CBS Reporter Apologizes To Viewers For False Reporting On Benghazi

CBS Reporter Apologizes To Viewers For False Reporting On Benghazi

By Hayes Brown

CREDIT: AP

After a week of defending their reporting, CBS News’ Lara Logan on Friday morning made a stunning apology to her viewers for a much-hyped story about the Benghazi attack, based on an interview with a security contractor that directly contradicts what he told the FBI.

“We were wrong to put him on air and we apologize to our viewers,” Logan said on the CBS’ This Morning on Friday. “We will apologize to our viewers and we will correct the record on our broadcast on Sunday night,” she added.

On Sunday, CBS’ venerable 60 Minutes newsprogram aired what they hailed as a shocking new report on what really occurred the night of an attack on a diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya last year. Promoted as the culmination of a year-long investigation, the segment heavily featured an interview with Morgan Jones — a pseudonym for Dylan Davies, a security officer hired to help protect the U.S. assets in Benghazi — who claimed to have rushed to the scene the night of the attack, making him the first eyewitness of the attack to come forward for interviews.

Jones’ story was quickly questioned from various outlets, especially the progressive media watchdog site Media Matters, which published multiple stories over the course of the week about the holes in Davies’ story. Davies in response took to other media outlets, including The Daily Beast to defend himself against what he called smears.

CBS in turn stood by its reporting for days, insisting that while Jones’ story was different from an incident report he submitted to his employer filed after the attack, the version promoted on the air was the truth. Executive Producer Jeff Fager went so far as to tell the Huffington Post that he was “proud” of the reporting that went into the segment.

“Our effort was to give our viewers a better understanding about an event in which a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed,” Fager, who is also CBS News’ chairman, wrote in his statement to the Huffington Post. “We are proud of the reporting that went into the story and have confidence that our sources, including those who appeared on ’60 Minutes,’ told accurate versions of what happened that night.”

On Thursday evening, however, the situation seemed to shift suddenly. “60 Minutes has learned of new information that undercuts the account told to us by Morgan Jones of his actions on the night of the attack on the Benghazi compound,” CBS said in a brief statement on the 60 Minutes website last night. “We are currently looking into this serious matter to determine if he misled us, and if so, we will make a correction.” Only minutes after CBS’ statement went live, the New York Times reported that Davies’ story completely differed from the statement he gave the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

That revelation caused CBS to completely reverse course, taking down the story from its website and sending Logan out to apologize. “What we now know is that he told the FBI a different story to what he told us,” she said, “and that was the moment for us when we realized that we no longer had confidence in our source.” Logan insisted that the documents that Davies had provided and his role working for the State Department in Benghazi were confirmed, “but we were misled and we were wrong and that’s the important thing,” she continued. “That’s what we have to say here. We have to set the record straight and take responsibility.”

Watch the full apology here:

It remains to be seen whether this latest debunked scandal will satiate conservatives who latch on to anything that they claim proves there was a secret cover-up from the Obama administration the night of the attack. It also remains to be seen whether the incident will inspire Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) to withdraw the holds he currently has on all Obama nominees, pending meetings with more Benghazi survivors, given that his threat was a direct response to the 60 Minutes report

What’s clear, however, is that Davies’ book on the his account of Benghazi — that was set to be published through Simon & Schusters’ conservative Threshold Editions imprint — is now imperiled. “Although we have not seen the F.B.I. report, in light of these revelations we will review the book and take appropriate action with regard to its publication status,” Jennifer Robbins, a spokesperson for Threshold, told the New York Times.

Update

Foreign Policy’s John Hudson reports even with today’s apology and the news that three more witnesses are prepared to testify before Congress, Graham is still keeping his holds in place.

Update

The New York Times on Friday afternoon reports that Simon & Schuster is pulling Davies’ book. “We are suspending the publication,” the publisher said, adding that it is notifying stores to return books already received.

