The Garlic: Department of Homeland Security

Showing posts with label Department of Homeland Security. Show all posts

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Straighten Up and Fly Right

Jeez, it's not like flying on the holidays sucks big time, all by itself.

Terror Attempt Seen as Man Tries to Ignite Device on Jet

This is going to get ugly, and fast.

I am surprised, that Liz and Dick Cheney weren't on the tube last night (Faux News, of course), perhaps still donning Christmas stocking caps, wagging fingers, saying "I told you so", over-and-over, as well as planting conspiracy seeds that President Obama, himself, planted a bomb on the plane ... Or that he was rushing to Detroit, to embrace the wanna-be terrorist, and give him a Cabinet post.

It shouldn't take too long, today, for the Flying Monkeys of the Right Wing Freak Show, to start connecting-the-dots, between loser terrorist in Detroit, and the woman who attacked the Pope (only knocking him down, damn it) and how that means we're all being fucked by Obama, and that the new Healthcare Reform Bill will be extended to cover terrorists (and, there'll be a new "Birth Certificate" controversy tucked in there, somewhere, since the hapless terrorist was from Nigeria, which is close to Kenya, or, you know, in Africa, thereby making it a slamdunk).

Josh Marshall, at TPM, shows a hint of that, reporting that "9:07 PM: In advance of being briefed, Rep. Hoekstra (R-MI) uses the Detroit incident to attack President Obama and tie it to the Fort Hood shooting."

Hoekstra, if you recall, teamed up with Rick "Man Fucks Dog" Santorum a few years back and, irrefutably, discovered the Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.

Unlike the Congressman, Steve Benen was a bit more pragmatic;

We'll no doubt have a better sense of what transpired in the coming days, but at this point, plenty of key questions have gone unanswered. How did Abdulmutallab, whose name appears to be included in the government's records of terrorism suspects, get his materials on board? How dangerous were the materials? What, if any, ties did he have to larger terrorist networks?

And, Jeff Fecke, on Alas, A Blog, sets what should be the tone;

No, this attack is not reason to panic. It’s reason to laugh long and hard at those who want to scare us, reason to invoke bad double entendres about this wannabe’s crotch fire, like the one in this sentence. And most of all, it’s reason to cheer the demise of al Qaeda, a truly terrible organization that now has been reduced to setting small fires. I just hope no terrorist decides to egg my house. That could be horrible.

Take it away, Nat;

Nat King Cole - Straighten Up and Fly Right

Bonus Links

Ben Frumin: White House Believes NW Incident An Attempted Act Of Terrorism

Sarah Wheaton: From a ‘Pop’ to a Headlock, Passengers Recall Flight 253

Faiz Shakir: Hoekstra Quickly Politicizes Attempted Terrorist Attack, Suggests Obama’s Clueless On National Security

Larisa Alexandrovna: The no-fly-list fail...

Friday, July 13, 2007

Minced Garlic - New Keith Olbermann Special Comment ... All hail the prophetic gut!

Last evening, we had another Special Comment, "All hail the prophetic gut!", from our anchor-hero, Keith Olbermann, on MSNBC's 'Countdown with Keith Olbermann'.

The gutless wonder, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, was the target and it was less rage, by Olbermann, and more, ohh, humor.

At various points, with Olbermann smiling and grinning, it appeared that he had to stifle just laughing outloud.

We riffed on this the other day, with a Top Ten Cloves: Other Things DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff Feels In His Gut, and, in noting The Commander Guy morphing into The Shakespeare Guy, while he launched another fear-laden Bushapalooza, we had to note that, it was a "Good thing Chertoff doesn't have arthritis - if his bones start aching, what does that mean - Armageddon?"

Olbermann came out swinging, not only hitting on Chertoff, but taking a sharp swipe at the Bush Grindhouse;

You have by now heard the remark — instantly added to our through-the-looking-glass lexicon of the 21st century, a time when we suddenly started referring to this country as “the homeland,” as if anybody here has used that term since Charles Lindbergh or the German-American Bund in 1940.

Michael Chertoff’s “gut feeling.”

A little further into the Special Comment, Olbermann recounted elements of his Watch The Video of his excellent "Nexus of Politics and Terror", rattling off;

We used to have John Ashcroft’s major announcements.

We used to have David Paulison’s breathless advisories about how to use duct tape against radiation attacks.

We used to have Tom Ridge’s color-coded threat levels.

Now we have Michael Chertoff’s gut!

And he brought it home with "only five possible explanations for Mr. Chertoff’s remarkable revelations", that being letting his gut replace policy and competence, leading off with;

"Firstly, Mr. Chertoff, you are, as Richard Wolffe said here the other night, actually referencing not your gut but your backside — as in, “covering it.” CYA."

