More On The SC Pipe Bombers

August, 7, 2007 by nicedeb

The two men, Yousef Megahed, 21 and Ahmed Mohamed, 24 appeared at the bond hearing yesterday, where the bonds were set at $300,000, and 500,000 respectively.

The ABC News Charleston affiliate reports:

During the bond hearing, Megahed appeared calm while Mohamed seemed agitated and was seen chanting. One unanswered question, what were the pair doing in Goose Creek?

Dan Riehl takes issue with some of the findings reported in The Blotter concerning the chemical, potassium chlorate, that was found in the van.

Riehl also notes that potassium chlorate was used by the Scotland car bombers.

The bomb-making tips could have been gleaned from Arabic websites which gave details of how to make gas cylinders explode.

Sources told The Daily Telegraph that potassium chlorate from household matches formed a key ingredient of the detonators.

Emphasis mine.

Check out Riehl’s comment section for more information courtesy of The Purple Avenger on “homemade ammo”

The FBI is still investigating whether or not there is a terrorist link to the incident.

It’s looking less and less like innocent hijinks, to me.

UPDATE:

Dan Riehl has a video from Tampa’s Channel 10 of the suspects’ neighbor, being interviewed by a reporter. Sherri Jackson, the neighbor, says the FBI visited her on Sunday. She claims the agents told her they were terrorists. That seems a bit odd.

She also says that the men never seemed settled in, instead they looked like “they could be gone in five minutes”. She said she saw lots of traffic at the house; people going back and forth. And deliveries. Lots of them, UPS, Fed Ex, and oxygen tanks.

Very interesting. Did they have oxygen tanks in the van, too?

Debbie Schlussel has the whole scoop.

One more thing about Potassium Chlorate, the chemical that was found in the van….

Homeland Security and the FBI posted a Joint Homeland Security Assessment on improvised explosives on the internet. I would link to it, but it says, Unclassified/for official use only numerous times throughout the document.

But I can tell you that the FBI knows very well that potassium chlorate is a very common terrorist bomb making ingredient, with how to’s and pictures posted on terrorist websites, and in handbooks. One picture from a terrorist website showed tubes filled with explosives to be used as detonators. Potassium chlorate is one of the ingredients.

The document says strict laws in the US, UK, and several other countries have made it difficult for terrorists and other criminals to acquire commercial and military blasting caps, which has led to the popularity of these improvised explosives.

UPDATE: (Wed. morning)

Well, it appears a full fledged terror investigation is underway.

Dan Riehl and The Jawa Report are both reporting that the FBI has seized the men’s home computer.

Meanwhile, an unidentified roommate has fled the country.

James Woolsey: Threat of Dirty Bomb Attack Very Real

August, 7, 2007 by nicedeb

We can add former CIA Director James Woolsey to the growing list of high profile names that are making ominous statements concerning the short term prospects of another terrorist attack.

Other officials who have voiced their concerns this year, are Adm. Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, FBI Director, Robert Mueller, and Michael Chertoff, the Secretary of Homeland Security. And last month, ABC’S The Blotter, reported that the threat had led the White House to begin a weekly meeting of senior law enforcement and intelligence officials.

In an interview, posted today, 8/7/07, Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey tells NewsMax reporter Kenneth R. Timmerman that terrorists could strike the American homeland, possibly with a weapon of mass destruction, this summer or early fall.

“I think the threat of a serious attack in the next few months is very real,” Woolsey said. A terrorist strike with a dirty bomb or with biological weapons was “a real possibility.” Woolsey’s comments echo those of FBI Director Robert Mueller, who told NewsMax in May that al-Qaida’s paramount goal is clear: to detonate a nuclear device that would kill hundreds of thousands of Americans.

He also showed little faith in the State Department’s attempts to negotiate with the Iranians to stop their nuclear programs. “I’ve never thought there’s a chance in hell of that,” he said.

Instead he believes that we should continue tough sanctions, but that the time was running out on that.

So I believe that for a short time — I don’t know if its four to five months, or a year, but it’s surely not much longer than that — we can still try tough sanctions, and all the other steps — the right kind of broadcasting, and all the rest. And if that doesn’t work, then we’re in a situation where we have a choice of letting Iran have a nuclear weapon, or using force.

