Obama’s ‘Public’ Health Plan Will Bankrupt the Nation

By Larry Kudlow

Does anybody really believe that adding 50 million people to the public health-care rolls will not cost the government more money? About $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion more? At least.

So let’s be serious when evaluating President Obama’s goal of universal health care, and the idea that it’s a cost-cutter. Can’t happen. Won’t happen. Costs are going to explode.

Think of it: Can anyone name a federal program that ever cut costs for anything? Let’s not forget that the existing Medicare system is roughly $80 trillion in the hole.

And does anybody believe Obama’s new “public” health-insurance plan isn’t really a bridge to single-payer government-run health care? And does anyone think this plan won’t produce a government gatekeeper that will allocate health services and control prices and therefore crowd-out the private-insurance doctor/hospital system?

Federal boards are going to decide what’s good for you and me. And what’s not good for you and me. These boards will drive a wedge between doctors and patients.

The president, in his New York Times Magazine interview with David Leonhardt, said his elderly mother should not (in theory) have had a hip-replacement operation. Yes, Obama would have fought for that operation for his mother’s sake. But a federal board of so-called experts would have told the rest of us, “No way.”

And then there’s the charade of all those private health providers visiting the White House and promising $2 trillion in savings. Utter nonsense.

And even if you put aside the demerits of a government-run health system, Obama’s health-care “funding” plans are completely falling apart. Not only will Obama’s health program cost at least twice as much as his $650 billion estimate, but his original plan to fund the program by auctioning off carbon-emissions warrants (through the misbegotten cap-and-trade system) has fallen through. In an attempt to buy off hundreds of energy, industrial, and other companies, the White House is now going to give away those carbon-cap-emissions trading warrants. So all those revenues are out the window. Fictitious.

Anyway, the cap-and-tax system won’t pass Congress. The science is wrong. The economics are root-canal austerity — Malthusian limits to growth. And there are too many oil and coal senators who will vote against it.

All of this is why the national-health-care debate is so outrageous. At some point we have to get serious about solving Medicare by limiting middle-class benefits and funding the program properly. There is no other way out. We can grow our way out of the Social Security deficit if we pursue pro-growth policies that maintain low tax and inflation rates. Prospects for that don’t look any too good right now, though it could be done. But government health care is nothing but a massive, unfunded, middle-class entitlement problem. (The poor are already in Medicaid.)

Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.) proposes to solve health care by limiting employer tax breaks. He’s on to something, but he’s only got half the story. All the tax breaks for health care should go to individuals and small businesses. Let them shop around for the best health deal wherever they can find it with essentially pre-tax dollars.

Additionally, insurance companies should be permitted to sell their products across state lines. And popular health savings accounts — which combine investor retirements with proper insurance by removing the smothering red tape — should be promoted. This approach of consumer choice and market competition will strengthen our private health-care system.

So private enterprise can coexist with public health care and not be crowded out by the heavy-handed overreach of government. But the Obama Democrats are determined to force through a state-run system that will bankrupt the country.

I’m not somebody who obsesses about the national debt or deficit. But I have to admit: Today’s spending-and-borrowing is blowing my mind. As a share of GDP, we’re looking at double-digit deficits as far as the eye can see. Over the next ten years, the CBO predicts federal debt in the hands of the public will absorb 80 percent of GDP. And that doesn’t include the real cost of state-run health care. Other than the temporary financial conditions surrounding WWII, we’ve never seen anything like this.

The president’s grandiose government-takeover-and-control strategies are going to make things worse and worse — that is, unless members of that tiny band known as the Republican party can stand on their hind legs and just say no. The Republicans must come up with some pro-competition, private-enterprise alternatives for health, energy, education, taxes, and trade that will meet the yearning of voter-taxpayers for a return to private-enterprise American prosperity and opportunity.

Free-market competition will lower costs in health care just as it has every place else. It also will grow the economy. The GOP must return to this basic conservative principle and reject Obama’s massive government assault.

MSNBC's Shuster asks 'what if Cheney is right'

Obama threatens to limit U.S. intel with Brits

By Eli Lake

The Obama administration says it may curtail Anglo-American intelligence sharing if the British High Court discloses new details of the treatment of a former Guantanamo detainee.

A court filing from the British Foreign Office released recently includes a letter from the U.S. government, identified as the "Obama administration's communication." Other information identifying the U.S. agency and author of the letter appears to have been redacted.

The letter says:

"If it is determined that [her majesty's government] is unable to protect information we provide to it, even if that inability is caused by your judicial system, we will necessarily have to review with the greatest care the sensitivity of information we can provide in the future."

The letter stands in contrast to President Obama's decision last month to release four memos from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel providing fresh detail on the CIA's enhanced interrogation program.

But, the U.S. letter points out: "Neither in [those four] memoranda, nor in any statements of the administration accompanying their release, was reference made to the identity of any foreign government that might have assisted the United States.

"Given the declassification of the highly sensitive information contained in the memoranda, the fact that the president refrained from providing any information about foreign governments is indicative that the United States continues to preserve the secrecy of such information as critical to our national security."

At issue is whether the British courts will disclose a seven-paragraph summary of the treatment of Binyam Mohamed, a former detainee who was released from Guantanamo Bay prison in February.

The British terrorism suspect was set free after charges that he had collaborated with convicted terrorist Jose Padilla in a plot to set off a "dirty bomb" in the United States fell apart. Mr. Mohamed says he was tortured while in U.S., Pakistani and Moroccan custody.

In February, the British Foreign Office claimed that the U.S. government had threatened to reduce intelligence cooperation if details of the interrogations and treatment of Mr. Mohamed were disclosed.

The High Court agreed on Feb. 4 to keep the details of Mr. Mohamed's treatment from the public. But two days later, the court decided to take up the matter again in response to an argument that the position of the U.S. government may have represented the Bush administration's view and not that of the Obama administration.

The letter, however, put to rest any doubt that it reflects the position of Mr. Obama's administration. Depending on what the court decides, it also may quash Mr. Mohamed's efforts to get the court to disclose any U.S. confirmation that he was tortured.

"The seven paragraphs at issue are based upon classified information shared between our countries," the U.S. letter said. "Public disclosure of this information, reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to the United Kingdom's national security.

"Specifically, disclosure of this information may result in a constriction of the U.S.-U.K. relationship, as well as U.K. relationships with other countries."

Clive Stafford Smith, an attorney for Mr. Mohamed, said in a telephone interview that he was disappointed.

"What they are doing is twisting the arm of the British to keep evidence of torture committed by American officials secret," said Mr. Smith, a U.S. citizen. "I had high hopes for the Obama administration. I voted for the guy, and one hopes the new administration would not continue to cover up evidence of criminal activity."

The Metropolitan Police of London is investigating whether Mr. Mohamed was tortured when he was in American custody.

