[there is an open thread each day. this is not it -- mod.]

On the other hand, I had to hear a number of callers on the morning drive talk about how we ought to be torturing this guy right now to make him talk.

"We should assign Jack Bauer to the case"

"Look at your son/daughter and tell me you don't think it's worth it to..."

"Well, since the Obama administration just wants to tickle terrorists to death..."

and so on...

Why no fanfare? B/c there are no repigs on power to give unearned kudos to, that's why. Obama and the Dems broke up this plot, and rather than insist on maximal and exaggerated credit for everything he and his people do, Obama is happy in simple doing his job (without taking 1/3 of his time off to cut brush of play golf), and keeping us as safe as possible. Given that bu$handick attacked an independent Arab nation in a 'pre-emptive' war of choice, tortured, killed, kidnapped, blew up, poisoned with DU, and roasted people alive (w/ white phosphorous), thereby priming hate towards the U.S., safety is a tough job for Obama and the Dems, but they are doing it, and damn well.

Steve, the reason people aren't concerned about the Denver case is because it is a whole lot of nothing.

Here in IL we just caught a REAL terrorist -- he filled a truck up with explosives, parked it in front of a federal building in Springfield, went a few blocks away and tried to detonate it with a cell phone. Fortunately it didn't work, because the Feds were onto him the entire time. But, the story is not getting any play nationally because... the guy is white.

So, Steve, go and keep concerning yourself with what some Ayrab bought at at a beauty supply store, and the rest of us will keep our eyes on the real threats.

Howling about crying wolf

Even the NYT's noted the contrast:

In some earlier investigations, federal officials seized on what were widely viewed as marginal cases in an apparent effort to show results and justify aggressive steps being taken in the campaign against terrorism. As a result, people in and out of government have become dubious about assertions of the grave danger posed by any particular group of defendants.

But in recent years, foiled plots announced with fanfare in Washington have sometimes involved unsophisticated people who seemed hardly capable of organizing a major attack.

Heh.. I've lost track of how many times the Bush regime killed the '#2 Al-Qaeda Leader'.

The Obama regime has done it's share of taking out AQ 'operatives', but you don't hear the '#2 Leader' BS anymore.

And whatever happened to our code orange terror alerts? They seem to have gone missing after the Bush-Kerry election. I really miss them.

Gallup didn't do well either because their results were too favorable for Obama. So even 50% may be too favorable for Obama at this time.
Posted by: RepublicanComeback on September 25, 2009 at 3:02 PM | PERMALINK*********************

Repukecomeback, God it sucks to govern so badly that you get your ass handed to you on a sling for TWO ELECTION CYCLES IN A ROW! But dont' worry dudecicle, your sour grapes aren't showing AT ALL. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!! By the way, don't you have better things to do than post your blather here, like go defend the poor, miserable insurance CEOs, or invade some country based on lies, or spread hatred towards your brown brothers while wrapping yourself in the flag and the pages of the Holy Bible? But by all means, feel free to continue to post here and reveal yourself.

It's just not a matter of skipping the "bombast & exaggeration", but skipping the fear mongering.

The Bush admin used 'foiled terrorist plots' for political gain or whenever the populous was getting too complacent. The message, basically, was "Be afraid at all times! Only we (repubs) can keep you safe!" It's a message I'm glad to see Obama avoiding.

Steve, you answered your own 'where's the freakout?' question:

But unlike the Bush era, the Obama team has skipped "the bombast and exaggeration" that was the standard operating procedure of the previous administration.

The Obama administration isn't going out of its way to make sure we're good and scared and stay that way. Therefore, we're not.

koreyel--I think a dumb troll might have stolen your handle and is making an idiotic "9/11 changed everything" defense of the Patriot Act below.
As someone else noted, we've already got Dick and Liz Cheney to do that, along with defending torture.

But unlike the Bush era, the Obama team has skipped "the bombast and exaggeration" that was the standard operating procedure of the previous administration.

Come on, you KNOW it's because the Obama team is taking a "see no evil" approach to terrorism.

[there is an open thread each day. this is not it -- mod.]

Unfortunately, I to have the chemicals needed to make said bomb in my home and I have no idea if one of my dozen-odd harddrives ever or do contain instructions on how to turn those chemicals into explosives. Although I've never been out of North America, that hasn't stopped investigators before.

