Obama refuses to meet with Brewer Why was Obama willing to have a beerfest with an officer in Cambridge after he misspoke ?He’s willing to have a beerfest with an officer in Cambridge after he misspoke," Pearce told Fox News on Tuesday, referring to a photo-op the president held last summer after he incited a feud over the bias of a police officer who arrested a black professor at the front door to his home.

"He misspoke on this bill also and he’s not willing to meet with the governor of the state of Arizona?" Pearce said.

Obama signed an executive order on Jan. 11, appointing Brewer and nine other governors to a committee that will provide valuable advice on toughening the country’s homeland security.

The members, who each serve a two-year term, will review various security-related matters, such as deploying the National Guard to various states and the "integration of state and federal military activities in the United States," according to the White House website.

The other appointees include Govs. Jim Douglas, R-Vt., Christine Gregoire, D-Wash., Luis G. Fortuño, R-Puerto Rico, Brad Henry, D-Okla., Bob McDonnell, R-Va., Jay Nixon, D-Mo., Martin O’Malley, D-Md., Beverly Perdue, D-N.C., and Mike Rounds, R-S.D.

The committee is set to hold a "planning session" on Wednesday before it convenes in July to officially review homeland security matters.

Obama is not scheduled to meet with the council. The president will instead be meeting with Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, before heading to an event in Pittsburgh and hosting a concert at the White House to honor Paul McCartney.

Obama has blasted Arizona’s immigration law, which takes effect July 29, as "misguided" and warned that it could violate civil rights and lead to racial profiling.

The White House has indicated that it’s prepared to go to court if necessary in a bid to block the new law, which makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/01/obamas-refusal-meet-brewer-upcoming-visit-insult-critics-say/?test=latestnews

Technorati Tags: appointees, beerfest, beverly perdue, bob mcdonnell, brad henry, christine gregoire, fox news, google, govs, immigration law, jay nixon, jim douglas, luis g fortuño, martin o malley, mike rounds, military activities, obama, script type, security matters, state of arizona

FOXNews.com Rave Review Included In TV Ads for Michael Moore’s ‘Sicko’
Posted by Tim Graham on June 19, 2007 – 14:22.

Sometimes, it’s a little tough for the Fox News-bashing left to stamp the Ailes Network with the Uniformly Right-Wing complaint. For example, it’s not every day that Fox News looks liberal on CNN. But I caught the new commercial for leftist propagandist Michael Moore’s new mockumentary "Sicko" on CNN late this morning. One of three ecstatic reviewers in the TV ad is Roger Friedman of FOXNews.com ("Brilliant!")

Is that one of those tricky studio edits that doesn’t really represent the critic’s opinion? Um, no. Friedman’s online review was a rave. It began: "Filmmaker Michael Moore’s brilliant and uplifting new documentary, ‘Sicko,’ deals with the failings of the U.S. healthcare system, both real and perceived. But this time around, the controversial documentarian seems to be letting the subject matter do the talking, and in the process shows a new maturity."

Friedman added: "Unlike many of his previous films (‘Roger and Me,’ ‘Bowling for Columbine,’ ‘Fahrenheit 9-11′), ‘Sicko’ works because in this one there are no confrontations. Moore smartly lets very articulate average Americans tell their personal horror stories at the hands of insurance companies. The film never talks down or baits the audience." Friedman even agreed with Moore that the film was not partisan – but the commercial has two jokey cuts mocking President Bush, including the old gaffe that OB-GYNS can’t "practice their love with women" due to the liability problem. Mature? Nonpartisan?

Of course, film reviewing is about the art of film, and not just the politics, I haven’t seen the film so I can’t comment on its maturity or lack of confrontation. (The commercial does feature Moore lying to a security guard about whether his camera was on. Cheeky? Or too casual about lying?)

But Friedman also raved the last Moore film was "brilliant" at FOXNews.com: "It turns out to be a really brilliant piece of work, and a film that members of all political parties should see without fail. As much as some might try to marginalize this film as a screed against President George Bush, "F9/11" — as we saw last night — is a tribute to patriotism, to the American sense of duty — and at the same time a indictment of stupidity and avarice." He added it was a must-see: "But, really, in the end, not seeing ‘F9/11′ would be like allowing your First Amendment rights to be abrogated, no matter whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat."

So much for the cartoon image of Fox News as a land of Bush-loving automatons. The other rave reviewers in the commercial are Leah Rozen of People Magazine ("A massive home run!") and Jan Stuart of Newsday ("Wildly entertaining!")