Mr. Smith said that by attempting to keep evidence of Mr. Mohamed's "abuse" secret, the U.S. official who communicated the threats to the British Foreign Office was in breach of British law, specifically the International Criminal Court Act of 2001.

"The U.S. is committing a criminal offense in Britain by seeking to conceal this information. What the Obama administration did is not just ill-advised, it is illegal," he said.

Mr. Smith said he is scheduled to meet with the Metropolitan Police next week. "One of the questions that will come up is whether these statements by the U.S. government are an independent crime that should be investigated," he said.

David Rose, a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and one of the parties in the case petitioning the British court to release the details of Mr. Mohamed's interrogation, said the U.S. government might be helping the British government shroud its own hand in Mr. Mohamed's treatment.

"Binyam Mohamed has always alleged that MI5 agents colluded in his maltreatment and reiterated this in an interview with me after his release," Mr. Rose said. "The British government's attitude towards this case has been characterized by an absence of candor for many months. One has to wonder if this is in order to protect the true role the British agencies played."

The White House and Justice Department declined to comment for this story.

Last month, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to proceed with another case Mr. Mohamed was bringing against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan, claiming the company renditioned him to foreign jails from Pakistan to Morocco.

In that case, the Obama Justice Department requested that the circuit court vacate the case on the grounds that it would disclose state secrets, a plea the Justice Department lost.

Last month, Mr. Obama said at a press conference that the state secret privilege should be modified and that it was "overly broad."

"But keep in mind, what happens is we come into office; we're in for a week and suddenly we've got a court filing that's coming up," the president said. "And so we don't have the time to effectively think through what exactly should a[n] overarching reform of that doctrine take. We've got to respond to the immediate case in front of us.

"There - I think - it is appropriate to say that there are going to be cases in which national-security interests are genuinely at stake, and that you can't litigate without revealing covert activities or classified information that would genuinely compromise our safety," the president said.

Ben Wizner, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who represents Mr. Mohamed and others in a civil lawsuit against Jeppesen Dataplan, which is accused of supplying the equipment and personnel used to transport prisoners among nations, said the Obama administration should have no problem releasing the seven paragraphs disclosing details of Mr. Mohamed's treatment.

"The U.S. actions viewed as a whole seem aimed at preventing accountability in either the United States or in Europe for the past administration's crimes," Mr. Wizner said.

Ed Freeman

(Compiler's note: Source -- a friend.)

You're a 19 year old kid.

You're critically wounded, and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley ,

11-14-1965, LZ X-ray , Vietnam .. Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8 - 1, and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the MediVac helicopters to stop coming in.

You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns, and you know you're not getting out. Your family is 1/2 way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and you'll never see them again.

As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day.
Then, over the machine gun noise, you faintly hear that sound of a helicopter, and you look up to see an un-armed Huey, but it doesn't seem real, because no Medi-Vac markings are on it... Ed Freeman is coming for you.

He's not Medi-Vac, so it's not his job, but he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire, after the Medi-Vacs were ordered not to come.
He's coming anyway.. And he drops it in, and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load 2 or 3 of you on board. Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire, to the Doctors and Nurses. And, he kept coming back.... 13 more times..... And took about 30 of you and your buddies out, who would never have gotten out.

Medal of Honor Recipient, Ed Freeman, died last Wednesday at the age of 80, in Boise , ID

........ May God rest his soul......

I bet you didn't hear about this hero's passing, but we sure were told a whole
bunch about some Hip-Hop Coward beating the crap out of his "girlfriend".


Medal of Honor Winner
Ed Freeman!

The WWII/Korean War Version of "Before You Go" A tribute and thank-you to Veterans of WWII and Veterans of the Korean War

Obama Breaks With Gates, Cancels Nuke Program

(Compiler's note: He told us he’d do this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU4sVQV3Lhk The Russians and the Chinese are licking their chops. They are modernizing and increasing their nuclear weapons capabilities while we are doing this.)

Obama's new budget plan includes a little-noted sea change in U.S. nuclear policy, and a step towards his vision of a denuclearized world. It provides no funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, created to design a new generation of long-lasting nuclear weapons that don't need to be tested. (The military is worried that a nuclear test moratorium in effect since 1992 might endanger the reliability of an aging US arsenal.) But this spring Obama issued a bold call for a world free of nuclear weapons, and part of that vision entails leading by example. That means halting programs that expand the American nuclear stockpile. For the past two budget years the Democratic Congress has refused to fund the Bush-era program. But Obama's budget kills the National Nuclear Security Administration program once and for all.

"My colleagues just stared at that line," says Joe Cirincione, a longtime nonproliferation expert and president of the Ploughshares Fund. "They had never seen anything like that." Killing the program, he said, was "the first programmatic impact of the new [zero nukes] policy. People have said they want to see more than words, this is the very first action."

Here's the relevant language from Obama's budget explaining the thinking behind the move:

In the upcoming year, NNSA will participate in the national debate to lay out a vision for our nation’s nuclear security and non-proliferation goals. This vision is based on the reality that nuclear security is not just about warheads and the size of the stockpile. The vision emphasizes that we must increase our focus on nuclear security and transforming the Cold War nuclear weapons complex into a 21st century national security enterprise. We must ensure our evolving strategic posture places the stewardship of our nuclear arsenal, nonproliferation programs, missile defenses, and the international arms control objectives into one comprehensive strategy that protects the American people and our allies.

One particularly interesting angle here: Obama has overruled his secretary of defense, Robert Gates, who has been pushing for months to maintain the warhead program. Last October, Gates warned that

"[t]o be blunt, there is absolutely no way we can maintain a credible deterrent and reduce the number of weapons in our stockpile without resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program."

But even though "modernization" has now been halted, Obama will almost certainly not resume nuclear testing. So one has to presume Gates is not a happy camper on this score.

--Michael Crowley

Amateur Biological Research Raises Security Concerns

The growing market for preassembled DNA and public access to genetic blueprints for smallpox, Ebola and other diseases have raised concerns that an individual might build a devastating biological threat from scratch, the Wall Street Journal reported today (see GSN, Dec. 24, 2008).

Synthetic DNA is routinely sought out by professional biologists as well as "biohackers," typically well-intentioned hobbyists who tinker with the genetic material of simple organisms.

However, existing biological material regulations leave open the risk that a skilled amateur could construct a dangerous pathogen, scientists and FBI officials warned in a Nature Biotechnology article published two years ago. "Current government oversight of the DNA-synthesis industry falls short of addressing this unfortunate reality," the article said.

The federal government should require firms that market synthetic DNA to watch for suspicious orders, according to the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity. Washington should also mandate that amateur and professional biologists obtain a license before buying DNA, added George Church, a Harvard University genetics professor.

