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Sources: Pentagon Wants 'Able Danger' Hearings Closed Friday, September 16, 2005 PHOTOS PHOTO ESSAYS Click image to enlarge Photo Essays: • Investigating 9/11: The Final Hearing STORIES BACKGROUND LINKS • WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is pressuring the Senate Judiciary Committee to close to the public next week's hearings on a former secret military intelligence unit called "Able Danger," two congressional sources have confirmed to FOX News. Witnesses from the Pentagon are expected to testify at that hearing; that's why they want it classified. FOX News has learned that committee Chairman Arlen Specter's office is vigorously resisting the request. Some former...

Louisiana governor's political future in doubt Associated Press Sept. 11, 2005, 5:33PM Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco acknowledges applause from worshipers after she was introduced during a mass at Saint Joseph's Cathedral in Baton Rouge, La., Sept. 4.SLIDELL, La. — "I've probably been to hell and back," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said as she traipsed back to a military helicopter that would lift her from this hurricane-ravaged city back to Baton Rouge. Her eyes were bleary but she looked fitter than she had in the days immediately following Hurricane Katrina's Aug. 29 strike. Waylaid by one reporter after another, she granted interviews...

A Pentagon investigation has found no evidence that Able Danger, a secret military intelligence operation, identified September 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta as a terror cell member more than a year before the attacks. Larry Di Rita, chief Pentagon spokesman, said investigators have failed to find a chart that Able Danger supposedly created before the winter of 2000 that listed Atta as a member of an al Qaeda cell in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer said the small intelligence unit, called "Able Danger," had identified Atta and three of the other future Sept. 11 hijackers as al-Qaida members by mid-2000. He said military lawyers stopped the unit from sharing the information with the FBI. The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks left the Able Danger claims out of its official report. In an interview with Fox News Channel and The New York Times, Shaffer said the panel was not given all the information his team had gathered. "I'm told confidently by the person who did move the material over that the...

If you want to know everything wrong with the 9/11 Commission in a single sound bite, consider this from Al Felzenberg, its official spokesman, speaking Wednesday: ''There was no way that Atta could have been in the United States at that time, which is why the staff didn't give this tremendous weight when they were writing the report. This information was not meshing with the other information that we had.''

Aug. 09, 2005 Governor Perry Signs Education Budget; Adds Eminent Domain to Special Session Call AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry today signed the $33.1 billion Texas Education Agency budget and added eminent domain to the special session agenda so that legislators can protect private property rights. “I am signing HB 1, not because it adequately funds education reforms, but because it ensures schools will open on time,” Perry said. “I remain hopeful that the legislature will act in the remaining days of this special session to finish the job of reforming our education system, giving teachers a meaningful pay increase...

A small town in Indiana and a brief filed saying that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided are entirely positive signs on first inspection, but the second reveals only a leaning and not a falling off on one side or the other. This is, of course, by White House design for the public understanding of Judge Roberts. Bush has exhibited his recurrent traits and examining G.W. Bush right now is the only way to know what really is in the heart of Judge Roberts. Roberts is deliberately without much record. He is deliberately congenial and with friends all around. He...

America is very very bad country. Horrible country. Shame on you freepers for not including afghanistan and iran and iraq and all the other middle easterns countries on the list you segregationist. You got to be ashamed. Cause were brown, One day we browns will come and get you racist.

The Tancredo Blunder Donald Sensing has all the links that really matter on the Tancredo blunder. (HT: StonesCryOut.) Pastor Sensing notes that I corrected the first post to specifically note that Congressman Tancredo talked of "bombing" Mecca, not "nuking" Mecca. The actual audio is available to anyone now at the website for WFLA 540 in Orlando. Note two things. First, Congressman Tancredo said that if we determined that "extremist fundamentalist Muslims" attacked the U.S. with nukes, then we should bomb Mecca. Why, he should be asked, if "extremist fundamentalist" Muslims are guilty would we declare war on all Muslims? Why...

Vote: Should he have apologized? Currently: 35.2% Yes (1045 responses) 64.8% No (1923 responses) 2968 total responses (Poll results not scientific)

Democrats Joseph Biden and John Edwards are criticizing party chairman Howard Dean, saying his rhetorical attacks on Republicans have gone too far. Dean has said Republicans never made an honest living in their lives and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence. DeLay has not been accused of any crime. Dean ''doesn't speak for me with that kind of rhetoric and I don't think he speaks for the majority of Democrats,'' Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Sunday on ABC's ''This Week.'' While discussing...

