I was pretty bi-partisan last night and I stand by it. I would have never thought in a million years President Obama would have the brass balls to send a team of Navy SEALs deep into Pakistan to get bin Laden in such an up close and personal way. But in the cool afterglow of bin Laden's death, I'd like to remind folks that not everyone was always so excited about killing America's enemies

Behold a breathless Keith Olbermann in March of 2009 pimping the rantings of admitted liar Sy Hersh.

Our fifth story on the Countdown tonight: As we reported on this newshour last night, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, claiming to have uncovered a covert executive assassination ring that reported directly to Vice President Dick Cheney’s office. A reminder -- if one is needed – that in 1976, Mr. Cheney was the chief of staff to President Ford. Meaning, by the time Cheney was back in the West Wing, it appears he had either forgotten about his own boss’ executive order or worse, he had decided to ignore it.

Mr. Hersh is making the revelations at a forum in Minnesota two nights ago. The topic: AmericaÂ’s constitutional crisis. Hersh saying of Mr. Cheney and his inner circle, quote, "They ran a government within the government." Adding, "Eight or nine neoconservatives took over our country."

HershÂ’s bombshell allegations about the assassination ring, the result of reporting for a book he says might be still a year or two away from being published. Hersh is telling MinnPost.com in an email after the event, that the disclosures are, quote, "not something he wanted to dwell about in public."

The toothpaste, however, is already out of the proverbial tube here. When the discussion touched upon the abuses of executive power, Mr. Hersh asked how these things tend to happen and whether they continue to happen to this day. In his reply, the reporter describing a secret commando unit officially called the "Joint Special Operations Command."

HERSH (audio clip): "ItÂ’s a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody except in the Clinton, I mean, in the Bush/Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They do not report to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or to Mr. Gates, the secretary of defense. They report directly to him.

They are not -- they have absolutely no -- Congress has no oversight of it. ItÂ’s an executive assassination wing essentially, and itÂ’s been going on and on and on.

And just today in The Times, there was a story saying that its leader, a three-star admiral named McRaven ordered a stop to certain activities because there were so many collateral deaths. ItÂ’s been going into, in -- under President BushÂ’s authority. TheyÂ’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. ThatÂ’s been going on, well, in the name of all of us."

The Joint Special Operations Command...Hersh and Olbermann's band of rogue assassins was the lead command in the death of bin Laden.

Were it not for this high-value target, it might have been a routine mission for the specially trained and highly mythologized SEAL Team Six, officially called the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, but known even to the locals at their home base Dam Neck in Virginia as just DevGru.

This HVT was special, and the raids required practice, so they replicated the one-acre compound. Trial runs were held in early April.

DevGru belongs to the Joint Special Operations Command, an extraordinary and unusual collection of classified standing task forces and special-missions units. They report to the president and operate worldwide based on the legal (or extra-legal) premises of classified presidential directives. Though the general public knows about the special SEALs and their brothers in Delta Force, most JSOC missions never leak. We only hear about JSOC when something goes bad (a British aid worker is accidentally killed) or when something really big happens (a merchant marine captain is rescued at sea), and even then, the military remains especially sensitive about their existence. Several dozen JSOC operatives have died in Pakistan over the past several years. Their names are released by the Defense Department in the usual manner, but with a cover story -- generally, they were killed in training accidents in eastern Afghanistan. ThatÂ’s the code.

Olbermann (link to his site) is over the moon excited about Obama getting bin Laden. I guess he was against JSOC killing terrorists before he was for it.

Michelle Malkin has more on the left's hypocrisy on "secret prisons".

Almost all Americans are rightfully excited about bin Laden's death but let's not pretend all of us were always in favor of it. Hacks like Olbermann only celebrate American victories when it fits his political narrative., It's disgusting and it shouldn't be ignored.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:43 AM | Comments (205)
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This is really the only DOOM! news that matters today, and happily, the DOOM is all Osama's.

Or, to put it in economic terms: "Noted extermination company kills giant cockroach; stock market booms!" (There is an economic lesson here: a strong America is viewed as a better credit-risk than a weak America. Take note, isolationists.)

Also: Our "friends" in Pakistan have some 'splainin' to do. Seriously, though -- clearly our "allies" are nothing of the kind, and have obviously been hiding OBL away since the very beginning. It's long past time for us to realize that Pakistan is a hostile combatant in this war -- one, I need hardly add, with nuclear weapons.

But today...today is a day for celebration, my friends.

[UPDATE 1]: What Pakistan knew about Bin Laden. Yeah, it's The New Yorker, but it's a good article.
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Posted by: Monty at 04:46 AM | Comments (646)
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Na na na na, na na na na, HEY HEY HEY

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:56 AM | Comments (219)
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Ah. I've wanted to write something like that for a long time.

Osama's Compound on Google Maps: Showing the proximity to the military academy.

Special bonus: People have begun "rating" Osama's compound as if it were a business. I just rated it myself -- give it a whirl!