Related articles

• CBS Correspondent Apologizes for Report on Benghazi Attack (nytimes.com)
• CBS 60 Minutes’ Lara Logan Apologizes for Erroneous Benghazi Survivor Report: ‘We Were Wrong’ (mediaite.com)
• Oops! Lara Logan Apologizes For 60 Minutes Benghazi Report (crooksandliars.com)
• Lara Logan Apologizes for ’60 Minutes’ Benghazi Report: ‘We Were Wrong’ (theblaze.com)
• “60 Minutes” issues apology about Benghazi report (cbsnews.com)
• ’60 Minutes’ will review Benghazi story after more questions surface about ‘witness’ (rawstory.com)
• UH-OH: ’60 Minutes’ Says It’s ‘Reviewing’ Disputed Benghazi Story (huffingtonpost.com)
• CBS Reporter Apologizes To Viewers For False Reporting On Benghazi (thinkprogress.org)
• Lara Logan Apologizes For Botched ’60 Minutes’ Benghazi Report, Says Show Will Issue Correction (huffingtonpost.com)
• CBS Reporter Apologizes To Viewers For False Reporting On Benghazi (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)

Six really stupid 9/11 conspiracies debunked in about six seconds

Six really stupid 9/11 conspiracies debunked in about six  seconds

by: ANTHONY SHARWOOD

Nah, that’s just a missile. And  Santa Claus is the pilot. (AP Photo/Carmen Taylor, File)   Source: AP

PSYCHOLOGISTS will tell you that even perfectly sane people have the ability  to accept wild conspiracy theories. The more powerless or alone we feel, the  more likely we are to develop such theories.  

It’s all linked to self-esteem. If you’re the sort of person who feels  isolated or disenfranchised, you’re much more likely to develop wild theories as  a way of making you seem more knowledgeable, more powerful, more special.

That might help explain why many Americans are into conspiracies. The irony  of our technologically over-connected age is that there are scores of socially  disconnected people sitting in dark rooms extrapolating all sorts of crap from  factoids they find online. Here are six of the worst:

STUPID THEORY 1: The US government did it

SIMPLE REBUTTAL: People who say it was an inside job are split into  two camps. There are those who say the US government cooked up and enacted the  whole crazy plot, and those who say they let it happen without intervention. In  both cases, conspiracists generally claim that the aim was to give the Bush  government an excuse to wage war on the Islamic world.

So here’s your simple rebuttal. US governments have shown for decades that  they will intervene when and where it suits them. The last thing they need to do  to justify any foreign policy is kill 3000 of their own citizens.

STUPID THEORY 2: The twin towers did not collapse. They were  demolished.

SIMPLE REBUTTAL: 9/11 “truthers”, who would perhaps be more accurately  described as 9/11 “liars”, like to rope in an expert to tell you that no office  fire ever made a building topple. Well, that’d be because no office fire was  ever as big as these two, with as much jet fuel to help it along.

But the real reason the twin towers collapsed was structural. Most buildings  have their core structural supports at the centre. The towers had some major  central steel columns, but that elegant exterior steel shell was also crucial in  providing perimeter support. Also, the perimeter columns supported massive steel  trusses which supported each floor.

So basically, when the exterior of the building was penetrated so  devastatingly by the planes, the structure’s ability to hold itself up was  threatened. So when one floor went, the combined weight meant they all went.

Pretend the towers were a  conspiracy theory. Then pretend they were subjected to the force of logic.  Here’s your result. 11/09/2001. Source: AFP

STUPID THEORY 3: World Trade Center 7 did not collapse. It was  demolished.

SIMPLE REBUTTAL: Riiiight, so the world’s tallest tower collapses on  its neighbour less than 200m across the road. You’ve got 110 storeys of rubble  pummelling a 47-storey building, setting it on fire, covering it in untold extra  weight and inflicted untold stresses. And later that day, when the smaller  building collapses, it’s obvious the CIA did it with explosives. And Elvis left  the building right before it happened.

Oh, and if you want a secondary explanation of why the building really wasn’t  toppled by mysterious people with explosives, try googling any of the so-called  architects or engineers in the wacky YouTube vids. Almost none of them appear to  be either a) currently employed or b) affiliated with any group other than 9/11  conspiracy groups.

STUPID THEORY 4: FLIGHT 93 was shot down in Pennsylvania and the  people who were supposedly on it were murdered or relocated.

SIMPLE REBUTTAL: The small jet flying low in the area, which some  believe shot down Flight 93, was in fact a business jet which had been  instructed to fly low to inspect the wreckage. Also, the log of calls made from  Flight 93 is pretty compelling evidence that those were real people aboard a  hijacked jet. If these people are actors who are actually still alive somewhere,  the real mystery is why they haven’t made squillions in Hollywood. Because they  were seriously convincing.

