) you will go to prison.”
Shuster was responding to an earlier tweet, in which O’Keefe had written:
“I am a journalist and the truth will set me free.”
Even before O’Keefe’s side of the story is known, MSNBC’s twit tweeter presumes O’Keefe’s intentions and is thoroughly convinced of his guilt. Yet when ABC’s Jake Tapper tweeted asking that people listen to their better angels and not jump to conclusions and presume motive in the Nidal Hasan Fort Hood massacre, Shuster retweeted, “Amen.”
Apparently Shuster’s better angels merit his listening only when the crime involves an American-born Palestinian Muslim fanatic who’s accused of slaughtering 13 innocent Americans in the name of Allah.
In O’Keefe’s case, Shuster’s standard of jumping to conclusions and proclaiming premature guilt is perfectly understandable and acceptable to his colleagues in the mainstream media.
By the way, a law enforcement official told MSNBC that the men arrested for attempting to tamper with the phones in Landrieu’s New Orleans office were not trying to intercept or wiretap calls.
O’Keefe, who masterminded the ACORN hidden camera sting operation, was arrested earlier this week with three other young men for something or other involving the telephone system in the New Orleans office of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.)
Does O’Keefe have evidence of some impropriety involving Landrieu, or perhaps ACORN, or both?
Is the mainstream media being set up by O’Keefe?
We’ll see.
A piece in the Washington Postsuggests O’Keefe may have been running a sting against Landrieu:
[…] Conservative supporters say O’Keefe’s newest operation occurred just days ago. Federal prosecutors allege that he helped carry out a plot Monday in which two partners impersonated telephone repairmen to enter the downtown New Orleans office of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.). O’Keefe, 25, waited inside the office and used his cellphone to record his two colleagues saying that the senator’s phone was not receiving calls, according to charges unsealed Tuesday.
Supporters say O’Keefe and his friends entered Landrieu’s office to conduct another undercover sting: to show on video that citizens trying to call Landrieu’s office could not get through. Now O’Keefe — a celebrated figure among some Republicans for his undercover sting last fall targeting the nonprofit Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) — and three other men face charges of entering federal property on false pretenses as part of a plot to tamper with the lawmaker’s phone. If convicted, they could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Michael Madigan, O’Keefe’s attorney, could not be reached to comment.
Opponents of health-care reform legislation had complained this month that they repeatedly heard busy signals when they called Landrieu’s office to register their views. […]
The Left is freaking out. Gov. Bob McDonnell gave an impressive, error-free, and remarkably effective response to the SOTU. He might be the next “It” on the Republican side. That means it’s time to attack! Over at Daily Kos, they don’t like the diverse crowd that was seated behind McDonnell:
And the teabagging, bipartisan response in front of an all GOP audience is over. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell had a “black woman”, “asian guy”, and “military guy” behind him. The seating chart for this thing must have been six months in the making.
This was not the only Lefty who went after McDonnell’s crowd. Walter Shapiro wades in: “After 70 minutes of seeing Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi nodding and clapping on cue behind Obama, it was strange to see four unknown Virginians (white, black, and Asian-American) nodding and clapping on cue behind McDonnell.” Another blogger harped: “Like tokens, he has four supporters strategically positioned behind him to fit in the television screen: an African American woman, a white male soldier, an Asian man, and a young woman.”
Actually, those people aren’t props. The white woman in the shot is Janet Polarek, secretary of the commonwealth. Above her is Jim Cheng, secretary of commerce and trade. The soldier is Staff Sargeant Robert Tenpenny, who served with the governor’s daughter Jeanine McDonnell in Iraq. Above him is Lisa Hick-Thomas, secretary of administration. That exquisitely diverse group, in other words, is mostly McDonnell’s cabinet. I think Bill Clinton called his Cabinet one that “looked like America.”
Well, it’s good of the Left to point out just how diverse are the people whom McDonnell has selected for key posts. And I suppose it’s some indication of just how well McDonnell did. Not only did he not have a Bobby Jindal moment but he also got all-around good reviews from mainstream pundits — and got the Left to embarrass itself. I guess the Republicans really did choose the right guy to respond.
Alexandra Nuñez, 37, visited A1 Medicine, a one-stop gynecology and plastic surgery clinic, at Roosevelt Avenue on Monday and died from a “safe,” legal abortion.