The FBI is attempting to communicate biological security risks to academic institutions and private industry, "particularly in light of the expansion of affordable molecular biology equipment" and genetic data, said a high-level official in the bureau's Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate.

One new graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said the threat is being overblown.

Amateur researchers hope to "build a slingshot ... and there are people out there talking about, oh, no, what happens if they move on to nuclear weapons?" said Katherine Aull, who is seeking to further cancer research through work with a transformed E.coli at her apartment (Jeanne Whalen, Wall Street Journal, May 13).

Machiavelli, Misunderstood Now is not the time to keep our enemies closer than our friends.

By Alexander Benard

After 100 days in office, a discomforting pattern has emerged in Barack Obama’s approach to foreign relations: He is keeping friends close, but enemies closer. Although this might have been a shrewd tactic in the royal court when Niccolo Machiavelli voiced the idea (or when Michael Corleone put it into that memorable phrase), it is not a viable foundation on which the United States can build a 21st-century foreign policy.

To be sure, President Obama has met with the prime ministers of two important American allies, Canada and the United Kingdom, and last week played host to the presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan; his most visible diplomatic initiatives, however, have been directed at Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, and North Korea. Obama taped a video message for the Iranian regime and people, offering his best wishes for the Islamic New Year and stating his desire to pursue “constructive ties among the United States, Iran, and the international community.” He smilingly shook hands with Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and declined to criticize the strongman for removing limits on his term of office. He made overtures to Cuba in what one senior administration official described as a test of whether the two countries could develop a “serious, civil, open relationship.” And during his first month in office, he sent conciliatory messages to Syria and North Korea.

Obama’s supporters argue that this outreach has no downside. If effective, it will enable the administration to solve foreign-policy problems, such as nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea, without military confrontation. If it is ineffective, the United States will at least have appeared reasonable and accommodating, making it easier for Obama to garner international support for sanctions or other punitive measures.

But this analysis ignores several important considerations, beginning with the acutely dispiriting effect Obama’s efforts are having on dissidents and human-rights activists in countries such as Iran and Venezuela. Speaking of term limits in Venezuela, Obama said that it is “important for the United States not to tell other countries how to structure their democratic practices and what should be contained in their constitutions.” But the problem in Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba is not the structure of democratic practices, but their total absence. In these and similar countries, advocates of civil liberties and free elections are routinely intimidated and jailed, as are political opponents of the regime. These dissidents need an American president who is willing to cry foul and to encourage their efforts to hold the leaders of their countries accountable.

The dictators Obama has courted so far have reacted to his overtures with contempt rather than courtesy. In Cuba, Fidel Castro suggested that the United States was looking to “return [Cuba] to the fold of slaves.” And Venezuela’s Chávez used his first meeting with Obama to give the president a book titled Open Veins of Latin America, which chronicles, among other things, the alleged abuses Latin Americans suffered at the hands of the United States.

This sort of gamesmanship might not matter much in Latin America. It matters in Iran, where the Grand Ayatollah graciously indicated that he might be interested in talks once the United States renounced its backing of Israel and lifted sanctions against Tehran, and it matters in North Korea, which test-fired a missile in early April. Every passing day allows these countries to further develop their nuclear capabilities.

Our allies, meanwhile, are unsettled. On a recent trip to the Middle East, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was peppered with questions about whether the United States is on the cusp of a “grand bargain” with Iran. Gates replied that the United States will “keep our friends informed about what is going on so that nobody gets surprised,” but the Obama administration can expect allies—including Israel—to be nervous. Their cooperation will be harder to secure if they begin to hedge against what they perceive as an increasingly unreliable partnership with the United States.

That hedging may yet develop into something more sinister. Allies will see a president who glad-hands Hugo Chávez but has no time for Colombia’s President Uribe, one who does nothing to shepherd a free-trade agreement with Colombia through Congress, who sends holiday greetings to Ahmadinejad in Iran but not to Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan or Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq, and who pens a letter to Russia’s President Medvedev offering to forgo missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic in exchange for U.S.-Russian cooperation in other areas. Our allies may begin to wonder: If all the special treatment is reserved for America’s foes, is there any point in being America’s friend?

— Alexander Benard, a New York attorney, has worked at the Department of Defense and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Treasury nominee to keep corporate pay $3 million in deferred pay

President Obama's nominee for the Treasury Department's top legal job still can receive almost $3 million in pay over the next three years from one of the nation's largest financial-services companies under a compensation plan approved by government ethics lawyers.

If confirmed as the department's next general counsel, George W. Madison would earn a government salary of $153,200 and get an additional $955,000 next year from his previous employer, TIAA-CREF, as a participant in the New York-based company's "long-term compensation plan," according to a government ethics filing.

• Click here to view the financial disclosure form for George Madison. (PDF) ....

Authorities See DNDO Nuke Bomb Detection Program Cuts Through Critical Eyes

by Anthony L. Kimery

'We have to be careful what we are eliminating and what works and what doesn’t'

Responding to the revelation that the White House is calling for eliminating further funding for new technologies to detect nuclear weapons and radiological materials at US borders and ports in his 2010 budget, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano stated at a press briefing last Thursday that “this simply represents that we have a significant amount of funds already appropriated for the programs, and it's not a change in direction [in policy] at this time.”

“It's really more of an understanding that it would be more prudent not to ask for more funds when we have a delay in the new technology coming forward, and we really think it's just a chance to take a pause in asking for more money at this time while we get the certification complete and then start rolling out and asses our plans, then come back and see where our funding needs are after that,” Napolitano stated.

Obama budget documents state that in 2010, “unspent funds will be drawn down as DHS transitions to a different model to fund the purchases of radiation detection equipment within the department in future budgets.”

The administration has requested $366 million for the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO), which is $148 million less than the amount DNDO received in 2009.

A DHS official told reporters the decision is not a policy shift. It’s "prudent to take a pause" to work through technical problems and redirect DNDO's work to individual agencies that use the equipment.

DHS spokesperson Amy Kudwa has told reporters that the unspent funds would be used to purchase advanced Spectroscopic Portal Monitors (ASPs) as soon as they are certified as effective, in addition to other nuclear materials detection equipment in the future.

Technical flaws and concerns over the reliability of scientific testing have delayed DHS plans to buy ASPs and automated cargo radiographic imaging systems, or CAARs, that scan vehicles, trains and cargo entering air and land ports for nuclear materials.

In response to questions raised by DHS and Congress’ own investigative branch, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), lawmakers put a halt to DNDO making any new purchases of equipment. In his 2010 budget, Obama also declined to request funds to buy any more equipment under DNDO beyond the $153 million that was appropriated last year under Bush.