And they’re fake trees and that’s  a fake wall and Gilligan is still stuck on Gilligan’s Island. Picture: Jeff  Swensen/Getty Images/AFP Source: AFP

STUPID THEORY 5: There was no “stand down” order, which proves the US  government dunnit.

SIMPLE REBUTTAL: A stand down order is an order from the North  American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) to scramble fighter jets. This didn’t  happen until too late on September 11, prompting conspiracists to say the  government deliberately held off to let the carnage unfold.

But NORAD didn’t actually track flights within America prior to 9/11. Also,  the hijackers turned off the transponders on their planes, which meant Air  Traffic Control couldn’t track them. And NORAD needed an alert from Air Traffic  Control to act. So basically, you had a system which ensured bureaucratic  bungles, but that’s a far cry from complicit officials.

STUPID THEORY 6: They weren’t planes, they were missiles.

SIMPLE REBUTTAL: Some of the worst nutters claim that the original  planes which struck the twin towers weren’t planes but missiles. This was  fuelled by an early eyewitness account broadcast on live TV from a journalist  who said he thought the first plane had no windows. But the journalist saw the  plane in a blink of his eye – a fact ignored by conspiracists who have seized on  this statement.

The obvious plane-sized holes in the buildings are a bit of a giveaway too.  But you know, maybe they were just caused by Batman or something.

Related articles

• Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy Theories (thelibertarianrepublic.com)
• 11 Crazy 9-11 Conspiracy Theories Debunked (addictinginfo.org)
• 11 More Crazy 9-11 Conspiracy Theories Debunked (Part 2) (addictinginfo.org)
• 9/11: The Conspiracy of Conspiracies (carlcymru.wordpress.com)

Sicko Conspiracy Sociopaths Harass Man Who Sheltered Kids During Sandy Hook Massacre

This man helped save six children, is now getting harassed for it

Gene Rosen sheltered six kids during the Sandy Hook massacre. Now he’s become a target of conspiracy theorists

By Alex Seitz-Wald

Enlarge  (Credit: AP/Mary Altaffer)

“I don’t know what to do,” sighed Gene Rosen. “I’m getting hang-up calls, I’m getting some calls, I’m getting emails with, not direct threats, but accusations that I’m lying, that I’m a crisis actor, ‘how much am I being paid?’” Someone posted a photo of his house online. There have been phony Google+ and YouTube accounts created in his name, messages on white supremacist message boards ridiculing the “emotional Jewish guy,” and dozens of blog posts and videos “exposing” him as a fraud. One email purporting to be a business inquiry taunted: “How are all those little students doing? You know, the ones that showed up at your house after the ‘shooting’. What is the going rate for getting involved in a gov’t sponsored hoax anyway?”

“The quantity of the material is overwhelming,” he said. So much so that a friend shields him from most of it by doing daily sweeps of the Web so Rosen doesn’t have to. His wife is worried for their safety. He’s logged every email and every call, and consulted with a retired state police officer, who took the complaint seriously but said police probably can’t do anything at the moment; he plans to do the same with the FBI.

What did Rosen do to deserve this? One month ago, he found six little children and a bus driver at the end of the driveway of his home in Newtown, Conn. “We can’t go back to school,” one little boy told Rosen. “Our teacher is dead.” He brought them inside and gave them food and juice and toys. He called their parents. He sat with them and listened to their shocked accounts of what had happened just down the street inside Sandy Hook Elementary, close enough that Rosen heard the gunshots.

In the hours and days that followed, Rosen did a lot of media interviews. “I wanted to speak about the bravery of the children, and it kind of helped me work through this,” he told Salon in an interview.  “I guess I kind of opened myself up to this.”

The “this” in question is becoming a prime target of the burgeoning Sandy Hook truther movement, which — like its precursor that denied the veracity of the 9/11 terror attacks — alleges that the entire shooting was a hoax of some kind. There were conspiracy theories surrounding the shooting from Day One, but the movement has exploded into public view the past two weeks, and a Google Trends search suggests it’s just now picking up steam. It’s also beginning to earn the backing of presumably credible sources like a professor and a reporter.

Rosen,  a 69-year-old retired psychologist who now runs a pet-sitting business and volunteers to read books to kids in schools, initially called me to ask if I thought he should reach out to the FBI about the harassment. I said it probably couldn’t hurt. When I asked if I could tell his story, he was reluctant at first. “Here’s my fear: If I start talking like this, will one of these truthers read this and will it embolden them? Will they say, screw that guy, how dare he impugn our credibility or question our intellect, I’m going to go one step farther? Am I being stupid?” he asked.

