State Department to Grant Gays Equal Benefits

May 24, 2009 - WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will soon announce that gay American diplomats will be given benefits similar to those that their heterosexual counterparts enjoy, U.S. officials said Saturday. In a notice to be sent soon to State Department employees, Clinton says regulations that denied same-sex couples and their families the same rights and privileges that straight diplomats enjoyed are "unfair and must end," as they harm U.S. - 4 Comments

Excerpt From State Department Daily Press Briefing

Jan 31, 2009 - Excerpt From State Department Daily Press Briefing Robert Wood/Acting Spokesman January 29, 2009 QUESTION: About a month or two ago, there was an IG report that warned that Blackwater was likely going to lose its license to operate in Iraq. That has now happened. Considering that you guys have been aware of this impending decision for some time, I presume that contingency plans have been made. - 6 Comments

Recruited For Jihad? --- About 20 young Somali-American men in Minneapolis have recently vanished.

Jan 26, 2009 - Dan Ephron and Mark Hosenball NEWSWEEK From the magazine issue dated Feb 2, 2009 It didn't trouble Burhan Hassan's mother that her son had been spending more time at the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center, Minneapolis's largest mosque. A 17-year-old senior at Roosevelt High, Hassan and his family had fled civil war in Somalia when he was a toddler. Some of the other Somali immigrants in the Cedar-Riverside housing project where he lived got drawn into gangs with names like Murda Squad and Somali Mafia. - 0 Comments

U.S. Fears Iraq Won't Keep Up Rebuilt Projects

Nov 21, 2009 - BAGHDAD — In its largest reconstruction effort since the Marshall Plan, the United States government has spent $53 billion for relief and reconstruction in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, building tens of thousands of hospitals, water treatment plants, electricity substations, schools and bridges. But there are growing concerns among American officials that Iraq will not be able to adequately maintain the facilities once the Americans have left, potentially wasting hundreds of millions of dollars and jeopardizing Iraq’s ability to provide basic services to its people. The projects run the gamut — from a cutting-edge, $270 million water treatment plant in Nasiriya that works at a fraction of its intended capacity because it is too sophisticated for Iraqi workers to operate, to a farmers’ market that farmers cannot decide how to share, to a large American hospital closed immediately after it was handed over to Iraq because the government was unable to supply it with equipment, a medical staff or electricity. - 11 Comments

Holder's Decision "Reasonable"

Nov 20, 2009 - Jim Comey, a deputy attorney general and U.S. attorney in Manhattan during the Bush administration, is general counsel of Lockheed Martin Corp. Jack Goldsmith, an assistant attorney general during the Bush administration, teaches at Harvard Law School and is on the Hoover Institution's Task Force on National Security and Law. - 1 Comment

Is America at War?

Nov 18, 2009 - By Patrick J. Buchanan Are we at war — or not? For if we are at war, why is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed headed for trial in federal court in the Southern District of New York? - 16 Comments

"We're too scared to have real trials in our country" is a level of cowardice unmatched in the world.

Nov 14, 2009 - http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/11/14/terrorism/index.html Understanding and Combatting Terrorism, USMC Major S.M. Grass, 1989: 'Terrorism is a psychological weapon and is directed to create a general climate of fear. As one definition cogently notes, "terror is a natural phenomenon, terrorism is the conscious exploitation of it." - 0 Comments

Closed Shop (or how Obama plans to get folks back to work)

Nov 12, 2009 - Closed Shop By Kevin Mooney on 11.12.09 @ 6:07AM Non-union construction workers could be locked out of new federal projects thanks to an executive order President Obama signed back in February on the sly as part of a payback to organized labor. The election of Republican governors in Virginia, and especially New Jersey, who are both opposed to union-only favoritism in contracting, could complicate the administration’s efforts, at least on the state level. The loss of New Jersey must be viewed as a particularly acute setback, given how active labor bosses and White House operatives were in their failed effort to secure re-election for a long-time ally. - 5 Comments

The Hasan Case: Overt Clues and Tactical Challenges

Nov 11, 2009 - The Hasan Case: Overt Clues and Tactical Challenges By Scott Stewart and Fred Burton In last week’s global security and intelligence report, we discussed the recent call by the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Nasir al-Wahayshi, for jihadists to conduct simple attacks against a variety of targets in the Muslim world and the West. We also noted how it is relatively simple to conduct such attacks against soft targets using improvised explosive devices, guns or even knives and clubs. The next day, a lone gunman, U.S. - 2 Comments