Barack Obama named Sen. Joe
Biden of Delaware as his vice presidential running mate early
Saturday, balancing his ticket with a seasoned congressional
veteran well-versed in foreign policy and defense issues. Obama
announced the pick on his Web site with a photo of the two men and
an appeal for donations. A text message went out shortly afterward
that said, "Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP
nominee."

Biden, 65, has twice sought
the White House, and is a Catholic with blue-collar roots, a
generally liberal voting record and a reputation as a long-winded
orator.

Across more than 30 years in
the Senate, he has served at various times not only as chairman of
the Foreign Relations Committee but also as head of the Judiciary
Committee, with its jurisdiction over anti-crime legislation,
Supreme Court nominees and Constitutional issues.

In selecting Biden, Obama
passed over several other potential running mates, none more
prominent than former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, his
tenacious rival in dozens of primaries and caucuses.

Obama’s campaign arranged a
debut for the newly minted ticket on Saturday outside the Old
State Capitol in Springfield, Ill.

Obama’s decision leaked to
the media several hours before his aides planned to send a text
message announcing the running mate, negating a promise that
people who turned over their phone numbers would be the first to
know who Obama had chosen. The campaign scrambled to send the text
message after the leak, sending phones buzzing at the inconvenient
time of just after 3 a.m. on the East coast.

The Weather Underground
believed that militancy was far better than nonviolent protests.
Their goal was to thwart the US Government using guerrilla warfare
to achieve a revolution. They wrote a “Declaration of a State of
War” against the United States government.

…

For starters, the Weather
Underground claimed credit for a bombing in Chicago, which they
referred to as a “kickoff” of what they called their “Days
Of Rage”. Their book. entitled, “Prairie Free”, strongly
called for a unified Communist Party.

The Weather Underground blew
up several Chicago Police cars at that time as well.

Next, these slime balls held
a “war council” to firm up plans to remain underground and
commit acts of sabotage against the US Government. They bombed
several police cars in Berkley. Then they detonated a bomb at the
San Francisco Police Department, during which one officer was
killed and several others were injured. When 36 sticks of dynamite
were discovered at a police precinct in Detroit, Bill Ayers just
happened to be in town.

Later, several of the
Underground’s own members died when they accidentally blew up
their own bomb factory in New York. No loss. The bomb was intended
to be used at an officer’s dance at Fort Dix. The bomb they were
going to use was packed with nails for maximum damage. Fortunately
those nails ended up stuck in their own miserable dead asses
instead. Then another bomb factory was discovered in Chicago’s
North side. Their weapons cache was also discovered in an
apartment in Chicago’s South side. Then they blew up the
National Guard building in DC.

…

They claimed credit for the
explosion of the San Francisco Hall of Justice, which never
occurred. Later, an undetonated explosive device was discovered on
the premises. Then the NY City Police headquarters was bombed.
Then they bombed the Presidio Army Base in San Francisco in honor
of the anniversary of the Cuban Revolution.

Think I am done talking
about the Underground yet? Nope.

They then helped Timothy
Leary escape from prison, and bombed the Marin County courthouse.
After that they bombed the Queens Traffic Court building. They
bombed the Harvard Center For International Affairs. A few of them
fled to Cuba, where I hope to God they still reside if they
aren’t dead.

Next, they bombed the US
Capital. Another of their bomb factories was discovered in San
Francisco. Then they bombed the office of California Prisons, The
New York Department of Corrections in Albany, NY, and William
Bundy’s office at MIT Research Center.

Nope. I’m not done yet.
This stuff was all in a day’s work for Bernardine and Bill.

They bombed the Pentagon.

They bombed the 103 Police
Precinct in New York.

Then they bombed the ITT
buildings in both New York and Rome, Italy.

They bombed the Department
of Health, Education and Welfare.

They bombed the Office of
California of Attorney General.

They bombed Gulf’s
Pittsburgh headquarters.

