Apr 15 2009
DHS Lynch Mob Forming, Go Get Them Cons!
Update: DHS responds, conservatives could care less as they prepare for the lynching:
“Let me be very clear: we monitor the risks of violent extremism taking root here in the United States. We don´t have the luxury of focusing our efforts on one group; we must protect the country from terrorism whether foreign or homegrown, and regardless of the ideology that motivates its violence,” Ms. Napolitano said.
“We are on the lookout for criminal and terrorist activity but we do not — nor will we ever — monitor ideology or political beliefs. We take seriously our responsibility to protect the civil rights and liberties of the American people, including subjecting our activities to rigorous oversight from numerous internal and external sources,” Ms. Napolitano said.
– end update
As I feared this whole DHS mess is getting out of hand. I had to read over at Daily KoS (ugh, that sucked) that Newt Gingrich is calling for the people who wrote this report to be fired. Anyway, for all the drama queens on the right the lynch mob is now forming. Go gather your pitchforks.
The irony here has gone from funny to tragic. The last gasp of rationalization the conservative flame throwers have for their anger is the DHS report was vague (and as we learned was made vague by other Feds asking that certain groups not be named for valid reasons). Through this rational the right is now throwing vague and unsubstantiated charges (in fact, the evidence proves they are completely wrong), claiming DHS vagueness is a license for them to be vague when they smear.
OK, folks. Go get those traitors at DHS who have worked tirelessly to keep us safe!
[…] the unlikeliest places — in this case from Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs, and AJ Strata at Strata-Sphere. The latter compares enraged conservatives to a lynch mob, and Charles writes: The hyperventilating […]
Nothing on Ms Brooks – yet.
Re: Brooks from Wikipedia:
Well, well, well. MSNBC and the LA Times in the Pentagon at the same time.
Her title: Advisor to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy
So we now have the mainstream media advising our government on proper defense policy.
Just shoot me now and get it over with.
I was gonna fill in the blank with this DHS Report
Ms Brooks is also listed as a former(used loosely) advisor to George Soros.
I lost a lot of sleep over this. I think the DHS people under George Bush were focusing on mostly overseas sources of threats to the security of the US. Jihadists, Al qaeda, illegal aliens, with some lesser focus on domestic terrorists such as Bill Ayers caliber people. They probably even focused a little on threats such as this recently released info on the cyber infiltration of the nationwide power grid.
I would basically agree that most of these groups were likely sources of potential problems.
Now we have these fine outstanding caliber of people, such as: Rosa Brooks, Tim Geithner, Rahm Emanual and dozens more tax evaders and miscellaneous and sorted crooks being appointed to all kinds of government jobs, such as in the DHS and someone there, who only has the interests of the nation at heart, has produced a report saying that the people the government should really be focusing on are returning war vets, people that are pro-life trying to prevent infanticide, people that are concerned that illegal aliens are getting more rights than Americans, people that go to church on Sunday, people that think America is headed down the wrong road on taxation, global warming, environment, etc. These are the real terrorist threats to the country.
Then we have these far right drama queens such as the American Legion Commander who doesn’t really think the 42 million American military veterans are the most likely terrorist threats we face, that he would like to know who was responsible for that report and what info do they have that veterans are a bigger worry than al qaeda.
How dare he? Hasn’t he heard of Timothy McVeigh? Wait, maybe he’s old enough to remember Audie Murphy or even Sargeant York. You’ll have to excuse him, he’s probably been hanging around those awful conservatives that don’t think the country is headed in the right direction.
He’d be much better off to join the Soros Social Club, made up of truly patriotic Americans.
Let’s give Obama a chance, he was elected to be the decider on who the threats to the country are and he’s decided and we should all support him. Stay away from those returning war vets. As a veteran myself, I don’t understand why I didn’t see that threat before.
I wonder if Ms Brooks is a veteran…….nah…..
Redteam,
DHS does not monitor overseas threats. That is done by CIA and NSA, with coordination with DHS and FBI (domestic focused).
Here you go IVE, reported from the Telegraph UK
Rosa Brooks: the Pentagon’s far left adviser
Posted By: Nile Gardiner at Apr 16, 2009 at 07:53:34 [General]
Posted in: Foreign Correspondents , Eagle Eye
Tags:
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Afghanistan, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Iraq, Michelle Fluornoy, Pentagon
In what has to be one of the most extreme appointments yet by the Obama Administration, ex-Los Angeles Times columnist and Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks has just been made an adviser to Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michelle Fluornoy – a move Brooks describes as “my personal government bailout.”
Bailout is certainly the right word for someone who appears to have no relevant national security qualifications for the position. She does though have experience working as Special Counsel for George Soros’s Open Society Institute in New York, and as a former adviser to Harold Koh, the hugely controversial nominee for Legal Adviser to the State Department.
Brooks’ new boss Fluornoy holds one of the most powerful posts in the Pentagon, and is already playing a key role in shaping the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan as well as the wider war against al-Qaeda. She will also be a central figure in shaping U.S.-UK defence cooperation and Washington’s policy towards NATO. As an adviser to Fluornoy, Brooks will wield an extraordinary degree of influence in helping shape U.S. policy. Her extreme views should therefore be closely scrutinized.
Brooks’ description of the previous occupant of the White House as “our torturer in chief” is hard to square with President Obama’s call for bipartisanship. Nor is her ludicrous comparison of the Bush Administration’s legal arguments on the war on terror with Adolf Hitler’s use of political propaganda.
