Author: COB6

What exactly is going on here?

The $328,835 snapshots of an Air Force One backup plane buzzing lower Manhattan last week will not be shown to the public, the White House said yesterday.

“We have no plans to release them,” an aide to President Obama told The Post, refusing to comment further.

The sole purpose of the secret photo-op, which sent thousands of New Yorkers running for cover, was to take new publicity shots of the presidential jet over the city.

“The photos . . . are classified — that’s ridiculous,” Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., said.

Making these photos (if that’s what they’re trying to hide) inaccessible will be legally problematic for the Obama administration.

First of all the President CAN NOT classify anything he wants.

Executive Order 12958 details the rules for classifying anything.

Section 1-4 details the kind of information that can be classified and what category such classification would fall into.

Sec. 1.4. Classification Categories.

Information shall not be considered for classification unless it concerns:
(a) military plans, weapons systems, or operations;

(b) foreign government information;

(c) intelligence activities (including special activities), intelligence sources or methods, or cryptology;

(d) foreign relations or foreign activities of the United States, including confidential sources;

(e) scientific, technological, or economic matters relating to the national security, which includes defense against transnational terrorism;

(f) United States Government programs for safeguarding nuclear materials or facilities;

(g) vulnerabilities or capabilities of systems, installations, infrastructures, projects, plans, or protection services relating to the national security, which includes defense against transnational terrorism; or

(h) weapons of mass destruction.

Perhaps I’m missing something but publicity photos of Air Force One scaring the shit out of thousands of people in NYC doesn’t seem to fit any of these categories.

But wait; the Executive Order goes even further; it specifies what CAN NOT be classified.

Sec. 1.7. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations.

(a) In no case shall information be classified in order to:
(1) conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error;
(2) prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency;
(3) restrain competition; or
(4) prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of the national security.
(b) Basic scientific research information not clearly related to the national security shall not be classified.

Trying to classify (or otherwise keep from the public) the information about Operation Dumbass seems to be in particular violations of Section 1.7.a.1,2 and 4.

Having said all of this, the photos are NOT the issue here. If the blogosphere raises enough hell, the Obama administration will release some boring photos of AF1 flying over NYC and will never be asked to answer what was really going on.

This is a people issue, not a photo issue. Here is what I’d like to know specifically:

Who was onboard the 747?

Every single person and their specific reason for being there?

A list of every person that visited the 89th Airlift at Andrews AFB during the 72 hours prior to the launch of Operation Dumbass?

If it really was just a photo-op, then the only harm is realizing that our President is a dumbass.

If however, this was a flying “Lincoln Bedroom”, Barry has got a big frigging problem!

Naturally, I take anything VP Joe Biden says as gospel. No wait, I think he is blithering idiot.

So avoiding crowds will not be my priority. In fact I am blogging from Churchill Downs. Today is the running of the Oaks and of course tomorrow is the 135th running of the Kentucky Derby. It will gather about 150,000 other folks who think Biden is an idiot.

Here is part of an LA Times article that confirms that this Polish piano prodigy is a complete douche.

Poland’s Krystian Zimerman, widely regarded as one of the finest pianists in the world, created a furor Sunday night in his debut at Walt Disney Concert Hall when he announced this would be his last performance in America because of the nation’s military policies overseas.

Before playing the final work on his recital, Karol Szymanowski’s “Variations on a Polish Folk Theme,” Zimerman sat silently at the piano for a moment, almost began to play, but then turned to the audience. In a quiet but angry voice that did not project well, he indicated that he could no longer play in a country whose military wants to control the whole world.

“Get your hands off of my country,” he said. He also made reference to the U.S. military detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

About 30 or 40 people in the audience walked out, some shouting obscenities. “Yes,” he answered, “some people when they hear the word military start marching.”

But I promised a suggestion didn’t I?

Thank you for your opinion Krystian, now please get the fuck out of my country.

Oh yeah, when Putin and the boys decide to re-annex Poland, I wonder who Krystian will be begging for help?

Former Intelligence Committee Chairman and Director of the CIA Porter J. Goss eliminated any possibility of a serious investigation in a Washington Post article today.

Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as “waterboarding” were never mentioned. It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In that case, though, perhaps it is not amnesia but political expedience.

Let me be clear. It is my recollection that:

– The chairs and the ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, known as the Gang of Four, were briefed that the CIA was holding and interrogating high-value terrorists.

– We understood what the CIA was doing.

– We gave the CIA our bipartisan support.

– We gave the CIA funding to carry out its activities.

– On a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda.

I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues.

This is so comical and demonstrates so clearly what all the howling Democrats have been doing the last couple of weeks was really about. It was not about seeking the truth or making America stronger; it was nothing more than a political witch hunt. And now it has blown up in their collective anti-American faces.

There will also be no serious Congressional hearings in to this. Why?

The Intelligence Committee is chaired by Sylvestre Reyes who is so stupid a congressional page has to water him twice a week and then there is Nancy Pelosi.

Let’s face it, when the Speaker of the House is basically reduced to two possible defenses; either a low grade moron or a pathologic, treasonous liar; there will be no hearings.

What about a Special Prosecutor?

I would actually support that but it won’t happen, at least not if Obama wants to pass another single piece of legislation in his only term as President.

Get over it lefties. This is what happens when the amateurs and political hacks are trying to run the country.