Already Buried At Sea: They already dumped him. I hope it's the Sea of Spoiled Porkmeat.

Four targets were killed, the two brothers who lived at the estate rent free in return for courier work, Osama, and his son. Their bodies were left behind.

Plus, the woman these heroes killed when they used her as a human shield.

Update: Fourth helicopter crashed upon the compound; the SEALs set it afire to destroy it. This is the fire you're seeing at the compound.

Ahem: This was a "well-known military town." Many top generals lived here. A "military garrison town."

Should have blown the whole fucking town up.

If you haven't read this yet, here's how it happened.

First of all, it all was about finding Bin Ladin's courier. Ultimately they traced the courier to this palatial estate which Pakistan surely knew about. They've been waiting to go in there for a while.

U.S. officials did not share with foreign governments any details about the operation before it took place, a senior administration official said, including with Pakistan, whose leaders were informed after the raid. Only a “very small number” of people within the U.S. government knew about it, the senior official said.

The operation, according to senior officials who briefed reporters early Monday morning, hinged almost entirely on the hunt for a single man: a courier operating out of Pakistan who had been trusted by bin Laden for years.

Using information from detainees in U.S. custody, U.S. analysts and operatives spent years figuring out the courier’s identity, concluding that he was a former protege of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-declared mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks who is being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The courier “in particular had our constant attention,” the official said.

Detainees “identified this man as one of the few al-Qaeda couriers trusted by bin Laden, indicated he might be living with or protecting bin Laden,” the official said. But for years, the United States was unable to track him down or uncover his real name, which did not happen until four years ago. Two years ago, U.S. officials narrowed down the region in Pakistan where the courier was working, senior administration officials said.

So, the Guantanamo suspects that some people wanted to release and some people didn't want to interrogate harshly actually gave up the courier. Four years ago. Ahem.

And then more recently they narrowed down where he was.

But let's not forget that first part, huh?

I guess maybe there is some point in interrogating terrorists? Maybe there's some value in their answers? Maybe they don't "always just tell you what you want to hear"?

Then, in August, U.S. officials found the compound that turned out to be bin LadenÂ’s hiding spot. It was described as an extraordinary place, custom-made for him, with 12- to 18-foot security walls, multiple interior walls dividing the property and massive privacy walls blocking even a third-story balcony. Despite being valued at $1 million, the property had no Internet or phone service, the official said.

“When we saw the compound . . . we were shocked by what we saw,” the official told reporters, describing it as “an extraordinarily unique compound,” built perhaps in 2005 and expressly for bin Laden. “Everything we saw . . . was perfectly consistent with what our experts expected bin LadenÂ’s hideout to look like.”

Given... That a Guantanamo detainee began giving up details on the courier in 2006-2007, I googled "Al Qaeda high ranking captured" and looked for that time range.

Here's the first one that popped up. A high ranking Al Qaeda who was in Saddam Hussein's regime.

The al-Qaeda leader who is thought to have devised the plan for the July 7 suicide bombings in London and an array of terrorist plots against Britain has been captured by the Americans.

Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a former major in Saddam Hussein’s army, was apprehended as he tried to enter Iraq from Iran and was transferred this week to the “high-value detainee programme” at Guantanamo Bay.

The date of that post is April 27th, 2007, almost exactly four years ago.

Is this the guy? No idea. But someone in a position to know started talking then.

Gateway Pundit: Osama's Very Secret Covert Mansion Which Pakistan Couldn't Have Known About Was Across The Street From a Police Station: And also, some kind of government graduate school.

Oh, and also, the town of Abbottabad...

... is the headquarters of a brigade of the Pakistan ArmyÂ’s 2nd Division

So, yeah.

That last quote is from the Washington Post article.

Yeah, we're really getting our money's worth out of the billions we're giving them every year, huh?

Pull the plug, sabotage their economy.

Enemy state.

A Gory Dramatization: The picture I'm going to link is graphically violent. It's also, I'm assured, graphically fake. Apparently this faked picture of a dead bin Ladin has been circulated for months.

But I'm going to link it anyway, because I'm sure he looks something like this. I just heard, he officially has the bullseye bullethole in the center of his forehead just above his eyeline. So, imagine the bullet wound here a little up and little to the left.

So here's a fake, but close enough so who cares, picture of a dead bin Ladin, Graphic content and graphic fakery warning appended.

Tick-Tock: A timeline of the day's events.

In case it's gotten lost, we plugged one of his demonspawn whore-sons too.

Bring Me The Head of Osama bin Ladin: Good p-shop.

Great Picture: New York's Bravest cheer the news.
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Posted by: Ace at 10:00 PM | Comments (381)
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Your official celebration thread.

Posted by: Slublog at 07:49 PM | Comments (797)
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Above The Fold Update:

Today!? Wow, the operation went down today. US team went in, there was a firefight and Bin Laden was killed. No Americans were hurt.

