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LIBERAL TAKE ON TERROR
A COMMENTARY BY DEBRA J. SAUNDERS
Dec. 29, 2009
Gosh darn, I feel great to live in a country that gives full constitutional rights to a foreign national who, on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, was tackled by passengers and crew as he reportedly was trying to blow up the plane.
If a terrorist fails to blow up a plane, he should get a court-appointed attorney. My big concern is that if Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab keeps telling the FBI there are others like him in Yemen, he may not get a fair trial.
After all, if U.S. authorities treated such a man as an enemy -- if they interrogated him to glean information that could stop other planned attacks, as promised by the leader of al-Qaida in Yemen -- then that would make Americans just like the terrorists.
Like Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., I support the Retroactive Immunity Repeal Act, which would make it possible for political activists to sue telephone companies that cooperated with national intelligence officials under the Terrorist Surveillance Program. They must be made an example.
As Dodd said, "We make our nation safer when we eliminate the false choice between liberty and security." President Obama framed that notion a different way when he spoke in April of "the false choice between our security and our ideals." Because if we have to choose between security and our ideals, after another big attack, our ideals will crumble.
Rand terrorism expert Brian Jenkins told a Senate committee in November that U.S. authorities foiled eight domestic terrorist attacks in 2009, while failing to stop shootings against military personnel in Arkansas and Fort Hood, Texas. But that's no reason for Obama to pull back on his promise to shut down Guantanamo Bay and repatriate more detainees abroad.
True, the Defense Intelligence Agency figured in April that one out of seven released Gitmo detainees were "confirmed or suspected of re-engaging in terrorist activities." Stuff happens. If newly freed detainees end up in an al-Qaida training camp, well, that's the cost of making America look nicer.
When Obama said Monday that the American people "should remain vigilant," I had to wonder: Is he turning into George W. Bush? If you ask me, it's that attitude that sparks terrorism abroad.
That's why Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano stopped using the phrase "war on terror." To stop terrorist attacks. WTF?
It didn't take long for Napolitano to retract her Sunday statement to CNN that "the system worked." As she said, the remark was "taken out of context." Really.
And you can't blame her for telling CNN political correspondent Candy Crowley it would be "inappropriate to speculate as to whether" Abdulmutallab had ties to al-Qaida. Remember that after Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan shot and killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, some pundits were happy to blame not Islamic extremism but war-related post-traumatic stress disorder -- even though Hasan had never served in Iraq or Afghanistan.
When Bush was in office, we hammered him on his failure to grant U.S. civil liberties to foreign terrorists. Now we're stuck with our 2004 and 2008 campaign rhetoric. You see, the system does work. Until it doesn't.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS.COM
This is how backwards the Democratic fools in Washington have become. So, do we continue to stand by and allow the Government to let this happen? I DARE SAY NOT!!
Until next time,
Freedom Fighter
SEN. REID’S OUTRAGEOUS PAYOFFS, KICKBACKS; SWEETHEART DEALS
All year long, the more the American people learn about Washington Democrats’ costly government takeover of health care, the more they oppose it. Indeed a new Quinnipiac survey shows continued disapproval for the Democrats’ government-run approach. Only 36 percent support Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) bill, while a majority (53 percent) oppose. Opposition among Independents, at 58 percent, is even higher. And that anger is growing as Americans find out more about Sen. Reid’s unseemly payoffs, kickbacks, and sweetheart deals that were included to buy the votes of Democratic senators. Here’s a sampling of the reaction to these payoffs, kickbacks, and sweetheart deals in today’s papers:
“If it could be proved that the chief executive officer of a major American corporation -- a pharmaceutical firm, say, or an insurance outfit -- had delivered hundreds of millions of dollars to the governors of two of the 50 states in exchange for two U.S. senators from those states changing their votes and defeating the proposed federal takeover of America’s medical industry, it’s not too hard to imagine the results: the perpetrator led out of his office in handcuffs by the FBI, front-page indictments and trials, commentators reviling the worst case of public corruption to be seen at such a high level in generations. Yet when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., promised to deliver those sums to Nebraska and Louisiana (and not to the other 48, no credible claim of ‘the general welfare’ here) in recent weeks to buy off Sens. Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson in order to line up the 59th and 60th votes needed to pass the biggest new federal boondoggle in half a century -- the Nebraska payoff coming early Saturday morning -- he didn’t even try to keep it a secret.” – “Health Care Deal Looks A Lot Like a Bribe,” Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial, December 23, 2009
“Blanche Lincoln and Evan Bayh must feel like saps. The Arkansas and Indiana Democrats spent months caterwauling about this or that provision in the Senate health-care bill, then at 1 a.m. Monday they voted to speed its passage without getting so much as a lousy T-shirt. In Harry Reid's Senate, this qualifies as dereliction of duty, as the Majority Leader said himself on Monday in defense of his frantic deal-making to get 60 votes.” – “The Price of ‘History,’” Wall Street Journal editorial, December 23, 2009.
