China to buy 1/2 of Morgan Stanley

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest independent U.S. securities firm, may sell a larger stake to China Investment Corp. and is in talks about a possible merger with Wachovia Corp., a person familiar with the matter said.

China's state-controlled fund may buy as much as 49 percent of the New York-based investment bank, said the person, who declined to be identified because the talks aren't public and may end in no agreement. Morgan Stanley resumed its decline on the New York Stock Exchange, falling as much as 22 percent.

It’s War!!… Obama Tells Supporters “Argue, Get In Their Face!” (Video)

Obama declares war!
Tells supporters in Nevada to, “Argue, Get In Their Face!”

Here’s the entire Obama speech from Elko, Nevada, yesterday.
(He tells the crowd to “argue and get in their face” at 24:50 of the 25:38 minute speech.)

The One does well with those traveling teleprompters.
Obama also forgets to mention to the crowd that he took more money from the troubled lender Fannie Mae than any other US Senator except one, Chris Dodd. ...

Community Organizer In Chief

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Barack Obama claims he worked for a "small group of churches" as a community organizer. In fact, he was hired by a radical Alinskyite group, and Saul Alinsky's own son has outed him.

Buried last month in the Boston Globe's letters to the editor was a three-paragraph letter congratulating Obama for putting on a great show at the Democratic National Convention.

That open-stadium rally in Denver, with it's packed crowd and perfectly timed chanting of key phrases, "had all the elements of the perfectly organized event, Saul Alinsky-style," opined the letter-writer. The reference was to the hard-boiled Chicago socialist and father of radical community organizing.

"Barack Obama's training in Chicago by the great community organizers is showing its effectiveness," the author continued. "When executed meticulously and thoughtfully, it is a powerful strategy for initiating change and making it really happen. Obama learned his lesson well.

"I am proud to see that my father's model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008," the author said. "It is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday."

The person who signed the letter, Lee David Alinsky, a longtime public TV producer in the Boston area, is indeed the son of the late radical. Alinsky no doubt felt compelled to make the tribute on behalf of Obama because Obama refuses to even acknowledge his Alinsky training in public.

He is quick to say that the community organizing he did in Chicago was "the best education I ever had, better than anything I got at Harvard Law School." But he never tells us who educated him, not even in the two memoirs he's written. He also fails to disclose who hired him. Obama claimed in the recent national service forum at Columbia University that he worked for "churches" while organizing on the South Side of Chicago.

Talk about putting lipstick on a pig. Obama in fact worked for a subsidiary of the radical Gamaliel Foundation, a Chicago-based Alinsky group, and he was paid by the radical Woods Fund, which supports Gamaliel. Gamaliel's Web site and history page make plain that it evolved from the Alinsky school of organizing. Its training methods acknowledge an "agitational" style of organizing.

Obama also fails to disclose that he himself became a trainer of community organizers for the radical Gamaliel network. He also won't disclose that he contributed to a Chicago forum called "After Alinsky," where he argued for a "systematic approach" to community organizing and more "power" to bring about social change.

Serving on Gamaliel's board of directors is John McKnight, who wrote a letter of recommendation for Obama to Harvard. McKnight is a noted "student of Alinsky" and former ACLU director who now teaches at Northwestern University.

McKnight also sits on the board of the National People's Action, or NPA, a particularly thuggish group of Alinskyite agitators who sing the following ditty when picketing the homes of business and government leaders: "Who's on your hit list, NPA? Who's on your hit list of today? Take no prisoner, take no names. Kick 'em in the ass when they play their games."

Some community organizers are well-meaning and harmless. But not the ones Obama threw in with. They intimidate and agitate for more government home loans, more government job programs, a ban on police profiling, more benefits for illegal aliens, felon voting rights, minimum wage hikes, "environmental justice" and so on.

What they do is not harmless. What they demand is not noble. But Obama wants to give them more money and power, and organize them on a "large scale." He can run from his radical organizing record, but he can't hide.

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Homeland Security lacking 'open source' intelligence

Posted by Stephanie Condon

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has not met requirements to provide "open source" intelligence--that is, publicly available information--for state and local law enforcement, a new report shows.

The House Committee on Homeland Security released a report Friday criticizing the department after interviewing more than 350 state, local, and tribal law enforcement officials about the DHS's open source intelligence efforts.

While 82 percent of law enforcement officials surveyed said they use open source information, 60 percent said the DHS needed to establish a training program on how to use the department's open source material. Half of respondents said the DHS's open source products did not meet their needs.

"The proliferation of Internet use and other advanced forms of communication is rapidly leading to an information revolution among terrorists groups," the report says. "The sooner the Department of Homeland Security recognizes the value in this type of unclassified information, the sooner DHS analysts can analyze it and provide useful open source intelligence to state, local and tribal law partners."