Apparently, the abortionist severed an artery during the operation, and she began bleeding heavily. Nuñez was rushed to Elmhurst Hospital Center where she was later pronounced dead.
A clinicemployee, who refused to give her name, insisted that everything had gone well.
“The patient was transferred to the hospital, she didn’t die at the clinic. Nothing happened here,” she said.
Nuñez had told her family that she was going to have a cyst removed at a doctor’s office in Newark and didn’t want anyone to go with her. The victim’s 19-year-old daughter insisted her mother did not believe in abortions.
Currently an investigation is underway to determine if the one-stop clinic is licensed to do abortions, and whether or not the abortionist was qualified to perform the procedure. The facility remains open and continues to schedule appointments.
New York is one of only seven states in the U.S. that does not have a law that requires parental notification or consent before a minor undergoes an abortion. Underage girls in the state need parental consent for medical treatment and surgery but not for abortions.
By Michael J. Feeney, Barry Paddock and Jonathan Lemire
Detectives are investigating a Queens clinic where a 37-year-old woman was fatally injured while undergoing an abortion, officials said Tuesday.
Alexandra Nuñez began bleeding heavily during the procedure at A1 Medicine in Jackson Heights on Monday, officials said.
One ofNuñez’s arteries was inadvertently severed and she went into cardiac arrest, according to police sources.
She was taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center, where she died a short time later.
Detectives have interviewed the staff at the Roosevelt Ave. clinic, but no charges have been filed, police said.
“There is an investigation going forward,” said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, “but as of yet, there’s no indication of any criminality.”
Nuñez, a single mother of four who lived in Plainfield, N.J., underwent the procedure at 3:30p.m., police said.
She had told her family that she was going to a doctor’s office in Newark to have a cyst removed – and her death stunned her eldest daughter.
“I’m upset because I never got a chance to say goodbye,” said Daisy Davila, 19. “She didn’t want anyone to go with her. I made dinner and lunch [yesterday] hoping she would come back.”
“We’re not angry. We just want to know what happened,” said Davila, who insisted that her mother did not believe in abortions. “She was a strong woman, always happy. I looked up to her.”
An employee at the clinic – a one-stop gynecology and plastic surgery clinic that was still seeing patients yesterday – insisted that everything had gone well at the second-floor medical facility.
“The patient was transferred to the hospital, she didn’t die at the clinic,” said the woman, who refused to give her name. “Nothing happened here.”
A1 Medicine was accredited in July to do office-based surgery that requires moderate or deep anesthesia – and that includes abortions, according to a spokeswoman for the state Health Department. [emphasis mine]
Former U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey has opened up a 14-point lead among likely voters in his bid to deny U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter a sixth term, according to the latest Daily News/Franklin & Marshall Poll.
Poll director G. Terry Madonna said that the results reflect a growing national Republican resurgence mixed with a lack of Democratic enthusiasm as the two parties battle over issues like health care and the economy.
Specter, who switched from Republican to Democrat in April, was tied at 30 percent in a general election match-up with Toomey among registered voters, with 35 percent undecided, the poll found.
But Toomey jumped out to a 14- point lead when the poll targeted “likely voters,” people who said they are certain to vote and are paying close attention to the race.
Among that group, Toomey led Specter 45-31 percent, with 20 percent undecided.
“I can’t deny it’s all very encouraging,” Toomey said. “But I’m also very aware of the fact that the election is nine months away. A lot can happen. So I’m going to run like I’m 20 points behind.”
Specter, who narrowly beat Toomey in the 2004 Republican primary, declined to comment on the poll yesterday.
Toomey, who lives near Allentown, left his congressional seat for the 2004 race.
U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, who is leaving his Delaware County congressional seat to challenge Specter in the primary, also came up a loser against Toomey in the poll. Toomey led Sestak among registered voters by 28-16 percent with 51 percent undecided.
With likely voters, Toomey’s lead on Sestak grew to 41-19 percent with 37 percent undecided.
Sestak was unavailable for comment yesterday, a campaign spokesman said.
The poll found health care, the economy and jobs to be the top issues in the race.
The winner of the May 18 Democratic primary will have to deal with what Madonna calls the “enthusiasm gap.”
