Republican hearts surely danced last night, if only briefly, as news broke of an attempted shoe-bombing on a United flight from D.C. to Denver, an event that surely would have refocused the nation’s attention on the threat posed by Islamist terrorists and away from the recent wave of domestic terrorism provoked by the Republicans’ own extremist base. But unfortunately for the GOP, the alleged shoe-bomber turned out only to be a sarcastic Qatari diplomat sneaking a smoke in an airplane lavatory.
Ah well, back to covering the real and present threat to our domestic tranquility.
Local GOP candidate Mark Griswold, who was defeated by Frank Chopp 85%-15% in 2006, spoke for many conservatives when he posted on Stefan’s anti-American blog:
“Congratulations Speaker Pelosi, now let the bombs fall where they may. My prediction: terror attack on domestic soil passenger aircraft within the next six months. Casualties in the 2-300 range. And, unfortunately, maybe that’s just what we need. It’s obvious people don’t remember what happened 5 years ago. Posted by FullContactPolitics at November 8, 2006 10:52 AM”
http://blog.usefulwork.com/cgi.....ry_id=7430
Roger Rabbit Commentary: That’s right, these people want terrorist attacks, they want innocent Americans to die, because they believe it will further their political movement’s electoral interests. What pathetic pieces of shit.
(Note: Griswold was identified as “FullContactPolitics” through the competent detective work of our friend Richard Pope, who discovered a comment on Sound Politics which Griswold signed with both his screen name and real name. And Griswold’s not the only one; I’ve seen similar sentiments posted by other conservative commenters.)
“that’s just what we need”
Yeah, just what we need, alright, 200-300 Americans dying just so wingnuts can score cheap political points in the hope that Republicans will regain power and control.
@1
Hmmmmmm….and here we sit in 2010 and no attempt on any flight of domestic origin and no casualties.
So that prediction was SPOT ON.
The policies of Speaker Pelosi made the sky fall. Cluck, Cluck. Cluck. Cluck. Cluck. BokBokBokCl-uuuuuuuu-ck!
@1 Who cares about terrorism? It’s trivial in your statistical chance of death.
Even 9/11 was tiny. Dude, at least 10,000 people die every YEAR (not just once 9 years ago) from drunk driving car accidents. Dude, 10K f**king people every year. That’s 3 times 9/11, EVERY year. And we don’t give a crap. Alcohol is still legal and advertised. There’s not “war on terrorism” like fight to save those 10K lives a year.
Can you IMAGINE if there were 3 9/11 sized American causality events EVERY SINGLE YEAR for 20 years? How would we react to that?
Just some perspective. I don’t WANT to die by terrorism, but I’m orders of magnitude MORE likely to die by drunk driver.
P.S. It was about 25,000 deaths per year back in 1980. And 30 years on, alcohol is still legal, but we spend $1 trillion in a war on terror. Funny.
There hasn’t been a successful terrorist attack on the US because Obama kept on doing what President Bush did to prevent it.
The same things that got all sorts of sand in your collective vaginas when a Republican president did them, draw no mention now that a Democrat occupies the White house.
Hypocrites.
Obama had to put out a hit on an American citizen for you lot to even notice.
@6….lots of truth to that. When it comes to fighting terrorism, not much has changed policy-wise for the last 6-7 years.
– you’re gonna love my nuts..
Reply to Roger Rabbit and Steve posts: Here’s SMOKING GUN EVIDENCE that points to 9/11/01 being AN INSIDE JOB:
http://www.whatreallyhappened......rvice.html
Here are the fundamental questions that, unfortunately, our corporate mainstream media pundits are too damn chicken to ask: the instant the first World Trade Center tower was struck, how come the Secret Service didn’t storm the classroom and pull Bush out of there pronto? How did they know he was not in any danger? How on earth did they know there wasn’t a hijacked plane bearing down on Booker Elementary School that very instant?
@7
Let me be the first, publicly on HA to disarm the righties, “You don’t criticize your own” mantra.
There is NOTHING in your link that comes even close to evidence.
Truther = birther = irrational.
I blame MaoObama for the Michigan Militia terrorists!
Why have the librul media ignored this threat from our own home-grown fanatics?
Why has NOONE noticed that the softies in the Ohh – oohhh Bama admin have charged these terrorists in CIVIL court!
Can’t the left figure out that we are at war??? Send these slime ball, virgin birthers to Gitmo where they belong!
