This morning Minority Whip Eric Cantor (the Mini-Me to Minority Leader Boehner’s Dr. Evil) was on Faux News spouting off about how American airport security is too lax. He is of course ignoring the fact that he and his party where in power when the TSA was created and the current rules were implemented, but, hey, any time you can bash on the President and those DFH’s in the Democratic Party why let a little thing like facts get in the way?

Originally posted at Squarestate.net

Rep. Cantor (Douche-Nozzle, VA) went on and on about how we should adopt the same type of security screening that the Israeli flag carrier El Al uses. As with most policy Republicans propose this looks moderately reasonable on the surface. El-Al has had only one hijacking in its history, which was before the current system went into effect. It has never had any successful bombings, though it has found bombs on several occasions.

Now that sounds like the kind of security we want right? Well, like most Republican ideas that sound good on the surface it falls apart on closer inspection. To start with El Al is miniscule compared to even the smallest of regional carriers in the United States. They fly 40 flights a day compared to the 87,000 daily flights in the U.S.

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Actual smart people actually talking about actual issues!

Well worth the investment of your time. The end of part two is just devastating to the War Machine.

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(Cross-posted from The Paragraph.) “[I]t’s quite extraordinary to grant government agents the statutory authority to secretly break into Americans homes,” said Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) last month at a Judiciary Committee hearing on the PATRIOT Act.⁸⁰ A month after 9-11, with half its members shut out of their offices due to anthrax-powdered letters, the Senate passed the PATRIOT Act by a vote of 98-1 — the lone “nay” vote cast by Feingold.⁸¹ The stated purpose of the PATRIOT Act was to help stop terror attacks, but there is little to show it has done that.⁸²⁸³ However, the PATRIOT Act has boosted federal snooping.⁸⁴ For instance, sneak-and-peak — the “authority to secretly break into Americans’ homes.” that Feingold mentioned — went from a seldom-used tactic to 760 warrants issued in 2008, but with only three warrants sought for terrorism cases.⁸⁵ Now, Feingold and nine other senators are sponsoring a bill — the JUSTICE Act — to rein in the PATRIOT Act’s broad and easy search and seizure powers.⁸⁶

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Crossposted from They Gave Us a Republic



Being a sane person, I do not tune in to the Glenn Beck weep-fest. When he or one of his guests does or says something outrageous, I get it the next day from the blogosphere, so yesterday when he hosted former CIA official Michael Scheuer, I missed it when the guest and the host were pining for another massive, 9/11-type attack in order to advance their political philosophy.

His exact words were "The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama Bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States --- because it's gonna take a grassroots, bottom up pressure -- because these politicians prize their offices, prize the praise of the media, and the Europeans. It's an absurd situation again, only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently and with as much violence as necessary."

What a sick, twisted individual Scheuer is - and Beck, too, because he didn’t even feign shock. He just nodded along in agreement, like the dope he so obviously is.

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(A Poetic Justice Photomontage)

Killing puts abortion foes on defense
In worship he found his cause
In prayer he found his score
In murder he found his god

Obama hopeful on Mid-East peace
How simple it must sound
This wistful wishful flight among the fragile beams
Of stone and foul hatred.

Search Is On for Wreckage of Missing Air France Jet
Among protea, cycads, and pincushions and the stunning breath of petals
They surely float. The jagged Drakensberg Peaks, like broken teeth
Shimmering edges, dark lines, not bones, but fractured meadows.

Judge: Release Gitmo Docs
We say we’d die for our beloved country,
We proudly wave her colors and cry
At the thought of promised freedom,
Say we’d descend into the grave of valor-
But what of our torture?

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