UPDATE: Scott Whitlock e-mailed that Friedman had a similar rave for Al Gore’s "An Inconvenient Truth" — it’s featured on the cover of the DVD, he says. The quote: "It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative…your mind will be changed in a nanosecond."

Technorati Tags: bowling for columbine, cnn, confrontations, controversial documentarian, fahrenheit 9 11, filmmaker michael moore, fox news, gaffe, google, healthcare system, horror stories, liability problem, michael moore, mockumentary, personal horror, previous films, propagandist, script type, sicko, tim graham

WASHINGTON — One of three Guantanamo Bay detainees transferred by the Obama administration to Saudi Arabia had been implicated in the murder of an American.

The detainee, Ahmed Zaid Salim Zuhair, was accused in the 1995 shooting death of William Jefferson of Camden, N.J., who was working for the United Nations at the time in Bosnia. The death initially was thought to be the result of a mugging, but authorities later determined it was related to terrorism.

Zuhair was found with Jefferson’s watch, according to a FOX News source, though apparently there wasn’t enough evidence for the U.S. to prosecute him in military commissions.

The release of the three detainees to Saudi Arabia — the other two are Khalid Saad Mohammed and Abdalaziz Kareem Salim Al Noofayaee — comes amid fierce opposition in Congress to releasing such prisoners into the United States, but the White House insisted Friday it has not ruled that out.

But with narrowing options, the administration has begun shipping newly cleared inmates abroad to regain momentum in its effort to close the Cuba-based prison camp.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the administration has not abandoned the possibility of releasing detainees in the U.S., but he added that national security considerations would govern any moves.

"We’re not going to make any decisions about transfer or release that threatens the security of the country," Gibbs said at the end of a week in which nine detainees were transferred under high security to foreign nations, and one to the United States to face trial.

Gibbs said the release of those detainees showed "marked progress" and other decisions were being made on a case-by-case basis. President Barack Obama said last month that the cases of 50 detainees had been reviewed– and the administration said 48 of them were waiting for release to foreign nations.

But the prospects for any transfers of Guantanamo inmates to the mainland U.S. have dimmed in recent weeks as Congress acted to block funding to pay for the moves. And foreign countries have been hesitant to take even cleared detainees who were deemed not to pose security threats.

With the latest transfer, the U.S. has removed 10 detainees from Guantanamo in the past week, sending four to Bermuida, one to Chad, one to Iraq, and one to face trial in New York City. That leaves 229 detainees still at the U.S. military detention center in Cuba.

The three detainees who were sent home to Saudi Arabia will be subject to judicial review in Saudi Arabia before they participate in a "rehabilitation" program administered by the Saudi government, the U.S. Justice Department said.

U.S. officials told the Associated Press they were close to a deal with Saudi Arabia and Yemen under which Saudi Arabia would take about 100 Yemeni detainees and place them in Saudi-run terrorist rehabilitation centers.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private diplomatic contacts, would not say how many Yemenis might be transferred or when the agreement might be finalized.

Negotiations on the fate of the Yemeni inmates have been under way for months, stalled over a Saudi demand that Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh publicly endorse the proposal, the officials said. Saleh had refused to do so fearing a backlash among his people, the officials said, and, as of late last month, he preferred for Yemen to set up its own centers.

Obama has pledged to close Guantanamo by early next year, and U.S. officials have been searching for places to resettle detainees, lobbying hard with foreign governments. The pace of those efforts picked up last month after Congress said it would prevent detainees, even those cleared of wrongdoing, from being brought to the U.S.

A deal in principle has been reached with the Pacific island nation of Palau to accept some other detainees.

Besides detainees who might be freed, tried or turned over to foreign governments, there are still others — highly dangerous — who the administration says can be neither freed nor tried. These prisoners– "people who in effect remain at war with the United States," Obama has said– include detainees who may have received extensive al-Qaida training, commanded Taliban troops or sworn allegiance to Osama bin Laden.

Despite Gibbs’ comments, a key House panel approved legislation Friday that would deny immigration benefits to any Guantanamo detainees who might be released in the U.S. after being brought here for trial.

The bill, to be voted on soon by Congress, would be in effect until the end of the budget year at the end of September. Lawmakers could then extend the ban.

FOX News’ Catherine Herridge and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
To Rejected: read the text clown, the question is obvious, but I’ll break it down to retard level so it wil be easy for you to understand. There this one guy, who isn’t American, actually, he’s a bad guy, who killed an American and Obama is releasing him to Saudi Arabia so they can "make him all better". Maybe now you will understand.