After thinking about it, Rosen decided that he had to speak out: “I talk to you about this because I feel that there has to be some moral push-back on this.” Rosen said he’s a staunch believer in free speech, and realizes there is little legal recourse possible unless he gets direct threats, so he had a different idea.

“There must be some way to morally shame these people, because there were 20 dead children lying an eighth of a mile from my window all night long,” he said, choking back tears. “And I sat there with my wife, because they couldn’t take the bodies out that night so the medical examiner could come. And I thought of an expression, that this ‘adds insult to injury,’ but that’s a stupid expression, because this is not an injury, this is an abomination.”

The harassment has turned Rosen’s life upside down, and made him feel things once foreign to him, like searing rage. “I was sitting in a restaurant the other night and these guys who were part of a car club came up to me and shook my hand and said, ‘You know, you’re a hero to me.’ He had seen me on TV. So I said thank you. Then I’m sitting there and I hear this other guy, ‘Oh yeah, it was a conspiracy.’ He was a big guy,” he said.

“I tell you what, I had evil thoughts. I wanted to go over to the first guy, and he had about 15 big guys with him, and say, ‘I’m going to go talk to this other guy — just watch my back.’ And then I wanted to go over to the other guy and get up in his face and say, ‘See those guys over there, just know they’re keeping an eye out for me.’ And then I wanted to say, ‘I want to see what you look like. I want to see what a person who generates this kind of evil shit looks like. I want to look at your face and tell you you’re an asshole,’” he said.

He didn’t do it, of course. “But it tells me how rageful I am. And I am rageful about it, both for the children and for the mother of the child who came to my house looking for her son, and I wanted to look at this guy and I wanted to just fucking decimate him. That’s my rage.”

But when he starts to feel that way, Rosen can think of the first man. And the countless others out there who see Rosen as a hero, and not a tool of some shadowy conspiracy. Because for every angry call or email, there any many, many more praising ones: “I get the most beautifully written cards, wonderful calls.” Let’s hope they continue to be the majority.

            Alex Seitz-Wald is Salon’s political reporter. Email him at aseitz-wald@salon.com, and follow him on Twitter @aseitzwald.

Related articles

• Sandy Hook Conspiracy Therorists Call Gene Rosen, Newtown Hero, ‘Pedophile’ & ‘Satanist’ [VIDEO] (sfluxe.com)
• Is it okay for reporters to question the “official narrative” of Sandy Hook? (salon.com)
• Those Shameless Sandy Hook Truthers (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
• Conspiracy theorists claim Sandy Hook School mass shooting a ‘government-sponsored’ hoax (calgaryherald.com)
• But I’m sure the moon landing was a fake (snark) (southofheaven.typepad.com)
• Sandy Hook Hero Cruelly Harassed By Conspiracy Theorists (huffingtonpost.com)
• This man helped save six children, is now getting harassed for it (richarddawkins.net)
• Sandy Hook Hero, Gene Rosen, Now Being Called An “Actor” And “Pedo” (letsfindthem.wordpress.com)
• Conspiracy theorists claim Sandy Hook tragedy is elaborate government hoax (vancouversun.com)
• Grandfather who comforted Sandy Hook Elementary kids says ‘truthers’ are targeting him (usnews.nbcnews.com)

Anti-Equality Christian Lawyer Indicted On Federal Child Pornography Charges

Christian attorney indicted on federal child pornography charges

By Arturo Garcia

Federal agents arrested a Christian New Hampshire lawyer Saturday and accused her of allegedly driving a teen girl to Canada and cajoling her into allowing her to film her having sex.

The Concord Monitor reported that Biron was arrested by FBI officials Friday before a scheduled hearing on child pornography possession charges stemming from an Oct. 9 arrest.

The federal indictment against Biron — who has been linked to Alliance Defending Freedom, a right-wing lawyers group that says on its website it advocates for “religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family” — includes charges of not only possessing child pornography, but five counts of sexually exploiting a child and one count of transportation with intent to engage in child pornography.

According to the New Hampshire Union Leader, Police had been investigating Biron since September, when they received a tip that she had child pornography on her computer. That led to the Oct. 9 arrest, and seven subsequent counts of child pornography possession at the district level.