He goes on to say:

Force is the worst option except for one. And that is allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

That’s for sure.

So What Has The Most Honest And Ethical Congress In History Been Up To Lately?

August, 7, 2007 by nicedeb

We pledge to make this the most honest, ethical, and open Congress in history. –Nancy Pelosi Nov. 14, 2006.

Well let’s see here…something happened last Thursday, I believe.

The Republicans wanted to send the bill back to committee in order to add a amendment prohibiting benefits to illegal aliens. The most honest and ethical and open bunch were hellbent on stopping that.

From David Fredoso at The Corner:

Republicans were playing a game that the minority usually plays — you have your guys vote with the other side, then have them change at the last minute. This forces the majority to come up with votes quickly. Although on close issues they would rather spare their endangered members in swing districts and give them a free vote, the majority leadership then has to tell their endangered members to bite their tongues and vote the party line.

Two Democrats changed their votes to ensure that the measure would fail, but then three Republicans did the same. The vote total was 215-213 in favor of the Republican motion to recommit. At that moment, Rep. Mike McNulty ( D-N.Y.), who was in the Speaker’s chair, gavelled out the vote, thinking that it was a tie and the motion had failed. But he had miscounted — the motion had actually passed. The Democrats were only able to change this by cheating and changing more votes after the gavel.

That seems like….cheating, doesn’t it?

Let’s see, what else, what else?

Oh! I know! Earmarks. Nancy Pelosi said last year that she would be happy to do away with them. Has that happened?

`They’ve made some steps forward, but we’ve still got a long way to go before we get to real transparency and earmark reform and really reining in the excesses of the last decade,” says Steve Ellis, vice president of the Washington-based Taxpayers for Common Sense, which compiles databases of earmarks. –Bloomberg

And yet:

The new rules haven’t stopped lawmakers from funneling earmarks to specific companies, some of them political donors, as well as to public projects such as roads, schools and parks.

Some companies stand to gain from Pelosi’s earmarks. The California Democrat has won funding for six companies in a 2008 defense funding measure. One is a $4 million request to develop a “novel viral biowarfare agent” for *Prosetta Corp., based in her San Francisco district. Tom Higgins, the company’s chief executive officer, says he talked to the Speaker’s staff directly rather than hiring a lobbyist and hasn’t given money to her campaign. “We’re just a little company,” he says.

Another of Pelosi’s earmarks was $2.5 million to Bioquiddity, Inc., a San Francisco biotech company with nine employees, to continue developing drug-infusion pumps. Bioquiddity President Josh Kriesel, who ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for the state legislature in 2002, has donated $6,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee since last September. The company received a total of $3.9 million in earmarks in the last two years. Kriesel declined to comment directly on the earmarks. -Bloomberg

Well, huh!

“It baffles me how people can complain bitterly about Halliburton and no-bid contracts and then lard up a bill with literally thousands of earmarks to companies when that’s all they are — no-bid contracts,” says Representative Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, referring to criticism of the Bush administration’s sole-source contract with the Houston-based company during the Iraq war. Flake is noted for not requesting earmarks and publicizing those of his colleagues. –Bloomberg

Pelosi also nearly put well known ethicist William Jefferson on the Homeland Security committee.

She has since backed away from the appointment, due to the outcry.

And how about that 23 billion dollar pork slush fund and spending spree?

My personal favorite open and honest and ethical congressional moment?

Senator Harry Reid proclaiming that the Iraq war was lost before the surge was even fully in place. Here, at Nice Deb’s I believe that earned him The Biggest Douchenozzle in America award.

There’s more…much more at the Republican Study Committee Website.

Slightly, partisan? yeah.

But somebody has to chronicle what The most open and honest, and ethical congress in history is up to.

*Prosetta Corp emailed to say:

Due to an editing error, the reporting in the Bloomberg News Service story about Prosetta is misleading. The company is in no way whatsoever involved in creating biowarfare agents. To the contrary, Prosetta’s scientific research is focused on finding treatments for a wide range of viruses, including Hepatitis C and Influenza. The program reported in the news story is named “Identification and Treatment” of biowarfare agents, but was mischaracterized in the news story. The company has made important progress in its research, which commenced in response to a competitive Request for Proposals designed to address a serious threat to the health and safety of our citizens.

In other words the reporter at Bloomberg screwed up.