The Homeland Security Act of 2002 requires DHS, whenever possible, to make available unclassified reports and analyses based on open source information like newspapers, Internet resources, or scientific journals. To reinforce that requirement, the House in July passed the Homeland Security Open Source Information Enhancement Act, requiring the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish an open source program.

Despite this, "DHS' efforts have lagged behind the rest of the Federal government," the report says. The Director of National Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency have established stronger open source programs, even though the DHS is responsible for sharing terrorism threat information with state and local law enforcement.

"The Department is far behind the rest of the Intelligence Community in implementing a comprehensive open source intelligence program," said Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of the Homeland Security Committee. "I am convinced that the department must make a concerted effort to understand their intelligence needs and produce intelligence products that provide actionable recommendations for the cop on the beat."

Disaster victims suffer as FEMA drops ball again

NATURAL DISASTERS LIKE Hurricane Ike, which slammed into the Houston area Friday, cause all sorts of unexpected challenges. The need to bring ice, food and potable water to survivors isn’t among them.

Yet on Sunday – 36 hours after Ike blew through and three years after Hurricane Katrina supposedly prompted a major reorganization of the Federal Emergency Management Agency – residents of the nation’s fourth-largest city were waiting in vain for promised federal relief. Does the “F” in FEMA stand for “feeble”?

When state and local officials publicly complained, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff held a news conference to blame those delays on bad weather and those same state and local officials. “The federal government is leaning forward as far as it can” to provide assistance, he said.

Chertoff said FEMA had been hobbled when state officials handed his agency the “unexpected challenge” of preparing distribution points for the food, water and ice.

State officials said Sunday that they’d been surprised to learn that distribution was supposed to be their responsibility. “If I could have known something 18 hours ago, we could have made plans to pick up something a lot quicker,” said Houston Mayor Bill White.

By Monday morning, distribution centers were open and supplies were being handed out. But the inexcusable delay is clear evidence of yet another planning failure by FEMA.

Overseeing emergency preparations for a natural disaster – even those as serious as hurricanes Katrina and Ike – probably is far less demanding than responding to a bio-terror attack or pandemic illness, in which there are no forecasters to give advance warning and no playbook of past disasters to follow.

FEMA’s continued failures leave no doubt that the agency is unprepared to step up when called upon in a national emergency. Congress should hold hearings on the agency’s readiness as quickly as possible. When disaster strikes, citizens have a right to expect assistance, not excuses.

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FEMA Says No to Ice For Hurricane Survivors

Under New Policy, FEMA Says Ice is Not Its Responsibility

....

Besides preserving food when electricity is out, ice is essential in maintaining temperature-sensitive medication and feeding formulas and keeping people cool in the aftermath of disaster, relief and support workers say.

"This isn't for their gin and tonics," said Elise Hough, CEO of the Houston chapter of United Cerebral Palsy, who says she encountered a lot of indifference when she started raising the issue of FEMA's ice policy last month. "This is for people who are extremely sensitive to heat, and ice has a huge impact on their health and safety." ....

Charities Unprepared for Major Disaster, GAO Says

The American Red Cross and other disaster relief charities are unprepared to meet projected mass casualty needs during a natural catastrophe or terrorist attack in major U.S. cities such as Washington, New York, Los Angeles and Miami, a government report has found.

A large-scale disaster would "overwhelm" the Red Cross and other nonprofit organizations that have federal responsibilities for assisting the government in feeding and sheltering victims of natural disasters, concludes the analysis, which is to be released today by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. ....

