Somali man linked to al Qaeda tries to kill Danish cartoonist

In the United States of America, we revere the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But the sad truth is, thanks to the sacrifice of blood and treasure by generations of Americans, we probably take it mostly for granted. Here it is, in all of its simplicity and power:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

One brave cartoonist in Denmark almost lost his life (and likely his grandson's life) tonight in his home at the hand of a 28-year old man linked to al Shabaab and al Qaeda. From Sky News:

Danish police say they have shot an al Qaeda-linked man armed with an axe who broke into the home of a controversial cartoonist.

Police say the 28-year-old Somali man was trying to kill Kurt Westergaard, who triggered worldwide protests after drawing cartoons of Islam's Prophet Mohammed.

The intruder was linked to Somali terror organisation al Shabaab and al Qaeda leaders in east Africa, the Danish Security and Intelligence Service PET said in a statement.

The intruder was shot twice and is being held in custody.

Lotte Mejlhede, of TV2, told Sky News Mr Westergaard, 74, fled to a safe room at his Aarhus home after spotting the would-be attacker.

Ms Mejlhede, who spoke to Mr Westergaard, said: "He pressed his panic alarm button because a 28-year-old Somalian was trying to to break into his house and actually got into the house.

"He had a knife and axe and was trying to attack him.

"Mr Westergaard went to a safe room in his house."

She added: "This man tried to escape and attacked the police."

Mr Westergaard's five-year-old grandson was also with him.

Chief Supt Morten Jensen, from East Jutland police, said: "A personal alarm was received from Mr Westergaard's house.

Officers found the man "armed with an axe and a knife in either hand".

The security service said the man, who will be charged with attempting to kill Mr Westergaard and the police officer, had been involved in a "terror-related network" that had long been under investigation in connection with threats to Westergaard.

This brings to mind the murder of another artist, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, in 2004 at the hands of a Dutch born Muslim, Mohamed Bouyeri. Van Gogh had made a film documenting the cruel treatment of women under Islam. You can watch part of the film here.

The Somali group al Shabaab was a prominent player in November's special feature on Fox News: Pirates of the 21st Century which was replayed today. The documentary suggests that these Somali terrorists are well funded by the huge ransoms of this outbreak of piracy in and around the Gulf of Aden.

I am thankful that Mr. Westergaard and his grandson are safe tonight, and that he had the foresight to construct a safe room in his home.

Dramatic Chipmunk! Rush Limbaugh Not Dead!!!.

Obama Security Fail! (But Golf Swing Looking Better)

Will Collective bargaining at the TSA make us safer?

From Tracy Walters blog.

The recent bombing attempt on the Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit has amplified concerns about the lack of a permanent Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). It didn't take long for the finger pointing to ensue with Democrats blaming GOP Senator Jim Demint (R-SC) for holding up Obama nominee Erroll Southers' confirmation by the senate.

Demint's problem with Southers is not trivial. In his confirmation hearings, Southers has refused to disclose his position on collective bargaining for the TSA. In November, James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation explained why collective bargaining by employees of the agency charged with protecting our commercial air passengers is a very bad idea:

The TSA has avoided collective bargaining for good reason: Collective bargaining would reduce its effectiveness. The TSA needs the maximum flexibility to respond to potential threats. It needs the ability to rush screeners to high-risk locations and modify screening procedures at a moment's notice. Following the attempted U.K. airline bombings, for example, the TSA overhauled its procedures in less than 12 hours to prevent terrorists from smuggling liquid explosives onto any U.S. flights.[2]

The TSA cannot afford spending weeks or months negotiating new procedures or personnel assignments, as collective bargaining requires. Other government unions in the Department of Homeland Security have strongly resisted changing established procedures and the flexible assignment of personnel. The National Treasury Employees Union, for example, successfully brought the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) before arbitration for breaking its contract after the CBP changed security procedures without first collectively negotiating them.[3]

Other countries that allow collective bargaining over security procedures have found that it harms national security. A 2006 labor dispute in Toronto caused many pieces of luggage to go unscreened and allowed 250,000 passengers to board their planes with minimal or no security screening.

The TSA needs the flexibility to act immediately to protect Americans. Collective bargaining introduces a layer of bureaucracy and delay that America cannot afford.

In addition, collective bargaining sacrifices merit promotions in favor of seniority, essentially protecting veteran workers irrespective of qualifications, job performance and competence. This is taking transportation security in the wrong direction. On a recent interview on Fox News, Isaac Yeffet, retired Israeli Secret Service agent and former head of Israeli El Al Airlines explained that the key to airline security is qualified, well-educated screeners, not machines. The relevant interchange occurs at the 2:35 minute mark on the video. (It is noteworthy that El Al Airlines has long been considered the safest airline in the world, and has not had a successful terrorist attack in 30 years.) Mr. Yeffet's advice stands in direct contradiction to a system that is hamstrung by rules of seniority.

James Sherk adds:

Collective bargaining also impairs merit promotions. Today, airport screeners earn their promotions through merit and competence, not seniority. The TSA evaluates screeners on the basis of technical proficiency, training and development, customer service skills, teamwork, professionalism, and leadership, and it awards promotions, raises, and bonuses to high performers.[4] This allows the TSA to assign the best screeners to the most sensitive posts and to keep screeners motivated despite the potential tedium of their jobs.

Government unions insist on seniority-based promotions in collective bargaining, however. If Congress gives unions the chance, they are all but certain to insist on a seniority schedule for the TSA. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) has already sued the TSA for laying off workers who performed poorly on tests of skill without taking into account their seniority.[5]

A seniority-based promotion system would reduce performance-based incentives for individual workers and harm national security in the process. America needs the best and most motivated screeners in the most sensitive positions, not necessarily those on the job the longest.

