Of Political Assassins and Deranged Shooters

Evil exists in the world. It can be seen in the eyes of Jared Loughner shown above. Loughner is the mentally unstable shooter captured at the scene of his attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her constituents in Tucson two weeks ago. Unfortunately, too many liberals (including the Democratic Sheriff of Pima County, Arizona who is responsible for the shooting's investigation) quickly blamed the shooting of 19 people (six of whom died) on a climate of hate allegedly created by harsh uncivil political rhetoric by Tea Party advocates, conservative talk show hosts and Sarah Palin.... before much information about the actual gunman was even known.

It has since been learned that Loughner had a history of strange behavior that led the Pima County Community College (where he had been taking classes) to suspend him. The College's campus police served notice of Loughner's suspension at his parents' home (where the young man lived) with a warning that, in order to return to classes, Loughner would have to present a doctor's certification that he was not a threat to himself or others.

Loughner's friends have stated that Loughner never watched TV news, listened to talk radio nor was politically active. Rather he seemed obsessed with dreams, language and his own peculiar view of his Constitutional rights. It has also been established that he first met Congresswoman Giffords at a constituent gathering in 2007 at which time he became upset at her inability to answer to his satisfaction a nonsensical question he posed to her. In 2007, very few people outside of Alaska knew about Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement had not yet begun.

I have wondered whether Loughner spent much time playing violent video games in which the players shoot as many villains as possible with realistic graphic results colorfully displayed. You can watch an example of such first person shooter games here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyCyzB0CedM

One Irish media website raised the same question and expanded it to include violent images in movies as well: "There are many Hollywood liberals who make movies that are exceedingly violent yet point the finger at Republicans for hate speech. Their own creations are helping with the hate too." http://www.irishcentral.com/story/news/periscope/violent-films-video-games-played-role--in-gabbie-giffords-shooting-killings-113422074.html

Unfortunately, the media coverage of the tragic event in Tucson has been more focused on political speech, which had nothing whatsoever to do with Loughner's actions, than on what the shooter himself did in recent years outside of his College career and short term jobs. Could watching violent movies or spending hours shooting video guns at realistic looking human victims have resulted in the demented dreams that captured Loughner's obsessed thoughts? We will likely never know unless a trial reveals such information.

Since this tragedy was so quickly misjudged as a politically motivated attempt to assassinate a Democratic Congresswoman, it seems appropriate to distinguish between real political assassinations and acts of madmen throughout our history.

POLITICAL ASSASSINATIONS

John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, was politically motivated in order to avenge the Southern cause after the surrender about a week earlier of the Confederate Army to the Union; effectively ending the Confederacy and the Civil War. After being cornered in a farmer's barn by soldiers who had tracked him and an accomplice from Ford's Theatre for almost two weeks, Booth was shot and killed by Sergeant Boston Corbett.

Charles Guiteau, who assassinated President James Garfield in 1881, shouted his political motivation immediately after he shot the President saying "I am a Stalwart... [Vice President] Arthur is now President." The Stalwart movement opposed Garfield's policies, and Vice President Chester Arthur was considered a Stalwart, who was put in the ticket with Garfield to appeal to the Stalwart faction. Guiteau was convicted, sentenced to death and executed by hanging in 1882.

Leon Czolgosz, who assassinated President William McKinley in 1901, was politically motivated by the anarchist movement of the day. Although Czolgosz never joined any anarchist group, he had been greatly impressed by a speech he had heard by political radical Emma Goldman, who was a leader in the anti-government anarchist movement. Czolgosz was convicted, sentenced to death and executed by electrocution in 1901.

Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated President John F. Kennedy in 1963, was a Communist sympathizer who had lived in the Soviet Union for several years and after his return to the US joined a group supporting Communist Cuba. It has been speculated that he was trying to gain Cuban support for his anti-American activities when he acted on his political agenda in deadly fashion. Two days after the assassination, Oswald was shot and killed by Jack Ruby in the Dallas police station.

