Top Democrat: We're Totally Unprepared for Dirty Bomb Attack

Back during the Bush days if a Republican mentioned something like this we'd be told they were just doing it to scare voters. But I guess in this election cycle it's OK to do. Frankly, I'm surprised she didn't suggest Tea Partiers would be behind it.

The U.S. is “unprepared” to deal with a radiological or small arms attack even though both are likely to occur, according to a top ranking House lawmaker on intelligence issues.

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment, said the possibility of a Mumbai-style attack, in which gunmen storm a specific area, is much more likely to occur than a dirty bomb attack, but that both scenarios are serious and real threats to U.S. national security.

“I’m surprised there hasn’t been a successful conventional attack in the United States,” said Harman at a New America Foundation event on Wednesday.

Don't worry, Jane. Since our borders are wide open the bad guys will find a way in. Harman also helpfully draws a map for terrorists while throwing Obama and his band of incompetents under the bus.

Harman, who receives regular classified intelligence briefings, said the White House hasn’t done a good job explaining the European scare to Americans, which she described as “a real threat.”

“[The government] ought to offer people more specific guidance,” she said. “This warning has led to more confusion than was necessary…I wish our own government right now were giving more sensible advice to people to know what to look for and what to do.”

Harman is most concerned that westerners will fly into the U.S. undetected -- via the visa waiver program -- after they’ve received terrorist training in the Middle East. The program allows citizens of certain countries to travel to the U.S. for tourism or business for up to 90 days without having to get a visa.

Several years ago, Harman traveled to New York City and toured three of the city’s major hospitals to inspect the levels of security they use to keep radiological materials safe from theft by terrorists.

“They are not adequately secured,” said Harman of the materials. “It’s not that hard to storm into one of these hospitals, take the source out of the machine and put together a crude bomb and explode it almost immediately, before law enforcement can arrive in adequate numbers.”

Blue On Blue Cat Fight

Looks like the radical wing of the Democrat party, known as Progressives, spearheaded by folks like Kos, and Huffington have their panties in bunch over a fund raiser being held for Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), which is being co-hosted by Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA).

This is the way it breaks down. Lynn is the Progressive champion. They consider Jane to be a Blue Dog. How the hell they get to that conclusion I have no idea. The definition of a Blue Dog is somebody who is fiscally conservative. I realize this has to be weighed against the California definition of fiscally conservative, but even using that definition I don't think you could classify Harman as a Blue Dog.

So anyway, they are calling for protests at this fundraiser, demanding that Woolsey be kicked out of the Progressive caucus, and just acting like spoiled kids who didn't get what they wanted for Christmas.

However, I want to direct your attention to the flyer that accompanies this little shindig.

Hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar?? Really? This is how the champions of the downtrodden act? Can you say hypocrisy?

Both of these women will spend immense amounts of time making speeches pleading with the masses about how they are working in Congress for the common people and spending large parts of their allotted time on the house floor telling stories about the poor, poor, constituent back home who's fallen through the cracks, suffering at the hands of evil capitalism. While eliciting a tear or two in the process about how Americans are suffering, they're holding fundraisers at posh sites where the only way any of these poor, tired, huddled masses can get anywhere near them is if they are on the wait staff.

The other part I love is that not too long ago we were inundated with stories of a Republican Party in such disarray that they were to be placed on the endangered species list. And in much the same way they attack Tea Party folks, proclaiming them to be just a bunch of angry, disjointed, old white folks not to be taken seriously, it would seem it is the other side of the political spectrum that is in disarray.

I mean, c'mon, look at Massachusetts where a Republican is actually threatening to defeat the Democrat for the legacy seat held by Ted Kennedy.

So yeah, the Progressives can wage their war on the so-called Blue Dogs within the Democrat party and in the meantime I will just pop some popcorn and watch the liberal side implode and lose even more seats to further whittle away at their stranglehold on power.

By the way, the term Blue Dog Democrat is an oxymoron. I am represented by a so-called Blue Dog and there is not a single spending bill that he opposed. Quite the opposite; he sends out emails bragging about how many earmarks he manages to insert into legislation.

Who are the elitists now?

Enjoy your hors d'oeuvres.

Rep Harman From Homeland (In)Security Committee

This morning Jane Harman (D-CA) and member of the Homeland Security Committee appeared on Fox and Friends and was interviewed by Gretchen Carlson. Rep Harman has crossed paths with Nancy Pelosi on a couple of occasions, but never forget she a Democrat and liberal through and through.

