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Mission Creep: DHS Agency Abandons Fighting Terrorism, Shifts to Hiring Police, Taking Over AmericaA new white paper presented to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence carves out an ‘evolving mission’ for Homeland Security that moves away from fighting terrorism and towards growing a vast domestic intelligence apparatus that would expand integration with local/state agencies and private-public partnerships already underway via regional fusion centers. Crafted by the Aspen Institute Homeland Security Group, co-chaired by former DHS chief Michael Chertoff and composed of a who’s who of national security figures, the report outlines a total mission creep, as the title “Homeland...

NEW YORK (AP) -- The developer of an Islamic cultural center that opened Wednesday evening near the site of the terrorist attacks that leveled the World Trade Center says the biggest error on the project was not involving the families of 9/11 victims from the start. People crowded into the center, where a small orchestra played traditional Middle Eastern instruments and a photo exhibit of New York children of different ethnicities lined the walls. The enthusiasm at the opening belied its troubled beginnings. snip He called opposition to the center - which prompted one of the most virulent national discussions...

The backers of the controversial “Ground Zero Mosque” have won a court fight clearing the way for them to build the mosque and community center complex two blocks from the site of the 9/11 terror attack. In a decision on Friday that was made public today, New York State Supreme Justice Paul Feinman dismissed a lawsuit by former firefighter Timothy Brown who argued that New York City was wrong to allow the destruction of a 150-year-old building to make way for the Islamic center. The ex-firefighter who was among those who responded to the terror attack on the World Trade...

Did the Aspen know about Schiller's problems when they agreed to hire him? I noticed that the web cam date for the O'Keefe video at the restaurant was shot on 2-22-11 and that the Aspen Institute's announcement of Schiller's move from NPR was dated 3-3-11. So was the Aspen Institute aware of the video when they hired him? And if they were, does the Aspen Institute endorse Schiller's point of view regarding Conservatives, Tea Party members, Jews, and so on?

The NPR executive caught on video bashing the Tea Party and saying that NPR didn’t need federal funding will not be heading to the Aspen Institute. Ron Schiller had been scheduled to start his new position as direct of the Aspen Institute Arts Program and Harman-Eisner Artist-in-Residence April 1, according to a glowing press release distributed last week. But now Aspen Institute communications director Jim Spiegelman says that Schiller will not be working there. “Ron Schiller has informed us that, in light of the controversy surrounding his recent statements, he does not feel that it’s in the best interests of...

That, from the new statement from NPR's Dana Rehm, is the shoe that took all day to drop. The entire statement, which also clarifies that Schiller decided to leave before the sting occurred:The comments contained in the video released today are contrary to everything we stand for, and we completely disavow the views expressed. NPR is fair and open minded about the people we cover. Our reporting reflects those values every single day – in the civility of our programming, the range of opinions we reflect and the diversity of stories we tell. The assertion that NPR and public radio...

A Wisconsinite is reminded he is in Madison, when, looking for a parking place, his car rolls by a lot with a sign that states, "Private Parking; Violators Subject to Karma." I did find a space, parked, participated, even found my car again, and write to you in a coffee shop in town - well, a Panera Bread, but complete with be-bop on the PA. No beret and goatee combos to be seen, though, at least not at a chain store shop, circa 2011. I'll use this space to click off a quick reflections, please pardon the first person voice....

I'm writing this article in defense of everyone who gets or shares information over the internet. On December 21st of this year the FCC will be voting on net neutrality. When I first started researching the subject I thought it was an OK idea, not something that would harm people, but as I dug father I began to see the real danger. If you look at this subject with an open mind you'll see that it's actually a Socialist agenda to control what we see and create absolutely no competition.

Where exactly is Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the man behind the $100 million Ground Zero mosque project? I keep asking because weeks after he stopped answering any questions about his “Cordoba House� plans, there is still no answer. By now, there is information in Rauf’s silence. He launched his Ground Zero mosque and Islamic center project in the name of “dialogue,� “outreach� and “bridge-building� in lower Manhattan. In doing so, he trampled on raw feelings, and set off a divisive debate. Rauf’s apparent dismissal of public questions as not worth his time, while he travels to the Middle East on U.S. taxpayer money, suggests enormous contempt for the American public.Rauf dropped out of sight...

From www.takebackthememorial.org Today's Must Read From 9/11 Familes for a Safe & Strong America: Forsaking the public trust at Ground Zero: Bernstein to move IFC 20 feet east, take artifacts from the memorial site, and use 9/11's heroes as drawing cards The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has repeatedly failed the trust the American people placed in it. Either knowingly or with a lack of due diligence, the LMDC allowed a political ideolog to become a key member of the boards overseeing the 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero. Further, the LMDC has allowed him to turn the gateway cultural center to...

clandestine summit meeting took place at the Aspen Institute, in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. The participants, all Democrats, were sworn to secrecy”. Soros, through his Open Society Institute, provides support for the Aspen Institute... Soros has also been a major funder of the Community Rights Counsel, a left-wing “public interest law firm.”

