This was only a matter of time:

TSA screener Rolando Negrin is facing assault charges in a case that involves the controversial, full body scanners being adopted in airports as part of increased security measures.

The images produced by the powerful x-ray scanners--detailed enough to show breast implants--have been compared to "virtual strip-searching."

Negrin reportedly passed through the screener during a training session on how to use the device, and the revealing x-ray image of him produced by the x-ray prompted teasing from coworkers, "who joked about the size of the man's genitalia," reports The Smoking Gun.

From The Smoking Gun:

"The X-ray revealed that [Negrin] has a small penis and co-workers made fun of him on a daily basis," reported cops. Following his arrest, Negrin told police that he "could not take the jokes anymore and lost his mind.

This case could turn into a great test of the legality of these scanners. I wonder if the ACLU is already contacting Negrin to offer him representation?

Here’s what Lindsey Graham said about attempted car bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad being read his rights:

Miranda warnings are counterproductive in my view,” Graham said at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing Wednesday.

“The homeland is part of the battlefield. So this idea that you get to America, the rules dramatically change, to the benefit of the suspect – the terrorist – makes no sense,” he said.

So Lindsey doesn’t like the 5th amendment, but what about when it comes to suspected terrorists being able to buy guns?

Graham described the bill as an instrument of those who would ban guns altogether. "We're talking about a constitutional right here," he said, explaining that he could not support a bill that would force "innocent Americans" to "pay the cost of going to court to get their gun rights back."

I thought Graham was a lawyer? Doesn’t he understand that being read your rights is also a constitutional right?

Like I said yesterday, Democrats need to run on this big time. They need to point out that Republicans want to insure that suspected terrorists can still buy guns. Something like this: “Republicans want terrorists to be able to legal access the tools to kill you, your family and your neighbors. Why do the Republicans support terrorism?” If the tables were turned that is the exact kind of play the Republicans would be pulling right now.

Michael Bloomberg has a post up at the Huffington Post that addresses something very important in this age of terror:

It's amazing but true: we can prevent terror suspects from boarding an airplane, but the FBI doesn't have the power to block them from buying dynamite or an AK-47.

I believe strongly that they should. And so do the 500 mayors who are members of our bi-partisan coalition of Mayor Against Illegal Guns.

It is time to close the "Terror Gap" in our gun laws.

This morning I will be testifying at a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security Committee about the easy access that terror suspects have to guns and explosives. I wanted to share with lawmakers the hard-earned perspective New Yorkers have on this national security risk.

Democrats always run when it comes time to talk gun control. They are afraid that the NRA might attack them. In this instance I say “good – let them attack”.

Since 9/11 we have seen the right attack the 1st and 4th amendments. National security should trump freedom of speech and our rights against unwarranted search. It’s funny though. If we say that it should also prevent certain people from buying guns, the right goes into full defense mode accusing people of trying to violate constitutional rights. I missed the part of the Constitution that states the 2nd amendment trumps all others, but apparently the Republicans have found it somewhere in their minds.

So how big of a problem is it when talking about suspected terrorists buying guns? It’s this bad:

Today, the Government Accountability Office has released new data showing that suspects on the terrorism watch lists were able to buy guns and explosives from licensed US dealers 1,119 times between 2004 and 2010.

Democrats need to push through legislation this year closing this gap. If Republicans or the 2nd amendment folks want to oppose, then I say, in my Bush speak voice, “Bring it on!” Think of the political ads this could generate. “Democrats wanted to make it illegal for suspected terrorists to purchase guns in the U.S., but Republican X doesn’t think so. Instead Republican X wants to protect the rights of suspected terrorists when it comes to purchasing some of the tools of their trade”. It’s a win I tell you!

Hopefully after today’s hearing we can see some movements on closing the terror loop hole in our gun laws and if Republicans act predictably, we will also expose just how weak they are when it comes to actually preventing terrorism.