James Earl Ray, who assassinated Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, was a racist opposed to King's leadership role in the Civil Rights movement. Ray confessed to the murder to avoid a death sentence, but questions remained about where he got enough money to flee to Europe before his arrest by Scotland Yard in London. It is possible that bounties offered by other racists for King's murder influenced Ray's action. Ray died in prison in 1998.

Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated Senator Robert Kennedy during the 1968 Presidential Primaries, is a Palestinian born American who opposed Kennedy's pro-Israel policies. Sirhan was captured at the scene, convicted and continues to serve a life sentence.

DERANGED SHOOTERS

Richard Lawrence, who was the first person to try to assassinate an American President, attempted to shoot President Andrew Jackson in 1835, but his two pistols misfired. He was captured at the scene by those with the President, including Congressman Davy Crockett. Lawrence believed that he was King Richard III of England and that Jackson owed him money. Lawrence was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was committed to several hospitals for the insane until his death.

John Hinckley, Jr. shot and wounded President Ronald Reagan in 1981 because he wanted to impress actress Jodie Foster. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and remains in St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, DC, the same mental institution in which Richard Lawrence died.

Seung-Hui Cho, a student at Virginia Tech, shot and killed 32 people and wounded many others in a one-man massacre on the Virginia Tech campus in 2007. Cho, who had previously been in therapy, was found by a Virginia judge to be mentally ill and ordered Cho into treatment, but there had been no action to assure his follow-up treatment. Some of his professors had previously notified administrators of their concerns about Cho's strange behavior and writings, but again no adequate follow-up took place. Cho killed himself at the final scene of his shooting spree.

There are many other incidents of deadly attacks on politicians or public figures, as well as mass shootings of average citizens, in our history, but it is often difficult to determine what motivated some of those pulling the triggers and coldly killing other human beings when the shooters die at the scene of their crimes, as did the Columbine High School shooters in 1999. Nevertheless, whether politically motivated or caused by deranged insane minds, these acts of violence result in tragic consequences for the victims, their family and friends, society and our sense of humanity.

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A Fortunate Terror-Free Christmas for 2010

On the morning of December 20, 2010, British police arrested 12 men in a large-scale counterterrorism operation at a time when there have been growing concerns about threats of terrorist attacks across Europe. The Wall Street Journal reported that: "The arrests represent one of the largest counterterror operations by U.K. authorities in recent years... Recent months have seen a number of terrorist-related arrests across the region, including in Belgium, Denmark and Norway... An attack by a suspected suicide bomber this month in Stockholm heightened fears that terror groups are targeting nontraditional sites." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703886904576030912668857954.html

These arrests came after al Qaeda had warned Europe of the threat of a commando-style attack, such as the one conducted in Mumbai in 2008. Since the arrests, it has been learned that one of the planned targets for these terrorist plotters in the UK was the US Embassy in London.

Yet in the afternoon of December 20, hours after the British arrests had been reported on numerous news broadcasts and Internet sites, the man above, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, sat down for a television interview with ABC news anchor Diane Sawyer, along with his Homeland Security colleagues, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and White House Counterterrorism Advisor John Brennan, and responded to Diane Sawyer's question about the UK arrests with a blank stare and the response "London?". Brennan quickly clarified that he knew of the arrests and saw no concern for the US homeland.

Since the US Embassy in London was found on the suspects' "targeting list", as the Weekly Standard said, the first official response from Brennan that "there was no apparent 'homeland nexus' is small comfort to the Americans working at the London embassy. In addition, embassies have long been attractive targets for jihadists. Any threat to an American embassy, especially from a group that was already practicing with explosives, is serious."

The next day, Brennan told the press: "I know there was attention by the media about these arrests and it was constantly on the news networks. I am glad that Jim Clapper is not sitting in front of the TV 24 hours a day and monitoring what is coming out of the media.”