Reply to czechsaaz: Have you ever seen “Fahrenheit 9/11”? Some of the video footage present in the link I previously cited was used in this Michael Moore picture. Furthermore, here’s another URL that provides SMOKING GUN EVIDENCE of rightwingers WANTING “a new Pearl Harbor” to hit the U.S. (i.e. 9/11/01) so that they would get the support of the American populace:
http://www.newamericancentury......fenses.pdf
The phrase “a new Pearl Harbor” is found on page 51 of this document.
Republicans hoped for a terrorist bomber?
Really?
Fuck You and the Diplomat you rode in on.
Are you so blinded by your idiology that you actually feel that your fellow Americans wish harm on our citizens (or anyone else for that matter.)
Oh…I get it it’s joke just like the one that asshat diplomat supposedly made.
Yeah, funny yelling bomb in a airport or fire in a movie theater Ha Fucking Ha.
@10
Get your logic out of your ass!!! I realize I’m banging my head on a wall as no amount of ACTUAL critical thinking will disabuse a birther/truther of his delusions, but here goes…
Your own link answers one of the smoking gun bits of “evidence.”
The claim that there were NORAD excercises on 9/11 is based on the recollection of a comment made to Richard Clark and detailed in his book “Against All Enemies” published in 2004. There is no record of such an excercise. So to beleive that is evidence you must be willing to beleive that the ENTIRE staff @ NORAD is so loyal to Bush over country that they would keep silent as to the existence of the excercise and accept the murder of U.S. Citizens on U.S. Soil as a reasonable action. O.K. You beleive that’s what happened. You beleive that every member of NORAD personel is covering it up. That makes you irrational.
But even still, IF said excercise were under way, high command of NORAD WOULD have known which planes were actually hijacked vs. which were part of the excercise and would be able to relay that info to the Secret Service in real time.
From your post. “In Theory, no one could have known how many planes had been hijacked.” Butin practice Air traffic controllers began contacting all airborn aircraft shortly after Mohmad Atta accidentally transmitted to Air Traffic Control at 8:23am. At this point, there is only one known hijacked airplane with intention unknown. By the time of impact with the first tower airborn aircraft were being notified of potential cockpit intrusions and ONLY the known Hijacked aircraft either failed to respond with an all-O.K. Flight 93 hadn’t even left the ground yet.
And here’s where your theory REALLY breaks down. Air Traffic control is a funny thing. Even in the absence of radio contact, unless an aircraft is “flying on the deck” under radar, Air Traffic Control knows the position of every single commercial aircraft within a few meters in real time. The flights in question took off from Boston and crashed in New York, took of from D.C. and crashed in D.C., and took off in New Jersey, flew all the way to Ohio circled back and crashed in Pittsburgh. The final flight #93, in fact left the ground in New Jersey just minutes before the first impact.
So how did the combined knowledge of NORAD, Air Traffic Control, and the Secret Service KNOW that Bush was in no immediate danger? Simple, the affected flights, not including #11 that had already made imapact, were still HUNDREDS of flight miles, several hours of flight time, away from Sarasota.
“Quod Erat Demonstrandum” all the “evidence” pointed to in your link is the random fantasy of what the author wishes could be proven.
Rich @ 7
I’ve suffered thru a smattering of those truther videos. (A friend of mine is a true believer.) It’s all crap. Thoroughly debunked. Ad nauseum.
Those ghost hunter shows on cable contain more truth.
I encourage you to pick a different delusion. There are plenty of other popular ones, most of them with less stigma. From memory:
big foot
yeti
alien abduction
the illuminati, freemason, knights templar
orbital mind control lasers
larouche
return to the gold standard
loch ness monster
subliminal messages on tv and in movies
reiki
ramtha
deepak chopra
dr phil
water witching
lie detectors
@13…you forgot one:
The moon landings were faked.
– you’re gonna love my nuts..
czech @ 12
You have a better chance of convincing Mr. Cynical that the earth orbits the sun.
Digby had a great insight:
Say you’re the peddler of some cultist belief. The appeal to new recruits is an invitation to your delusion.
Humans are hard wired to want to belong to something bigger than themselves, to have everything make sense.
The actual beliefs of any of these goofy subcultures are irrelevant. Adherents don’t even have to suspend disbelief.
What is important is the group, the community, the sense of belonging, having a group identity, the feeling of superiority that you and your crew have everything figured out.
To counter such nonsense, you need a more compelling narrative, a community, and way to intake refuges from other social movements.
Rich @ 10
You confuse motive (and motivation) with opportunism.
@13
I’m a freemason. I assure you we are very very real and very very scary. In fact, I have the code to unlock alchemy. I can turn stone into gold.
