Cam Edwards of NRANews.com reported on Friday night that there's a really under-reported story out there. President Obama nominated a new head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives — a local ATF agent from Chicago that's drawing serious opposition from gun-rights groups. Patrik Jonsson of The Christian Science Monitor is one of the few news reporters to notice: ATF special agent Andrew Traver, who last year let a TV reporter fire an AK-47 from her hip to demonstrate the weapon's lethality, is set to become America's chief firearms inspector. But Mr. Traver, currently the Chicago ATF chief, faces a tough nomination battle as gun-rights groups amass their forces in opposition. read more
Continue reading …Click here to view this media Saturday Night Live didn’t waste any time spoofing the TSA and their new overly aggressive “junk touching” pat down procedures with an ad portraying TSA agents as sex workers.
Continue reading …Click here to view this media Count Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as another traveler who is not a fan of the new security procedures at airports. CBS’ Bob Schieffer asked Clinton Sunday if she would submit to a pat-down by a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent. “Not if I could avoid it,” she replied. “No. I mean who would?” President Barack Obama defended the TSA body scans and pat-downs as necessary at a NATO press conference Saturday. Obama sympathized with the passengers who complain about the security procedures but said balancing privacy and security is a “tough situation.” “One of the most frustrating aspects of this fight against terrorism is that it has created a whole security apparatus around us that causes a huge inconvenience for all of us,” Obama said. As president, Obama is not personally subjected to security checks. Clinton agreed with Obama that the TSA should work to make checks less invasive. “I think everyone, including our security experts, are looking for ways to diminish the impact on the traveling public,” Clinton told NBC’s David Gregory. “I mean obviously the vast, vast majority of people getting on these planes are law abiding citizens who are just trying to get from one place to another. But let’s not kid ourselves. The terrorists are adaptable,” she continued. “Striking the right balance is what this is about. And I am absolutely confident that our security experts are gonna keep trying to get it better and less intrusive and more precise,” Clinton said. “Everybody is trying to do the right thing and I understand how difficult it is, and how offensive it must be for the people who are going through it.”
Continue reading …Click here to view this media If you didn’t know anything about newly elected wingnut Allen West and his bizarre and violent past, you sure didn’t learn anything after watching him as a panelist on this weekend’s Meet the Press. Shame on David Gregory for allowing West to come on the air without asking him about any of these incidents. Threats inspired by Allen West’s fave radio ranter force Florida school lockdown This Is Your Tea Party On Thugs Tea Party Republican Candidate Allen West Has Ties To Criminal Organization GOP congressional candidate Allen West tells Tea Partiers: “make the fellow scared to come out of his house”
Continue reading …This Week with Christiane Amanpour notes the passings of John K. Beling and Liang Congjie . In addition, the Pentagon has released the names of eighteen service members killed in Afghanistan. US Air Force SrA Andrew S Bubacz , 23, Dalzell, SC US Army CPL Shawn D Fannin , 32, Wheelersberg, OH US Army SGT Edward H Bolen , 25, Chittenango, NY US Army SPC Shannon Chihuahua , 25, Thomasville, GA US Army SPC David C Lutes , 28, Frostberg, MD US Army SSG Juan L Rivadeneira , 27, Davie, FL US Army CPL Jacob R Carver , 20, Freeman, MO US Army SPC Jacob C Carroll , 20, Clemmons, NC US Army SSG Kevin M Pape , 30, Fort Wayne, IN US Marines SSgt Javier O Ortiz Rivera , 26, Rochester, NY US Army SPC Shane H Ahmed , 31, Chesterfield, MI US Army SPC Nathan E Lillard , 26, Knoxville, TN US Army SPC Scott T Nagorski , 27, Greenfield, WI US Army SPC Jesse A Snow , 25, Fairborn, OH US Army PFC Christian M Warriner , 19, Mills River, NC US Army SSG David P Senft , 27, Grass Valley, CA US Army PFC Kyle M Holder , 18, Conroe, TX US Army SPC Justin E Culbreth , 26, Colorado Springs, CO According to iCasualties, the total number of allied service members killed in Iraq is 4,747; in Afghanistan, 2,225 , of which, 152 are Canadian . During this same week, Iraq Body Count lists 33 Iraqi civilians killed.
Continue reading …Newt Gingrich on Sunday said that if he runs for president in 2012, he would not participate in a debate that had MSNBC's Chris Matthews or Keith Olbermann moderating. Instead, the former Speaker of the House told C-SPAN's Steve Scully that he'd prefer to just have an open, informative dialogue between the candidates with only a timekeeper (video follows with transcript and commentary): read more
Continue reading …Click here to view this media Oh the good old days of Republicans stealing presidential elections. Norah O’Donnell filling in for Chris Matthews and the panel of Dan Rather, Katy Kay, Kelly O’Donnell and Richard Stengel yuck it up over the ten year old coverage of the Florida recount debacle and Saturday Night Live’s parody of Chris Matthews interviewing Katherine Harris.
Continue reading …On “This Week,” Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, told Christiane Amanpour the rich should be paying more taxes and that the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy should be allowed to expire: “If anything, taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further,” Buffett said. “But I think that people at the high end — people like myself — should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we’ve ever had it.” The full Buffett interview will air on a special Thanksgiving edition of “This Week” focused on The Giving Pledge, a major philanthropic effort spearheaded by Buffet, and Bill and Melinda Gates. The billionaire brushed aside Republican arguments that letting tax cuts expire for the wealthy would hurt economic growth. “They say you have to keep those tax cuts, even on the very wealthy, because that is what energizes business and capitalism,” anchor Amanpour said. “The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we’ll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on,” Buffett explained.
Continue reading …By Andy Borowitz After it emerged that entire sections of George W. Bush’s new memoir, “Decision Points,” were plagiarized from books by former aides, The Borowitz Report asked our followers on Twitter to come up with the best plagiarized first line for the book. Related Entries November 19, 2010 Lame Duck November 18, 2010 Look Who’s the Decider Now
Continue reading …Click here to view this media Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday that civilian trials work better than military commission for convicting terrorism detainees. “We do believe that what are called Article Three trials, in other words in our civilian courts, are appropriate for the vast majority of detainees,” Clinton told Fox News’ Chris Wallace. This week, a civilian trial convicted Guantanamo Bay detainee Ahmed Ghailani on one count and acquitted him of more than 280 other counts. “The question is do you have any choice now except to hold all of the terror detainees at Gitmo or either give them military trials or hold them indefinitely?” Wallace asked Clinton. “The sentence for what he was convicted of is 20 years to life,” Clinton replied. “That is a significant sentence. Secondly, some of the challenges in the courtroom would be the very same challenges before a military commission about whether or not certain evidence could be used.” “If you look at the comparison between terrorists who are now serving time in our maximum security prisons compared to what military commissions have been able to do, there’s no comparison,” Clinton later said on NBC. “We get convictions, we send people away in our civilian courts at a much more regularized– and– and predictable way than yet we’ve been able to figure out how in the military commission.” “It is good enough and strong enough to either convict and sentence the guilty, or even execute where appropriate, and where you can’t convince an American jury, which is certainly obsessed with terrorism, maybe there’s a question about the strength of the case,” she said.
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