Why would anyone in the 21st Century have to watch TV 24 hours a day to keep up with the latest news? Does DNI Clapper not own a smart phone or other mobile device with Internet access as most of the US population does? Does Clapper not have staff traveling with him on appointments, especially to an interview on national television, who have easy access to the Internet 24/7; not to mention the fact that any such staff should have had information about important arrests of Muslim jihadists by one of our closest allies in order to brief the head of "National Intelligence"? Later the DNI's office admitted that Clapper had not been briefed on the arrests in the UK before going to the ABC interview.

The office of the Director of National Intelligence was created by Congress after the 9/11 Commission recommended such a function in order to better coordinate the sharing of information between the various intelligence agencies. If the current DNI does not know of the latest developments in fighting terrorism, why do we have this office and the bureaucracy that goes with it?

DNI Clapper's failure to be in the loop on the UK arrests is also particularly troublesome because "American officials have repeatedly trumpeted the cross-Atlantic counterterrorism cooperation between the UK and U.S. How, then, could American authorities not have known that this bust was going down? And if they did know, as they almost certainly did, then how could they have forgotten to tell the DNI? In other words, there are good reasons to believe that Clapper should have been informed not only after the fact, but also beforehand." http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/dni-director-james-clapper-needs-know_525796.html

Since the UK arrests took place, five other suspected Muslim jihadists were arrested in Denmark and Sweden for planning a commando-style gun attack at the Copenhagen offices of a Danish newspaper that printed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005. All of the unsuccessful jihadist attacks stopped by our allies' efficient counterterrorism operations in Europe appear to fit within the scope of the threat issued by al Qaeda earlier in the holiday season.

I wonder if our Director of National Intelligence knows about these events since apparently, according to the White House Counterterrorism Advisor, Clapper does not follow TV news and seems to lack routine access to the Internet or even "intelligent" staff.

How fortunate we were that these terrorists were caught by our European allies. If any such terrorist plans had been directed at the US homeland (as one was in 2009 on a Christmas day flight from Amsterdam) would our current team of Counterterrorism "Keystone cops" have stopped it? What a fortunate Christmas we have had.

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Mainstream Media Takes Notice of the Public Sector-Private Sector Income Disparity

My last post noted that recent survey data has shown the advantage that public sector workers have over private sector employees in terms of total compensation, including salary and benefits. I also noted that part of the reason for this advantage is due to the higher proportion of graduate and professional degrees among public sector workers. The Washington Post last week published the graphs shown above that demonstrate this disparity in educational achievement, as well as the fact that public sector workers are generally older than private sector workers.

Nevertheless, the Washington Post noted that state politicians in particular are talking about this pay package disparity between public and private sector workers because many states' fiscal problems are in large part due to the burden of having to pay for public workers' benefits, especially the pensions of their retirees. The general public is also likely to become increasingly concerned about, not only the pay package disparity, but also the relative security of public jobs during a period of continuing high unemployment throughout the country.

The Post quoted several elected state officials talking about this new type of class warfare:

"We can no longer live in a society where the public employees are the haves and the taxpayers who foot the bill are the have-nots," Wisconsin's incoming Republican Gov. Scott Walker declared this month, as he raised the idea of stripping state workers there of collective bargaining rights. Outgoing Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who is mulling a GOP presidential bid, also sounded a class-war note last week on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal: "Unionized public employees are making more money, receiving more generous benefits and enjoying greater job security than the working families forced to pay for it with ever-higher taxes, deficits and debt."

It is not only Republicans that are recognizing this issue. Democratic Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo in New York is preparing to face the issue in that state when he takes office next month "warning that state employee salaries and benefits are unsustainable at a time when the state has a $9 billion deficit."