Mysterious Group Buys Building Next to Ground Zero For Mosque Wednesday, December 16, 2009 Jim Hoft A mysterous Muslim group with unknown sponsors has purchased a building steps away from Ground Zero. Hudson New York reported: An identified group with unknown sponsors has purchased building steps away from where the WorldTrade Center once stood — to turn it into potentially one of the largest New York City mosques. At the moment the building, the old Burlington Coat Factory, already serves as a mini-mosque: an iron grill lifts every Friday afternoon for a little known Imam leading prayers a few yards...

Commentary: Only solar energy can give us what we'll needSANTA MONICA, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Some of the smartest minds in the world gathered last week at the Aspen Institute in Colorado to discuss the environment. Bottom line: We are wasting a lot of time, money and effort on ineffective ways to address climate change. We need better policies and plans -- now. Everyone agreed, from the chief executive of Duke Energy Corp. and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency to the leader of the Evangelical Environmental Network. We're not energy-efficient and the challenges of becoming so are bold and...

Wednesday morning, August 27, between 11 am and 1:30 pm EST or 9 am and 11:30 am mountain time, I'll be chairing a New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force event in Denver at the Colorado History Museum. The keynotes are Senator JOHN KERRY (D-MA), Obama National Security Adviser GREG CRAIG, Princeton University Woodrow Wilson School Dean ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER, former Congressman and Obama Adviser MEL LEVINE, former German Foreign Minister JOSCHKA FISCHER, and Aspen Institute President (and former CNN Chairman and CEO and TIME Managing Editor) Walter Isaacson. Our panel will be former Israeli negotiator and New America Foundation Senior Fellow...

Here is video of Sen. John McCain speaking at The Aspen Institute in Colorado yesterday, August 14, 2008, where he talked about the Russian-Georgian Crisis. McCain clearly sees Russia's move into Georgia as a sign of Putin's larger designs in the region. As a bulwark against further Russian aggression, McCain said he would support rapid acceptance of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO membership - but is unsure if other NATO countries would support such a move. . . .

Sen. John McCain will have his own international summit -- of a sort -- tomorrow when he meets with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama is the keynote speaker at a three-day seminar at the Aspen Institute in Colorado that will bring together scholars, teachers and others to explore Tibet's history and culture. McCain already had a speech scheduled in Denver, and will then fly to Aspen for a private meeting with the leader.

Audience member: If you have this great message and you have to turn it over to the opposition’s message machine — it’s like if you’re in court and you ask the opposing attorney to explain your story — how do we overcome that? BO: Well, look, can the Democrats do a better job delivering a message? Absolutely. But this may reveal some naiveté on my part, and so I offer this with some hesitance. I don’t think that the Democrats will be effective simply by trying to mimic what the Republicans have done. First of all, we’re not as good...

ASPEN - Former President Clinton will join Gov. Bill Owens and luminaries from around the world this week in an annual conference that attracts an eclectic mix of leaders to think through thorny global problems. A regular attendee since the conference began two years ago, Clinton will address Fortune magazine's "Brainstorm 2003," a gathering of thinkers and leaders. Among those attending: former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, heads of state from the Czech Republic and Rwanda, former Texas Gov. Ann Richards and Enron whistleblower Sherron Watkins. The event takes place Monday through Wednesday at...

Speculation is mounting (except, of course, among the “professional” press), as to the identities of six of the eight individuals included in the Libby subpoena to The New York Times (see Clarice Feldman’s piece here). The Times deemed the identities of only two of the parties worthy of release, former CIA director George Tenet and former White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer. The names of the other six remain elusive

October 12, 2006, 1:38 a.m. George Soros’s Two Left HandsThe partisan squeeze on judicial seminars. By Edward Whelan In August 2004, according to this article in the liberal New Yorker, “a clandestine summit meeting took place at the Aspen Institute, in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. The participants, all Democrats, were sworn to secrecy� and included five billionaires who “shared a common goal: to use their fortunes to engineer the defeat of President George W. Bush in the 2004 election.� The wealthiest of these “hard-core partisans� was George Soros, who had been a “leading crusader for campaign-finance reform.� Soros, through his...

  HEAR MAD hillary talks #3:"What, me worry?"THE THREAT OF TERRORISM IS AS CLOSE AS A CLINTON IS TO THE OVAL OFFICE MAD hillary talks seriesWHY MISSUS CLINTON IS DANGEROUSFOR THE CHILDREN, FOR AMERICA, FOR THE WORLD (viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE) MAD hillary talks series #1ALFRED E."What, me worry?" CLINTON + CRAZY HIL MAD COVER STORY THE THREAT OF TERRORISM AS CLOSE ASA CLINTON TO OVAL OFFICE MAD hillary talks series #2HILLARY'SMIDDLE-FINGER MINDSET Do you really want THAT fingeron the button? by Mia T, 7.25.05COPYRIGHT MIA T 2005 "The Sudanese wanted America to start dealing with...