I’d let you come pet my Bigfoot, but then I’d have to kill you.
Roger Rabbit,
1. I ran in 2004, not 2006.
2. If you’re trying to imply that 15% is a poor showing, Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times pointed out that, every election year prior to me running, Chopp received a vote total that “would make a dictator blush, 100%”.
3. I’d hardly call Richard Pope’s “detective” work “competent” (not that I’d call it incompetent either). It required scrolling over my name to view my email address.
4. My comments didn’t mean that I “wanted” a terrorist attack (say, compared to people making a video about assassinating President Bush), simply that I figured the weakling Democrats would fold to the pressures of the peacenik lefties and reduce our efforts in the war on terror. Thankfully I underestimated my predictions and it took more than six months and it was only a score of deaths, not thousands. Regardless though, Pelosi, Reid and Obama HAVE “changed” this nation and for the worse.
5. It’s time to let it go. Really, what is your fascination with comments I left 3 and half years ago. It’s obsessive. Again, let it go! Trust me, you’ll sleep better at night.
“Regardless though, Pelosi, Reid and Obama HAVE “changed” this nation and for the worse.”
For the worse? Well geez, Mark, seeing how much how worse off this nation was after years of Republican rule, er, governance, this country must really suck big-time now. Surely there must be some way in which we’re all better off today.
“score of deaths, not thousands”
Hey, Mark, maybe this is it. Try this out. Seeing as how thousands of Americans died when America was attacked by terrorists under the last president’s watch, wouldn’t you agree that this President’s performance is a vast improvement? Heck, under the last president we lost Americans at the rate of over 30 a month. If Obama was losing folk at that pace we’d have lost nearly 500 so far. Say, how many did you say died under President Obama? Hmm, I’m sure your including the deadly attacks on Americans by right-wing extremists but I should probably ask just to make sure.
NORAD did scramble interceptors to watch this plane, just in case. At least we have the fast combat jets to reach an airliner that may or may not be hijacked. Would be better if we had more of the F-22s, or at least put their supercruise capability into the F-35. With the Supercruise, the Raptor can go Mach 1 without the fuel-gulping afterburner.
I’ve always wondered what the point to scrambling a jet next to a hijacked one was, it isn’t like they can cut the jets engine and attach a parachute to it or land a boarding party.
Most likely to bring it down before it hits an urban area. Remember golfer Payne Stewart’s jet having the cabin depressurization and it flew on autopilot until it ran out of fuel? NORAD had interceptors follow it just in case, but it ran out of fuel over a field in South Dakota. Although to this date, the Pentagon says there was no shoot-down order on that one either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1.....and_escort
I saw one documentary on Flight 93 where they were talking to the husband of one of the flight attendents, and he had said that he told her, if they got the plane back, he would talk them down over the phone. He was a pilot with another airline.
Reply to czechsaaz and Jason Osgood:
Regarding my post on 4/8/10 at 12:33 PM (#10): No, on the contrary, you BOTH need to engage your CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS. Have either of you folks REALLY explored the website of PNAC (Project for the New American Century)? Here’s the URL:
http://www.newamericancentury.org
Remember: several members of that notorious rightwing cabal (Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Donald Rumsfeld) served in G.W. Bush’s administration. Other members include: Dan Quayle (Bush Sr.’s VP), Elliott Abrams (a former Reagan administration cabinet member), Jeb Bush (W’s brother), and Steve Forbes. OK, I’ll admit there’s not enough hard evidence to indict any of the people I’ve mentioned so far, but there’s still TONS AND TONS OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE out there today that raises this nagging question: did the Bush administration really WANT 9/11/01 to happen? Remember: if the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago White Sox can win World Series titles in the SAME decade, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!
Go for it checksez… Show Puddy your “powers” at a Tuesday night DL. I’ll bring some DUMB BUNNY ROCKS.
Checksez, you mean Richard Clarke, the one who let the Bin Laden family leave the US as he told everyone in his 9/11 testimony and book?
The Richard Clarke who praised President GW Bush in 2002 before the DUMMOCRAPTS turned him with promises?
“JIM ANGLE: You’re saying that the Bush administration did not stop anything that the Clinton administration was doing while it was making these decisions, and by the end of the summer had increased money for covert action five-fold. Is that correct?
CLARKE: All of that’s correct.”
More inconvenient facts for Steve to “mull over”. Head heard exploding in the distance.
Just asking checksez is that the same Richard Clarke…?
You see arschloch… the libtardo mind is very forgetful!
@20…you will have to talk to the obama administration on why we have so few F-22’s….they cancelled the program.