But the FBI pursued the search further, and federal prosecutors are also accusing Biron of driving the girl to Ontario, Canada, and recording four digital videos of her having sex and taking a digital photograph between May 25 and May 28.

A U.S. District Court judge ordered Biron to be held without bail in part due to violations of bail conditions from the earlier charges. Biron was found to have disobeyed orders to only use her laptop for work purposes and to not have any weapons; agents discovered 200 rounds of ammunition, though no gun, at her home.

[Image via Lisa Byron Facebook community page]
Raw Story (http://s.tt/1u6v9)

Related articles

• Female lawyer facing federal child porn charge (wcvb.com)
• Anti-Gay Christian Lawyer Arrested For Possession Of Child Pornography (joemygod.blogspot.com)
• Anti-Gay Lawyer Arrested On Child Pornography Charges (thinkprogress.org)
• Anti-equality Female Attorney Arrested on Underage Sex Charges (advocate.com)
• Anti-LGBT lawyer facing federal child pornography charges arrested by FBI at courthouse | Concord Monitor (tribuneofthepeople.com)
• Lawyer with Anti-Gay Christian Litigation Group ‘Alliance Defense Fund’ Arrested by FBI on Child Porn Charges (towleroad.com)
• Christian attorney indicted on federal child pornography charges (rawstory.com)
• Anti-gay Christian Lawyer Arrested for Possession of Child Pornography (monroe-land.com)
• Family Values (ken_ashford.typepad.com)

FBI Investigates Tom Horne | Yet Another Republican “Family Values” Hypocrite Exposed As Adulterer

FBI Says AZ Attorney General Tom Horne Clipped Car, Drove Off to Hide Affair

It is unclear what impact this will have on his ability to continue to serve as Attorney General.

FBI Says Horne Clipped Car, Drove Off to Hide Affair

Tom Horne caused more than $1,000 worth of damage when he clipped another car in a parking garage and just drove off, in order, according to FBI agents, to conceal an affair he was having with his passenger.

Phoenix police records obtained Tuesday include detailed witness accounts by FBI agents who were following Horne, Arizona’s attorney general, on March 27 as part of a campaign finance investigation. They said they watched him back his borrowed vehicle into a white Range Rover in the parking garage of a Phoenix residential complex.

FBI agents said that after the fender-bender, Horne and the woman, since identified as Carmen Chenal, who works for Horne, walked off and entered the residential area of the complex where Chenal lives.

[…]

“What were they doing surveilling me?” Horne asked. “It seems to me that’s something that people should raise.”

“We have no comment at this time,” responded FBI spokesman Manuel Johnson.

[…]

The federal investigators were tailing Horne in the course of their investigation of Horne for allegations of campaign finance violations.

Tom Horne Photo by Ross D. Franklin

You can read more about Tom Horne’s history with Carmen Chenal here.

[…]

In 2005, Carmen Chenal lost her law license after repeated violations of state bar regulations.
In 2006, just a few months after losing her license to practice law, Chenal is hired by Horne to work for him at the Arizona Department of Education.
In November 2010, Horne was elected Arizona Attorney General and hired Chenal despite the fact that she did not have a law license.

[…]

Tom Horne is one of the main players in the effort to get rid of Mexican American Studies in the Tucson school district. You can read more about that here, and by clicking on the TUSD tag at the bottom of this post.

This is not Horne’s first run-in with the law.

[…]

Horne was the president of T.C. Horne & Co., an investment firm he founded in the late 1960s. After the firm went bankrupt in 1970, Horne received a lifetime trading ban from the Securities and Exchange Commission

[…]

I hope he is unable to finish his term in office. He was elected to a four year term two years ago.

 

Related articles

• Ariz. Official That Banned Ethnic Studies Cited in Hit-run Crash, Caught in Affair Scandal (colorlines.com)
• Horne cited for March hit-and-run in PHX (abc15.com)
• Horne’s alleged hit-and-run gets tawdry (yumasun.com)
• FBI Report Says Ariz. Official Was Having Affair (lasvegas.cbslocal.com)
• FBI Says AZ Attorney General Tom Horne Clipped Car, Drove Off to Hide Affair (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• Arizona Attorney General Tom “Sanctity Of Marriage” Horne Exposed As Adulterer (joemygod.blogspot.com)

Jewish Right Wing Extremists Suspected of Extorting Tupac Shakur

JDL Suspected Of Extorting Rapper Tupac Shakur, Others, FBI Says

The legacy of Rabbi Meir Kahane continues. The FBI has released files on the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur, revealing that the Jewish Defense League (JDL) was suspected of “extorting money from various rap music stars via death threats, including Tupac and another performer, Eazy-E.