While listening to this interview the first thing that jumped out at me was how she repeated the assertions that Gitmo was being used as a recruiting tool by Al-Queda. Yeah and before that it was Abu Grabass and after Gitmo is a distant memory it will be the prison at Bagram. What they fail to answer is what is it that Al-Queda used as a recruitment tool prior to any of those places being in existence.

When questioned about plans to have a prison opened in Illinois to transfer the Gitmo guests to and the fact that the people of IL weren't real thrilled with the idea, her response was to say that the move to IL was welcomed by the government officials.

Yup, thats right. People be damned, some government official has given his stamp of approval and gosh darn it that is the end of that.

She wraps it up by talking about 200 terrorists or wannabe terrorists are currently in our federal prison system while only 3 have had their cases finalized through the military tribunal system. That is because so many people from her side of the aisle were sympathetic to their cause that they managed to delay and block the prosecution of these prisoners, who were all captured on foreign soil, which is another big distinction to make.

None of the current terrorists in federal prison were captured in foreign lands, they were all caught here and only after they had either carried out an attack or had that attack fail allowing for their capture.

Oh yeah, she takes the obligatory swipe at former president Bush.

A president who responds quicker to a child being hurt while on his vacation then he does a failed terrorist attack on Christmas Day aboard an airliner, who gives shout outs to folks in the audience before addressing the terrorist attack at Ft Hood, the head of our terrorism unit who couldn't be pulled away from the ski slopes to respond to this most recent attack, the head of DHS who proclaimed that the system worked, and all of the Democrat sympathizers in Congress who only want to give these guys three hots and a cot while not hurting their feelings certainly forebodes some dark times ahead for Americans.

Jane is worried about "winning the argument against these terrorists". To people like her this whole thing is nothing more then some sort of high stakes debate. I suggest that if she wants to debate these guys, our guys in Afghanistan can arrange a meeting so that she can put forth her arguments. I am sure her reasoned and well thought out talking points will win them over in no time.

If they can understand her through the head to toe bag they put her in.

John Heinz Kerry the Wealthiest U.S. Politician

Thanks to marrying Mama T, of course. Otherwise he'd probably be a pauper compared to some on this list.

The new kids walking the halls of Congress this year are also some of Capitol Hill’s richest lawmakers.

About a tenth of the 50 wealthiest lawmakers were either voted in during the election last November or appointed during early 2009. Reps. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), as well as appointed Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Ted Kaufman (D-Del.), are among the newcomers with pockets deep enough to make it on to The Hill’s Rich List.

The richest lawmaker is Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), a veteran senator and 2004 presidential nominee, who has a net worth of at least $167.8 million, thanks to his wife’s fortune. Some of the members well known for their wealth, such as Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Jane Harman (D-Calif.), are also on the Rich List, with hundreds of millions of dollars in assets.

Kerry and Harman have seen their fortunes decrease by millions of dollars compared to their reported wealth in previous years. Harman’s headline worth fell by more than $100 million from her 2007 estimate. Kerry saw a decline of more than $70 million. Issa, however, got richer. His wealth increased by at least $4 million, compared to reports from last year.

It doesn't indicate how Issa made is fortune, although he's apparently a savvy investor if he managed to make money in the past year.

Of the top 50, there are 26 Democrats and 24 Republicans. Keep that in mind when you hear these wealthy liberals playing the class warfare game.

Pelosi Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002

She and several others. They were well aware of what's been going on, so it's more than a bit disingenuous to claim this is news to them.

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange. Congressional leaders from both parties would later seize on waterboarding as a symbol of the worst excesses of the Bush administration's counterterrorism effort. The CIA last week admitted that videotape of an interrogation of one of the waterboarded detainees was destroyed in 2005 against the advice of Justice Department and White House officials, provoking allegations that its actions were illegal and the destruction was a coverup.

Yet long before "waterboarding" entered the public discourse, the CIA gave key legislative overseers about 30 private briefings, some of which included descriptions of that technique and other harsh interrogation methods, according to interviews with multiple U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge.

With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).

Seeing this exercise in stupidity, one can only wonder if our enemies can ever stop laughing at us?

The reaction from the left is hysterical.

UPDATE: More from Bryan at Hot Air.