<p>HERE'S one thing New Yorkers do not need — Colorado pin heads telling us what to think.</p> <p>Just last week, the Aspen Institute was an obscure, left-listing think tank boasting a high-fallutin' roster of billionaires, moguls and retired government types, who regularly gather in a circle in the Rocky Mountains to think Big Thoughts.</p>

ASPEN, Colo. (AP) - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton went on the attack against President Bush in a speech Sunday, accusing him of damaging the economy by overspending while giving tax cuts to the rich. The Democrat from New York also accused Bush of depriving U.S. soldiers of equipment needed to fight the war in Iraq and cutting funding for scientific research. "I sometimes feel that Alfred E. Neuman is in charge in Washington," Clinton said referring to the freckle-faced Mad magazine character. She drew a laugh from crowd when she described Bush's attitude toward tough issues with Neuman's catchphrase: "What,...

Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2004 1:09 p.m. EDT Billionaires Secretly Met in Aspen to Defeat Bush In the days following the Democratic National Convention in Boston this past August, several billionaire Democratic activists secretly met at the famed Aspen Institute in Colorado. The purpose of their clandestine meeting was "to use their fortunes to engineer the defeat of President George W. Bush," The New Yorker magazine reports in its most recent edition. Details of the meeting remain sketchy, but the magazine described the Aspen conference this way: "Five billionaires joined half a dozen liberal leaders in a lengthy conversation about the...

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton went on the attack against President Bush in a speech Sunday, accusing him of damaging the economy by overspending while giving tax cuts to the rich. The Democrat from New York also accused Bush of depriving U.S. soldiers of equipment needed to fight the war in Iraq and cutting funding for scientific research. ``I sometimes feel that Alfred E. Neuman is in charge in Washington,'' Clinton said referring to the freckle-faced Mad magazine character. She drew a laugh from crowd when she described Bush's attitude toward tough issues with Neuman's catchphrase: ``What, me worry?'' Clinton, who...

Former President Bill Clinton will accompany his wife, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, to Aspen this weekend as she speaks Sunday at the Aspen Ideas Festival.

Groups fund Durbin's trips to exotic places BY DORI MEINERT COPLEY NEWS SERVICE WASHINGTON - In January 2004, Sen. Dick Durbin and his wife spent six days in Honolulu at the expense of the privately funded Aspen Institute think tank where he attended a conference on U.S.-China relations. Durbin and his wife, Loretta, traveled to Venice, Italy, where they spent 14 days in August of the same year for a conference on U.S.-Russia relations, also paid for by the Aspen Institute. The Illinois Democrat also visited South Africa on the tab of other private groups last year, according to his...

Jeff Gedmin lured me to Berlin the other week with the prospect of good talk — specifically, an interesting exchange of views with some journalists, politicians, policymakers, Foreign Ministry planners, Britain's ambassador to Germany, and the U.S. chargé d'affaires (our old ambassador has left, and no replacement has been named). Jeff, who is fluent in German, runs the Aspen Institute Berlin, which he has made the de facto U.S. embassy. I was curious to learn whether the Rice-Bush charm offensive had had any discernible effect on Germany's decidedly anti-Bush, anti-American policies. I suppose I should have divined the answer from...

Former US President Jimmy Carter unleashed a fierce attack against the Israeli and American governments in his speech at the Geneva Initiative's ceremony in Switzerland. Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, blamed US President George W. Bush for anti-American sentiment and worldwide terror. "Bush's inordinate support for Israel allows the Palestinians to suffer," Carter said. "This is a source of anti-American sentiment in the world and encourages terror." Carter said Israel's settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the security fence are the main obstacles to peace. He called repeatedly for the return of Palestinian refugees to the...

My interest in the Fortune magazine and Aspen Institute conference, just held at the institute’s Bauhaus-style retreat at Aspen Meadows, had not a little to do with my continuing and over-the-top interest in Walter Isaacson. Isaacson, you may recall, ran CNN and, before that, Time magazine, and then, this past spring, became the director of the international-problem-solving think tank, as—in my blue-sky view—a prelude to becoming secretary of State under the next Democratic president. What’s more, he’d just published a biography of Benjamin Franklin in an orchestration of promotion and cross-marketing (including, in one of the great corporate going-away presents,...

The liberal power elite I hobnobbed with in Aspen seems terminally short on passion—with one tough-talking, very angry exception: Bill Clinton. By Michael Wolff My interest in the Fortune magazine and Aspen Institute conference, just held at the institute’s Bauhaus-style retreat at Aspen Meadows, had not a little to do with my continuing and over-the-top interest in Walter Isaacson. Isaacson, you may recall, ran CNN and, before that, Time magazine, and then, this past spring, became the director of the international-problem-solving think tank, as—in my blue-sky view—a prelude to becoming secretary of State under the next Democratic president. What’s more,...