Public Divided on Homeland Security

by Phil Leggiere

Thursday, 18 September 2008

Poll shows polarization in public opinion about homeland security. In the plethora of election season polls tracking every twist and turn of the presidential horse race, homeland security issues have been conspicuously absent this year. Partly for the obvious reason that global economic volatility has, at least for now, replaced terrorism as the most immediately pressing concern and anxiety, partly because of the lack of emphasis candidates have placed thus far in sharpening policy differences on homeland security. One poll, however, released this week by Associated Press and GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media , provides an interesting snap-shot of the American public’s current perspectives on the success of current US homeland security policy. Its results, in addition to documenting an America sharply polarized by party, also highlight the challenges the next administration, once the frenzy of the lection season ends, will face in mobilizing the public on counterterror policy. Click here to see poll. In the poll 516 respondents were asked for their opinion about which factors were more or less important in preventing a follow-up terror attack on US soil since 9-11. Although in aggregate 64% of those polled cited actions by the federal government as a major reason the US has not been attacked since 9-11, there was a dramatic divergence between Republican and Democratic respondents. While a vast majority of eighty-nine percent of Republicans agreed the US government’s policies during the Bush administration have been a major reason there's been no follow-up attack, only a very slight majority of fifty-three percent of Democrats believed federal activity has been a primary positive factor. Divergences in perspective on other factors were similarly polarized. For instance, seven out of ten Republicans saw the war in Iraq as a major factor in preventing terror in the US. Only a tiny minority of 20% of Democrats concurred. In fact nearly half, or 47% of Democrats believed the war in Iraq had no positive impact whatsoever on slowing or stopping terror. By contrast less than one in ten, or 8 % of Republicans felt the same way. Even in areas where sentiments were somewhat more convergent significant polarization remained. For example on the question of whether increased public vigilance of American citizens since 9-11 has been a major factor, the percentage difference between the two groups remained wide, 60% for Republicans versus 40% for the Democrats. In addition 54% of Republicans as compared to only 35% of Democrats believed efforts by state and local law enforcement as major deterrents. As striking as the party polarization was in responses, what also stands out in the poll is the wide diversity of perspectives on homeland security policy. When all respondents were aggregated only one factor (US government action) was cited as a major reason for the lack of an attack by a majority of all sources. All other opinions about what was working in counter-terror currently were shared by only a minority of respondents. The poll documents and dramatizes a growing paradox in American political life largely ignored by pundits. Though the American public, liberal or conservative, Democratic or Republican, overwhelmingly support proactive efforts to insure homeland security, in terms of specific policy there’s a gnawing and apparently growing erosion of consensus about the most appropriate means to pursue that end going forward. Re-establishing a workable, and sustainable, consensus in a polarized county needs to be a priority item for the next administration.

Hackers break into Sarah Palin's e-mail account

WASHINGTON (AP) - Hackers broke into the Yahoo! e-mail account that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin used for official business as Alaska's governor, revealing as evidence a few inconsequential personal messages she has received since John McCain selected her as his running mate.

"This is a shocking invasion of the governor's privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them," the McCain campaign said in a statement.

The Secret Service contacted The Associated Press on Wednesday and asked for copies of the leaked e-mails, which circulated widely on the Internet. The AP did not comply. ....

8 charged with exporting materials to Iran

MIAMI (AP) — Eight people and eight corporations have been charged with illegally shipping to Iran electronic parts that could be used in weapons, including microchips that have been found in improvised explosive devices in Iraq, federal officials said Wednesday.

The defendants, all of whom live outside the U.S., are charged with buying the goods in the United States and then funneling them to Iran through a third country. The defendants lied about the items' ultimate destination and use, officials said.

The items being shipped included global positioning systems as well as other technology that could be used for civilian purposes but also has military applications, such as computer memory, speech recognition technology and timers. Thousands of parts were shipped.

One type of microchip has been found in the triggering systems of IEDs in Iraq. More than 12,000 of part were ordered.

"This is very serious," U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta of Miami said.

Brits facing al-Qaida retaliation?

LONDON -- Pakistan's new civilian president Asif Ali Zardari has flown to London for "crisis talks" with Prime Minister Gordon Brown to deliver what his aides call "a blunt warning" which has raised "serious concern" among Britain's intelligence chiefs, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

Zardari will demand that Britain's SAS units must stop their "seek and kill" operations across the Pakistan border. The units are spearheading a new hunt for Osama bin Laden along the 1,500-kilometer border with Pakistan.

Zardari claims so far hundreds of "civilians" have died in the operations. He intends to tell Gordon Brown the continued attacks will "almost certainly" lead to new attacks on London by al-Qaeda. He has also indicated that if the attacks persist, Pakistan's army "may well have to defend our own sovereign territory." ....

Texas Officials Work to Avert Health Crisis After Ike (Update4)

Panel gets static on how to develop first responder system

BY OTTO KREISHER, CONGRESSDAILY

A House Homeland Security subcommittee Tuesday heard widespread agreement on the need for a nationwide communications system that will allow local, state and national first-responders to share information swiftly and seamlessly with each other in an emergency. But the panel heard considerable disagreement on how to achieve that.

The biggest gap appeared between the FCC and the Homeland Security Department, which are committed to developing a government-commercial partnership to build the system, and officials from well-resourced local jurisdictions and others who are concerned that the proposed network would interfere with their systems.

House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson, Emergency Preparedness Subcommittee Chairman Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, and ranking member Charles Dent, R-Pa., appeared skeptical that the national proposal would serve their more rural constituencies.

FCC had tried to auction off part of the 700 megahertz spectrum to a commercial entity to obtain the funds and the expertise to develop the public sector emergency communications network alongside the private system. But the sole bid came in at about half the $1.33 billion minimum the commission set.

Derek Poarch, chief of the FCC Homeland Security Bureau, said the commission was preparing a draft proposal for a second auction, which he believed would be more attractive to the commercial sector.