Today congress was debating a new round of hate crime legislation and really showed the true colors of the Democrat Party.

This is not a post about hate crime legislation which I think is crap on its face.

This is about how the Democrats slice people into categories, label them and then pander relentlessly. But that’s not the point here.

Congressman Rooney offered an amendment asking that veterans be added to the list of protected under the act.

Enter Congresswoman Wasserman-Schultz.

See the video here.

First she said that veterans do not deserve protection. I don’t necessarily disagree with this because I think most veterans are more than capable of protecting themselves. My problem is that at the end of her mindless diatribe she says that including veterans in this bullshit legislation “be-littles” those that it’s intended to protect.

Who are these people that are be-littled by association with veterans?

African Americans, Jews, gays and (put down the drink) PEDOPHILES!

There has never been much question that Silvestre Reyes (D-Tx) is a top tier congressman in terms of being an idiot but this one is really strange.

Here’s his response to the story that a fellow Democrat in congress has popped up on a wiretap talking with a suspected spy.

House Select Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes has told the panel’s staff to begin investigating an incident in which Rep. Jane Harman was recorded on a wiretap talking with a suspected Israeli agent….
“In the context of the Harman incident, the committee is looking into the issue, including NSA involvement, as well as any other matter directly related to the committee’s jurisdiction over the intelligence community,” committee spokeswoman Courtney Littig said….

Littig said the panel had also begun an inquiry into another news report from last week involving surveillance of a lawmaker.

Here’s the back story and why it all seems almost surreal.

Harmon and Nancy Pelosi have been enemies for years. Harmon was lobbying hard to become the Chair of the Intel Committee which she was imminently more qualified for than Reyes. However Pelosi is nothing if not a vindictive, petty woman and snubbed Harmon by giving the chairmanship to Reyes.

Oh and Pelosi has known about the Harmon wiretaps since it occurred and said nothing.

Even the Kos-Kids are riled about this little circus.

Harmon and Reyes both suck. (0+ / 0-)
Harmon is a tool of the military-industrial complex. Reyes is an idiot. I can’t believe they put a guy in charge of the intelligence committee who doesn’t know the difference between Shiite and Sunni. Fucking pathetic. Makes Democrats look like a bunch of incompetent douche bags. Rush Holt was clearly the best candidate for that job. Pelosi should have figured out some other way to give some love to the Hispanic caucus.
Chomsky Fever!

Exactly On-Point! Harman Was Hoist On Her Own (2+ / 0-)
Petard, as it were. It makes me nauseous to see such incestuous knee-jerk pronouncements from Reyes’ office. Where was the umbrage when Adm. Poindexter (one of the greatest unsung villains since James Jesus Angleton, was sweeping up electronic communications of everyday citizens indiscriminately?

What Harman was doing, if it wasn’t overtly treasonous, just looks so bloody bad that it disqualifies her from serious consideration for responsible positions in sensitive government offices. It is perhaps, ironic, that she should be swept up by the very system she advocated for so rigorous, but she isn’t the first shark hunter to be clipped by a stingray…

For years he’s sat there like an obstructionist bump on a log, not lifting a finger to investigate ANYTHING the Bush admin did, no matter how obvious or egregious. Why the fuck does this guy chair a very important committee?

Can we kick this bum out? Anyone got the info?

One thing for sure, Reyes needs to watch his back.

This is not poor judgment and it is much worse than petty retribution. This will get US troops killed!

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration agreed late Thursday to release dozens of photographs depicting alleged abuse by U.S. personnel during the Bush administration of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At least 44 pictures will be released by May 28 — making public for the first time images of what the military investigated as abuse that took place at facilities other than the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Defense Department officials would not say exactly what is contained in the photos, but said they are concerned that the release could incite a backlash in the Middle East.

Backlash = dead soldiers!

This is a classic example of how to un-win a war. Obama should be charged with every death that results from this idiotic and frankly, murderous idea. Who the hell could possibly think this is a good idea?

“This will constitute visual proof that, unlike the Bush administration’s claim, the abuse was not confined to Abu Ghraib and was not aberrational,” said Amrit Singh, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained the agreement as part of a long-running legal battle for documents related to Bush-era anti-terror policies.

Un-Frigging-believable!

Earth Day was created by the far left in 1970 by a political hack claiming that the world was ending. The similarities between Democrat Senator Gaylord Nelson and Al Gore are remarkable. Both of them compiled a message of dire doom and the far left idiots sucked it up faster than they could pimp the junk science.

Here’s what all these loons said back in 1970:

“We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”
• Kenneth Watt, ecologist

“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
• George Wald, Harvard Biologist

“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.”
• Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist

“Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”
• New York Times editorial, the day after the first Earth Day

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,”
• Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day

“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
• Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University

“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
• Life Magazine, January 1970

Stanford’s Paul Ehrlich announces that the sky is falling.
“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the nonrenewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones.”
• Martin Litton, Sierra Club director

“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
• Sen. Gaylord Nelson

“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years,” he declared. “If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

I remember when this big deal went down. I was in the third grade and came home from school with my Weekly Reader full of propaganda and asked my grandfather about it.

He said, “Son, these people are jackasses and listening to jackasses makes you stupid.” He then spit tobacco juice out of his window and finished with this bit of wisdom:
“And believe me boy life is hard and it’s way harder if you’re stupid.”