The Washington Post goes on to note: "Relative job security with generous benefits that extend into retirement has long been part of the appeal of working for the government. But an eight-hour day in a drab Independence Avenue office building can look like a supremely privileged lifestyle when Americans in the private sector are panicked and furious over what has happened to their own salaries, health coverage and 401 (k)s. Add to that the growing view that the government has gotten too big and that deficits are going to swallow the economy, and you have all the makings of a backlash." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/20/AR2010122005225.html?tid=wp_featuredstories

In an October editorial in Newsweek magazine, Mortimer Zuckerman stated that we are becoming "two Americas", but not the type that politicians have usually been talking about: that is the class warfare between rich and poor. Rather Zuckerman said that the division between the public sector and the private sector will define the "two Americas". He quoted from a 2009 Mayo Institute study that found "private-sector workers three times more likely to be jobless than public-sector workers", and Zuckerman notes public sector employees can thrive even in a down economy.

Zuckerman also stated that the compensation gap has been growing quickly in recent years because federal employees have been awarded bigger average pay and benefit increases for nine years in a row. As a result, he says this "is tantamount to a wealth transfer from the citizens to the people who serve in government". As I noted in my last post, even the federal pay freeze recently announced by President Obama will not stop all federal pay increases over the next two years, as his announcement may have implied.

As I have said before, the fact that there exists this pay disparity, on average, between public and private sector workers does not prove that public sector workers are overpaid because other factors such as the types of jobs, experience and educational levels must be considered. However, the fact that this issue is getting more attention by the mainstream media and state officials facing growing fiscal deficits at a time when high unemployment continues to plague the economy, while public workers are more secure in their jobs, will assure that the term "class warfare" will likely start to take on a new meaning.

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Are Federal Workers Earning Their Pay?

A couple of weeks ago, President Obama announced a freeze on federal workers' pay for two years. The freeze only applies to the "cost-of-living" raises given annually and only to the Executive branch workers (other than military personnel). Congressional members and their staffs' earnings are not included. It also does not apply to the automatic step increases that federal employees routinely get or to overtime pay. So federal workers will continue to get pay increases in spite of the fanfare given to the President's announcement.

There has been much discussion and analysis regarding the question of whether federal workers are overpaid, as the above graph published in USA Today suggests. The graph illustrates average pay over the entire federal and state/local government workforces compared with the full range of jobs in the private sector. It is often pointed out that government workforces have a larger segment of professional and college graduate employees than the private workforce in general.

President Obama even made this statement when discussing the issue of whether federal workers are overpaid:

"[T]he data we get back indicates that high-skilled workers in government are slightly underpaid. Lower-skilled workers are slightly overpaid relative to the private sector... And that's not surprising because it's a unionized workforce" in government, while the private sector typically is not.

Of course, one reason that highly skilled workers are "slightly underpaid" is due to the large number of lawyers who work for the government, who represent a much higher percentage of any government workforce than the private sector. Lawyers working for government salaries generally make much less than they would in private law firms or even in corporate law departments. However, they do not usually make government work their full career. They move out of government with valuable experience into the much higher paying jobs after their government service.

It is also worthy of note that, as above graph demonstrates, federal benefits represent a much higher average amount of federal compensation than benefits do in the private sector. In addition, while private sector workers have suffered lay-offs and high unemployment during the recession of the past few years, federal workers have much more job security. In fact, the federal workforce (not counting Census workers) has grown in the last two years. All of that federal job growth, job security and steady pay increases (even though now reduced some) likely accounts for the fact that seven of the highest ten average household income counties in the USA are in the Washington, DC metro area.

But my concern is not so much with whether government workers are overpaid as it is with whether they really earn whatever they are paid. Just look at the major foul-ups and misdeeds by many in the federal workforce, including lawyers, in recent years that could be contributing to the general public despair and uncertainty about the country's direction and outlook for the future.

To start with the economic meltdown, we need to look at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which has as its mission the job to oversee and regulate the financial and securities industry and protect public investors. We learned earlier this year that while the financial industry was on the way toward near-collapse beginning with the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in 2007 that investigations by the SEC inspector general’s office found 33 agency employees (including lawyers) violated internal policies by viewing pornography for hours a day since at least 2005. How many unreasonable Wall Street risks and unscrupulous investment schemes went undetected by the SEC because their "underpaid" professional workforce was distracted with porn?