That proposal would lower the threshold bid to $750 million, allow firms to bid for regional coverage and would relax some of the technical requirements of the first offer, Poarch said. It also would extend the license for the spectrum from 10 to 15 years, he said.

The draft proposal is to be reviewed by the FCC Sept. 25

Chris Essid, director of emergency communications at Homeland Security, supported the plan, calling it essential to the interoperability of first responders' communications. .....

Are Terrorists Plotting New Attacks On US and Europe?

According to the website HomelandSecurityUS.com, Islamic terrorist operatives may be dispatched, in place, and ready to execute a terror operation inside the U.S. and/or Europe

The article cites a disturbing communication discovered on a high level Arabic language forum. The post apparently suggests that some type of terrorist operation is now underway, targeting sites within the U.S. and Europe.

According to the website, information developed within the last 24 hours by a deep-cover intelligence operative, Islamic terrorists have been dispatched and may be in place, preparing to execute unspecified terrorist attacks.

Neither the targets nor the types of attacks were able to be identified from an analysis of the communications, although it appears possible that the European and American operations could be conducted in tandem. Also unclear is the timetable of potential attacks, although the wording pertaining to the “anticipated celebration” of the success of such attacks suggests that they will be carried out within the next few days.

Full Article

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Rusty, over at The Jawa Report reports a similar story.

“Al Qaeda” Warns of Sleeper Cell WMD Attack Against Texas

The al-Yaqin Media Center purportedly interviewed an al Qaeda soldier and then posted the transcripts to jihadi forums. The Nine Eleven Foundation has released a translation of it.

In the interview, the al Qaeda member claims that there are sleeper cells in the United States made up of Muslims of European decent and who are prepared to attack at any moment. He also claims that al Qaeda continues to seek WMD, implies that they already have them, and that “Texas is in our sight!”.

Time to evacuate Texas? Magic 8-ball says no.

Western intelligence has confirmed that al Qaeda does continue to seek WMD. They’ve also been public about their fears of Europeans in the al Qaeda organization carrying out attacks on the West. But the rest is just bluster.

Inactive sleeper cells in Houston that have been here since before 9/11, who have dirty bombs, and who are just waiting for the go-ahead from Osama bin Laden to kill tens of thousands of Texans? Not likely.

Read Full Article

Clandestine world of intelligence-gathering turns to an open market for data

By Bob Brewin

The global explosion in Internet-based new media has made open source information invaluable to intelligence agencies, CIA Director Michael Hayden said on Friday at the ODNI Open Source Conference in Washington.

Sections of the president's daily intelligence brief are "derived exclusively from open source intelligence" Hayden told the conference, which attracted more than 3,000 attendees from intelligence agencies, academia and industry. Those sections bear the stamp of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's Open Source Center.

Development of an open source intelligence organization was one of three key objectives for the ODNI when it was created in 2005, Hayden said, just behind the establishment of a central clandestine service branch and a security branch within the FBI. The Open Source Center, which is managed by the CIA and serves the entire intelligence community, has paid rich dividends since it went into operation in November 2005, he noted.

ODNI built the center around the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service which monitors overseas radio and television programs, and today uses that core capability to pump more than 300 foreign TV broadcasts into intelligence operations centers, Hayden said.

Doug Naquin, director of the Open Source Center, said media monitored by his analysts include blogs, chat rooms, and social networking sites such as YouTube and MySpace. Hayden said such media allows intelligence analysts to engage in the kind of social interaction with foreign societies that he had to do in person while serving as an Air Force attaché in the mid-1980s.

Monitoring these sites requires analysts to develop modern technical and analytical skills to integrate information derived from these sources, Naquin said.

Besides tracking new media sites, analysts must be able to figure out how participants interact in a chat room, for example, and understand the networks they use, he added. Analysts also must keep up with new forms of technology such as mobile phone cameras, Naquin said, and determine how they can be used to influence public opinion.

Glenn Gaffney, deputy director of National Intelligence for Collection, said agencies should recruit young analysts from what he called the "mash-up generation" who can integrate data from disparate text, data and video sources. The insights derived from such an exercise can make "open source the first source", Gaffney said, adding that these employees have the technical skills lacking in older generations of analysts.

Adversaries have learned to use new media to spread disinformation, and Naquin pointed out that "information does not have to be true to have an impact." Joe Goldberg, a CIA veteran who now serves as the director of business intelligence for Motorola noted an erroneous news story on the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Sun-Sentinel Web site on Monday, which said United Airlines had declared bankruptcy.

That story turned out to be six years old, but by the time United managed to get the facts out, the value of its stock had dropped 75 percent, he said.

Though open source information is unclassified, Naquin said the insight the Open Source Center derives from it is often so revealing that "we are pressed to classify it." Open source intelligence has become such a "formidable asset," Hayden said, that even though its origin is unclassified, "our interest in it is not."