Madonna notes that 47 percent of the registered Republicans in the poll said that they were likely to vote in the Nov. 2 general election, while only 35 percent of the Democrats felt the same way. He attributes that to national news of Democrats’ struggling to implement their policies in Washington despite control of the White House and Congress. [emphasis mine]
Madonna pointed to Republican wins in races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia last year and in a U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts this month as proof that the GOP is energized and that many Democrats are staying home.
In Pennsylvania’s race for governor, Madonna found the candidates so unrecognizable to voters that their current standing in the poll means little.
Seven in 10 people in the poll had no opinion on that race.
“They have no state name recognition,” Madonna said of the candidates. “The fact is, the race is in a very inchoate form, a form that has yet to take shape.”
The poll showed state Attorney General Tom Corbett leading state Rep. Sam Rohrer 23-5 percent in the Republican gubernatorial primary, with 69 percent undecided.
Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato led the Democrats with 10 percent while state Auditor General Jack Wagner, Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty and Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Hoeffel each had 4 percent; 72 percent said that they were undecided.
The poll of 1,165 people, conducted from Jan. 18-24, has a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percent.
At the 2010 March for Life the media set new standards for journalistic fraud. In its lead photo, CNN showed five pro-abortion picketers and ignored the 300,000 pro-life marchers. Newsweek lied, claiming that most participants were in their 60’s when most were under 25. This video is an attempt to set the record straight.
More than any other event, the March shows the corruption of the Mainstream Media and reveals how they are controlled propagandists and not journalists. The MSM have mislead and indoctrinated their audience for years, which is why the Internet is so important.
The first three words of the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, WE THE PEOPLE, are capitalized and written larger than the others for they contain the idea of self-government. The Constitution’s beginning phrase presupposes the belief set forth in the Declaration of Independence that liberty is an unalienable right and gift from man’s Creator that cannot be bestowed by other men or governments.
The men who signed the Declaration of Independence, wrote the Constitution, and openly rebelled against a tyrannical monarch and his governing elites believed in a God-given right to individual liberty and a representative government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Similarly, the grassroots Americans in today’s tea party movement want to secure liberty, curtail the power of a central government, and cast off the tyranny of a ruling elite. The tea parties that sprang up across the nation last year were clarion calls to the leaders of the republic to honor the founding principles in the Declaration of Independence and uphold the Constitution as originally conceived, and to do battle with the statist progressive enemy which now threatens our republic.
However, a feud has erupted among tea party activists. They have become increasingly divided on how to fight America’s new tyrannical nemesis. Should tea partiers start another political party to shape policy and elections at local, state, and national levels, or do they join the Republican Party or a third party in an attempt to change the current direction of the country?
The individual’s right of free association, which has served American society so very well, has always permitted ignorant or wicked people to unite in ways that threaten individual liberty. People who contend that real liberty derives from membership in a just and good collective are statists. Statists advocate and promote the decisive use of state power through a foreign notion of collective liberty that looks to a governing elite as the beneficent arbiters of a superior society. They believe such arbiters know best and will determine the good and how best to pursue that good for the personal happiness of the common man.
America’s Founders knew such aristocratic, autocratic elitism leads to tyranny and serfdom, so they devised the Constitution to protect individual liberty and to limit the power of federal officeholders whose ambition is to rule rather than serve. Today far too many political and civic leaders as well as their sycophants in the media, academia, and the judiciary have subverted the principles of liberty outlined in the Constitution and embraced and promoted a statist progressive notion of collective liberty.
Historically, Americans have understood that individual liberty means the freedom to act according to one’s moral sense of right and wrong and to associate and trade freely with others to produce or to acquire goods and services that are necessary for one’s pursuit of happiness. But over the decades, statist progressives have gradually shifted the power from the American electorate to a centralized government by legislating and adjudicating issues of individual liberty at the federal level, rather than at the state and local levels.
Statist progressives posit that a collectivist mindset is necessary for “progress” and accordingly deem all political ideologies that emphasize the pre-eminence of individual liberty to be inherently regressive, thereby consigning them to the ash heap of history. Instead of protecting and defending the Constitution, statist progressives continually and deliberately subvert the very idea of the American Republic. They are radicals who strive to expand federal power, bypass constitutional limitations, pressure government officials to violate their oaths of office, and seek to subordinate the American people to supranational governance in service of a greater collective.