GAO reported last September that “ASPs cost significantly more than current generation portal monitors, and testing of ASPs' capabilities needs to be more objective and rigorous. Due to concerns about ASPs' cost and performance, Congress has required that the Secretary of DHS certify that ASPs will provide a significant increase in operational effectiveness before obligating funds for full-scale ASP procurement.”

Continuing, GAO reported that “DNDO's cost estimate of $2.1 billion to implement its project execution plan is unreliable because it omits major project costs, such as maintenance, and relies on a flawed methodology. For example, although the normal life expectancy of the standard cargo ASP is about ten years, DNDO's estimate considers only eight years.”

“According to DNDO officials,” GAO told lawmakers, “the agency is now following a scaled-back ASP deployment strategy rather than the 2006 project execution plan, and a senior DNDO official told GAO the ASP deployment strategy could change dramatically depending on the outcome of ongoing testing.”

Elsewhere, the White House also is seeking to end the $90 million Securing the Cities (STC) program that was launched last September with the awarding of $29 million in grants “to prevent a radiological/nuclear attack in the New York City metropolitan area by enhancing regional capabilities to detect and interdict illicit radioactive materials.”

This purpose of this pilot program was to test whether it is possible to secure an urban area against nuclear terrorism by encapsulating it with an integrated system of handheld, aerial, vehicle-mounted and waterborne sensors.

STC was launched by former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff in July 2006 as way to protect a high-risk urban area from a potential radiological or nuclear attack. A previous cooperative agreement for $3.2 million was awarded to the New York Police Department in September 2007 to build a regional enterprise architecture for the NYC region that will allow real-time sharing of data from fixed, mobile, maritime, and human portable radiation detection systems,” according to DHS.

But with Obama’s 2010 DHS budget, "this is the end of the program as far as requesting new funds," the DHS official told reporters last week.

The desire to end the STC program has baffled not just a few authorities, who wondered out loud in interviews with HSToday.us whether the nuclear materials scanning technologies – many of which have been miniaturized – that are used by the nearly 35-year-old Nuclear Emergency Support Team, or NEST, have been incorporated, tested or used in the STC initiative. The miniaturization of nuclear materials detection technology has long been a priority of NEST, whose primary mission is detect and deactivate a nuclear weapon in the hands of terrorists.

HSToday.us Online Editor and Homeland Security Today Senior Reporter Anthony Kimery wrote the first in-depth report on NEST, which included the first ever on-the-record interview of a NEST director, in 1995.

Other authorities have asked “what’s up with” nuclear materials detection technologies that have been under development and study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Purdue University, and foreign private sector companies like American Science & Engineering's radioactive threat detection, Germany’s Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt … and even Israeli research enterprises.

DHS officials did not respond to requests for comment.

"If there's a reason why all the technologies - and there's a lot of them, believe me - that have been in development or have already already fielded that [DHS] can't use, then they need to be explaining why, instead of offering these blanket comments that so far the technologies it's looked at or are working on just aren't workable," said a former DHS official involved in port cargo security operations. "Have they really looked at everything that's already been developed or has and is being worked on?"

Former CIA National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) WMD terrorism chief Charles Faddis, president of Davidsonville, Maryland-based Orion Strategic Services, told HSToday.us that the DNDO cuts can be viewed either one of two ways by the Intelligence Community.

“If this means that we are shutting down massive, unreasonably expensive programs that have shown little promise of producing and shifting our focus to more realistic, more practical and more effective measures, then I am all for it,” adding, “I think a lot of what has passed for homeland security has been ‘corporate pork’ anyway.”

“If, on the other hand,” Faddis said, “this means that we are now convinced that we are safe and that we can stop worrying about massive WMD attacks on our soil, then we are in real trouble. This stuff is not science fiction or fantasy. It is reality, and, unfortunately, every year we get a little closer to the day when somebody will detonate a dirty bomb or set loose a biological weapon on our soil.”

Former DHS Deputy Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis Jack Thomas Tomarchio, president of Wayne, Pennsylvania-based Agoge Group, LLC and a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Center on Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Homeland Security, told HSToday.us that he “totally concur[s]” with Faddis, saying, “certainly wasteful and unnecessary funding of programs that do not work, is ludicrous.”

“But,” Tomarchio stressed, “we have to be careful what we are eliminating and what works and what doesn’t.”

Tomarchio said “I feel that any reduction to DNDO, or in this case, no additional funds being added to DNDO in the current budget, could be troubling. I think all of us who served in the Intelligence Community are concerned about the risks associated with nuclear proliferation.”

“In a time when we are faced with an unstable Pakistan (a known nuclear state), a bellicose North Korea and an Iran seemingly intent on acquiring a nuclear weapon and the delivery devices to deploy it,” Tomarchio said, “any reduction in the budget which will adversely effect our ability to detect, deter and defend against this - the ultimate threat to our national security - seems to me very potentially problematic.”

As the Washington Post reported critics as having told it about Obama’s proposed cuts in DNDO nuclear materials detection technologies, critics also complained to HSToday.us that the administration would rather invest in a “goal-line like defense against nuclear bomb-wielding terrorists” by spending money to secure nuclear materials at their source and to coordinate a government-wide counterproliferation strategy – and … to bolster preparedness capabilities to respond to an attack using a nuclear weapon or radiological dispersal device.

But critics and authorities told HSToday.us that programs since the collapse of the Soviet Union nearly 20 years ago to secure nuclear weapons and nuke weapons construction materials have failed to completely lock them all down at their sources. Meanwhile, nuclear weapons and ballistic missile delivery systems has unrelentingly continued to spread for more than 15 years despite the increase in counterproliferation activities that were launched under President Clinton and carried through under the administration of George W. Bush.

As for preparedness to deal with the mass casualties that would result from a nuclear bomb detonation, White House funding levels either aren’t enough, have been cut in crucial preparedness areas, or aren’t even on politicos’ radar screens – this as mass casualty emergency medical preparedness capabilities have continued to deteriorate for at least the last five years, as HSToday.us and Homeland Security Today have repeatedly reported.

States to feds: Stay in D.C.! $11 trillion 'micromanaging' price sparks explosion in sovereignty movement

A movement to reclaim for states all rights not specifically designated to the federal government in the U.S. Constitution is exploding across the nation, with 35 states already acting or at least considering such proposals – and one state lawmaker estimating the nation as a whole could save $11 trillion in coming years if it would succeed.....

States to feds: Stay in D.C.! $11 trillion 'micromanaging' price sparks explosion in sovereignty movement

A movement to reclaim for states all rights not specifically designated to the federal government in the U.S. Constitution is exploding across the nation, with 35 states already acting or at least considering such proposals – and one state lawmaker estimating the nation as a whole could save $11 trillion in coming years if it would succeed.....