Faux Nudes? Oh I get it, you think I got this information from Fox News, well retard, it was the New York Times, actually. Had you spent the time reading the article instead of coming up with smartass answers you would have learned something. You just came off looking silly and retarded, good job.
Of course, a Fox News Reporter contributed to the report, however the source is The New York Times.

Technorati Tags: ahmed zaid, case basis, fox news, google, guantanamo bay, high security, inmates, kareem, military commissions, national security considerations, prison camp, robert gibbs, salim, saudi arabia, script type, text javascript, time in bosnia, white house spokesman, william jefferson, zuhair

WASHINGTON — Former President Clinton’s national security adviser is under criminal investigation for taking highly classified terrorism documents that should have been turned over to the independent commission probing the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, FOX News has confirmed.

Sandy Berger (search) is under scrutiny by the Justice Department (search) following the disappearance of documents he was reviewing at the National Archives.

Berger’s home and office were searched earlier this year by FBI (search) agents armed with warrants after the former Clinton adviser voluntarily returned some sensitive documents to the National Archives (search) and admitted he also removed handwritten notes he had made while reviewing the sensitive documents.
However, some drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration’s handling of Al Qaeda terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration are still missing, officials and lawyers said. Officials said the missing documents also identified America’s terror vulnerabilities at airports to seaports.

• Click to read Berger’s testimony before the Sept. 11 commission (pdf file).

Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed the handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket, pants and socks, and also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio.

"I deeply regret the sloppiness involved, but I had no intention of withholding documents from the commission, and to the contrary, to my knowledge, every document requested by the commission from the Clinton administration was produced," Berger said in a statement.

There are laws strictly governing the handling of classified information, including prohibiting unauthorized removal or release of such information.

Lanny Breuer, one of Berger’s attorneys, said his client had offered to cooperate fully with the investigation but had not yet been interviewed by the FBI or prosecutors.

Berger served as Clinton’s national security adviser for all of the president’s second term and most recently has been informally advising Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Clinton asked Berger last year to review and select the administration documents that would be turned over to the Sept. 11 commission.

Late Tuesday, Berger announced that he would no longer aid Kerry’s presidential bid, saying he didn’t want to diminish the work of the Sept. 11 commission.

"Mr. Berger does not want any issue surrounding the 9/11 commission to be used for partisan purposes. With that in mind he has decided to step aside as an informal adviser to the Kerry campaign until this matter is resolved," Breuer said.

Deputy Attorney General James Comey told reporters Tuesday he could not comment on the Berger investigation but did address the general issue of mishandling classified documents.

"As a general matter, we take issues of classified information very seriously," Comey said in response to a reporter’s question about the Berger bind, adding that the department has prosecuted and sought administrative sanctions against people for mishandling classified information.

"It’s our lifeblood, those secrets," Comey continued. "It’s against the law for anyone to intentionally mishandle classified documents either by taking it to give to somebody else or by mishandling it in a way that is outside the government regulations."

‘Inadvertent’ Action?

The FBI searches of Berger’s home and office occurred after National Archives employees said they believed they witnessed Berger placing documents in his clothing while reviewing sensitive Clinton administration papers and that some documents were missing.

Berger said he returned some classified documents that he found in his office and all of the handwritten notes he had taken from the secure room, but could not locate two or three copies of the millennium terror report.

"In the course of reviewing over several days thousands of pages of documents on behalf of the Clinton administration in connection with requests by the Sept. 11 commission, I inadvertently took a few documents from the Archives," Berger said.

"When I was informed by the Archives that there were documents missing, I immediately returned everything I had except for a few documents that I apparently had accidentally discarded."

Breuer said Berger believed he was looking at copies of the classified documents, not originals.

Government and congressional officials said no decision has been made on whether Berger should face criminal charges.

Although lawmakers didn’t want to make a judgment call on Berger’s fate until all the facts are known, they agreed that the situation doesn’t look good for Berger, or even for Kerry.

"There’s an ethic here — that is of strict discipline, of not letting the fact you’re working on a political campaign start to color your actions when it comes to national security," Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., told FOX News on Tuesday.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., called the news "surprising" and said that "unless we learn otherwise, I have to assume that what Sandy said was right — that any removal of documents was inadvertent. But it is serious."

Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., said, "we need more information — obviously the timing of it is not good" for Kerry.

"From now on, until the election, everything like this will have a spotlight put on it, examined very carefully," Lott continued.

More ‘Innocent Than It Looks?’

David Gergen, who was an adviser to Clinton and worked with Berger for a time in the White House, said Tuesday, "I think it’s more innocent than it looks."

