Clintonistas Suicide Bombers

Sadly, we are all thoroughly familiar with the terrorist's and insurgent's use of the suicide bomber. Graphic images from Israel and Iraq of the vicious asymmetrical warfare tactic have been burned into our consciousness. Sacrificing themselves for the glory of their cause, the bombers strap on explosive-laden vests or belts, approach their often unsuspecting targets and detonate the explosives, killing themselves and their victims in the gory equivalent of the poor man's precision-guided bomb. As is the case among terrorists and politicians, success inspires imitation. Noting the devastating effectiveness of the tactic, the Clintonistas have adapted it to the political realm and have used it with similar success against an often equally unsuspecting Barack Obama.

The appeal of the tactic is multifaceted. First, it is devastatingly effective. While a supporter or surrogate is politically sacrificed in the attack, it allows a campaign to inflict potentially critical damage on an opponent. In the process it promotes an embarrassing or controversial story that the opposition would prefer to not have to address and that the media might otherwise consider taboo or below the belt. As we'll see, the Clintonistas, though unable to inflict mortal damage, have effectively used it to engage in race-baiting and character assassination. In addition to this, unlike the traditional perpetrators, political suicide bombers inflict little if any collateral damage. Innocents rarely get caught in the attack, as it is target and candidate specific in nature. Finally, while campaigns reap the benefit of the bomber's attack, they maintain the illusion of plausible deniability. Letting the story play until press coverage boomerangs and seeks to determine the campaign's culpability, candidates then complete the suicidal nature of the attack by claiming the surrogate went off the reservation and made personal, unscripted comments. The rogue is unceremoniously tossed aside with a wink and a nod, having completed their mission and damaged the opposition. That being said, let's take a look at how effective the Clintonista suicide bombers have been in attacking Obama and playing on the doubts and fears that accompany his candidacy.

The first suicide bomber dispatched by the Clinton camp was Billy Shaheen, husband of former Governor of New Hampshire Jeanne Shaheen and Co-Chairman of the Clinton campaign in the Granite State. In December, Shaheen warned Democrats that Obama was a flawed candidate that was vulnerable to Republican attacks in the general election campaign on his admitted past drug use. Failing to see the irony of an attack from the Clinton camp on the issue of drug use, Shaheen speculated that Republicans would expand on the admitted recreational use to question whether or not Obama had engaged in trafficking or dealing. Having succeeded in getting the issue into the media spotlight and subtly triggered a secondary explosion of racially stereotypical angst, Shaheen dutifully apologized and resigned from the campaign.

The next race-baiting suicide attack occurred in South Carolina in January, when Black Entertainment Television founder Robert Johnson insinuated that Obama was using drugs while the Clintons were selflessly working on issues critical to the black community. In addition to again raising the specter of a minority candidate with a drug use Achilles' heel, it also sought to wrap Hillary in the mantle of Bill's title as America's honorary first black president. Again, having succeeded in his suicide mission, Johnson dutifully apologized to the Obama campaign and assured the media he was referring to his community organizing efforts and not his drug usage.

The most recent and rabid bomber to appear on the scene was former Democratic Vice Presidential-nominee Geraldine Ferraro. In an eerie echo of Rush Limbaugh's analysis of the media's treatment of Philadelphia Eagles' quarterback Donovan McNabb, Ferraro asserted that Obama "...would have not be in this position." were he white. Speaking from her own experience, Ferraro defended her remarks on the basis that had she been a man, she would not have been in the position of being Walter Mondale's 1984 running mate. While going through the motions and resigning her position on Clinton's Finance Committee, she did not take the option of quietly fading into the background once the smoke had cleared from her attack. In contrast to the scripted apologies and exits of Shaheen and Johnson, Ferraro indignantly protested any comparison between her own comments and those of Obama's controversial spiritual advisor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whom she called a "racist bigot." Not satisfied with the success of her initial attack, Ferraro triggered a secondary detonation that heaped additional damage on an Obama camp already reeling from the devastating explosion of the Write controversy.