Saudis running U.S. policy? Vexing decisions facing Obama administration

Parts of the United States' policy in the Middle East under the Obama administration may, in fact, be influenced by Saudi Arabia, which is worried over increasing overtures by the U.S. for a dialogue with Iran and may be leveraging the Pakistan situation to its advantage, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin. ....

"The Saudis are supporting the Wahhabi Sunnis of Saad Hariri in Lebanon – and that's what they are, Wahabbists,” said one Middle East analyst. Indeed, Wahhabism, an extreme form of Sunni Islamic teaching, is the dominant form of Islam in Saudi Arabia. Al-Qaida represents Wahhabism in its purist form. However, Saudi Arabia has propagated the Wahhabist form of Islam by supporting its teachings through madrassas and financed these learning centers through charities located in various countries, including the United States.

In the U.S., these charities and madrassas have helped raise funds for al-Qaida and continue to provide funding for the Sunni Hamas to help finance their terrorist operations

.

5 convicted in Sears Tower jihad plot

from Jihad Watch

"Men." "Miami men." "Men mostly of Haitian descent." And then, finally, al-Qaeda is mentioned and some partial ideological context is established. An update on this story. "5 Miami men convicted of Sears Tower attack plot," by Curt Anderson for the Associated Press, May 12 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

MIAMI - It took three trials, three juries and nearly three years, but federal prosecutors finally succeeded Tuesday in convicting five Miami men of plotting to start an anti-government insurrection by destroying Chicago's Sears Tower and bombing FBI offices. One man was acquitted.

When the FBI swarmed the downtrodden Liberty City neighborhood to make the arrests in June 2006, the administration of President George W. Bush hailed the case as a prime example of the Justice Department's post-Sept. 11 policy of disrupting potential terror plots in the earliest possible stages.

Yet hours of FBI recordings of terrorist talk contrasted with little concrete evidence of an evolving plot, triggering two mistrials because juries could not agree on verdicts against ringleader Narseal Batiste or five followers. One of the original seven defendants was acquitted after the first trial.

"Any cases that involve someone's mental intent, their intention when they made certain statements, are always difficult," said Matthew Orwig, former U.S. attorney in Texas who has monitored the Miami case. "It was a must-win for the government. They needed some vindication."

Finally, this third jury found the way on its sixth day of deliberations.

It wasn't the only victory Tuesday for terrorism prosecutors. In a separate case in New York, a jury convicted a Lebanese-born Swede of trying to set up a terror training camp in Oregon in 1999. The verdict against Oussama Kassir capped a three-week trial.

In the Miami case, Batiste, 35, was the only one convicted of all four terrorism-related conspiracy counts, including plotting to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to wage war against the U.S. Batiste, who was on the vast majority of FBI recordings, faces up to 70 years in prison.

Batiste's right-hand man, 29-year-old Patrick Abraham, was convicted on three counts and faces 50 years behind bars. Convicted on two counts and facing 30 years are 24-year-old Burson Augustin, 25-year-old Rotschild Augustine and 33-year-old Stanley Grant Phanor. Naudimar Herrera, 25, was cleared of all four charges.

U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard set sentencing for July 27 for the five convicted men, most of whom are Haitian or have Haitian ancestry.

Herrera criticized the prosecution as "bogus" and insisted the men banded together not for terrorism but to explore ways to lift up the impoverished, drug-infested area.

"It's not right," Herrera said outside the courthouse. "We were really all about helping the community."

The jury endured a two-month trial, then had to restart deliberations last week after one juror was excused for illness and a second was booted off the panel for being uncooperative. After the verdicts were read, court security officials escorted the jury -- whose names were kept secret -- out of the building before they could be interviewed.

"This was a difficult trial, and we thank all the prosecutors and agents involved, whose efforts resulted in today's successful conclusion," said Miami U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta, a holdover Bush appointee.

Prosecutors Richard Gregorie and Jacqueline Arango focused on the group's intent as captured on dozens of FBI audio and video recordings. Batiste is repeatedly heard espousing violence against the U.S. government and saying the men should start a "full ground war" that would "kill all the devils."

"I want to fight some jihad," Batiste says on one tape.

A key piece of evidence is an FBI video of the entire group pledging an oath of allegiance, or "bayat," to al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden in a March 16, 2006, ceremony led by an Arabic-speaking FBI informant posing as "Brother Mohammed" from al-Qaida. Testimony also showed the men took photographs and video of possible targets in Miami, including the FBI building, a courthouse complex and a synagogue.

But Batiste, who testified in all three trials, insisted he was only going along with Mohammed so he could obtain $50,000 or more for his struggling construction business and a nascent community outreach program. Batiste was leader of a Miami chapter of a sect known as the Moorish Science Temple, which combines elements of Christianity, Judaism and Islam and does not recognize the U.S. government's full authority....

Shaky Pakistan seen as target of Al Qaeda plots Intel officials: Foreign jihadists ‘smell blood,’ seek to strengthen Islamists

WASHINGTON - As Taliban militants push deeper into Pakistan’s settled areas, foreign operatives of Al Qaeda who had focused on plotting attacks against the West are seizing on the turmoil to sow chaos in Pakistan and strengthen the hand of the militant Islamist groups there, according to American and Pakistani intelligence officials. ....

'Private health insurance would vanish' Obama plan to shift 119 million Americans to government-run care

On Monday, President Obama summoned representatives of the insurance industry, pharmaceutical companies and labor groups to the White House for what he called "a watershed event in the long and elusive quest for health care reform."

"They're not the people who are actually delivering care and researching the products and running the hospitals," according to Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute.

"They want a seat at the table," she continued. "Nobody wants to be the turkey that gets carved up."

She spoke with Greg Corombos of Radio America/WND. The audio of the exchange can be heard by clicking on the title of this article ....

Here come the Obamamobiles … Ready to own small, plug-in electric cars?

The following report is excerpted from Jerome Corsi's Red Alert

"The small car invasion is upon us," Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports.

U.S. consumers are about to see a new lineup of 2010 Obamamobile electric-powered and hybrid small car models.

"There is no doubt the Obama administration has bought hook, line and sinker into the global warming hysteria promoted by Al Gore and the environmentalists on the radical Left," Corsi wrote.

With the U.S. government certain to emerge from a Chrysler bankruptcy and a GM restructuring with substantial minority equity interests in both automakers, the cars of the future are likely to be designed by government bureaucrats who will remain determined to impose their ideological views on the future look of U.S. auto manufacturing, he noted.

As Red Alert reported last week, the Obama administration has forced Chrysler into the arms of Italian automaker Fiat just to get its European small-car technology, even though Fiat does not plan to put a cent into the deal.

Now, even Ford, the last remaining non-government owned of the former Big Three U.S. automakers, has announced plans to create an entirely electric Ford Focus model. The company may be confident that American car buyers will be enthusiastic about the offering, or that it has no choice but to bend to the Obama administration.