The tea party movements signify that the Spirit of ’76 has awakened for many Americans who are now raising their voices to preserve their birthright and to challenge the statist progressives’ radical view of liberty and the apologists who uncritically defend it.
Even though progressive statists are in a minority in the United States, they rule the Democrat Party and control the leadership of the House, Senate, and Presidency. If tea partiers remain divided against this common enemy, attempts to save the Republic will fail miserably and the country will fall inexorably to ruin in the clutches of elitist tyrants and one-party rule. Edmund Burke’s advice is as sound today as it was some 200 years ago.
“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”
Rest assured the Spirit of ’76 is not dead; it is only slumbering. As Thomas Jefferson aptly noted, “[T]he body of the American people is substantially republican.” And so it remains to this day, which means it is not nor has it ever been socialist.
However, if tea partiers decide to support a new political party or third party candidates, their votes will be divided to allow the abominable statist progressive monster to remain in power and grow even larger and more menacing.
Let history record that in 2010 WE THE PEOPLE corrected the direction of the United States and began the restoration of the Republic, which stands under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
“[T]he United States is failing to address several urgent threats, especially bioterrorism,” said former senator Bob Graham, chair of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism.
Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in 2003 had called off plans for a chemical attack on New York‘s subways “for something better.”
The United States has not done enough to protect the country against the threat of weapons of mass destruction even as Al-Qaeda appears intent on staging a large-scale attack, reports said.
A bipartisan panel warned that the government had failed to adopt measures to counter the danger posed by extremists using WMD, saying the administration lacked plans for a rapid response to a possible biological attack.
“Nearly a decade after September 11, 2001, one year after our original report, and one month after the Christmas Day bombing attempt, the United States is failing to address several urgent threats, especially bioterrorism,” said former senator Bob Graham, chair of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism.
He said that Washington no longer had “the luxury of a slow learning curve, when we know Al-Qaeda is interested in bioweapons.”
In its “report card,” the commission also gave the federal government low marks for failing to recruit a new generation of national security experts and for failing to improve congressional oversight of intelligence and homeland security agencies.
The findings came as a former CIA officer wrote in a report that Al-Qaeda’s leaders have been working methodically since the 1990s to secure weapons that could inflict massive bloodshed.
Although other extremists had looked into obtaining such weapons, Al-Qaeda “is the only group known to be pursuing a long-term, persistent and systematic approach to developing weapons to be used in mass casualty attacks,” wrote Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, who led the CIA’s WMD department.
He acknowledged that the failure to find WMD in Iraq had damaged the US government’s credibility and had spread skepticism about the threat posed by Al-Qaeda getting its hands on nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
“That said, WMD terrorism is not Iraqi WMD,” he wrote in the report released by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
He argued that intelligence on Al-Qaeda’s activities was much more extensive and reliable than the information about Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs.
His report said Al-Qaeda’s efforts to develop biological and nuclear weapons were not “empty rhetoric” and that the group’s leaders appeared to have ruled out smaller-scale attacks with simpler devices.
“If Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants had been interested in employing crude chemical, biological and radiological materials in small-scale attacks, there is little doubt they could have done so by now,” he wrote.
In a “highly compartmentalized” operation, Al-Qaeda had pursued parallel tracks to try to secure the destructive weapons, building a biological lab and separately acquiring strains of anthrax bacteria before the attacks of September 11, 2001, the report said.
The anthrax was apparently never successfully placed in a weapon and scientists working at a lab in Afghanistan had to flee when US-led forces invaded after the 9/11 attacks, it said.
In 2003, US officials feared that Al-Qaeda was on the verge of obtaining atomic weapons after intercepting a message from a Saudi operative referring to plans to secure Russian nuclear devices.
The sensitive intelligence was passed on to Riyadh and the Saudi government then arrested Al-Qaeda suspects in a major crackdown.
But US officials were never sure if the nuclear plot was disrupted or merely pushed underground.