With the arrest of a Pakistani born, U.S. citizen in connection with the failed car bombing on Times Square, the Republican members of Congress are starting to show that they have absolutely no respect for the Constitution of this land:

The morning after the arrest of 30-year-old Faisal Shahzad at John F. Kennedy airport on Monday evening, the usual suspects in the GOP took to print and the airwaves to whack away at the president and his top lawyer. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) mocked the idea that Attorney General Eric Holder might read the suspect his Miranda rights or consider trying him in a civilian court.

"I hope that [Attorney General Eric] Holder did discuss this with the intelligence community. If they believe they got enough from him, how much more should they get? Did they Mirandize him? I know he's an American citizen but still," King said.

Notorious for jumping into the political fray in the wake of attempted or successful terrorist acts, King was quickly joined in the ring by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who called the idea of reading Miranda rights a "serious mistake."

As matter of fact McCain has even gone to the right of Glenn Beck now:

"He is a citizen of the United States, so I say we uphold the laws and the Constitution on citizens," the bombastic Fox News host said to the stunned co-hosts of "Fox and Friends". "If you are a citizen, you obey the law and follow the Constitution. [Shahzad] has all the rights under the Constitution."

"We don't shred the Constitution when it is popular," Beck added. "We do the right thing."

So there ya have it – John McCain has officially out-crazied Glenn Beck. McCain has also proved that he has no soul. He cares nothing about beliefs or ideology, only about winning.

Scary times we live in:

A crude car bomb of propane, gasoline and fireworks was discovered in a smoking Nissan Pathfinder in the heart of Times Square on Saturday evening, prompting the evacuation of thousands of tourists and theatergoers on a warm and busy night. Although the device had apparently started to detonate, there was no explosion, and early on Sunday the authorities were still seeking a suspect and motive.

Al Qaeda has been known to use propane to increase the lethality of their car bombs, but that is something most people know as it is covered pretty well on the internet and has even been talked about in the media. Something that does stand out at me is the lengths the failed bomber went through to hide his identity:

The license plates on the Nissan were registered to another vehicle — a Ford pickup truck that was taken to a junkyard near Bridgeport, Conn., within the last two weeks, according to a law enforcement official. The previous owner of the Ford was interviewed Saturday night by the F.B.I., but it did not appear he was regarded as a suspect. Still, the junkyard was considered a primary target of the initial investigation.

The S.U.V.’s standard vehicle identification number had been removed, Mr. Bloomberg said, and investigators were scouring it to see if the number appeared elsewhere.

Wrong plates and a removed VIN? Usually attacks by organized terrorist groups won’t go through this kind of work to cover up their involvement. As matter of fact they want their involvement known.

(Adding…I wonder if they also ground off the engine block VIN. Maybe we can get lucky and these idiots didn’t know about that and now they have a great lead. Janet Napolitano said this morning that they have recovered fingerprints also.)

While we don’t know who is responsible for this yet, that hasn’t stopped some of the fringe on the right from conducting their own high tech investigation from the comfort of their basements and conclude that it had to be Jihadists.

And since we want to throw out our own conspiracies, I figured I would jump in on it too. A lot of the blogs on the right aren’t jumping to any conclusions. That’s kind of shocking given their history of always drawing conclusions before the investigation was complete. So my theory is that this may have been some anti-government whack job. Again, this is a theory and for the sake of our country I sincerely hope I am wrong, but given the times we live in I wouldn’t be shocked one bit if it turned out to be just that.

If my theory does turn out to be true and some anti-government whacko did plant this bomb, then we can also expect another backlash. That would be in the form of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck declaring that the bomb was planted by the left, or even Obama himself, to make the “God loving, big government hating patriots” look bad.

Another big get for the military:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Monday that an Iraqi intelligence team had found and killed al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri.

Maliki said the team had also killed Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the purported leader of al Qaeda's local affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq.

The claims, which followed a March 7 election that produced no clear victor but which Maliki hopes will give him a second term, were not immediately confirmed by the U.S. military, which Maliki said had conducted DNA tests on the bodies.