"Who knows? Ford might also end up needing a government bailout, especially if car sales in the U.S. do not pick up dramatically," Corsi wrote.

To manufacture the plug-in version of the Ford Focus, the automaker is converting a plant in Wayne, Mich., that generated up to $3.7 billion in profits for Ford by building the Expedition SUV

, according to the Wall Street Journal.

"In the United States, clearly we had been focused on our bigger trucks and SUVs and made a few small cars but without a consistency of purpose," Ford's chief executive Alan Mulally told the Wall Street Journal. "We all came to the consensus that we needed to do more work on that business case because we absolutely wanted to serve the U.S. customers for smaller vehicles."

While U.S. carmakers have earned approximately a $7,000 profit on each pickup truck or SUV sold, the profit on selling small cars has been little or nothing.

Still, Ford plans to obtain cost savings by manufacturing basically the same model of the Focus for all of Ford's markets around the world, with minor modifications to fit each market in their global strategy.

Ford is currently losing as much as $1 billion a year on the Focus, although Ford believes its current plans to market the Focus as its first all-electric passenger car will turn those losses into future profits.

"With Ford making a bet on the same type of vehicles the Obama administration wants Fiat to make with Chrysler, Ford too could be headed toward government bailouts in 2010," Corsi wrote, "unless these small electric-powered vehicles boost U.S. car sales back to the 10 or 11 million new units the U.S. auto industry needs to sell each year to be profitable."

Red Alert's author, whose books "The Obama Nation" and "Unfit for Command" have topped the New York Times best-sellers list, noted that while bureaucrats in the Obama administration are convinced the politically correct vehicles for Detroit to manufacture are small, energy-efficient electric hybrids, the American car buyer might shrug shoulders in disdain when the 2010 Obamamobiles begin showing up on car lots for sale.

Corsi received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972. For nearly 25 years, beginning in 1981, he worked with banks throughout the U.S. and around the world to develop financial services marketing companies to assist banks in establishing broker/dealers and insurance subsidiaries to provide financial planning products and services to their retail customers. In this career, Corsi developed three different third-party financial services marketing firms that reached gross sales levels of $1 billion in annuities and equal volume in mutual funds. In 1999, he began developing Internet-based financial marketing firms, also adapted to work in conjunction with banks.

In his 25-year financial services career, Corsi has been a noted financial services speaker and writer, publishing three books and numerous articles in professional financial services journals and magazines.

For more information on the future of Obamamobiles and for financial guidance during difficult times, read Jerome Corsi's Red Alert,....

Fear and Terror in the Frozen Hills of North Korea.

(Compiler's note: Click clips below and see some great interviews. Must read - see. Semper Fidelis)

from The Chosin Few website

The Chosin Few is a documentary film about the amazing true story of the 1^st Marine Division’s fight for survival against hordes of communist Chinese forces in the frozen mountains of North Korea in the winter of 1950. Outnumbered, cut off behind enemy lines, and nearly overwhelmed by unceasing human wave attacks, the Marines fought their way to the sea in what is regarded as the most remarkable military feat of the 20^th Century. Seventeen Medals of Honor and 70 Navy Crosses were awarded to the heroes of this campaign—the most ever awarded for a single battle in American History.

In October of 1950, General MacArthur ordered the 1st Marine Division to march to the Yalu River on the North Korean/Chinese border. This force of approximately 12,000 brave fighting men was strung out along 80 miles of frozen, mountainous terrain. China covertly infiltrated North Korea and soon the Marines found themselves surrounded by over 60,000 Communist Chinese soldiers. For 14 days, the Marines miraculously fought their way to safety through the frozen mountains and subzero temperatures, taking their dead and wounded with them through the onslaught of unceasing Chinese attacks. They suffered over 4,000 killed or wounded but still managed to extract over 25,000 causalities from the enemy. This is an epic tale of terror and triumph that has been quietly tucked away in American history - until now.

We are shooting with Panasonic HD cameras and the clips above is a compressed version of the actual footage. The final project will be in HD.

Some of the links posted at the end of these videos are YouTube generated links and may not be affiliated with this film.

JOHN LOTT: Thugs In the White House

(Compiler's note: A must read article.)

By John R. Lott, Jr.
Senior Research Scientist, University of Maryland/Author, Freedomnomics.

So much for any hope that the government would uphold rules and abiding by contracts. Instead, we keep getting examples of something else – that when President Obama fails to persuade firms to follow his wishes, he does not hesitate to use threats of financial destruction.

Cliff Asness, the co-founder of the $20 billion hedge fund AQR Capital Management, laid bare the latest attacks with an open letter on Wednesday:

“The President screaming that the hedge funds are looking for an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout is the big lie writ large. Find me a hedge fund that has been bailed out. Find me a hedge fund, even a failed one, that has asked for one. In fact, it was only because hedge funds have not taken government funds that they could stand up to this bullying. The TARP recipients had no choice but to go along.”

This is just the latest in a string of intimidating tactics starting with threatening costly public audits to get compliance. Then there were the threats of firing CEOs who had the audacity to oppose government plans. The very latest is threats to use “ the full force of the White House press corps [to] destroy [the firm Perella Weinberg's] reputation” if it resisted the government stealing their money, according to Thomas Lauria who represented the firm up until last week. ABC News’s Jake Tapper reports that Mr. Steven Rattner, the head of the auto task force, made the threat.

The White House has been pushing hard to nationalize the automobile companies. While bondholders and the government have loaned similar amounts each to GM and Chrysler, the White House feels that the government should get 50 percent ownership of GM and the creditors about 10 percent.

The Wall Street Journal reports that unions are also being given stock that should be going to the creditors – 39 percent of GM and 55 percent of Chrysler.

Most of the financial institutions holding these bonds have gone along with Obama’s nationalization of the car companies for a simple reason – the government has already nationalized them and they do the government’s bidding. As ABC News and the Wall Street Journal note: JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs have been given up to $100 billion by the government. The irony is that the feds gave these financial institutions money because they were hemorrhaging financially and now the government orders these same institutions to throw away money and take loses that no private company would voluntarily do. Not surprisingly, with this waste, there is talk that Citigroup may need another $10 billion from the government.

As I and others have previously pointed out, the government only obtained ownership of many financial institutions through threats of imposing unnecessary costly public audits and either threatening to replace or actually replacing disobedient CEOs and boards of directors with political cronies willing do Obama’s bidding.

Yet, there are financial institutions that the government still has not gotten control over, and they are fighting this wave of nationalization. So how does the Obama administration control these financial institutions that have avoided being forced to take government bailouts? Why, of course, their standard method: threats. According to lawyer Thomas Lauria in an interview with Frank Beckman on WJR radio, one of his former clients “was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under the threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight. That’s how hard it is to stand on this side of the fence.”