It has also been reported that a whistleblower brought evidence of Bernie Madoff's scams to the SEC staff several times over several years before someone paid attention to it. After Madoff's arrest, we learned that he perpetuated the largest "Ponzi scheme" in history; costing his investors about $50 billion in lost investments.

Recently, it has been disclosed that many mortgage foreclosures have been filed without proper paperwork, including actual evidence that the parties filing foreclosure actions really had the right to foreclose. When these problems were discovered, many banks froze all foreclosure proceedings across the country for weeks while new procedures were put in place.

These banks and other companies in the chain of the mortgage processing industry are regulated by an alphabet soup of federal agencies that have the power to audit and investigate the companies' books and procedures. However, no federal agency uncovered these major problems in foreclosure actions that have been displacing homeowners and driving down real estate values nationwide over the past several years. Rather it was a pro bono lawyer in the private sector representing a homeowner defendant in a foreclosure action whose diligence discovered a common industry practice that led to foreclosures all over the country being put into question.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April again brought up ethical issues reported by Inspectors General (IG) at the Interior Department for several years about the Minerals Management Service (MMS) in the Department, which had the responsibility for approving which oil companies received leases to drill for oil in the Gulf and for collecting government royalties due under those leases. An IG report released a month after the BP oil rig in the Gulf exploded and started leaking "found that [MMS] inspectors had accepted meals, tickets to sporting events and gifts from at least one oil company while they were overseeing the industry. Although there is no evidence that those events played a role in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the report offers further evidence of what many critics of the Minerals Management Service have described as a culture of lax oversight and cozy ties to industry."

The New York Times article from which the above quote is taken goes on to say:

"The [IG] report includes other examples of troubling behavior discovered by [MMS] investigators. In mid-2008, a minerals agency employee conducted four inspections on drilling platforms when he was also negotiating a job with the drilling company.... And an inspector from the Lake Charles office admitted to investigators that he had used crystal methamphetamine, an illegal drug. Investigators said they believe the inspector may have been under the influence of the drug during an inspection." http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/us/25mms.html

While the May report focused on the agency's Lake Charles, Louisiana office, previous IG investigations of the MMS found inappropriate behavior by the royalty-collection staff in the Denver office.

None of these problems at MMS was news to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. He had ordered a new ethics program at MMS soon after he became Interior Secretary. Nevertheless, it was not until after the Gulf oil spill that Salazar reorganized the oil leasing agency by separating safety oversight from the division that collects royalties from oil and gas companies. He also replaced the head of the agency and renamed it the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

It has also been reported year after year that there are many federal employees who owe back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). According to a report by the IRS last year, federal workers owed $3.3 billion in delinquent income tax payments for 2009.

The Homeland Security Department has also had a few lapses of note. The most serious problem was the failed attempt by a Nigerian Muslim extremist last Christmas to blow up an aircraft traveling from Amsterdam to Detroit. In spite of this would-be bomber buying a one-way ticket with cash and recently visiting Yemen for a couple of months, he did not get any extra scrutiny before boarding the plane. Later it was also learned that this young man's father had reported his concerns about his son's extremist leanings to the US Embassy in Nigeria. Although the Embassy reported that information to the State Department, the intelligence community did not get the information to airport security personnel. After the fact, all air travelers are now being subjected to special scanning machines or more intrusive pat-downs before boarding planes.

In recent weeks, there have been reports of drivers transporting nuclear material across country for the federal government being observed drinking alcohol while en route. In addition, last week it was reported that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is missing important information about 199,000 aircraft listed on its registry of commercial aircraft.

And, of course, in recent weeks, the world has had access to a treasure trove of classified US State Department cables as a result of the Wikileaks disclosures on its own website, as well as the sites of major news organizations given prior access to the cables by the Wikileaks staff. It is suspected that the Wikileaks staff was provided with these classified government cables (and other classified government files disclosed several months ago regarding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) by an Army intelligence officer named Bradley Manning who is now in military custody awaiting court martial.

