Scoop’s Views

Senate is rewarding telecommunications providers for breaking the law
York Times is reporting that the United States Senate, by a vote of 69-28, approved a bill overhauling the rules covering secret government eavesdropping and granting immunity to telecommunications companies that aided in the wiretapping of Americans without warrants. Doing Chicago-style two-stepping, Barack Obama, who originally spoke harsh words against the illegal wiretaps, voted today in favor of granting immunity to the telecommunications companies. His former presidential contender, Hillary Clinton, stayed true to her original position and voted against the immunity.

Tags: Barack Obama, Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, David Stout, domestic spying, due process rights, eavesdropping, Eric Lichtblau, FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigations, federal courts, FISA, foreign, Hillary Clinton, Homeland Security, illegal wiretapping, immunity, intrusions, mismanagement, National Security Agency, No Such Agency, NSA, phone subscibers, re-election, Senate, senators, telecommunications companies, telecoms, terrorist attacks, terrorists

An unidentified Marine sniper, formerly stationed in Iraq, has been pulled out of the country and sent back to the United States. Why? Because he allegedly used a Quran as a target early this month during some target practice at a shooting range at the Radhwaniya police station, located on Baghdad’s western outskirts, according to reports.

Did the U.S. Marine do this? Under U.S. law and the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), a case must first be made, and then his innocence or guilt is determined, not hang him first and then figure out later if he actually did anything wrong. Oh, wait! Muslims are offended by this offense, so, by all means, let’s hang him now and later figure out his guilt or innocence.

Tags: Afghanistan, al Qaeda, armed forces, Article 6, Bagdad, Baghdad, billions of dollars, bulldozers, Christians, commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, Constitution, criminal act, deep concern, food, George W. Bush, Gordon Johndroe, guilt, guilty, Holy Bible, homes, inner-city, innocence, Iraq, Iraqi Islamic Party, Iraqi Prime Minister, Islam, Jews, Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, Marine sniper, Muslims, National Security Council, Nuri al-Maliki, police officers, police station, Quran, Radhwaniya, radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, reprimand, Saddam Hussein, schools, Section 3, severest of punishments, shot Quran, shot-up Quran, sniper training, spokesman, Talmud, target practice, U.S. law, U.S. Marines, U.S.-Mexico border, UCMJ, Uniform Code of Military Justice, video teleconference

Are President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, and India’s Pradeep S. Mehta, secretary general of the center for international trade, economics and the environment of CUTS International, an independent research institute based in New Delhi, all locked in an emotional argument without fact-based evidence?

Tags: American society, better food, better nutrition, Bombay, call centers, China, Condi, customer service skills, CUTS International, Dubya, exportation, exporting, exports, famine, food, high demand, hungry people, imports, India, Indian economy, middle-class, Missouri, New Dehli, nutrition, outsourcing, political paradigms, politically incorrect, Pradeep S. Mehta, President George W. Bush, prices increase, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, sub-Sahara

It seems one idiot at Guantanamo, Osama bin Laden’s former “media manager” — media as in video, not public relations, and definitely not free, as in gas, not open-source software — Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al-Bahlul. Related to him, at least in terms of idiocy, is Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi, who was also held at Gitmo, but was released in 2005.

Tags: 69 virgins, Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi, Afghanistan, Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al-Bahlul, Cuba, Gitmo, Guantanamo, Islam, Kuwait, Kuwaiti, military tribunal, Mosul, Mosul Iraq, Muslims, suicide bomber, suicide bombers, Tom Wilner, Yemen, Yemeni

Eric DeShawn Floyd, the last of three suspects believed to have killed Philadelphia Police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski, has been captured, then handcuffed with the handcuffs formerly belonging to Sgt. Liczbinski. Floyd is now resting, most hopefully, uncomfortably in a cell here in Philadelphia.

Tags: AK-47, AK-74, cop killers, dilapidated house, Eric DeShawn Floyd, Eric Floyd, Germantown Masjid, girlfriend, Howard Cain, Levon Warner, Mayor, Michael Nutter, Muslim garb, Muslims, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Police, Philadelphia Police Department, police, robbery, Sergeant Stephen Liczbinski, Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski, SKS, Stephen Liczbinski, Tariq El Shabazz, vacant house

While listening to the the Senate hearings last week on the conflict in Iraq, I became sick to my stomach by the way the politicians were demanding clear cut answers, but also by comments that were made.

