U.S.-Born al Qaeda Arrest News Incorrect

Confusion Over Militant's Identity Sparked Reports of Gadahn Arrest; Some Media Say It is Another U.S.-Born Te

(CBS)  Last Updated 5:25 p.m. ET

An "important Taliban militant" was arrested today in Pakistan. But that is where the confusion started.

Earlier it was reported by Pakistani media that intelligence agents had arrested Adam Gadahn, the American-born spokesman for al Qaeda, in an operation in the southern city of Karachi.

It was further reported by the Associated Press and Reuters that Gadahn had been arrested, sourcing security officials.

CBS News was told by sources in the Pakistan government that it was Gadahn, even after U.S. officials refused to confirm it was the California native for whom a $1 million reward has been posted.

Now, CBS News' Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad writes that earlier reports the detained individual was Gadahn proved false. According to a Pakistan security official who spoke with CBS News on condition of anonymity, the arrested individual is in fact "a Taliban militant leader who is known as Abu Yahya."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/07/world/main6275953.shtml

Update: Ed Morrissey says on CNN at 6pm ET, they reported that a "senior Pakistani government official" says it is definitely Gadahn.

Graham Signals KSM Trial Reversal Could Clear Way for Gitmo Closure

FOXNews.com

Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday that he would help the White House convince his fellow Republicans to support closing Guantanamo Bay if President Obama reverses course and sends the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind and his co-conspirators to military tribunals.

The South Carolina Republican is considered to be a key player in the administration's strategy to close the detainee camp at Guantanamo. He supports shuttering the facility but opposes trying the alleged architects of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in civilian court. 

He acknowledged Sunday that he's willing to play ball with the White House on Guantanamo, provided it gives him what he wants on the terror trials. 

"I don't believe Khalid Sheikh Mohammed robbed a liquor store. He's the mastermind of 9/11. ... If he's not an enemy combatant, who would be?" Graham told CBS' "Face the Nation." 

He suggested that using the tribunals for such high-profile terror suspects would go a long way toward easing opposition from the right to closing Guantanamo and sending its detainees to U.S. soil. 

"I can't do it by myself. But I think if we could get Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators of 9/11 back in the military commission, it would go down well with the public," Graham said.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/07/graham-signals-ksm-trial-reversal-clear-way-gitmo-closure/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+foxnews%252Flatest+%2528Text+-+Latest+Headlines%2529

Here are some photos of Iraqis going to the polls. Via HotAirPundit:

Close Associate of Usama bin Laden Arrested in Pakistan

Sunday, March 07, 2010

Developing: Abu Yahya Azam, a close associate of Usama bin Laden, was arrested in Karachi Sunday and has been taken into custody, Fox News confirms.

Azam is believed to be Egyptian-American.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,588322,00.html

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistani officials: Adam Gadahn, the American-born spokesman for al-Qaida, has been arrested.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9E9UQJ00&show_article=1

Christmas Day terror plot plane would have landed safely even if 'underpants' bomb had blown up

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 4:55 PM on 05th March 2010

A bomb on board a U.S. Christmas Day flight would have failed to bring the plane down even if it had been detonated successfully, a new test explosion suggests.

A controlled blast on a Boeing 747, using the same explosives that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is accused of smuggling on board, failed to burst the fuselage.

It means, had the bomb exploded on December 25, Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit would have successfully landed .

However, experts said the alleged Islamist terrorist and the passenger next to him would have died, while other passengers would have suffered ruptured ear drums.

Mr Abdulmutallab, 23, who is accused of sewing explosives into his underpants and using a syringe to detonate it, denies attempting to murder 289 people.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255722/Test-explosion-shows-Christmas-Day-flight-landed-bomb-detonated.html

Levin Repays Property Tax Credit

Newly anointed House Ways and Means Chairman Sander Levin (D-Mich.) repaid a Maryland property-tax credit Friday that he should not have received, his office confirmed.

Levin, who owns a home in Chevy Chase, Md., received a $690 credit on his most recent property tax bill, the result of Montgomery County program that provided one-time credits to residential property owners in the 2009-10 tax year.

Levin, who purchased the home in 1977, received the tax credit although it was intended for only “owner-occupied” properties, and he does not live in the home. The credit reduced his tax bill to just under $9,500.

“This is not a tax credit that Rep. Levin applied for and in an abundance of caution he has paid the full amount to Montgomery County to correct their mistake,” Levin Chief of Staff Hilarie Chambers wrote in an e-mail Friday.

Chambers said the Michigan lawmaker moved out of the home in September 2008, following the death of his wife. His daughter and her family now occupy the home, and he stays at a Silver Spring condominium owned by his daughter when he is in the Washington, D.C. area.