The average computer now has over a hundred gigabytes on its drive. That's like a billion pages of books. Billion! With a B! Do you even know what's on every single page of content you've downloaded?

The chemicals needed to create even the highest explosive - like that used on the PanAm flights are in every woman's medicine cabinet for her fingernails. Those to make the bomb in OKC are in every barn in America. That's not even counting the dozen other ways which involve less common things which are used in construction, plumbing, painting, model-making, and cleaning your kitchen or pool.

So yeah, color me jaded.

Charlie,

I'm here to educate you guys.....
Posted by: RepublicanComeback on September 25, 2009 at 3:44 PM | PERMALINK****************

Of course you did. What a fine, fine gentleman you are, benevolent to the core, offering your free services simply for our information and edification. Just out of the goodness of your teeny, tiny, black little heart. WOW dude, thank you sOOOOO much. Where would any of us be without your wisdom, education and guidance, oh enlightened master? You want a tit for tat, "I know a poll that says X!; Oh yea!?, Well, I know one that says Y, Oh yea,...."... FUGETABIUTIT! You are a waste of time. I thought you repigs didn't care about nonsense like polls and public opinion and stuff, cuz you got manly flag wav'in and gay bashing, and wars to tend to, and all that there manly stuff. So, get to it troll! 'nuff said.

And last nights dramatic "leaked surveillance video" on CNN showing the guy buying a couple of pints of hydrogen peroxide solution at a beauty supply house didn't change my view of the situation at all.

Presumably the Feds have a better case than hydrogen peroxide? or else a whole generation of curious high school chemists-in-training are in trouble.

I really, really want to start having some faith in government pronouncements like "The recession is over" or "We've made health insurance stronger and more affordable" or "We have arrested a credible terrorist"... I just don't know if this one is gonna help me out though.

Which of these things aren't true:

1. The Bush Administration hyped fake or ludicrous terrorist plots for political reasons.

2. The worst terrorist attack in American history happened under the Bush Administration's watch.

3. The response to said attack was to go to war with a country that had nothing to do with the attack.

4. Republicans mocked the notion that law enforcement techniques were a more effective way to fight the terrorist threat.

5. After losing power former Bush Administration officials said that Obama would not be able to keep us safe because his administration went away from Bush policies.

Republicans can keep eating fail and pin their hopes that, somehow, Obama is less popular than they are -- which isn't the case. Republicans are less popular than herpes and more dangerous.

The media are the one's who like to cover a terrorist event; the 24 hr scroll of news, interviews, analysis, etc.

The reality is that no terrorist attack really kills that many people. Yes, they suck, but the impact is more from the response, the tightening of security, the fear.

The Bush era was all about FEAR and loathing. We can bomb caves with drones til the cows come home, but the only real security is attacking the roots of hatred.

It's a complex world and a little sense of perspective goes a long way.

Terrorists thrive on the fear factor, that's the whole point.

I'm willing to believe there was a real threat here, but that doesn't mean I think we should freak out or something. Not only have there been years of crying wolf, but there have been years of preparation for dealing with things like this. What's so scary about the idea that there are bad guys, and that we have people in place to deal with that? Isn't that what we wanted to achieve after 9/11?

The 9/11 hijackers surprised us. Nowadays we're supposed to be looking for guys like that, and, what do you know, we are. And we found one. So?

In other news, it's Friday, and the sun came up today.

But unlike the Bush era, the Obama team has skipped "the bombast and exaggeration" that was the standard operating procedure of the previous administration.

Maybe they're saving it until we're closer to an election.

my response to the Illinois case was that it seemed more like the previous administration's efforts to "catch" people that they had more or less led into criminal activity. Perhaps the newspapers in Illinois had detail I didn't see, but really, this seemed like another example of someone with a lot of mouth being led into action that he might not have initiated on his own...

if anyone's interested here's some info and a link to the story disputo was referring to earlier in the thread
Finton was introduced to an undercover FBI agent who began working with him to plot an attack, but Finton was repeatedly told he could walk away at any time, according to the Justice Department.

Eventually, Finton picked the federal building in Springfield as the target and on Wednesday he parked a van he believed carried one ton of explosives at the location, the complaint said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN2447383520090924

So when is the Presidential Meda of Freedom ceremony?

How many crimes get committed each day and don't make the papers?
Why would I freak out about one that was stopped before it could happen?

I didn't get excited when Bush put the whole institutional FREAK OUT machine into motion, why would I be getting excited now?