She has also accused civilian White House and Pentagon officials from the last administration of being “eager to embrace the values normally exemplified by military juntas,” while urging “military personnel to speak out, regardless of the cost, when they think our civilian leaders have gone beyond the pale” – little more than an open-ended call for the politicization of the armed forces.
Writing in the LA Times, Brooks has compared being a citizen in George W. Bush’s America “to being a passenger in a car driven by a drunk driver,” and compared the Bush Administration (“our local authoritarians”) to the leaders of North Korea or Iran. Quite what Defense Secretary Robert Gates makes of all this hate-filled talk remains to be seen, especially as he is himself a former Bush official.
Brooks, a fierce opponent of the Iraq War, mocked the White House’s “desperate flailing” and arguably belittled U.S. sacrifices in Iraq in a sarcastic 2006 piece she wrote at the height of attacks on Allied forces by al-Qaeda backed insurgents. She condescendingly noted in her article that “it’s a good thing our troops have The Google over there – like Bush, they can use Google maps to recall how their hometowns look and wonder if they’re going to make it back before this administration sends them on any more misconceived missions.” She further argued that “with so many thousands dead, and so many thousands more embittered, ‘winning’ isn’t really on the table anymore. The only question now is whether we can mitigate the damage.”
Let’s hope this is isn’t the kind of advice the new administration takes on for the war in Afghanistan. In fact it is hard to think of a more inappropriate political appointment at a time when America needs a hard-headed approach to winning a global war instead of defeatist, far-left rhetoric.
Napolitano Apologizes for Offending Veterans After DHS Eyes Them for ‘Rightwing Extremism’
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/16/napolitano-apologizes-offending-veterans-dhs-eyes-rightwing-extremism/
Ed Morrisey reports on the difference between the “left wing report” and the “right wing report”:
The Vaunted left Wing Report
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/04/15/the-vaunted-left-wing-extremism-report/
excerpt:
“The differences between these two reports could not be more vast. In one, DHS downplays the potential for violence from proven and existing violent groups. In the other, DHS presumes violence from a wide range of mainstream political points of view without any evidence of a threat, any specific groups, and impugns millions of veterans as potential terrorists.”
I don’t think anyone should be lynched or fired. And, I think any reasonable explanation or apology should be accepted (uless patterns and trends continue).
However, I have to say this about the report. I didn’t read the leftwing report, and I only read about half of the rightwing report. Honestly, it looked like a report my 15 year old wrote for an English essay project. Is this the best our taxpayer money can expect? I just kept wondering, “where’s the beef?”
But, now I am curious. I’m going to go read that leftwing report and see if it talks about the radical violence coming out of college kids everytime someone like Tancreda is invited to speak.
Nah, it mostly talks about college students in their underpants breaking in to Yahoo! email accounts and stuff
Republicans Close The Gap With Democrats on Several Key Issues
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/trust_on_issues/trust_on_issues
Wow! Republicans more trusted on immigration, taxes, tied on social security, and only a few points behind on the economy in general.
Obama, Reid and Pelosi must be screwing up more than conservatives.
AJ
when I was actually an agent for DHS, we concentrated on threats to Homeland Security from whatever source. I never heard from any superior to ignore all threats unless they were domestic. But then I was only an agent, not a supervisor.
an example, containers originating in foreign countries were not considered to be domestic in nature, but actually initiated by foreigners.
It also looks as if the report was issued despite concerns from DHS staff over said report:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090416/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/napolitano_right_wing_extremists_9
Now, the complaints don’t seem so harsh, AJ. If this is verified, then at a minimum, Napolitano needs to resign, and some other people need to be fired.
“Napolitano needs to resign”
Never going to happen. She is a primary Obamanista.
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/76814/
It does seem there was some justification for the worries expressed here and other places….
From Page 3 of the report: “Rightwing extremist chatter on the Internet continues to focus on the economy, the perceived loss of U.S. jobs in the manufacturing and construction sectors, and home foreclosures.”
From Napolitano’s statement:
“We are on the lookout for criminal and terrorist activity but we do not – nor will we ever – monitor ideology or political beliefs.”
If the second quote is truth, how did DHS collect any data to support the first quote?
Cobalt,
Websites are public access for one. But the fact is, as I stated many, many, many times some Feds asked the names be removed from the report.
They were removed because they were under ongoing investigations. If you paid ANY attention to the NSA-FISA flap over the last 6 years you would know what this means.
It means credible evidence has been unearthed to AUTHORIZE such monitoring. Duh!
Websites are public access for one.
Still doesn’t explain the disconnect between the first and second statements.
It means credible evidence has been unearthed to AUTHORIZE such monitoring.
That statement doesn’t square with the first line of the report:
The DHS/Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) has no specific
information that domestic rightwing* terrorists are currently planning acts of violence, but rightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues.
And notice the words I bolded. The report very cleverly moves from being concerned about actual violence to being concerned about political beliefs, in ONE EFFING SENTENCE!
Oh, and here’s the footnote:
Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.
Congratulations. If you are a federalist, you are now officially a possible terrorist. If you are opposed to abortion, you’re a national security threat.
It means credible evidence has been unearthed to AUTHORIZE such monitoring. Duh!
Even if true, they SAY they are not, but then present info that proves they are. We have to be concerned about WHO the enemy is.
I’m not for undermining the government in any way, but I am even more concerned about the government undermining themselves, as appears to be the case here.
It’s like saying, I’m not listening to your phone calls but I’m concerned about what I heard you say on your phone calls.