Then they bombed the
Anaconda headquarters.

They bombed the State
Department.

They bombed the Banco De
Ponce in Puerto Rico as well as the Kennekot Corporation.

They also committed the
Brinks Robbery in conjunction with the Black Liberation Army.

Does Obama support domestic
terrorism? Oh, I doubt that. But let’s also get it on the record,
too, that his friendship with Bill Ayers surely must indicate he’s
not exactly repulsed by it, either.

That’s an awful lot to get
past.

How many unrepentant rapists
have you personally befriended in your adult life, Michael? How
many convicted but proud murderers? How many such repellent
creatures have you found so charming that you could easily put
aside qualms about their past crimes to become fast friends with
them?

Beyond that, of course, it
is simply incontestable that if a Republican were friends and
political allies with a former abortion-clinic bomber or other
sort of domestic terrorist — someone who still advocated such
measures, by the way — Michael Crowely and the whole of TNR would
be very interested in such a friendship, and would gleefully
contrast that Republican’s stated position against Islamofascist
terrorism with his tacit acceptance of, and possible approval of,
domestic terrorism in the right situation.

Law enforcement officials
say when Siddiqui was detained in Afghanistan on July 17 she
possessed documents with a list of likely targets that included
the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, the subway system and the
animal disease center on Plum Island. They say she also had
detailed chemical, biological and radiological weapon information.

In addition, Siddiqui had
e-mails linking her to possible "sleeper" cells in the
United States.

"I don’t think we’ve
captured anybody as important, and as well connected as she since
2003," says former CIA officer John Kiriakou.

Siddiqui also was carrying
“chemical substances in gel and liquid form that were sealed in
bottles and glass jars,” a criminal complaint said without
elaborating.

What GAO Found

Security at the Plum Island
Animal Disease Center has improved, but fundamental concerns leave
the facility vulnerable to security breaches. First, Plum Island’s
physical security arrangements are incomplete and limited. Second,
Plum Island officials have been assuming unnecessary risks by not
adequately controlling access to areas where pathogens are
located. Controlling access is particularly important because
pathogens are inherently difficult to secure at any facility.
Although this risk may always exist, DHS could consult with other
laboratories working with pathogens to learn different approaches
to mitigate this risk. Third, Plum Island’s security response
has limitations. For example, the guard force has been armed but
has not had the authority from USDA to carry firearms or make
arrests. Moreover, Plum Island’s incident response plan does not
consider the possibility of a terrorist attack. Fourth, the risk
that an adversary may try to steal pathogens is, in our opinion,
higher at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center than USDA
originally determined because of hostilities surrounding the
strike. Also, when USDA developed its security plan for Plum
Island, it did not review their defined threats with the
intelligence community and local law enforcement officials to
learn of possible threats—and their associated risks—relevant
to the Plum Island vicinity. Although these reviews did not occur,
USDA subsequently arranged to receive current intelligence
information.

In summary, DHS has made
significant progress and has implemented 18 of the 24
recommendations. However, implementation of the 6 remaining
recommendations is still under way. In 2003, physical security at
Plum Island was deficient in several ways. For example, alarms and
door sensors for detecting intruders were not fully operational;
controls to account for the keys to the island’s facilities were
deficient; and USDA was not providing sufficient physical security
for certain assets, including those critical to the continued
operation of the facility. These vulnerabilities were particularly
troubling because a strike was under way, and sabotage of the
island’s infrastructure had already occurred. DHS has since taken
many actions in response to our recommendations. For example,
alarms and door sensors are now in use, and DHS has implemented
procedures to better control access to keys to facilities. In
addition, the department has better secured certain features of
the physical infrastructure that supports the continued operation
of the Plum Island Animal Disease Center. DHS has also improved
the security of North America’s only foot-and-mouth disease
vaccine bank. This bank represents years of cooperative research
performed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States, and the
material it contains is considered a critical asset for
controlling a large outbreak.