Files show FBI suspected JDL of extorting Tupac

Jewish Defense League threatened famously murdered rapper, provided bodyguards for hip-hop stars, according to released FBI documents.
By LAHAV HARKOV • Jerusalem Post

The FBI has released files on the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur, revealing that the Jewish Defense League (JDL) was suspected of “extorting money from various rap music stars via death threats, including Tupac and another performer, Eazy-E.

“The scheme involves (name redacted) and other subjects making telephonic death threats to the rap star,” the files, declassified this week, explain. “Subjects then intercede by contacting the victim and offering protection for a fee. The victim and their family are taken to a ‘safe haven’, usually a private estate, and are protected by gun-toting body guards associated with the Jewish Defense League.”

After the victims were brought to the “safe havens,” the JDL would allegedly “convince the victim they have worked a ‘deal’ out…and the threats cease. The victim then pays the subjects for the protection services rendered and resume their normal lifestyle with no fear of further death threat.”

An unidentified source identified Eazy-E as a target of the JDL’s extortion before he died from AIDS. Another source, from within the JDL, “had also reportedly targeted Tupac Shakur prior to his recent murder in Las Vegas, Nevada.”

Tupac was shot four times in Las Vegas in September 1996, and died several days later. The circumstances surrounding his murder remain unclear.

Related articles

• JDL Threat against Mahmoud El-Yousseph (johnfriendsblog.blogspot.com)

Sting a Muslim for Jesus | FBI Cracks Terror Plot It Created

FBI Breaks Up Latest Terrorist Plot That It Created

Via Jim Newell

In a super-neato sting operation today, the FBI totally intercepted a Muslim Terrorist wearing a suicide bomb vest en route to the Capitol, to blow it up. Sucker! Caught you! Go eat an Abortionplex-sized bag of dicks, guy! (But really, thank you for taking all of the pretend bombs our agents gave you and going with them on field trips to test explosives and all the other things we tricked you into doing so we could arrest you.)

The FBI is masterful when it comes to thwarting their own baroque terrorist plots in dramatic fashion at the very last minute, just as their scripts instruct them to do. The Feds found today’s lucky arrestee, a 29-year-old Moroccan, about a year ago and thought, Sure, this one looks Muslim enough to me, he’ll do… now let’s start brainstorming a plot and getting him all the fake bombs and training and support he needs so we can arrest him in a year.

(WASHINGTON) — A 29-year-old Moroccan man was arrested Friday near the U.S. Capitol as he was planning to detonate what he thought was a suicide vest, given to him by FBI undercover operatives, said police and government officials. Amine El Khalifi of Alexandria, Va., was taken into custody with an inoperable gun and inert explosives, according to a counterterrorism official.

El Khalifi expressed interest in killing at least 30 people and considered targeting a building in Alexandria and a restaurant, synagogue and a place where military personnel gather in Washington before he settled on the Capitol after canvassing that area a couple of times, the counterterrorism official said. During the investigation, the official said, El Khalifi went with undercover operatives to a quarry in the Washington area to detonate explosives.

El Khalifi came to the U.S. when he was 16 years old and is unemployed and not believed to be associated with al-Qaeda. He had been under investigation for about a year and had overstayed his visitor visa for years, according to the counterterrorism official and a government official briefed on the matter who spoke on a condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Two people briefed on the matter told The Associated Press he was not arrested on the Capitol grounds, and the FBI has had him under surveillance around the clock for several weeks.

The Washington Post has an especially chilling anecdote indicating nothing, from the Terrorist’s ex-landlord:

He said he evicted Khalifi about a year ago.

“He was suspicious,” said Dynda. “He was getting mysterious packages labeled “book,” but I didn’t think there were books in them.”

Savvy eye, Dynda. There weren’t any books in there. Those packages were filled with all of the cool terrorist presents that the FBI kept sending him.

All in all, another magnificent production — four stars. Will this be the year that the FBI *finally* wins that Best Director statuette it’s coveted for so long? Ugh, let’s not get into studio politics…

Uh oh! Is the fake terrorist scaring you, teevee flaphead?