Of course the right will spin this into a failure of the Obama administration by this evening.

From ABC:

Federal air marshals subdued a man who authorities say attempted to "light his shoes on fire" on a United flight from Washington Reagan to Denver Wednesday night, federal law enforcement officials told ABC News.

Authorities say an explosive team is on the way to the airport, and that while the presence of explosives has not yet been confirmed, they believe it was an attempted "shoe bomb."

The suspect was identified by authorities as a diplomat in the Qatar embassy in Washington, Mohammed al Modadi. The FBI said the man had full diplomat immunity as the 3rd secretary and vice-consul.

Authorities said two jet fighters were scrambled from Buckley Air Force Base to accompany United flight 663, a Boeing 757, as it flew the final 40 miles to Denver where it landed safely.

Authorities said the man, identified as from Qatar, was restrained by the air marshals who were on the flight.

Coming up tomorrow – nonstop interviews with Dick Cheney.

UPDATE (10:40):

Per Pete Williams on MSNBC there is no shoe bomb. Apparently the suspect spent an extra long time in the bathroom. When he finally came out an air marshal said he smelled smoke and asked the suspect what he was doing. The suspect responded “trying to light my shoes on fire”. They now believe he was smoking a cigarette in the bathroom.

Yesterday Scott Brown tried to justify Joseph Stack flying an airplane into the federal building in Austin by saying “no one likes paying taxes”.

This all seems to play nicely with FOX declaring that this isn’t domestic terrorism.

Yeah – who is weak on terrorism? Cue Dick Cheney in 3…2…..

When you ignore Afghanistan for 7 years then you never get stories like this:

The Taliban’s top military commander was captured several days ago in Karachi, Pakistan, in a secret joint operation by Pakistani and American intelligence forces, according to American government officials.

The commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an Afghan described by American officials as the most significant Taliban figure to be detained since the American-led war in Afghanistan started more than eight years ago. He ranks second in influence only to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban’s founder and a close associate of Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mullah Baradar has been in Pakistani custody for several days, with American and Pakistani intelligence officials both taking part in interrogations, according to the officials.

This is a great accomplishment for the military and administration, but for some reason I feel Dick Cheney will consider it a major failure.

Wow South Carolina is really ahead of the curve on fighting terrorism. I expect Osama is already packing up shop:

Terrorists who want to overthrow the United States government must now register with South Carolina's Secretary of State and declare their intentions -- or face a $25,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison.

The state's "Subversive Activities Registration Act," passed last year and now officially on the books, states that "every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States ... shall register with the Secretary of State."

There's even a $5 filing fee.

That’s amazing and it comes from one of the reddest states in the union. We should do this with everything. Require drug dealers, murderers, rapists and whoever else to pre-register. That would get rid of any need for defense or law enforcement. Of course the bad side is all that added bureaucracy in our government.

Wait?

Republicans are adding bureaucracy?

Yup – again the hypocrisy stinks, but that stench is overshadowed by the over all reeking of stupidity from this idiotic law. And to think the Republicans want America to take them seriously on combating terrorism. Hell you got a better chance of Mark Sanford keeping it in his pants.

This has got me absolutely speechless:

Mr. 9/11 himself, the man who was the mayor of the town that took the biggest hit on 9/11, is now denying it ever happened?

"What [Obama] should be doing is following the right things Bush did. One of the right things he did was treat this as a war on terror. We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We've had one under Obama," Giuliani said.

I hope people start asking him why he is denying that 9/11 actually happened. Again we have another example of Republicans who care nothing about terrorism, except as a political tool.

UPDATE:

George Stephanopoulos, who interviewed Giuliani when he made this absurd claim, posts the following on his blog:

“What he [Obama] should be doing is following the right things that Bush did -- one of the right things he did was treat this as a war on terror. We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We’ve had one under Obama,” Giuliani said. “Number two, he should correct the things that Bush didn’t do right. Sending people to Yemen was wrong, not getting this whole intelligence thing corrected.”

