Slowly we will reach a point where your every move inside the home and outside the home will be monitored at all times, for your safety. If we break our Constitution because of illegal immigration (which isn’t too hard to solve, if they would build the wall the promised), then why not break it for any number of other reasons.

Today Ron Paul was on Fox News with Megyn Kelly wondering out loud why the government can’t just put cameras in our homes. This way child or spousal abuse could be caught and the perpetrators prosecuted. Once you slice our freedoms down for one “good reason” why not the next? We can justify almost anything in the name of 9-11 and “safety” in general. The Founders had strong and clear thoughts on the issue. You can only gain this perceived “safety” through allowing big brother surveillance on your life. Once you do that, however, you have no safety at all. Government is not to be trusted and they are not here to help.

It isn’t surprising that a Democrat like Chuck Schumer would support this. It also isn’t too surprising to see Lindsey Graham working for the progressives. He’s a pro-bailout, moderate, fake Republican. What is surprising is that so few of his peers are publicly taking him to task on this outrageous proposal. It’s past time for Graham to go.

For about 5 minutes Sunday afternoon Mr. Obama talked from the lawn about the Iraq elections. He looked down at his podium about half the time and rushed to get through with speed I wish he would demonstrate during the State Of The Union.

Certainly the speech writers did their job. The statement made all the right points about the importance of continuing democracy and their role in our future departure. It was Obama’s marked disinterest in success that was distressing. There are lots of things to be happy about in Iraq: 1) We haven’t wasted innocent American life in a futile war effort, 2) The country stands on its own two feet now (mostly) and 3) The Iraqi government no longer gases its own people, to name a few.

It’s tough not to speculate that the reason Obama wasn’t energetic in his delivery wasn’t partisan. This was a war he opposed. When a surge was proposed, he voted against it, opting instead to cut and run. Since taking office he’s set a deadline for withdrawal on virtually every conflict before he even met with his generals to learn the state of affairs.

No, Obama doesn’t care about success in Iraq, that’s not on his agenda. That’s a shame since lots of American blood was poured on their sand. You can impugn the motives that got us to Iraq, but when our soldiers do a fine job, you’d hope their boss could at least give a convincing “thank you”.

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”

Today marks an important step in our 9 year journey into transportation tyranny. 11 more body scanners are on the way to airports. In all, the TSA has slated 1,000 of these units to be installed. Besides the silly worries that some TSA officer will take your nudie picture and post it online, there are more serious concerns. Being photographed nude unwittingly is the least of our problems.

The salient theme of the 2000′s has been that there is no punishment we won’t enforce on American citizens in the name of our war on radical Islam. This is one area where GOP members often get it wrong, and some conservatives fail to vocalize that error. The GOP is willing to agree to endless security measures because it makes paranoid MADD types feel safer. After all, the GOP is the party of the military and safety.

Conservatives often lobby against the politically correct society. Well, if they are committed to that position they should loudly whine about these body scanners, since they are political correctness manifested. Government’s inability to put a face and name on our enemy has led to intrusive screening of all sorts of innocents because we refuse to simply pull the obvious candidates out of the line and interrogate them.

Look, this isn’t about racism or hatred. This is about having a singular enemy that 99% of the time shows up in a predictable form, yet we guilt trip ourselves out of identifying that enemy. If you profile diligently, and actually use the intelligence we have, you eliminate the vast majority of the problems. Behavior analysis experts, body scanners, and the like are no substitute for common sense and appropriately broad no-fly lists.

No, the real problem with body scanners isn’t someone seeing you naked. The real problem is what the omniscient government planners will dream up next to ‘protect us’.

http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/02/24/ft-hood-attack-publicly-called-terrorism/

The shocking statement says, in part:

“”Violent Islamic terrorism … was part and parcel of the Ft. Hood killings”

See, 4 months wasn’t so long to wait for the truth, was it? I, for one, am glad we didn’t rush to any conclusions.

“This plot is further evidence that Al Qaeda continues to plan attacks against the United States. We are at war against a dangerous, intelligent and adaptable enemy, and we must use every weapon available to win that war. In this case, as it has in so many other cases, the criminal justice system has proved to be an invaluable weapon for disrupting plots and incapacitating terrorists, one that works in concert with the intelligence community and our military. We will continue to use it to protect the American people from terrorism.

As I have stated on other occasions, the criminal justice system also contains powerful incentives to induce pleas that yield long sentences and gain intelligence that can be used in the fight against Al Qaeda. We will use all available tools whenever possible against suspected terrorists.”

I warned you it was long winded.

Truth is, it did work out pretty well this time. But Zazi was just a shuttle driver from Colorado. He didn’t have many rights to discovery in his case. Trying to use the Zazi case as an example of why KSM should be tried in criminal courts, in a bad analogy at best. KSM would have far greater rights to national intelligence under discovery for his defense than would Zazi.

I think Democrats misunderstand the nature of complains about criminal trials for terrorists. Most conservatives wouldn’t say you should never use the courts. Instead, we want to be selective and use the military tribunal when it makes sense to do so, i.e. KSM.