“In the wee hours of Monday morning, Senate Democrats passed their version of health reform in a strictly partisan 60-40 procedural vote. It was accomplished with political payoffs that should die in conference committee but probably won’t. The tawdry use of earmarks to bury the doubts of recalcitrant moderate Democrats was a cynical display of ends-justifies-the-means horse-trading that President Barack Obama campaigned against as a senator and candidate.” – “Harry Reid Sells His Political Soul,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram editorial, December 23, 2009.
“Among the most distasteful elements were essentially the payoffs used to secure votes from senators in Nebraska, Florida, and Louisiana. The shakedowns, er, side deals provide extra funding for Medicaid and Medicare just in these states, and limits on abortion coverage demanded by Sen. Ben Nelson (D., Neb.)” – “A Health Deal is at Hand,” Philadelphia Inquirer editorial, December 23, 2009.
“New Yorkers better be ready to dig deeper into their pockets to pay off all the bribes Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., offered senators of other states to win their support for the $871 billion health reform bill.” – “Reid Payoffs,” Watertown Daily Times editorial, December 23, 2009.
“America's overused credit card, issued by the Bank of China, may have to be used one more time to pay for Reid's deals. The majority leader traded to help ensure the votes of Sens. Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Chris Dodd, Bernie Sanders and others representing 11 states by giving them special perks for staying on the health care bus that's about to drive us all over the financial cliff. They may argue they weren’t bribed, but they certainly were rewarded. The price was enormous.” – “Harry Reid Playing Santa With Your Money,” CNN column, December 23, 2009.
“With the approval rating of Congress sinking in the polls and public opinion of their health care plan going down along with it, Democrats may have done themselves one favor too many this week when they riddled the bill with special deals for individual lawmakers. As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., struggled to pull together his 60 Democratic-controlled votes needed to pass the bill, certain holdout lawmakers were able to carve out extra money, benefits or exemptions that senators from other states didn't get.” – “Big Payoffs to Senators on Health Bill Stokes Public Anger,” Washington Examiner, December 23, 2009.
“Sometimes there is a fine ethical line between legislative maneuvering and bribery. At other times, that line is crossed by a speeding, honking tractor-trailer, with outlines of shapely women on mud flaps bouncing as it rumbles past. Such was the case in the final hours of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's successful attempt to get cloture on health-care reform. Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, the last Democratic holdout, was offered and accepted a permanent exemption from his state's share of Medicaid expansion, amounting to $100 million over 10 years.” – “For Sale: One Senator (D-Neb.) No Principles, Low Price,” Washington Post column, December 23, 2009.
Republicans are standing up for American taxpayers by exposing these payoffs, kickbacks, and sweetheart deals and offering better solutions to lower health care costs. The Republican health care plan would lower premiums by up to 10 percent, cut the deficit, and consistently reduce federal spending on health care over the next two decades. That’s the type of common-sense solutions the American people want and deserve out of health care reform.
REPUBLICAN LEADER PRESS OFFICE
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH)
H-204, THE CAPITOL
(202) 225-4000
GOPLEADER.GOV
Would it be possible for the government to hear the American people instead of just ignoring the multitude? I really think they are trying to piss us off.
Until next time,
Freedom Fighter