Oh FUCK YES!

CBS reports OBL was "shot in the head." Whoever did it is the new Most Interesting Man in the World.

BEYOND AWESOME: CNN says it wasn't a drone but "a human operation". Up close and personal motherfucker.

CNN says he was killed "in a mansion outside of Islamabad, Pakistan".

The hell with those bastards in Pakistan.

If Obama gave an okay to an action (drone/direct), I have to give him props for that. That's ballsy. Islamabad ain't the N.W. Frontier.

Reports are that fans at the Mets-Phillies game chanted USA! USA! as news spread.

People spontaneously showing up at White House singing national anthem and God Bless America.

House Intelligence Committee aide says WE GOT HIM!

RT @jacksonjk: House Intelligence committee aide confirms that Osama Bin Laden is dead. U.S. has the body.

You can run fuckers but you can't run forever.

Rumsfeld Chief of Staff says they killed Bin Laden. CBS is reporting that now.

That would tie to a tip I got that threat and security levels have been raised at US bases worldwide. That could be in preparation for preset reprisal attacks.

This would be great news but possibly dangerous in the short run.

I'm not questioning the timing. I'm not worried if it gives Obama a bump in the polls. I'm fucking going to pop some champagne and drink a toast to the military and the memories of those who died on 9/11 and in the War on Terror that followed. I'll add in George W. Bush and yes, the President of the United States of America.

We'll know in a minute.

Original Post:
Not sure why but it's from someone in the White House press office.

This can't be good.

Nothing on cable nets yet. Stay tuned.

Update: Cable nets are just saying the statement is coming but there's no word on the topic. That just seems odd.

Posted by: DrewM at 05:57 PM | Comments (1597)
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Hey this week is the first week of the rest of your life - so you've got that going for you.

So How Do You Stop A Truck Bomb?

Well luckily for us at least one company has been working on this problem for a while and has some good, field-able systems.

The Vehicle Arrestor is probably the most powerful since it's able to stop a 15,000lb truck travelling at 50mph - more than sufficient to have stopped the truck used in the 1983 Marine Corps barracks bombing. But the Crash Beam has the advantage of being portable and looking deceptively innocent.

Note that unlike pretty much everything the TSA does, these would actually stop a determined terrorist attack. more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:20 PM | Comments (382)
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Such a thing as a major political party does not simply cease to exist, even in gloomy times. A rare confluence of events, personalities, and policy challenges must come together to topple such a self-perpetuating machine as a major political party. Such situations cannot be foreseen and will inevitably strike when the players involved are those least capable of preventing it. It happened to the Liberal Party in England in the second decade of the twentieth century. It may happen to the Democratic Party here in America sooner than you think.

In George DangerfieldÂ’s beautiful and quintessentially English historical monograph, The Strange Death of Liberal England, the devilish opposition of Tory leader Andrew Bonar Law and the feckless passivity of Prime Minister H.H. Asquith; the mine-craft radical, opportunistic rabble-rousing of David Lloyd George and the idealistic naivety of Sir Edward Carson and his vision of a religiously-divided Ireland; the wide-eyed political inexperience of King George V and the worldly, violent militancy of the Pankhurst women, split open the seams in the Liberal coalition in turns by chance and by design.
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Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:44 PM | Comments (51)
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Dave in Texas had a great post yesterday on oil company tax breaks. His big-picture point was that any time you hear "subsidies for big oil", the person emitting this bilge is a demagogue playing populist to make you think he's "doing something" about high gas prices.

Now there are some industry-specific things like depletion allowances that only apply to companies engaged in mining or oil and gas extraction, but the tax code is full of things that only apply to individual industries (e.g., Big Oil probably doesn't make much use of the depreciation schedules for the motion picture industry). By and large, oil companies mainly take the same deductions and credits as most businesses, provisions that were enacted by congress over many years of tinkering with the code, yet somehow all these get turned into nefarious "subsidies" when there's political hay to be made.

Dave also suggested that if your congresscritter utters this phrase you should ask him to name just one subsidy. I agree. And if he's feeling sporty after that, you should follow up by asking him how raising taxes on oil companies (which is what they really mean) lowers prices at the pump. Their thinking apparently follows this model:

1. Raise taxes on "Big Oil"
2. ???
3. Profit!

Notice that if you substitute "millionaires and billionaires" for "Big Oil", this starts to sound an awful lot like Obama's plan to have a plan to deal with the deficit.

My take on this is very simple. The left loves any excuse it can find to raise taxes. Period. If it can do it on the back of teh eeevilll fat-cat millionaires and billionaires or Gaia-raping oil companies, so much the better. more...

Posted by: andy at 03:05 PM | Comments (165)
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Cannot stress enough that the entire world can change in 18 months so take these for what they are- laughably early projections of the Senate and Presidential race. Images are large, so read on.

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Posted by: CAC at 12:33 PM | Comments (107)
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