Certainly, Holder’s Justice Department is conflicted. Some of the very people now responsible for prosecuting terror (if criminal courts are used) are the same folks who have defended such terrorists in the past. Since these defendants have a right to representation in any court (including military tribunals). Why not make sure the prosecution isn’t playing on the same team as the defense?

“While we recognize that under the NPT [Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons] Iran has the right to a civilian nuclear program, Iran needs to restore confidence in its exclusively peaceful nature”

The problem is that in a terrorist regime, there is no peaceful civilian program. All programs are of the State. So why even legitimize the program? The line should be “We get nukes, you don’t. End of story.”

Hillary Clinton’s State Department has been more cohesive.

“What we want to do is to send a message to whoever is making these decisions that, if you’re pursuing nuclear weapons for the purpose of intimidating, of projecting your power, we are not going to let that happen”

The State Department position has always been that the world will not accept a nuclear Iran. However, plans submitted to Iran (for off-shore uranium processing) have been rejected, then accepted, the rejected again. It’s starting to look more and more like the “check is in the mail” tricks we saw from the U.S.S.R. in the 80′s.

While the U.S. hasn’t taken any bold steps, nor offered consistently bold words, Israel has. Since Ahmadinejad has stated he would like to “wipe Israel off the map”, that makes a lot of sense. Israel won’t go so far as to say they are planning any particular action, though.

Today on America’s Newsroom (Fox News). K.T. MacFarland had a more grim assessment: A nuclear Iran will lead to a nuclear middle-east, rather rapidly. If Iran gets one, how long before the Saudi’s get one, then Turkey, and so forth. Americans do not have a stomach for another military offensive, as Rasmussen Reports said yesterday. That’s understandable too, since we have two conflicts going right now that are not wildly popular.

It’s past time to start thinking about wars in a financial context. The previous administration seemed to struggle with that a lot. Given our soaring military expenditures, is potential military involvement something we should even entertain? There is a lot on the line here for America, but since we’re always the “bad cop” is it time for someone else to have a turn? Let’s break the assumption that America will be the world’s first responder to every “incident”.

John Brennan’s had enough. He isn’t weak, and he’s not a liberal pansy. He was employed by the “tough” Bush administration and very much played a role in the now illegal “enhanced interrogations” liberals complain so much about. I won’t go so far as to say he agreed with everything Bush and Cheney set in motion, but he’s a tough guy and had no problem doing dirty work to keep the country safe.

CBS News reports on John’s recent appearances on Sunday television and a nasty USA Today op-ed piece wherein he lashes out at GOP for the constant bashing of everything the Obama administration does on terror. Well, he’s mostly right. The criticism is over handling that essentially has not changed since Bush was in office. Is Obama soft on terror? Probably. Is John? Not for a minute.

John is a credible asset to this and any other administration and to call for his firing, only serves to bad mouth the Bush administration the GOP loved so much. After all, Bush hired him when an imminent terrorist attack was a guarantee, not a possibility. The GOP would be well advised to do a better job of distinguishing between the joke that is Secretary Napolitano, and Mr. Brennan.

Having said that, it is wholly inappropriate to accuse the GOP of “helping Al Qaeda”. Brennan’s been in government long enough to know that no one has any friends, everything is political, and the minute you play for the opposing team, you pick up enemies. John needs to thicken his skin a little and appreciate that none of the criticism is personal. If he played for the “right team”, the GOP would be rushing to his defense, and John knows it.

There comes a time, however, when you’re just making a thinly disguised political statement. The GOP needs to get a grip and cater a bit less to the Sarah Palin crowd. We did get intelligence from the attempted bomber…was it comprehensive? I don’t know. These intelligence guys aren’t Jack Bauer, no one is. The undergarment bomber (no I refuse to try and type his name) is clearly the D-string of the once amazing Al Qaeda team. Let’s face facts and drop politics for just a moment. GOP shills are acting like this punk kid from Nigeria is some top brass in a real army.

We have sacrificed enough freedom for security in this country since 9-11, and Republicans would do well with many independents to drop the security charade and get back to economics.

Yet, Obama has staked enormous political capital (perhaps at the behest of Dept of Justice Chief Holder) to bring terror trials to Federal criminal courts.  The only question I have is: Why?  The very few on the left who actually believe it is better to give these guys a criminal trial is so small, that it can’t possibly benefit Obama in the 2012 election, and it certainly isn’t helping Democratic Congressional prospects for 2010.

In fact, recent divisions in the Democrat party have surfaced in Congress and now a sizable number of Senators, Congressmen, Mayors, and local Councilman have all sided *against* Obama on this issue.  These are loyal Obama supporters who now feel the cost of bringing terror trials to America is too great to their re-election prospects.

If you add to the current political pressure, the actual risk of some sort of attack happening on US soil during said trials (which would guarantee an Obama defeat in 2012), again one wonders why in the world Obama pursues this?

We’re left to wonder if Obama is simply that out of touch with the will of the people he works for, or whether his left-wing ideology compels him to do this.  Being that Obama is an incredibly smart individual who watches the polls (and lots of Fox News), one tends to believe the latter.