The former CIA officer also said Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in 2003 had called off plans for a chemical attack on New York‘s subways “for something better,” a cryptic remark that remains a mystery. [emphasis mine]
The bipartisan commission on the WMD threat, created by Congress, had said in its initial report in December 2008 that it was “more likely than not” that a terror attack using weapons of mass destruction would be carried out somewhere in the world by the end of 2013.
THE MILLSTONE DIARIES 
Latest Commentary
Posted in Latest Commentary on January 27, 2010| 1 Comment »
Defeating America‘s True Nemesis
By Jerry A. Kane and Peter W. Cooper
The first three words of the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, WE THE PEOPLE, are capitalized and written larger than the others for they contain the idea of self-government. The Constitution’s beginning phrase presupposes the belief set forth in the Declaration of Independence that liberty is an unalienable right and gift from man’s Creator that cannot be bestowed by other men or governments.
The men who signed the Declaration of Independence, wrote the Constitution, and openly rebelled against a tyrannical monarch and his governing elites believed in a God-given right to individual liberty and a representative government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Similarly, the grassroots Americans in today’s tea party movement want to secure liberty, curtail the power of a central government, and cast off the tyranny of a ruling elite. The tea parties that sprang up across the nation last year were clarion calls to the leaders of the republic to honor the founding principles in the Declaration of Independence and uphold the Constitution as originally conceived, and to do battle with the statist progressive enemy which now threatens our republic.
However, a feud has erupted among tea party activists. They have become increasingly divided on how to fight America’s new tyrannical nemesis. Should tea partiers start another political party to shape policy and elections at local, state, and national levels, or do they join the Republican Party or a third party in an attempt to change the current direction of the country?
The individual’s right of free association, which has served American society so very well, has always permitted ignorant or wicked people to unite in ways that threaten individual liberty. People who contend that real liberty derives from membership in a just and good collective are statists. Statists advocate and promote the decisive use of state power through a foreign notion of collective liberty that looks to a governing elite as the beneficent arbiters of a superior society. They believe such arbiters know best and will determine the good and how best to pursue that good for the personal happiness of the common man.
America’s Founders knew such aristocratic, autocratic elitism leads to tyranny and serfdom, so they devised the Constitution to protect individual liberty and to limit the power of federal officeholders whose ambition is to rule rather than serve. Today far too many political and civic leaders as well as their sycophants in the media, academia, and the judiciary have subverted the principles of liberty outlined in the Constitution and embraced and promoted a statist progressive notion of collective liberty.
Historically, Americans have understood that individual liberty means the freedom to act according to one’s moral sense of right and wrong and to associate and trade freely with others to produce or to acquire goods and services that are necessary for one’s pursuit of happiness. But over the decades, statist progressives have gradually shifted the power from the American electorate to a centralized government by legislating and adjudicating issues of individual liberty at the federal level, rather than at the state and local levels.
Statist progressives posit that a collectivist mindset is necessary for “progress” and accordingly deem all political ideologies that emphasize the pre-eminence of individual liberty to be inherently regressive, thereby consigning them to the ash heap of history. Instead of protecting and defending the Constitution, statist progressives continually and deliberately subvert the very idea of the American Republic. They are radicals who strive to expand federal power, bypass constitutional limitations, pressure government officials to violate their oaths of office, and seek to subordinate the American people to supranational governance in service of a greater collective.
The tea party movements signify that the Spirit of ’76 has awakened for many Americans who are now raising their voices to preserve their birthright and to challenge the statist progressives’ radical view of liberty and the apologists who uncritically defend it.
Even though progressive statists are in a minority in the United States, they rule the Democrat Party and control the leadership of the House, Senate, and Presidency. If tea partiers remain divided against this common enemy, attempts to save the Republic will fail miserably and the country will fall inexorably to ruin in the clutches of elitist tyrants and one-party rule. Edmund Burke’s advice is as sound today as it was some 200 years ago.
“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”
Rest assured the Spirit of ’76 is not dead; it is only slumbering. As Thomas Jefferson aptly noted, “[T]he body of the American people is substantially republican.” And so it remains to this day, which means it is not nor has it ever been socialist.
However, if tea partiers decide to support a new political party or third party candidates, their votes will be divided to allow the abominable statist progressive monster to remain in power and grow even larger and more menacing.
Let history record that in 2010 WE THE PEOPLE corrected the direction of the United States and began the restoration of the Republic, which stands under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
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