Steve, the reason people aren't concerned about the Denver case is because it is a whole lot of nothing.

That "whole lot of nothing" is what they used to blow up three trains and a bus in London two years ago. This actually could be something pretty serious.

And of course the lack of MSM hysteria just couldn't be because they are all RepoTaliban mouth pieces - could it.

That "whole lot of nothing" is what they used to blow up three trains and a bus in London two years ago. This actually could be something pretty serious.

Yeah... I got H2O2 in the bathroom, flour in the pantry, a copy of the _Anarchist Cookbook_ on the shelf, and a burning hatred of US imperialist policy -- lock me up!

Yeah... I got H2O2 in the bathroom, flour in the pantry, a copy of the _Anarchist Cookbook_ on the shelf, and a burning hatred of US imperialist policy -- lock me up!

Are you also driving cross-country to meet an imam that you think is going to help you with your plot like this guy did?

Are you also driving cross-country to meet an imam that you think is going to help you with your plot like this guy did?

Thx for reminding me -- I forgot to add that I am not Muslim and know no people with scary titles like "Imam", therefore everything's cool!

*whew*

That's a load off my shoulders.

Damn, I just remembered that I have driven cross-county before, so maybe I do need to be locked up....

FBI PAYS EGYPTIAN MAN $250,000 AFTER WRONGFUL DETENTION

(AP) - The FBI paid $250,000 this week to an Egyptian man detained after the September 11, 2001 attacks when a pilot's aviation radio was found in his hotel room overlooking the World Trade Center, his lawyer said Thursday. A judge approved the payment to Abdallah Higazy in July and the money was delivered this week, according to the lawyer, Jonathan S. Abady.

Higazy, 38, had sued the Bureau, saying an FBI agent screamed at him, lied to him and threatened to endanger his family, leading him to offer several reasons why the radio was his room and causing him to be unjustly criminally charged and imprisoned for 34 days.

Higazy, the son of an Egyptian diplomat, was charged with making false statements after a handheld pilot radio was found in a safe in the room where he stayed on September 11. He was detained in December 2001 after he returned to reclaim his belongings from the hotel he had fled during the attacks.

He was freed in January 2002 after another hotel guest, a pilot, told hotel officials the radio belonged to him.

His lawsuit against the FBI agent who questioned him was thrown out by a lower court judge but was reinstated two years ago by the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.

Higazy married an American and returned to Egypt, where he lives in Cairo and works as an assistant grade school principal, Abady said, adding: "He was entirely innocent and was coerced to the point where he confessed to participation in the crime of the century."

"Had the pilot not returned to retrieve the radio, he might still be in prison. It's a very scary example of the potential excesses of law enforcement in the pursuit of a legitimate goal," Abady said.

The lawyer said Higazy was pleased to put the ordeal behind him but found the resolution bittersweet.

"I don't think there's any amount of money that could return him to the way he was before this happened," he said.

"I think this is still a traumatic memory that will never leave him completely. He still hesitates to return to the United States," Abady added.

Zazi intensified his bomb-making experiments this month, cooking up substances in a Colorado hotel suite he rented on Sept. 6-7 before driving 1,600 miles to New York over the course of about two days. He became aware that law enforcement was onto him when he was stopped entering the city on Sept. 10, causing the plot to unravel.

...

Security video and receipts show that some of the purchases were made near the Colorado hotel, according to court papers. On Sept. 6 and 7, Zazi checked into a suite at the hotel with a kitchen and a stove, the papers say, and tried to contact an unidentified associate "seeking to correct mixtures of ingredients to make explosives."

What was I thinking? Clearly the guy is totally innocent. I mean, who hasn't rented a hotel room with bomb-making ingredients and called our friends to help us make explosives? That's just a long weekend in Vegas for me.

Has there ever been a "terror plot" where the FBI was not directly involved as provocateurs or supplying the "bomb" supplies? What happened to all the "terror cells" of those Isalmists, for 8 years now, that "want to kill us every day"? (Hint: Read the book Overblown).

Out rolls the propaganda again, just in time to save the war in Afghanistan.

Speaking as a New Yorker, the thought of an attack on the subway system is horrendous. It would cause years of chaos and disruption, beyond the immediate loss of life (possibly mine). For some of us, this isn't an academic issue.

I think FBI Special Agent Garrett Gumbinner did not do good job. The whole thing reminds me inspector Clouseau!