After calling Chertoff a "hunch-driven clown", what else was left, but to give a hearty, Homeland salute.

"All hail the prophetic gut!"

Links

Watch The Video of Special Comment: Michael Chertoff's gut

Read Olbermann: All hail the prophetic gut!; Explaining Michael Chertoff’s counterterrorism stomach

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

"Anyway, look, nobody has accused me of being Shakespeare, you know?"

Rough Day... Hot, humid and still reeling from the Michael Moore - CNN - Dr. Sanjay Gupta steel cage, no-holds-barred, my-sister-my-daughter, tussle ...

And what was with the Baseball All-Star Game last night ... Pimping Willie Mays around in a pink Cadillac? ... Throwing baseballs into the stands? ...I guess it comes down to, the "Say Hey Kid", even with the title of "greatest ever", you have to pay your own freight ...

But all this takes a back seat to the launching of the Summer 2007 Bushapalooza.

And the take-away, Quote-of-the-day?

"Anyway, look, nobody has accused me of being Shakespeare, you know?"

No shit, Dick Tracy!

Yeah, and nobody is accusing - or confusing - you with being a competent President, either.

Speaking in Cleveland yesterday (is there something about a president, plummeting to 29% approval, having to go to a city whose river once caught fire, to give a speech?), and The Decider/Commander/Shakespeare Guy banged the Sept 11th and al Qaeda drum like a certain toy rabbit selling batteries.

Now, was this meant to create his own line of fear, to obfuscate his accountability, or to try to dampen the bad news pouring out of the country he invaded and is occupying?

A verbal volley to to keep the members of his party from running out the back door?

Or, was it meant to compliment the Human Terror Alert, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, and his idiotic, gastronomic pronouncement that "I don't know, something might happen ... I got a feeling in my gut"

Good thing Chertoff doesn't have arthritis - if his bones start aching, what does that mean - Armageddon?

Don't Worry, Be Happy!

I don' know, it seems that the Good Ship Neocon is taking on water.

Maybe they're feeling the pressure. Or, perhaps they've had too much exposure to lead.

I mean, if we pull out of Iraq, and all goes to hell, what future president is going to run to the PNAC or AEI to get their war-mongering advice and Invade Any Country Starter Kit?

Just last Friday, Secretary of War Cheerleading, the Weekly Standard's William Kristol (or "Krazy Kristol" as Michael Stickings over on The Reaction likes to call him), in a Time Magazine Op-Ed, rolled out the emotional duct tape, blaming everything, from the Bush Grindhouse, to Bosnia to Rwanda to Afghanistan, saying our only problem was that "Today we're moody again ..."

And Iraq.

"The key question, of course, is the fate of Iraq. A decent outcome--the defeat of al-Qaeda in what it has made the central front in the war on terrorism and enough security so there can be peaceful rule by a representative regime--seems to me achievable, if we don't lose our nerve here at home. With success in Iraq, progress elsewhere in the Middle East will be easier. The balance sheet is uncertain. But it is by no means necessarily grim.

And that was backed up, by his fellow "Bring It On" cheerleader, Fred Kagan, of the AEI:

"The worst that can be said of [the escalation] at this point is that the results have been mixed. I frankly think the results are less mixed…We can argue about statistics, but at the end of the day, that argument is not going to get us anywhere right now. … Whatever you can say about the current strategy, it has not failed."

The Sunshine Boys

Then, enter this week, stage right, the tap dancing, fear mongering, "al Qaeda's everywhere" team of Chertoff and Bush

With the Republicans baling out on their titular party head, Iraq, and the rest of the area going up in smoke, Vice President distancing himself in some other branch of government, his commutation of Libby looking more like he is attempting to buy, at least, one friend, they'll be rolling out the props again ... It's Bushapalooza time!

If Kristol and Kagan don't push him along, the Congressional investigations and subpoenas will certainly give us more over-the-top rhetoric, more body parts of the DHS Secretary sounding alarms, more check-your-closets-and-under-your-beds for terrorists, more speeches, like the Cleveland one, of Bush threatening "your children and grandchildren".

Geez, too bad he isn't a Shakespeare guy ... There's enough comedy in this tragedy to make it interesting, though we're sitting, getting antsy, waiting for the final curtain to fall on this show.

Links

Eugene Robinson: "Resolute Amid the Wreckage"

William E. Odom: "Supporting the Troops" Means Withdrawing Them"

Keith Olbermann Video: "Impeach Bush, save the troops?"

Glenn Greenwald: "Our broken political discourse"