SACRAMENTO — The Schwarzenegger administration is poised to profoundly transform how California treats its most troubled young lawbreakers, replacing a prison culture of punishment and control with one anchored in group therapy, self-discipline and preparation for life outside. Under the new approach, outlined in court documents to be filed today, inmates in the California Youth Authority — now idle or locked down much of the time — would follow an intensive schedule of counseling, education and vocational training designed to consume nearly every waking hour. Living units, now marked by violence and crowded with up to 75 youths, would house...

May 23 issue - Did a report in NEWSWEEK set off a wave of deadly anti-American riots in Afghanistan? That's what numerous news accounts suggested last week as angry Afghans took to the streets to protest reports, linked to us, that U.S. interrogators had desecrated the Qur'an while interrogating Muslim terror suspects. We were as alarmed as anyone to hear of the violence, which left at least 15 Afghans dead and scores injured. But I think it's important for the public to know exactly what we reported, why, and how subsequent events unfolded.

PAPER: Border Patrol told to stand down in Arizona... Border Patrol agents have been ordered not to arrest illegal aliens along the section of the Arizona border where protesters patrolled last month because an increase in apprehensions there would prove the effectiveness of Minuteman volunteers, WASHINGTON TIMES has learned.... Developing...

As I look at Bush's current Social Security plan I must shake my head. Social Security, no matter how you slice is a retirement program and a welfare program. To allow a portion of it to be personally invested is very risky. As everyone makes the distinction that Bush's offerings on Social Security are a good or bad plan, I want everyone to recognize a few key points. 1) Social Security is only paid by those making less then $89,900 a year. The poor and middle income. 2) There is alway risk in personal investing. 3) Taking even a small...

Personal Message: Since you seemingly care more about parodies of the DU (I personally really like them, great work) and simplistic sensationalist headlines than you do about the realities of the harsh international world that we live in - I bid Freep farewell. I do, however, leave you with this... The religious right has officially become as unhinged as the moon-bat anti-war activists on the left. Furiously and stubbornly refusing to relinquish propaganda sentiments in favor of clear and unbiased logic has unfortunately rendered a portion of our party intellectually irrelevant. Just as the followers of Howard Dean can bring...

    Rather to Host His Own Farewell Tribute on CBS Thu Feb 17, 2005 08:31 PM ET By Steve Gorman LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - No sooner will Dan Rather bid viewers a final good night as anchor of the CBS Evening News than he will be back on the air to lead viewers through a retrospective of his 50 years in broadcast journalism. CBS News said on Thursday that an hourlong special, "Dan Rather: A Reporter Remembers," will be telecast on March 9, at 8 p.m. EST, within an hour of his stepping down as host and managing...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- In a drastic change, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration has committed California to reforming the way it treats youthful offenders, promising to replace more punitive measures with therapy and positive reinforcement. The agreement was announced Monday to settle a lawsuit. Only last year, the juvenile system was criticized by national experts as draconian. Among the methods they cited was the use of cages and drugs to subdue mentally ill or substance addicted youths. Under a timetable set for the agreement, reforms will be implemented gradually. The body that oversees the system, the California Youth Authority, set a...

San Francisco Theological Seminary has issued a statement saying the seminary group that met with Hezbollah on June 1, 2004, did so without knowing that such a meeting would occur and that the students and leaders felt uncomfortable in the presence of a Hezbollah representative and reporters from Mideast media. The statement was unsigned, but Phil Butin, president of the seminary, told The Layman Online that he wrote most of it after interviewing a number of students to find out what happened. Butin also said he talked with Charles Marks, the seminary's chaplain and leader, along with his wife Amal...

At CBS News the long awaited "memogate" report is in and four people are out of a job. Is this one of the biggest scandals ever to hit American journalism? Did the report go far enough? And what about the recommendations made by the independent panel investigating the "60 Minutes Wednesday" story about President Bush's National Guard service? Our panelists will weigh in on those questions and much more! Then, in our "Quick Takes on the Media" segment: • What was the real reason for the massive media coverage of the South Asian tsunami? • Should a reaction to a...