Levin repaid the credit Friday, Chambers said, after being contacted by Roll Call.

http://www.rollcall.com/news/43910-1.html

"Stop messing with Texas!" That was the message Gov. Rick Perry bellowed on election night as he celebrated his victory over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Republican primary for governor. In his reference to Texas' anti-littering slogan, Perry was making a point applicable to national as well as Texas politics and addressed to Democratic politicians as well as Republicans.

His point was that the big-government policies of the Obama administration and Democratic congressional leaders are resented and fiercely opposed not just because of their dire fiscal effects but also as an intrusion on voters' independence and ability to make decisions for themselves.

No one would include Perry on a list of serious presidential candidates, including himself, even in the flush of victory. But in his 10 years as governor, the longest in the state's history, Texas has been teaching some lessons to which the rest of the nation should pay heed.

They are lessons that are particularly vivid when you contrast Texas, the nation's second most populous state, with the most populous, California. Both were once Mexican territory, secured for the United States in the 1840s. Both have grown prodigiously over the past half-century. Both have populations that today are about one-third Hispanic.

But they differ vividly in public policy and in their economic progress -- or lack of it -- over the last decade. California has gone in for big government in a big way. Democrats hold big margins in the legislature largely because affluent voters in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area favor their liberal positions on cultural issues.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Low-tax-Texas-beats-big-government-California-86681467.html

Deadly Blasts Shake Baghdad as Iraqis Vote

Sunday, March 07, 2010

BAGHDAD —  Iraqis voted Sunday in an election testing the mettle of the country's still-fragile democracy as insurgents killed 25 people across the Iraq, unleashing a barrage of mortars intent on disrupting the historic day.

About 19 million Iraqis are eligible to vote for who will lead the country after U.S. forces pull out, in an election that will determine whether Iraq can overcome the jagged sectarian divisions that have defined it since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Insurgents who vowed to disrupt the elections — which they see as validating the Shiite-led government and the U.S. occupation — launched a spate of attacks as polls opened across the city and country.

At least 14 people died in northeastern Baghdad after an explosion leveled a building, and mortar attacks in western Baghdad killed seven people in two different neighborhoods, police and hospital officials said.

In Baghdad's northeast Hurriyah neighborhood, where mosque loudspeakers exhorted people to vote as "arrows to the enemies' chest," three people were killed when someone threw a hand grenade at a crowd heading to the polls, said police and hospital officials.

In the city of Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, a bomb inside a polling center killed a policeman, said Iraqi Army Col. Abdul Hussein. There were also explosions elsewhere in the country, but no further reports of fatalities.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,588273,00.html

Breaking With Scientology

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Published: March 6, 2010

They signed a contract for a billion years — in keeping with the church’s belief that Scientologists are immortal. They worked seven days a week, often on little sleep, for sporadic paychecks of $50 a week, at most.

But after 13 years and growing disillusionment, the Collbrans decided to leave the Sea Org, setting off on a Kafkaesque journey that they said required them to sign false confessions about their personal lives and their work, pay the church thousands of dollars it said they owed for courses and counseling, and accept the consequences as their parents, siblings and friends who are church members cut off all communication with them.

“Why did we work so hard for this organization,” Ms. Collbran said, “and why did it feel so wrong in the end? We just didn’t understand.”

They soon discovered others who felt the same. Searching for Web sites about Scientology that are not sponsored by the church (an activity prohibited when they were in the Sea Org), they discovered that hundreds of other Scientologists were also defecting — including high-ranking executives who had served for decades.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/us/07scientology.html

Radical Cleric Makes Surprise Endorsement of Iraqi Elections as Voting Nears

Saturday, March 06, 2010

BAGHDAD —  In a surprise move ahead of Iraq's parliamentary election, anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr made a rare public appearance Saturday in neighboring Iran, where he's believed to have been living for the past two years.

Speaking from Tehran, al-Sadr — flanked by two Iraqi flags — urged Iraqis to turn out in large numbers in Iraq's parliamentary election Sunday and give their support to those who he said were "faithful" to the Iraqi people.

The appeal marked a significant shift in al-Sadr's position on Iraqi elections. He has viewed past votes as illegitimate because they took place under the canopy of U.S. occupation. But in the run-up to this election, the cleric called voting a means of "political resistance," a new stance that could boost Sadrist turnout and representation in the next government.

Iraqis fear Sunday's parliamentary election, billed as a key test of Iraq's nascent democracy, will lead to a protracted period of uncertainty as the winners and losers try to cobble together a new government — even as American forces prepare to go home.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,588224,00.html

New York Gov. David Paterson says he won't resign

He seems to be using as a guide the consensus of a group of influential black leaders that he should retain his post, despite facing two scandals and declining public support.