Having mastered the suicide bomber tactic and witnessed its effectiveness, the question for the Clintonistas is who will be the next martyr for the cause and when will they be dispatched? With time growing short and the odds growing long, pressure will increasingly mount to launch more spectacular attacks with greater frequency in the hopes of blasting Obama out of the nomination and Hillary's increasingly narrow and tortuously steep path to the presidency.

http://bareknuckledpundit.blogspot.com/2008/03/clintonista-suicide-bombers.html

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Patriot Act: Of Men and Myth

On September 11th 2001 the twin towers in New York were struck by a pair of commercial aircraft hijacked by 19 terrorists from that moment on the United States would be changed from a democratic society to a hyper police state.

There were many steps leading up to the current state of aggressiveness abroad and the situation of ignoring what was originally thought as civil liberties. What had originally begun with the Iraq war continued on with the lies told by this administration, and culminated on October 26th 2006, one of the most atrocious documents the PATRIOT act was signed in to law by one of the worst crooks of the 21st century, President George W. Bush.

The patriot act is the most damaging thing to pass in congress since this administration came to power in 2000. This detrimental document has destroyed two things. The first thing that is destroyed is our economy through giving too much money towards federal agencies and creating one of the largest deficits in American history. The Second thing that this document destroyed is something that most Americans have thought sacred; privacy. Though privacy is never explicitly stated in the constitution we have always thought it to be one of our most basic rights as Americans, as such when such a document threatens to take it away through wiretaps or other means, it is considered a complete and utter outrage.

Our economy has plummeted due to this document and the public is not as informed as it should be about the entire situation. Immediately following 9/11 the Department of Homeland Security was created to help reduce terrorist efforts within the United States just the creation of this department has cost over 22 billion dollars(patriot act) the cost which has risen up to 41.6 billion dollars(budget) since the passage of the patriot act.

Another example of how it is costing us exponentially is the expenses paid to protect us abroad by training foreign militaries to help fight this fictitious “War on Terror” the cost of which has been exorbitant; just for training foreign governments has cost us five hundred million dollars. So where is all this money coming from? Our taxes which have not risen in such a high fashion since the inception of the Homeland Security Department so, naturally it is coming from other departments and because of this, things like Kindergarten through twelfth grade education. What America needs is a complete restructuring of its budget; less towards homeland security and more towards infrastructure and social programs such as welfare, because what’s the point of protecting something that isn’t worth protecting.

The second issue is privacy, though it is typically thought of as a civil right is actually a civil liberty which means the government can suspend it during times of war or during a state of emergency which is what the United States has been going through although more of a war of ideas then a set country it is a war nonetheless so section 213 of the patriot act takes precedence over the Fourth Amendment. Section 213 is the so called “sneak and peak” section of the patriot act in which a federal judge can issue a warrant that does not need to notify those whose property they are searching (Wilkes).

There are several stipulations to the sneak and peek warrant however; (1) the court finds reasonable cause to believe that providing immediate notification of the execution of the warrant may have an adverse result (as defined in section 2705); (2) the warrant prohibits the seizure of any tangible property ...except where the court finds reasonable necessity for the seizure; and (3) the warrant provides for the giving of such notice within a reasonable period of its execution, which period may thereafter be extended by the court for good cause shown (patriot act Sec 213).

There are several major problems with this, the first being that if someone was a suspected terrorist or criminal then they would have no problem fleeing from the law. The second section presents the problem that the court could find any reason in which it is necessary to seize any evidence especially if it something easily deposable, items that would incriminate someone. The third major problem is that a person can go on for years and years perpetually without ever hearing about people searching their house. The big problem with this section of the patriot act is that it leaves elastic ends on which law enforcement and government to play with; it threatens the very document this country was founded on, the United States Constitution.