Showing posts with label FBI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FBI. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Billy Boy's 3rd Term

This is a re-print of an article by Gary Bauers of American Values

http://www.ouramericanvalues.org/

Bill Clinton’s Third Term

Throughout the campaign, Barack Obama rarely missed an opportunity to tie Senator McCain to President Bush. He repeatedly suggested that a McCain presidency would essentially be George Bush’s “third term,” offering “more of the same.” The charge was effective and worked well for Senator Obama. The “change” mantra is a powerful political message. In fact, there is a well-established trend in modern political history of the American people flipping to the “out” party after one party has controlled the White House for eight years.
For example, after eight years of Republican Dwight Eisenhower, Democrat John Kennedy won. After eight years of Democrats Kennedy and Johnson, Republican Nixon won. After eight years of Nixon and Ford, Democrat Jimmy Carter won. Carter’s presidency was such a disaster that the American people didn’t wait eight year to change parties, and they elected Ronald Reagan in 1980. Reagan’s presidency was so successful that the American people gave him a “third term” in the election of his vice president, George H. W. Bush. After eight years of Democrat Bill Clinton, the American people chose Republican George W. Bush. And eight years later, they swung back to the Democrats with the election of Barack Obama.
Now, I do not mean to suggest that the outcome of each election is fatalistically pre-ordained. Of course issues, candidates and events do matter. But the trend is significant enough that Obama seized on the “change” mantra and made it a central theme of his campaign. In voting for Senator Obama, the American people clearly rejected the idea of a “third Bush term.” But there is an old saying in Washington: “Personnel is policy.” And it seems from President-elect Obama’s appointments that we are getting Bill Clinton’s third term.
As I mentioned in a previous report, an overwhelming percentage of Obama appointments have ties to the Clinton Administration, and he has continued to tap the “Clinton well” in the past few days. His choice for Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, served as under secretary for international affairs during the Clinton Administration. Larry Summers, a former Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton, may be brought into the White House as President-elect Obama’s senior economic advisor. Vice President-elect Joe Biden chose as his chief of staff, Ron Klain, who was Vice President Al Gore’s chief of staff for four years during the Clinton Administration. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who was the Energy Secretary and UN ambassador under Bill Clinton, reportedly will be Secretary of Commerce.
And we’re still waiting for the formal announcement that Hillary will get the plum post of Secretary of State. In one way, Obama has succeeded in bringing people together. Many conservatives and progressives are furious that so many “Clintonistas,” including Hillary herself, have been appointed to key positions. Leftists who voted for Obama hoping for “change” are feeling cheated because it appears as though we are going “back to the future” and getting Bill Clinton’s “third term.” Conservatives who lived through those scandal ridden years and those, like me, who had their FBI files pulled by hyper-partisan bureaucrats aren’t looking forward to reliving them.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Is another ATTACK coming?

According to this article from NEWSMAX.COM it is soon and why will terrorist wait until AFTER the election? Read for yourself in this article written by Ronald Kessler. He quotes Frederick Stremmel, a retired major counterterrorism FBI agent of 25 years.

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Ex-FBI Analyst Predicts Attack After Election
Tuesday, September 30, 2008 12:42 PMBy: Ronald Kessler
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Al-Qaida or affiliated groups probably will attack the United States in the months after the election to “welcome” the new president, says Frederick Stremmel, a former top FBI counterterrorism analyst.

Stremmel, who retired from the FBI a year ago after working the major counterterrorism cases for 25 years, tells Newsmax that al-Qaida would not attack before the election.
“They know our weaknesses and in some cases how to impact public opinion,” he says. “The best example is the timing of the Madrid bombings which occurred near election day in Spain. The Madrid attacks probably impacted the Spanish elections and ultimately led to diminished Spanish government support of U.S. foreign policy.”
Al-Qaida knows that an attack before the election would help elect Republican Sen. John McCain, Stremmel says. The terrorists would prefer Democratic Sen. Barack Obama because they believe he would “swing the pendulum back” to more lenient anti-terrorism policies, Stremmel says.
“The months following the election or inauguration of the new administration is prime time for an attack,” he says. “They will want to impact the new administration and its policies. There is a history of Islamic terrorists wanting to make life miserable for successive administrations.”
That is why al-Qaida attacked the U.S. less than eight months after President Bush took office.
“I do not think the timing of the 9/11 attacks came out of the blue,” Stremmel says. “I have always thought that al-Qaida wanted to attack the new administration that followed Clinton’s. I think a goal of al-Qaida was to attack within a year of the new administration taking power.”
Al-Qaida sees the economic crisis as another reason to attack soon.

Al-Qaida is “looking at the current financial meltdown in the United States and the West,” Stremmel says. “They know the United States is spending itself to death. Through terrorist attacks, they will want to try and get us into a bigger economic hole. Never forget that Bin Laden’s first job was business and finance related.”
The most likely target will be the domestic U.S., Stremmel says. However, he says the FBI does not believe al-Quaida has a presence in this country. But an attack such as al-Quaida’s 2006 effort to take down nine American airliners flying to the U.S. would have an effect on the economy as severe as an attack here, Stremmel notes.
“If my analysis is on the mark, al-Quaida has already chosen its target and the time to stage an attack,” he says.
James R. Fitzgerald, a former FBI profiler who interviewed terrorists at Guantanamo Bay and has had access to al-Qaida documents, agrees with Stremmel’s assessment.
“I believe the most dangerous time in the near future for this country will be between Election Day and President Bush’s last day in office,” says Fitzgerald, who now is with the Academy Group in Manassas, Va., which provides profiling services for private industry.
Al-Qaida knows that, if it attacked before the election, “It would get McCain elected,” Fitzgerald says. “For obvious reasons, they would much prefer Obama.”
Fitzgerald adds, “They would love to be able to claim for all perpetuity that despite Bush’s best efforts to suppress the terrorists, he did not prevent another 9/11 event. If it’s going to happen, it would be between roughly Nov. 4 and Jan. 20.”

But Kevin R. Brock, a former FBI agent who was principal deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center, disagrees with the theories. Although speculation about attacks timed to the election may seem logical and rational, Brock says, “Al-Qaida is neither, and so far has not followed such dependable, predictive patterns. Could it happen? Sure. But my sense is that any such prediction would be based more on luck than hard intelligence. We have much more intelligence on what they like to target as opposed to when they like to target.”

Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com.