Tags: Bagdad, Baghdad, Bath, bombings, combat, deaths, Delta Force, families, homefront, IEDs, insurgents, Iraq, Kirkuk, Life, Malaki, Marines, SEALs, shootings, soliders, Special Forces, suicide attacks, suicide bombers, Sunnis, Tikrit, tour of duty, troops, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Marines, U.S. Navy, United States

Sometimes payback is slow in coming, but when it does, just remember that it will be very pointed. That seems to be what happened earlier this morning in Mogadishu when missiles were fired at a house suspected of being inhabited by al-Qaeda operatives.

If you remember the town’s name — Mogadishu — it was the site of a a 1993 battle between members of the U.S. Army Rangers and Delta Force against a local warlord, Mohammed Farrah Aidid, and his gun-toting followers.

Tags: 75th Rangers, al Qaeda, al-Qaeda operatives, Bill Clinton, Delta Force, heroes, missile strike, missiles, Moagishu, Mohammed Farrah Aidid, Rangers, Special Forces, U.S. Army, U.S. Army Rangers, U.S. Navy

A news alert from The New York Times came in two minutes ago announcing the U.S. Senate had just approved expansion of the federal government’s spy…

Tags: Barack Obama, CIA, crimes, cronies, DHS, domestic spying, FBI, George Bush, Hillary Clinton, Homeland Security, John McCain, New York Times, news alert, NSA, polling booth, president, presidential election, revolt, revolution, Senate, senators, spy powers, spying, telephone companies, TIA, vote, wiretapping

Barack Obama has one of those names that just doesn’t roll off my tongue. No amount of practice will make that happen, it seems. In an effort to try to make his name one of those one the tip of my tongue names, I even tried using the tune from Louie Louie, a classic rock and roll song, written in 1955 by Chuck Berry, singing, Obama, Obama, but what happened next, most likely predictable, especially in this day and age, things changed.

As I sang the self-created lyrics in an effort to get Obama’s name a familiar roll on my tongue, the words, Obama, Obama … yeah, Obama, Obama became, eerily enough, Obama, Obama … Osama, Obama.

Tags: Barack Hussein Obama, Barack Hussein Obama II, Barack Obama, Barry O., Campaigns, Elections, Ethics, Government, Health, History, Immigration, Iran, Iraq, Islam, Legal, Muslims, Obama cheerleaders, Obama fanaticism, Obama fanatics, Politics, Politics As Usual, presidential campaigns, Religion, Society

A British teacher, Gillian Gibbons, went to teach this year at a school in Sudan that has, for almost 100 years, been run along the lines of Christianity. Not long after the school year began, Gibbons was arrested and charged with “insulting Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.”

When Gibbons went to teach at Unity, which is but one of several British schools in the country, she taught in classrooms hidden behind tall brick walls that shut out, what one news outlet described as the dust of everyday Sudanese life. The walls serve another purpose, according to various media reports, which say it serves to transport visitors into the shady courtyard of an Oxford or a Cambridge University-type setting or that of an English private school.

Tags: beheadings, crying Muslims, Education, executions, Islam, Life, Mahammed, Mohamed, Mohammed, Mohammed as a teddy bear, Muhammed, Muslim beheading, Muslim fanatics, Muslims, Muslims upset, Muslims want teacher executed, Prophet Mohammed, Religion, teddy bear Mohammed, teddy bear named Mohammed

Crawling out of hiding from a cave in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden looked at the midnight sky for but 30 seconds before running back inside as quickly as he could. The coward of all cowards didn’t want to take a chance on being spotted by a Predator drone over his cave.

Aside from his rushed once-a-night stroll, the only news about bin Laden in the news recently is that he is accusing NATO troops of killing women and children.

Tags: Afghanistan, bin Laden, children, Iraq, Osama bin Laden, Osama bin Laden kills children, Osama bin Laden kills for fun, Osama bin Laden kills women, terrorism, terrorists, War on Terror, Women, women and children

It seems inevitable that when U.S. Senator John McCain (R-Az.) opens his big mouth, people dislike what he says. Most of the time, I don’t even come close to agreeing with anything from the guy. There’s just something about the guy — other than him being a politician — that makes me not trust him.

Tags: Abrams, American Jewish Committee, Arizona, Bill of Rights, Caesar, Christian principles, Christians, church-and-state, cockroach dancers, courts, Declaration of Independence, George W. Bush, God, Iran, Islam, Jeffrey Sinensky, John McCain, M1, Muslims, political correctness, politically correct, presidential election, sharia, Sinensky, think tank, Thomas Jefferson, U.S. Constitution, U.S. is not a Christian nation