The former Republican presidential candidate is specifically taking issue with the fact that the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is being tried in a civil court instead of a military tribunal.

Some how George claims to be a journalist, but didn’t even bother himself to correct Rudy’s totally false claim.

This is something interesting that I never thought of. It’s from the Guardian, so it is in the U.K., but I bet the same thing would apply here:

The rapid introduction of full body scanners at British airports threatens to breach child protection laws which ban the creation of indecent images of children, the Guardian has learned.

Privacy campaigners claim the images created by the machines are so graphic they amount to "virtual strip-searching" and have called for safeguards to protect the privacy of passengers involved.

Ministers now face having to exempt under 18s from the scans or face the delays of introducing new legislation to ensure airport security staff do not commit offences under child pornography laws.

They also face demands from civil liberties groups for safeguards to ensure that images from the £80,000 scanners, including those of celebrities, do not end up on the internet. The Department for Transport confirmed that the "child porn" problem was among the "legal and operational issues" now under discussion in Whitehall after Gordon Brown's announcement on Sunday that he wanted to see their "gradual" introduction at British airports.

When you buy a gun you may have a background check, depending on where you buy it from. Go to a local gun show and buy one from some fellow enthusiast there and chances are you won’t receive a background check, unless that person is registered as a federal dealer. That’s the extent of it.

So I am sitting here wondering why all these Republicans are screaming for profiling of darker skin men before they get on the airplane. Why didn’t we hear this after  Major Nidal Malik Hasan took his personal weapons into a building on a United States Army base and killed 13 people while wounding 30 others? Why didn’t one of these Republicans call for better “profiling” on potential gun owners? If you would even bring this up to a Republican they would yell and scream about you taking away their 2nd amendment rights, but profiling also violates our Constitution, and no where in the Constitution does it say one right trumps the other.

Take this picture:

That is the view of Newark airport today after the terminal was reopened. Bob points out how easy of a target it would be for a suicide bomber, which it would be, but imagine a Major Hassan going in there and opening fire. This is before any security checks and sneaking a gun, or 20 in would be very simple. If that happened I can guarantee that Republicans still wouldn’t talk about profiling potential gun buyers. They would rather see a law requiring everyone to be naked before that.

So the next time some Republican is on the television going on about profiling people who don’t look like them, then would the host of that show please ask them if they would support profiling potential gun buyers. It’s time to put them on the spot to see exactly how serious they are about terrorism.

With all the debate going on about the full body scanners, I think I have come up with a great solution. Why don’t we just waterboard all airline passengers? Think about it:

• Waterboarding provides accurate and reliable intel
• Waterboarding isn’t torture.
• Waterboarding is nothing but a “dip in the pool”.

So let’s drop the body scanners, saving billions of dollars, and institute 3 hour waterboarding sessions for all airline passengers. I say before hand though we run this idea past the Republicans to make sure they are on board.

I noticed a general message giving birth today – that we should have started focusing on Yemen back in the beginning of the whole war on terror. I can’t say I entirely disagree with that, but what makes it post-worthy is that I am hearing this argument from a lot of GOPers, the same ones who were cheerleading for us to go to war in Iraq.

Given the fact that fighting Iraq stripped our resources from Afghanistan, a fact that is extremely obvious, wouldn’t it have been better for these former Iraq cheerleaders to speak up back in 2002? Instead they took to backing the Bush administration, no matter what. I can only assume that is because “you don’t question the commander in chief at a time of war”, yet that is exactly what they are doing now.

So would someone in the media please ask these people when they spin this whole “we should have been in Yemen for years” mantra, why didn’t they push for this instead of Iraq? Also ask them if they think we could have fought Yemen, Afghanistan and Iraq all at once.

We are talking about terrorism and people’s lives, so it’s time to stop the bullshit talking points game and actually address the situation. The best people to do that is the media and after they were accomplice number 1 in lying this nation into war with Iraq, they sure as hell better stand up now and do their jobs.