Manning had access to classified government files when he was stationed in Iraq as an intelligence officer. His ability to download hundreds of thousands of secret government files on to a device that he then took out of a military intelligence center near Baghdad without oversight or detection is a security failure of supreme significance. Any intelligence center permitting military access to classified information of the type being released by Wikileaks around the globe should have been subject to security procedures carefully designed and installed by high level experienced military intelligence personnel. But the Wikileaks fiasco suggests that even people of this supposed high level of professionalism failed miserably in carrying their extremely important duties.

While this list of fairly recent federal worker foul-ups, misdeeds, ethical lapses and disregard for official duties is rather lengthy, I need to also acknowledge that many more federal workers not only earn their pay but often go far beyond the call of duty. Clearly, Americans are grateful for the outstanding service provided by most of the military. Bradley Manning, the Fort Hood shooter and others who have disgraced their uniforms are the rare exceptions.

In addition, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been performing an outstanding service in apprehending Muslim jihadists on US soil over the years since 9/11 before any destruction has taken place. The FBI arrested two such extremists (who are American citizens) in the past couple of months who were plotting to bomb the DC Metro and another who tried to set off explosions at a military recruiting center in Baltimore. These are just the most recent examples of the critical role the FBI has been playing to keep us safe in our own homeland.

Nevertheless, there are always bad apples in every barrel and sorry news about certain federal workers falling short on the job, such those described above, will likely continue to be reported in the future regardless of how those public servants are paid. Sphere: Related Content

Salute to My Family's Veterans on Veterans Day

JOHN W. RAYMOND (1922-1999), US Navy, 1944-45, served in the Boston Navy Yard as a Boiler and Turbine Engineer, keeping our Navy's Ships at Sea.

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On this Veterans Day 2010, I want to honor the veterans in my family, starting with my father shown above in the listing included at the World War II Memorial in Washington, DC. My father was also recalled to duty during the Korean War serving in the same capacity working as an engineer on the engines of the US Navy ships stationed at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

There are also veterans of other wars earlier in my family tree.

ROLLIN B. TRUESDELL (1839-1914), my father's great grandfather on his mother's side, served in a New York State Infantry Regiment in the Army of the Potomac under Union Generals George McClellan, Joe Hooker and Ambrose Burnside from 1861 to 1863 during the Civil War. He saw action during the Peninsula Campaign, Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville.

JAMES F. HARRINGTON (1834-1917), my father's other great grandfather on his mother's side, served in the Missouri State Militia Cavalry throughout most of the Civil War engaging Confederate forces wherever his unit was needed to keep Missouri under the control of the Union Army.

DANIEL RAYMOND (1747-1830), my great great great great grandfather, served in the New York State Troops of the Colonial Army under General Schuyler in 1777 during the Revolutionary War. Daniel also had three brothers who served in the Colonial Army during the Revolutionary War in units from other states in the Northeast. The grave of his brother Joseph Raymond, who reached the rank of Captain in the Massachusetts Troops, is shown here with a Revolutionary War Veteran marker and flag. We found this grave and that of Daniel's brother, Paul Raymond, who also served in the Massachusetts Troops, in the Center Cemetery in Richmond, Massachusetts when we visited the Berkshire Mountains last month.


We honor all veterans today for keeping our country safe and secure from tyrants, dictators and terrorists for over 200 years.

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The War Against Terrorism Continues

Within days of Juan Williams' firing by NPR for admitting apprehension when seeing passengers in airports wearing Muslim garb and the over-the-top walk-out from "The View" TV talk show by Whoopie Goldberg and Joy Behar when Bill O'Reilly failed to use an adjective to describe the Muslims who attacked the US on 9/11, the FBI arrested the man shown above for plotting to attack various Metro stations in Northern Virginia. The man shown is Farooque Ahmed, a naturalized US citizen who was born in Pakistan, but has been living in the US for 17 years.