Not surprisingly, as the financial institutions did not cave in, President Obama then followed through his promise and attacked these creditors. During his announcement of Chrysler filing for bankruptcy, he warned, “While many stakeholders made sacrifices and worked constructively, I have to tell you some did not.” Despite the financial institutions offering to give up 50 percent of their bonds value, Obama claimed: “They were hoping that everybody else would make sacrifices, and they would have to make none.” The New York Times and other media have joined in on this attack.

One consequence of the president singling out these creditors is that The Detroit News reported on Monday that some have received death threats and that the threats has been turned over to the FBI.

Finally, we can’t help note that Rattner seems the perfect person to play the enforcer role. In April, The Wall Street Journal reported that Mr. Rattner’s former private-equity firm, Quadrangle Group, is the target of a long-running pay-to-play investigation. Mr. Rattner wasn’t named in the SEC complaint, but The Journal reported that Rattner was “the senior Quadrangle executive the complaint identifies as meeting with a politically connected consultant about a finder’s fee, which Quadrangle later paid after receiving an investment from the New York fund.”

Of course, the administration denies that it has threatened Chrysler’s creditor. This from an administration that denies Obama bowed to the Saudi King despite it being on video tape.

Some creditors, such as Perella Weinberg Partners, have already given in to the president’s threats over Chrysler. But breaking contracts through thuggish threats makes investment riskier and increase the costs as much as any big tax increase. Driving investment overseas is not the way to make America wealthier.

Muslim dentist 'refused to treat female patients unless they wore Islamic dress'

A Muslim dentist refused to treat patients unless they wore traditional Islamic dress, it was alleged today.

Omer Butt, 32, ordered women to put on head scarves or he would not register them or their families at his NHS-funded clinic, it was claimed.

At least two patients were left in pain after they declined to follow his self-imposed rules, the General Dental Council heard. sharia

It is the second time that the dentist - who is the brother of a former spokesman of the radical Islamic group al-Muhajiroun - has appeared before the council's disciplinary panel on similar allegations. ....

Captain's Training Faulted In Air Crash That Killed 50

By ANDY PASZTOR

The captain of a commuter plane that crashed Feb. 12 near Buffalo, N.Y., had flunked numerous flight tests during his career and was never adequately taught how to respond to the emergency that led to the airplane's fatal descent, according to people close to the investigation.

All 49 people aboard were killed, as well as one person in a house below, when the plane crashed just a few miles short of the Buffalo airport en route from Newark, N.J. The Bombardier Q400 turboprop in the crash, which will be the subject of a National Transportation Safety Board hearing Tuesday, was operated by commuter carrier Colgan Air Inc., a division of Pinnacle Airlines Corp.

Capt. Marvin Renslow had never been properly trained by the company to respond to a warning system designed to prevent the plane from going into a stall, according to people familiar with the investigation. As the speed slowed to a dangerous level, setting off the stall-prevention system, he did the opposite of the proper procedure, which led to the crash, these people said.

Additionally, his 24-year-old co-pilot, Rebecca Shaw, had complained before takeoff about being congested and said she probably should have called in sick, according to people who have listened to the cockpit voice recording.

The circumstances surrounding Continental Connection Flight 3407 have prompted investigators and regulators to examine Colgan's hiring and training practices. At the NTSB hearing, witnesses are expected to provide new allegations about training shortcomings, as well as the prevalence of chronic pilot fatigue and lapses in cockpit discipline. The NTSB also is expected to be critical of the Federal Aviation Administration's oversight of the airline. The FAA, which has said it is investigating the airline over pilot scheduling, declined to comment on issues likely to be raised in the hearing.

Pinnacle has said its pilot training programs "meet or exceed regulatory requirements for all major airlines" and crews "are prepared to handle emergency situations they might face." On Sunday, spokesman Joe Williams confirmed in an email that Capt. Renslow had five "unsatisfactory" training check rides in his career -- including two at Colgan -- but passed a subsequent series of training tests and was "fully qualified in the Q400" aircraft.

Testimony Tuesday

In recent weeks, Colgan's top two training officials resigned; Mr. Williams has said their decisions were voluntary and not connected to the accident. Darrell Mitchell, Colgan's departing director of training, is slated to testify at Tuesday's hearing.

Colgan, based in Manassas, Va., operates nearly 50 planes, carries 2.5 million passengers annually and employs about 480 pilots. It serves as a commuter airline that feeds larger carriers, such as Continental Airlines, United Airlines and US Airways.

Colgan serves 28 routes for Continental Airlines Inc., which said it retains "full confidence in Colgan and its ability to conduct its operations safely."

US Airways Group Inc. and UAL Corp.'s United Airlines said there haven't been any changes to their Colgan contracts.

Capt. Renslow, 47, joined Colgan in September 2005 after graduating from a pilot-training academy, employment records show. He had a history of flunking check rides -- periodic tests of competency that are also required anytime a pilot begins flying a new type of aircraft. Before joining Colgan, he failed three proficiency checks on general aviation aircraft administered by the FAA, according to investigators and the airline. Colgan's spokesman said the company now believes Capt. Renslow failed to fully disclose that poor performance when applying for a job.

Once at Colgan, he failed in his initial attempt to qualify as a co-pilot on the Beech 1900 aircraft, and also had to redo his check ride to upgrade to captain on the Saab 340 turboprop, according to investigators. Repeated check-ride failures raise red flags, and large carriers rarely keep pilots who require such extensive remedial training, according to numerous industry officials. Colgan's Mr. Williams said Capt. Renslow's last unsatisfactory check ride occurred 16 months before the accident, and he subsequently passed six consecutive competency tests and completed three regular training sessions.

Capt. Renslow had about 109 hours of experience flying the Q400 as a captain, an unusually limited amount of time by industry standards. He had started flying the craft only two months earlier. According to investigators, the co-pilot, Ms. Shaw, had a clean training record.

The pilots' families couldn't be reached for comment.

People familiar with the investigation of the accident -- the deadliest U.S. commercial crash in more than seven years -- gave the following account of the plane's last flight:

Both pilots were returning to work after a day off. Capt. Renslow was coming off weeks of late-evening and early-morning flying schedules, often sandwiched around only a few hours of rest. Ms. Shaw had spent the day before the accident skiing. She then took a red-eye flight from Seattle to report for work in Newark.

It was a frigid night. Other planes in the region had reported light to moderate icing, and the pilots observed ice buildup around their own windshield. Bombardier's twin-engine Q400 has a reputation as a workhorse used extensively in winter and isn't known to be susceptible to ice accumulation.

Approaching Buffalo

As the plane made its approach toward Buffalo with the autopilot engaged, the crew exchanged idle banter, according to people who have read transcripts of the conversation recovered from the cockpit voice recorder. Federal rules and airline policy prohibit pilots from having extraneous conversations while flying below 10,000 feet.