Please notice that I have focused this post on Souther's ostensibly unclear position on collective bargaining (although his position can almost certainly be inferred by SEIU president Andy Stern's well worn footpath to the White House since President Obama moved in). I'll save Souther's problem with telling the truth and obeying the law for another post.

Posted by Tracy Walters

Rush Limbaugh Speaks From Hawaii - Thank God He's OK

Welcome: The 2012 Presidential Election

The 2012 Presidential Election
Welcome to Who Will Win The 2012 Election, a political blog where we discuss anything and everything related to politics and the 2012 presidential election!

Welcome: SUFFOLK COUNTY LIBERTY REPORT

SUFFOLK COUNTY LIBERTY REPORT
Frank Seabrook
The Long Island Source for Conservative Republican News

Welcome: Tracy Walters blog

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Tracy Walters

Doing my part to right the ship before it's too late.

About Me

Tracy Walters

I am an engineer and mother of two college students. My husband and I live in Milton, Georgia.

Weclome: Friendly Neighborhood Republican

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Crystal Kelley

As a dedicated conservative and concerned citizen, I am using this forum to help promote conservative values and political candidates I support. I am also using this forum to bring a more linear thought process to political issues that have consequences for all Americans.

CAPTION CONTEST IDEAS AND PICTURES!

I love having caption contests, but I have run out of ideas and pictures. If you have great snarky photo drop link in in the comment box and we will see what comes of it!

More Proof Obama Doesn't Have A Clue Or Care

Chris ( Mangina) Matthews & Joan Walsh: Republicans "Unamerican, Traitorous, Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy"

U.S. Air Force Using 1,700 Playstation 3s To Build A Supercomputer

From Yahoo Games

No doubt the Air Force purchasing department gets some odd requests from time to time, but we'd love to have seen the grin on the face of the officer tasked with procuring some 1,700 Playstation 3s for a USAF facility in Rome, NY.

Before you complain about your tax dollars being spent on toys, the machines aren't for gaming. Instead, the facility -- an Air Force research lab -- will join them into a parallel-computing cluster that, when complete, will number well over 2,000 PS3s... Read The Rest Of The Story

Michael Savage - Janet Napolitano and Barack Obama Leave us in Danger!!!!

System Working or Blind Liberal Luck?

Ann Coulter's New Years Resolutions: 'Be Less Awesome' and 'Stop Killing Hobos'!

Archie Bunker on Fighting Terrorists Bombers

From The Last Tradition

Michael Savage - It's 2010 - Can America Survive with these Incompetent Leaders?

Krauthammer: 2010 Will Be The Year of Iran

Video About Rush Limbaugh in the Hospital

Do Americans Still Have What It Takes? I Say Yes!

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL…

I have a friend who insists that Americans have been emasculated. That somehow we just aren’t what we used to be. I take umbrage with a world view that American exceptionalism has somehow fallen by the wayside.
It’s very true that the liberals would LIKE to see an androgynous Homo-Americanus that they could mold into their perverted Utopian one-size-fits-all Marxian world.

The 1960s produced some startling social demographic changes starting with the ’sexual revolution’.
It’s also true that they made some inroads in that direction by the attempted feminization of the male population through the radical feminist movement, with the resultant ‘compliant’, ’sensitive’ male that we’ve heard described as ‘metro-sexual’ and other less savory descriptions. It’s significant that when they obtain the resultant male they’d been looking to produce, they weren’t satisfied with him either and went around complaining that men aren’t masculine and assertive. The other problematic half of that equation is that the type of female that is produced by adherence to feminist ideals is not the kind of woman a real male wants anyway.

1960s Feminist Demonstration.

I don’t intend to demean feminists. They are what they are and they do what they do. Just don’t get mad at us if we don’t care to play in that ball court.

America was drugged to sleep in the 1960’s. We had a steady drumbeat of socialist dogma coming from our news media and our universities. We had hundreds of thousands of American men fighting a war thousands of miles from home that was never CLEARLY defined for the American people, and an active communist fifth column operating pretty much in the open in our schools. The main stream Americans, the ones no one ever heard from in what is now called fly-over country, knew pretty much only what the available news media of the day was telling them and its message had already been largely usurped by the liberal hard left, which was also making inroads into the Democratic party.

The long overdue civil rights movement, which it should be remembered was opposed ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY BY DEMOCRATS, was piggy-backed into the “Great Society” of President Lyndon Johnson and was a democrat-for-life social welfare modern plantation system that exists to this day. Keeping minorities in poverty rather than lifting them from it. Still, Americans embraced what was good in it and the result has been a far more integrated and color blind society.

President Lyndon B. Johnson

The advent of talk radio, the internet and instantaneous communications have changed everything. The lies of the left no longer go undisputed. In fact, they are usually challenged in minutes instead of hours or days. We as a people began to start paying attention to what our kids were being taught in our public schools. We came out of the haze that had been produced by the frenetic 60 hour working weeks of the 80s and 90s and saw what our resultant inattention had wrought. We saw our country and our freedoms being stolen from us.

Another miracle occurred… we started talking to each other. People from all over this country rediscovering what is meant by AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM and the blessings that are the Constitution and the Bill of Rights – that it is our duty and sacred trust to maintain the freedoms that have been gained at so great a price. Millions upon millions of Americans are rising up and saying HELL NO!

This is it. This is the new year. This is 2010. This is the YEAR OF THE CONSERVATIVE REVOLUTION. LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD!!

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010