Ahmed thought he was plotting with members of al-Qaeda, but was actually conspiring with undercover FBI agents. The FBI was tipped off to Ahmed in January, when a source inside the Muslim community said the 34-year-old telecommunications worker was asking around, trying to join a terrorist group to kill Americans. This is the latest in a series of undercover FBI stings that have caught Muslim extremists in the US who have sought to join in the holy war against Americans, even though many of these extremists have been living in the US for years.

Around the DC beltway and interstate highways, there are electronic signs that advise motorists to "report suspicious activity" with a phone number noted to call. The street vendors who reported the suspicious SUV in Times Square in May (that was discovered to be packed with explosives by another Pakistani born US citizen of the Muslim faith) said they reported the vehicle to police because New Yorkers know that "if you see something, say something".

Within the last few days, another credible terrorist threat was discovered when explosives were found in packages on cargo planes bound for Chicago. This threat, of course, started in Yemen, not in the US, but it demonstrates once again that the Muslim extremists continue their war of terror aimed at Western targets and the US in particular.

So it must be asked: if Juan Williams or anyone else saw the man above taking photos inside Metro stations in Northern Virginia and/or otherwise acting suspiciously, wouldn't it cause an average citizen to be nervous or concerned? And should that concern lead such a person to report the activity to police or the FBI?

Or would the recent reactions of the Politically Correct Police at NPR, the co-hosts of "The View" or Time magazine cause average citizens to think that they could be accused of overreacting or being Islamophobic or racist and cause them not to "say something" like the Times Square street vendors did?

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Virginia's Experience with New Republican Governor Recognized by the Washington Post

As previously noted (and foretold) in posts on this blog, there is much that Washington can learn from the Republican Governor that Virginians voted into office last year. My previous comments on what Governor McDonnell has been accomplishing can found on the posts of April 8, 2010 at http://jaxonnews.blogspot.com/2010/04/what-washington-can-learn-from-richmond.html; July 24, 2010 at http://jaxonnews.blogspot.com/2010/07/more-lessons-for-washington-from.html and August 30, 2010 at http://jaxonnews.blogspot.com/2010/08/additional-lessons-from-richmond-for.html. Finally, it appears that some in the mainstream media are also noticing.

The Washington Post on Saturday, October 30, 2010, ran a front page story entitled: "Virginians share lesson learned: GOP in power not so bad". The Post story begins by noting that President Obama's theme in campaign appearances this year has been: don't vote for the Party that drove the car into the ditch. The Post then states:

"Virginians overwhelmingly ignored [Obama's] advice, and a year later many say they have few regrets and are generally pleased - if not ecstatic - about what Republicans have done.

Voters, including some who didn't back him, credited Gov.

Robert F. McDonnell with working hard and engineering deep budget cuts from a generally fractious General Assembly with relatively little heartache. The result of those efforts was a narrow surplus by the end of the fiscal year, achieved through bipartisan action and without the tax increase that Gov. Timothy M. Kaine proposed before leaving office."

In addition, of course, New Jersey elected a Republican Governor last year who is receiving a lot of national attention. The Post noted that result as well:

"Only Virginia and New Jersey held elections in 2009, and both states elected Republican governors after being firmly behind Obama in 2008. The GOP has since pointed to McDonnell and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as examples of new kinds of Republicans and also of what voters could expect if they return the party to power in Washington.

'I hope that what I've been able to do, in some small measure . . . will at least create confidence that if people elect Republicans at the federal level, that they're going to get similar good results,' said McDonnell." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/29/AR2010102907043.html

President Obama's plea to voters not to vote for the same people that "drove the car into the ditch" also fails to be accurate because so many of the Republican nominees for office this year are newcomers inspired by the revolt against big government and deficit spending, most visibly demonstrated by the Tea Party protests held across the country over the past year.

This is not the same GOP you love to demonize anymore, Mr. President.

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