Al-Qaida has been allowed to establish significant training bases in the lawless tribal regions of Pakistan, according to a New York Times article, which cited feuding counterintelligence agencies, a risk-averse policy and the Bush administration’s shift of focus from Afghanistan to Iraq in 2002 as reasons for the continued failure to catch Osama bin Laden.
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Robert Gates last week expressed “real concern” about the rising violence in Afghanistan and blamed Pakistan for failing to put pressure on militants in the tribal areas.
“Our enemies will test the new president early. Remember that the truck bombing of the World Trade Center happened in the first year of the Clinton administration. Sept. 11 happened in the first year of the Bush administration.” — Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., sowing fear, along with support for the “tested” John McCain, on CBS’ “Face the Nation“
“Here is the difference between McCain and Obama — and Obama had better pay attention,” columnist Richard Cohen wrote. “McCain is a known commodity. It’s not just that he’s been around a long time and staked out positions antithetical to those of his Republican base. It’s also — and more important — that we know his bottom line. As his North Vietnamese captors found out, there is only so far he will go, and then his pride or his sense of honor takes over. This — not just his candor and nonstop verbosity on the Straight Talk Express — is what commends him to so many journalists.
“Obama might have a similar bottom line, core principles for which, in some sense, he is willing to die. If so, we don’t know what they are. Nothing so far in his life approaches McCain’s decision to refuse repatriation as a POW so as to deny his jailers a propaganda coup. In fact, there is scant evidence the Illinois senator takes positions that challenge his base or otherwise threaten him politically.”
It was bad enough that seven state surplus computers offered for sale were found to still contain confidential information such as Social Security numbers and personal data about Medicaid recipients. Worse, the surplus property program had used inmate labor until January 2007, mostly female inmates from the Topeka Correctional Facility. A spokesman for the Kansas Department of Administration assured the Topeka Capital-Journal that the computers were never turned on when the inmates were around, but nothing about this investigation inspires much confidence — including assurances that it won’t happen again.
It may look and sound like a political ad and, now, even have been coordinated with a candidate’s campaign, but its backers aren’t subject to Kansas campaign finance laws if the ad doesn’t explicitly tell people for whom to vote. That’s according to a frustrating advisory opinion issued by the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission. The panel can’t do anything about “issue advocacy groups,” which can spend as much as they want with no disclosure of donor lists or expenditures, until the Legislature does. “That’s the law and it will be until Kansas changes it,” said Carol Williams, executive director of the commission. In any case, get ready for more such ads and mailers this year.
Al-Qaida has been allowed to establish significant training bases in the lawless tribal regions of Pakistan, according to a New York Times article, which cited feuding counterintelligence agencies, a risk-averse policy and the Bush administration’s shift of focus from Afghanistan to Iraq in 2002 as reasons for the continued failure to catch Osama bin Laden.