"I have known Sandy Berger for a long time," Gergen said in a television interview. "He would never do anything to compromise the security of the United States." Gergen said he thought that "it is suspicious" that word of the investigation of Berger would emerge just as the Sept. 11 commission is about to release its report, since "this investigation started months ago."

Berger testified publicly at one of the commission’s hearings about the Clinton administration’s approach to fighting terrorism.

Berger had ordered his counterterrorism adviser, Richard Clarke, in early 2000 to write the after-action report and has publicly spoken about how the review brought to the forefront the realization that Al Qaeda had reached America’s shores and required more attention.

The missing documents involve two or three draft versions of the report as it was being refined by the Clinton administration. The Archives is believed to have copies of some of the missing documents.

In the FBI search of his office, Berger also was found in possession of a small number of classified note cards containing his handwritten notes from the Middle East peace talks during the 1990s, but those are not a focal point of the current criminal probe, according to officials and lawyers.

Breuer said the Archives staff first raised concerns with Berger during an Oct. 2 review of documents that at least one copy of the post-millennium report he had reviewed earlier was missing. Berger was given a second copy that day, Breuer said.

Officials said Archive staff specially marked the documents and when the new copy and others disappeared, Archive officials called Clinton attorney Bruce Lindsey.

Berger immediately returned all the notes he had taken, and conducted a search and located two copies of the classified documents on a messy desk in his office, Breuer said. An Archives official came to Berger’s home to collect those documents but Berger couldn’t locate the other missing copies, the lawyer said.

Breuer said Berger was allowed to take handwritten notes but also knew that taking his own notes out of the secure reading room was a "technical violation of Archive procedures, but it is not all clear to us this represents a violation of the law."

Justice officials have informed the Sept. 11 commission of the Berger incident and the nature of the documents in case commissioners had any concerns, officials said. The commission is expected to release its final report on Thursday.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110009591

http://gogov.com/bergerwatch.htm

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,126249,00.html

Technorati Tags: clinton administration, clinton adviser, department search, fbi search, former president clinton, fox news, google, handwritten notes, independent commission, leather portfolio, millennium celebration, national security adviser, sandy berger, script type, seaports, search agents, sensitive documents, sept 11 2001, terror attacks, withholding documents

The problem is that the Obama Administration’s Department of Home Land Security botched the vetting of the pre-flight passenger list.

(Let’s not discuss here the poor vetting of the Obama Cabinet members, unless you see it as pertinant.)

In an apparently apologetic spin in behalf of the Obama administration Fox News called Friday’s terrorist activity on a NW flight a “thwarted plot”.

A statement which would tend to make one believe that the Obama Administration had prior knowledge and acted upon that knowledge…which by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs’ admission they did not.

A less supportive CNN reported what amounted to an admission by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs that the administration had nothing to do with stopping the “a botched terror attack”.

Obviously the Obama administration knew nothing and did nothing to prevent the security breech.

The question that I have is:

Do Americans really need to be subjected to a higher level of pre-flight screening when the problem is that Home Land Security approved, for a foreign government prior to take off a flight with a known terrorist on board, the passenger flight list?

Terror Suspect Wasn’t Considered Threat
Sunday, December 27, 2009

Suspect Not a Threat?

Suspect in thwarted plot to blow up plane not considered a danger despite being in government databases

The alleged Christmas Day terrorist had been in one of the U.S. government’s largest terror databases since November, when his father brought him to the attention of embassy officials in Nigeria. But Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab came to the attention of intelligence officials months before that, according to a U.S. government official involved in the investigation.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,581211,00.htm, Sunday, December 27, 2009, 08:39:26 AM PST, FOX NEWS

Obama orders review of flight screenings
December 27, 2009 10:32 a.m. EST

(CNN) — President Obama has ordered a review of security screening processes after Friday’s botched terror attack on a U.S. airliner, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Sunday.

Appearing on the ABC program "This Week" and the NBC program "Meet the Press," Gibbs said Obama is receiving regular briefings by his national security staff on the incident in which a suspect allegedly tried to detonate an explosive device on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam, The Netherlands, making its final approach to Detroit, Michigan.

The suspect, 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was on a broad watch list of 550,000 names since last month, Gibbs said

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/12/27/airline.attack.security/index.html, Sunday, December 27, 2009, 08:42:37 AM PST, CNN News

Technorati Tags: cabinet members, christmas day, cnn, embassy officials, farouk, flight screening, fox news, google, government databases, intelligence officials, obama, passenger flight, passenger list, pertinant, robert gibbs, script type, secretary robert, security breech, terror attack, white house press