By Tina Susman

March 6, 2010

Reporting from New York - New York Gov. David Paterson, his confidence apparently buoyed by a show of support from influential black leaders, said Friday that he would not resign despite facing two scandals, withering support from the public, and a shaken staff.

Paterson spoke briefly outside his Manhattan office, a day after the Rev. Al Sharpton convened a meeting of black political and civic leaders to decide whether they should urge Paterson, New York's first black governor, to quit. They decided Paterson should remain in office.

Paterson's associates say the group's opinion is an important guide for the governor, and his comments Friday seemed to confirm that.

"I don't have any plans to resign. I am working on the business of the people of New York state," Paterson said. "At a certain point, I will cooperate with the investigations and will be clearing my name."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-paterson6-2010mar06,0,4632511.story

In e-mails, lobbyists perceive ties between campaign cash, earmarks

By Carol D. Leonnig

Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 6, 2010

Lobbyists and corporate officials talked bluntly in e-mail exchanges about connections between making generous campaign donations and securing federal funds through members of an important House Appropriations subcommittee, according to not-yet-public documents reviewed by ethics investigators.

In summer 2007, for example, senior executives at a small McLean defense firm tried to figure out which of them would buy a ticket to a wine-tasting fundraiser for Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), a member of the Appropriations subcommittee on defense. At the time, the company sought help from Moran's office in securing contracts through special earmarks added to the defense bill.

In an e-mail exchange, one senior officer said he didn't understand why he had to attend the fundraiser when he didn't even drink wine.

"You don't have to drink," Innovative Concepts' chief technology officer, Andrew Feldstein, shot back in an e-mail. "You just have to pay."

"LOL," responded the other officer.

The fundraiser was hosted by the PMA Group, a powerful lobbying firm whose unusual success in obtaining "earmarked" contracts from members of the military subcommittee was a key focus of a recent House ethics investigation.

Moran raked in $91,900 in campaign checks to his personal campaign and leadership PAC that day. He secured an $800,000 earmark for Innovative Concepts in the 2008 defense appropriations bill.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/05/AR2010030504304.html?hpid=topnews⊂=AR

Via Power Line:

One of the key arguments of Barack Obama's Presidential campaign was that he would improve America's image around the world. This idea was based on the false assumption that anti-Americanism was due to factors peculiar to the Bush administration, as opposed to the basic realities of America's role in the world and the hostility that many feel toward our values and interests. Thus, anyone foolish enough to believe that electing Obama would transform our international relationships must be disappointed.

Most recently, student protests have broken out in Indonesia against Obama's planned visit to the land of his youth. One might think that Indonesia, especially, would welcome Obama as a favorite son. But Muslims in the world's largest Muslim country don't see it that way. Here, protesters hurl shoes at a picture of Obama:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/03/025755.php

March 6, 2010 7:00 A.M.

It’s About Government, Not Health Care
What the Dems are doing makes perfect sense. For them.

So there was President Obama giving his bazillionth speech on health care, droning yet again that “now is the hour when we must seize the moment,” the same moment he’s been seizing every day of the week for the past year, only this time his genius photo-op guys thought it would look good to have him surrounded by men in white coats.

Why is he doing this? Why let “health” “care” “reform” stagger on like the rotting husk in a low-grade creature feature who refuses to stay dead no matter how many stakes you pound through his chest?Because it’s worth it. Big time. I’ve been saying in this space for two years that the governmentalization of health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture. It redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in fundamental ways that make limited government all but impossible. In most of the rest of the Western world, there are still nominally “conservative” parties, and they even win elections occasionally, but not to any great effect (let’s not forget that Jacques Chirac was, in French terms, a “conservative”). The result is a kind of two-party one-party state: Right-of-center parties will once in a while be in office, but never in power, merely presiding over vast left-wing bureaucracies that cruise on regardless.

Republicans seem to have difficulty grasping this basic dynamic. Less than three months ago, they were stunned at the way the Democrats managed to get 60 senators to vote for the health bill. Then Scott Brown took them back down to 59, and Republicans were again stunned to find the Dems talking about ramming this thing into law through the parliamentary device of “reconciliation.” And, when polls showed an ever larger number of Americans ever more opposed to Obamacare (by margins approaching three-to-one), Republicans were further stunned to discover that, in order to advance “reconciliation,” Democratic reconsiglieres had apparently been offering (illegally) various cozy Big Government sinecures to swing-state congressmen in order to induce them to climb into the cockpit for the kamikaze raid to push the bill through. The Democrats understand that politics is not just about Tuesday evenings every other November, but about everything else, too.

http://article.nationalreview.com/427119/its-about-government-not-health-care/mark-steyn