Children are so impressionable.

Related articles

• Has the FBI Ever Foiled a Real Terrorist Plot? (skydancingblog.com)
• FBI: Attempted bomb attack on Capitol was sting (usnews.msnbc.msn.com)
• Man charged with attempted suicide bombing of US Congress (guardian.co.uk)

Why Isn’t Jared Lee Loughner a Homegrown Terrorist?

Why Isn’t Jared Lee Loughner a Homegrown Terrorist?

Wednesday 12 January 2011

by: Sahar Aziz, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

Jared Lee Loughner’s mug shot, released by Pima County. Arizona, 1/10/2011

How many more members of Congress have to be victims of politically motivated violence before we acknowledge terrorism is defined by the act and not the identity of the actor? Any person who “use[s] violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature … through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear” is a terrorist.

While clearly suffering from some sort of mental disorder, Jared Lee Loughner was motivated to some extent by anti-government politics. Had his name been Mohammed, we would be talking about homegrown terrorism, not gun control or mental illness.

The tragic shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is a wakeup call that religious profiling does not work. While our nation was obsessed with Muslim “homegrown terrorism,” Loughner stealthily planned his terrorist scheme.

It is no secret that since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the FBI has focused its anti-terrorism efforts on Muslims. Traveler watch lists have grown exponentially, primarily with Muslim and Arabic names. Internet web sites and chat rooms with expressions of political dissent coupled with Islamic rhetoric are presumably under vigilant surveillance. More recently, Muslim youth have become ensnared in sting operations as part of a zealous preventative campaign. So much so that civil rights groups claim the tactics may cross into unlawful entrapment.

To be sure, Muslims engaged in illegal terrorist activity should be investigated and prosecuted accordingly. But with its investigative authorities broadened after 9/11, why didn’t the FBI stop Loughner before he shot a Congresswoman in the head, killed six civilians, including a federal judge and nine-year-old girl, and injured 17 people?

In light of the FBI’s recent stings of Muslim terrorist suspects that involved months of surveillance, undercover operations and careful execution, where was the FBI when Loughner was plotting his murderous scheme? Did they fail to discover his plot because he did not fit the “profile” of a Muslim terrorist?

But Loughner is not the first time the FBI dropped the ball on countering homegrown terrorism. In February 2010, Joseph Stack flew an airplane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas, to protest tax laws and the IRS’s order for him to pay his taxes. Prior to his crime, he publicly expressed his intent to protest the tax laws through violence. In the end, his terrorist act killed a federal employee and veteran. Had the plane crashed into the building a different time of the day, hundreds of IRS employees could have been killed.

In another troubling case in 2008, the FBI was apparently unaware of James Cummings’ preparation of a dirty bomb. Only after the police investigated his shooting by his abused wife did the FBI discover that Cummings’ house had a cache of radioactive materials suitable for building a “dirty bomb.” In addition to literature on how to build dirty bombs and various radioactive materials, the FBI found evidence linking Cummings to white supremacist groups and his ardent admiration of Adolf Hitler. Fortunately for the prospective victims of his dirty bomb, he was unable to murder and terrorize an unknown number of people.

As our law enforcement fixates on young Muslim males in the legitimate goal to stop domestic terrorism, those outside the profile execute their terrorist acts undetected. Thus, it should come as no surprise that when law enforcement misguidedly focus their resources investigating individuals and communities based on ineffective racial or religious profiles, they miss the Loughners of the world.

The rise in terrorist plots by right-wing extremists is not accidental. Ever since Barack Obama’s historic election, there has been a troubling proliferation of armed right-wing groups. Many of the groups question the legitimacy of Obama’s presidency and by extension anyone supporting Obama’s policies. Indeed, Giffords was among numerous elected officials subjected to threats because she voted for health care reform, pejoratively coined “Obamacare.”

The violence in Arizona appears to be the latest episode in this troubling growth of right-wing violent extremism. It is a tragic reminder of the perils of focusing on only one particular religious, racial or ethnic group when countering homegrown terrorism. For the sake of our collective safety, not to mention our civil liberties, let’s hope our government never forgets this basic fact.

Related Articles

• The Tea Party’s Homegrown Terror Blind Spot (thedailybeast.com)
• If Jared Lee Loughner Were Abdul Mohammed (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
• FOX News: America’s Homegrown Terrorist Network (theperplexedobserver.blogspot.com)