The crew initially didn't notice the plane's speed had dropped dangerously low, sliding under 115 miles an hour, and risked going into a stall. The slowing speed set off an emergency system called a "stick-pusher," which pushes the control column down in order to send the aircraft into a temporary dive so it can regain speed and recover from a stall.

However, Capt. Renslow tried to force the plane to do the opposite. He yanked back on the controls while adding thrust. His effort was strong enough to manually override the stick-pusher. Within seconds, the plane lost lift, bucked violently and started to roll. It slammed into a house five miles from the runway.

Colgan's standard training program stops short of demonstrating the operation of the stick-pusher in flight simulators. Without such hands-on experience, safety investigators argue, pilots could be surprised and not react properly when the stick-pusher activates during an emergency. The FAA is required to sign off on all airline training manuals.

On Sunday, Colgan said its FAA-approved program includes "comprehensive" classroom training on the stick-pusher but emphasized a demonstration in a simulator "is not required by the FAA and was not part of the training syllabus" Colgan received when it obtained its Q400s.

Mistaken Assumption

Investigators surmise the pilots didn't fully understand the operation of one ice-protection system, and therefore incorrectly programmed approach speeds into a flight computer. Startled by an initial stall warning at low altitude, Capt. Renslow reacted with the mistaken assumption that ice accumulation on the tail caused speed to suddenly drop well below normal, investigators believe. The NTSB has said the plane wasn't significantly affected by icing.

Since the accident, industry and government safety experts have uncovered what they claim are other shortcomings at Colgan. The airline began flying Q400s in February 2008, but Colgan pilots say it wasn't until nine months later that they received a detailed bulletin on how to use some of its ice safety features. However, the bulletin was delivered three months before the accident. Colgan said that since it started flying the aircraft, pilots "were trained on the use of all components of the ice protection system on the Q400."

More recently, Colgan removed several of its senior management pilots, known as check airmen, who are responsible for evaluating the performance of crews in the air as well as in simulators. The airline said that "from time-to-time," it relieves check airmen of their duties if they fail "to perform to the company's high standards."

—Susan Carey contributed to this article.

Fears of mass poisoning of Afghan schoolgirls Police say 61 girls hospitalized due to sudden illness

from Associated Press

CHARIKAR, Afghanistan - Doctors are investigating whether dozens of girls were poisoned at a high school in northern Afghanistan on Monday after 61 girls went to the hospital because of sudden illness, officials said.

Dr. Khalil Farhagga said the 61 students and one teacher from a school in Parwan — one province north of Kabul — complained of irritability, tearing and confusion. Several girls also passed out.

The mass hospitalization comes about two weeks after a similar incident in Parwan, where dozens of girls were hospitalized in late April after being sickened by what Afghan officials said were strong fumes or a possible poison gas cloud.

Conservative Afghans oppose education for girls, who were not allowed to attend school under the 1996-2001 Taliban regime.

Officials on Monday sent blood samples to Kabul and to the main U.S. base in Bagram to test whether some form of poison was to blame, said Farhagga, the director of Charikar's hospital.

Strong sweet smell
At least two students interviewed at the hospital by The Associated Press complained of a strong sweet smell, which gave the students headaches and made some girls wobbly before they passed out.

"There was a very strong smell, like flowers in the hallway. I fell down and woke up in the hospital," said the 18-year-old Zahera, who like many Afghan goes by one name.

Sarima Zakeri was on the school's second floor when she heard screams. As she run downstairs, a strong scent hit her.

"It was less about the smell and more like a feeling, like having onion fumes in my eyes," the 18-year-old Zakeri said.

Lightheaded, she made her way back home where she passed out. The family took her to the hospital.

A panic attack?
Nizamuddin Rahimi, a provincial education official, tried to downplay the incident, suggesting it was a panic attack after the students saw one of their colleagues collapse.

As a precaution, and in response to parents' concerns, all students were sent home, Rahimi said.

Several hours after the incident, about three dozen response remained at the hospital, Farhagga said. They were receiving glucose intravenously and oxygen, said Dr. Qassim Asidi, the provincial health director.

The high school where the incident happened is attended by both girls and boys. The girls attend class in the morning, at the time when the students became ill.

Video: Gen. David Petraeus on 'FNS'

Video: Dick Cheney on Gitmo Terrorists Coming to USA

Why Americans Need to See Video of the Unforgettable

The leaders of the House Republican Conference have released this video reminding every American of the dangers of the unlawful enemy combatants currently being securely detained at the Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba.

"This video raises the central questions," Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney asked. "'What is President Obama's plan for detaining or releasing prisoners once Guantanamo is closed? And how does it make us safer?"

"The President has made a terrible mistake in closing the finest, most secure and best-run detention and interrogation facility in the world-- with no clue as to what will be done with its prisoners in the next six or seven months."

"Worse still, a number of them are expected to be turned loose on the American people by releasing them into Alexandria, Virginia or some other unsuspecting-- and highly vulnerable-- community in this country."

"A proposal was announced this week to send 100 Yemeni detainees to Saudi Arabia to undergo a Saudi government 'rehabilitation program' for Jihadists. This is a preposterous idea; violent Jihad against "infidels" is a central obligation for those, like the Gitmo detainees, who adhere to the program authoritative Islam calls Shariah."

"Even if detainees are shipped to one or more federal penitentiaries, they will pose a grave danger. They can teach terrorist technique and ideology to others in prison communities already rife with Islamist proselytization. And their neighbors beyond the prison walls will become new soft targets for the detainees' friends."

The Center for Security Policy urges a public repudiation and congressional prohibition on any Obama administration

plan to transfer Guantanamo detainees-- let alone, their release into the United States.

For more information, contact Lee Cohen at lcohen@securefreedom.org or (202) 835-9077

Brought to you by the editors and research staff of FamilySecurityMatter.org.

'Electronic Police State' report cites U.S. Ultimate Big Brother 'basics are in place'

By Bob Unruh

In what may be the first assessment of its kind, a private company that offers a range of privacy products for computers and other technology is ranking the United States No. 6 in the world for having the most aggressive procedures for monitoring residents electronically.

The report, called The Electronic Police State, assesses the status of governmental surveillance in 52 nations around the globe for 2008.

The document was released Cryptohippie, Inc., which was set up in 2007 through the acquisition of several little-known but highly regarded providers of privacy technologies.

Not surprisingly, China and North Korea ranked No. 1 and No. 2, with Belarus and Russia following up. But the United Kingdom ranked fifth followed by the United States. ....

US Government borrowing almost 50 cents for every dollar it spends this year. White House: Budget deficit to top $1.8 trillion, 4 times 2008's record