Voting in the big PA...

Well, at least the commercials will be over after today Titus ... I was curious as to if you voted in the primary. I realize that due to cultural, defense, and even economic reasons you are once again voting Republican in the general but I assume you have maintained your DNC registration in the hopes of being able to one day again admit to it without embarrassment (caused by the party, not yourself of course).

So, this means you may very well go and cast your vote today. In that vein let me offer this advice, and believe me, I never thought I'd write these words. I'd prefer (however unlikely this is rapidly becoming) a Clinton win - for the nomination, not just PA. And for this reason: Although I believe that Mac will give a good ol' Navy squadron back hand to whomever the Dems throw up (dual meanings there I assure you), there is at least a "chance" the Democrat nominee will win the presidency. Were that to occur I would rather a scheming, political, word parsing, legacy seeking, Boss Tweed channeling, children devouring Hillary in office then a true believer like Obama. At least I can count on the "Clinton-eogne" mafia to do what will make them popular/what polls indicate people want (i.e. Bill signing welfare reform), & I trust the American people to make the right thing "popular" when polled. Whereas Obama has a grand remaking of America into his preferred image in mind - and that ain't a pretty image. Not to mention in terms of foreign policy at the very least Hillary hasn't pledged to "talk" to Ahmedadenajd, the Taliban, Satan, etc as Obama has. And its likely (if history is to guide us) that the Dems will pick up 5 or so more seats in the Senate and maintain control of the House, and not one of them (& some Republicans I can think of) will have the "PC guts" to deny "Barry" his desired legislation. So vote Hillary (also words I thought would never be uttered by me)....

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Israel? I had to do a literal double take. Israel? This ought to get the whack-job conspiracy sites going (and certain Churches on the West side of Chicago ... ahem) who think "the Jews" were behind 9/11 and all the evils of the world. One Mr. Kadish, whom you can read about here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24256527/ , a US and Israeli citizen employed by a military facility in New Jersey for over 20 years is the first American charged with espionage on behalf of Israel in 16 years (the last was a Navy man named Polland who worked at the Pentegon). Allegedly between 1979 and 1985 he slipped an Israeli contact at the consulate (the SAME contact that is suspected to have handled Polland no less) classified documents on nuclear weapons and the Patriot missile system. Now, it gets even more interesting ... in looking for this story on the web I stumbled onto a FOX NEWS four part report on Israeli spies within the US from December, 2001 (the report that is), which included inferences that these spies, whose duties include spying on Arab terrorists within the US, knew of the plot for 9/11 and that Mossad even warned our government of an impending attack (days before) but in vauge ways so as not to risk revealing their "in-house" sources, thus rendering the warning inactionable for us. This is something I'd expect to see on Maher, or read on some Move-on blog (or perhaps from the mouth of a certain drunken movie star once pulled over), but it is a report by Brit Hume (& Tony Snow lastly) featuring Carl Cameron and one which I NEVER heard before. You have GOT to read this... the video is no longer up (that's the reference about it no longer being displayed by FOX), but the transcript is there at the bottom, just click on the subsequent 3 parts near the top of the page.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7545.htm

Now, I've never heard of this web site. I did note that they source cited FOX NEWS and noted their copyright, etc. I assume it's a legit story, although at the bottom of page four there is evidence this site is wacky, but just because they profile it doesn't mean this story isn't accurate... in fact I just further researched it and have found the same story from numerous more well known sites, although curiously enough many of them describe it as a "banned FOX NEWS story", in that FOX itself took it off the air, did zero follow ups, and in fact the FOX website will take you to the stories page if you Google it, but the page says "THIS STORY IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE." You can view part 1 on You Tube, but I didn't find the other 3 video segments there, maybe you can.

Now, my point in all of this is "ally spying." How much of it occurs, how much do we do, our allies do etc. Now I know we can't fully answer that here, but I always assumed that the "spying" was more like tab-keeping on our allies for information that might be useful in combating actual enemies or for the simpler reason so that the CIC isn't publicly politically blindsided by a foreign ally's unexpected move. And because "being in the know" of our allies activities, is by definition a function of our Intel services.

As to this story, you'll find no bigger fan of Israel then me - in fact it was one of Titus's and my first arguments at the end of pit 4 - the Irael/Palestinian debate (although in retrospect I suspect he was in agreeance with me even during the argument but wanted to test me in order to determine if I was operating on a level worth his time - this being 7 years later I clearly "passed"). And in fact I would AGREE that the circumstances which have defined the experience of the Israeli State justifiably compels it to seek out the most advanced weaponry and Intel, that's what happens when you're surrounded by a billion people who'd like to push you into the Red Sea ... HOWEVER, compromises in our communication system, especially high priority systems such as the DEA, FBI, CIA, NSA etc, can not be tolerated, even if it's by our greatest ally.