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Ridge Confirms Terror Alerts Politically Motivated

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by gifford1967, Aug 20, 2009.

  1. gifford1967

    gifford1967 Member
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    I wonder how long before Ridge starts trying to walk this back?

     
  2. Rashmon

    Rashmon Member

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  3. JuanValdez

    JuanValdez Member

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    Can't say I'm surprised, but it's good to get confirmation from someone who would know.
     
  4. pgabriel

    pgabriel Educated Negro

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    I'm in the airport and its funny, or maybe not, haven' flown in six years so maybe its normal, but they just said the alert level is up at orange, so I shouldn't leave my bags unattended.
     
  5. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"
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    Yeah, they've been saying that for six years. And, who leaves their stupid bag unattended anyway? Orange makes me think of Jamba Juice. Yum.
     
  6. Deckard

    Deckard Blade Runner
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    So did Ridge resign over the Bush use of Terror Alerts to help himself politically? Funny, I don't recall him doing it. Maybe I was busy. Maybe Ridge is a little late to be crying wolf, too.
     
  7. mc mark

    mc mark Member

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    I seem to recall several times Mr Ridge coming on the TV and swearing up and down there was nothing politically motivated about the terra alerts.
     
  8. Codman

    Codman Member

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    We all knew it. The Bush administration will forever be tainted.

    This is disgusting, but at least the truth is being released.
     
  9. basso

    basso Member
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    pushed by Whom?
     
  10. CometsWin

    CometsWin Breaker Breaker One Nine

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    I swear I wish someone had the balls to start investigating these bastards for all the things we suspected as well as the things we don't have the first clue about. Fifty years from now, people will ask me how in the hell Bush could have avoided prison time in a nation that prides itself on the rule of law and I won't have a very good answer for them.

    At the very least, some mayors or governors should sue the Federal government and Bush himself for fraud and try to get back some of the money they spent on police etc that was required for the terror alerts.

    And then there is the overwhelming conservative uproar about government waste and politization of national security chasing after Bush's flagrant disregard for the office of the Presidency. Of course by overwhelming I mean none and by uproar I mean silence. The constant conservative picking and choosing what instances of government waste they're "outraged" about is such a freaking joke. Disgusting.
     
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  11. Deckard

    Deckard Blade Runner
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    It would be nice to see some outrage from all sides about this and I've long thought Bush, etc., should be made to pay for trampling the constitution. When Obama first took office, saying we didn't need the distraction of going after these fools when the country is in such a mess, and a mess largely caused by the very fools who should be in jail, was an easy thought to entertain. Considering the bizarre theatre of the absurd we've been seeing from the Right, the GOP, and every crackpot with a loud mouth and a small brain, eager to take anything out of Rush and company's mouth as gospel, what the hell? Go after the bastards and make them pay.
     
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  12. Sweet Lou 4 2

    Sweet Lou 4 2 Member

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    Conservatives have failed america.
     
  13. Rashmon

    Rashmon Member

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    The American public conscience.
     
  14. TheFreak

    TheFreak Member

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    So the guy wasn't in NSC meetings and the FBI didn't tell him stuff, so how would he know if the alert should be raised or not?
     
  15. Refman

    Refman Member

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    I am truly horrified if this is true. I thought from the very beginning that the terror alert system was a blindfolded shot at a dartboard at best and mindless crap designed to keep us scared at worst.
     
  16. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Member

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    No man, you got it all wrong. He kept our nation safe after 9/11. Safe. For the price of that safety, we have an illegitimate war on our hands, debt created through profligate nondiscretionary and off the book spending with no infrastructural improvements to boot and scary whispers of how distorted and disregarded our cherished legal institutions had become. It's so scary that the present administration can't even admit them because of how damning it is to our nation as a whole.

    But we are safe, and those Nazi/Hitler comparisons should be reserved for someone who wants to provide every American healthcare that won't send them into debt.
     
  17. rhadamanthus

    rhadamanthus Member

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    A-****ing-men. This is an enormous and horrible EPIC FAIL by Obama. EPIC EPIC EPIC.
     
  18. basso

    basso Member
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    is it really any surprise that the liberals, having failed in their attempts to bring down bush, are now engaged in Buschausen by Proxy, attempting to politicize the natural discussion and debate that happens within any administration.

    http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/08/bush_security_adviser_rebuffs_ridge.php

    was the threat level raised for political reasons prior to the election?

    NO.

    [rquoter]Rumsfeld, Townsend Rebuff Ridge
    Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge unleashes a slew of revelations in his new book, according to his publisher, but a Bush security adviser says they're overstated.

    Ridge's publisher, MacMillan, advertises that Ridge reveals in The Test of Our Times, set for release Sept. 1., that he "effectively thwarted a plan to raise the national security alert just before the 2004 Election"; was instructed to insert text into a speech relating homeland security to "defensive measures away from the U.S." ("read: Iraq," the publisher writes); his efforts to integrate FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) before Hurricane Katrina were shot down; frustrations with the White House for rejecting his proposal to establish Department of Homeland Security (DHS) offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, DC, and New Orleans; the FBI withheld key information from him; and run-ins with Donald Rumsfeld.
    But a Bush security adviser today rebuffed Ridge's claims of politicization and instruction to connect DHS to President Bush's Global War on Terror.

    Frances Frago Townsend, who coordinated homeland security matters at the National Security Council under President Bush, said that Ridge is "absolutely wrong" in contending that electoral politics ever played a role in raising or lowering the threat level.

    It was Townsend who established the process that led to the Homeland Security Council making recommendations to President Bush. The meetings, she said today, were often intense, and cabinet secretaries often disagreed with one another. (Incidentally, Karl Rove was never in any meeting to discuss the threat level, according to Townsend.)

    After the debate, Townsend would bring the counsel's consensus recommendation to President Bush. "Never in almost five years at the White House was I aware of the president doing anything but accepting the recommendation of the council," she said. "Politics played no part in any discussion of the council. And I think the president was better served by virtue of the debate that took place."

    As to the specific allegation that Townsend ordered Ridge to insert a line in a speech linking homeland security priorities to Iraq, Townsend said that Ridge had sent the speech in question to the White House, asking for advice. "So I called him said, here's what I think should go in it. It wasn't an order. I didn't regularly see his speeches in advance. He made speeches all the time without running it by us." Late today, a spokesman for former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that a discussion of the terrorist threat levels was amply justified by the public statements of Al Qaeda members at the time.


    " The storyline advanced by his publisher seemingly to sell copies of the book is nonsense. During the fall of 2004, Usama bin Laden and an American member of al-Qaida released videotapes that said in no uncertain terms that al-Qaida intended to launch more attacks against Americans. 'The streets of America will run red with blood,' al-Qaida warned. Given those facts, it would seem reasonable for senior administration officials to discuss the threat level. Indeed, it would have been irresponsible had that discussion not taken place."
    [/rquoter]
     
  19. SamFisher

    SamFisher Member

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    So if liberals "failed" in their attempts to bring down Bush, I guess that means his record low approval ratings and popular recognition as one of the worst presidents of all time were purely merited by his epically failing domestic and foreign policies?

    Thanks for that admission.
     
  20. basso

    basso Member
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    silly boy. would you likewise admit that the precipitous decline of obama's approval rating, and the concomitant rise is his disapproval rating, the latter now higher than the former, is proof that Obama, just 200 days in, has already failed, and in an expeditious fashion w/o parallel in American history?

    TFTA.
     

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