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Download | Play (h/t BillW)
Stephen Colbert skewers the Terror Watchlist by speaking to Hasan Elahi, who remains on the Watchlist despite being cleared of all charges and who has resorted to an innovative way to respond to those federal watchdogs.
My favorite terrorist is Hasan Elahi. Just saying his name makes my heart go up one Terror Alert level. Why Elahi? Well, to begin with, he’s innocent. A quality so rare in someone so guilty. You see, in 2002, Elahi was detained by the FBI on suspicion of hoarding explosives in a Florida storage unit. Turns out, he didn’t have any explosives. In fact, he was the only person in Florida without gunpowder. But the FBI refused to give Elahi a written letter clearing him of suspicion because he refused to change his name, religion and skin color. Instead, they just asked him to “check in” with them periodically. And here’s where I really like this guy: for the last six years, Elahi has taken the burden off government surveillance by surveilling himself. Everyday, Elahi takes hundreds of photos of his whereabouts and sends them to the FBI. Pictures of the airports he travels through, the bathrooms he visits, even the meals he eats. With these pictures, he’s ensuring that he’ll never be arrested on suspicion of terror, though by judging by some of the meals he’s eating, Gitmo might be an improvement.
No Trackbacks To “The Colbert Report: The Terror Watchlist“
Thank god almighty I’m first.
Well. I guess whoever we upset decided to knock off the hack attempts.
Excellent.
Colbert is a genius.
Youtube is SWEET! Elahi should post his activities there.
Funny, I thought racial/ethnic/religious profiling was only a Southern thing directed at funny-looking dark-skinned men.
You mean….the government’s taking our idea!!!!
I say, organize a Crusade on Washington and teach those religious nuts a lesson!
j/k.
I wonder if I should change my name or start carrying around a camera.
Don’t these terror watchlist guys have something better to do? Like scratch their balls or something more productive?
Naomi Wolfe is on the list!!!!
I am sure we are all on the list (regular c&l posters and writers)
john and nicole are FOR SURE on the list
Hasan Elahi is a genius! A comic genius! Way to stick it to the man, Hasan.
On a more serious note, here we have here YET ANOTHER example of the guilty until proven innocent policy of the war on Tara…er, terror.
You want your privacy? Give it up, America!
This has nothing to do with this topic, but I wanted to alert everyone to the latest rightwing junk that is being e-mailed to people like my 80 year old mother. It’s possible she is considering voting for Obama, not likely as she hasn’t voted for a Dem. in recent memory, but this has shaken her up. We should do something. Sondra
—– Original Message —–
From: Richard C Reeves
To: : Wednesday, May 07, 2008 7:58 PM
Subject: Fw: kind of long,,, but PLEASE read this one..
It may be tongue in cheek, but he hits the nail pretty much on the head !!!!!!!
Thomas Sowell Tells It Like it Is
Reaching the same conclusion as message below, albeit from a slightly different angle, is syndicated columnist and Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in Stanford, CA, Thomas Sowell, who wrote this past week in a column titled “Random Thoughts” and published in newspapers nationally the following “Senator John McCain could never convince me to vote for him. Only Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama can cause me to vote for McCain.”
Oh, and in case you aren’t familiar with Thomas Sowell, one other thing - He happens to be black.
PLEASE READ THIS ALL THE WAY THROUGH!
After long and serious thought, I have decided to endorse Senator John McCain for President. I have always voted for the person and have not voted for anyone because some political party was telling me who I should vote for. We all know the choices by now and, that said, I do believe that the process of selecting a chief executive is deeply flawed. The words “money” and “special interests” come to mind, among many others.
Here’s the way I see it Barack Obama, you are a fine public speaker. You are also an extremely liberal Senator from the State of Illinois, which has a long and rich history of political corruption of the first magnitude. You are indeed a child of that system.
You have finally insulted my intelligence far beyond my capacity to tolerate your insults. It has nothing at all to do with your skin color. As a matter of fact, it would be so COOL to finally have an African-American for President. What a great statement that would be to the entire world that we are indeed the greatest country on earth! But, unfortunately, General Colin Powell is not running, and YOU are NOT the man for this job !
Barack baby, you want me to believe that you have never heard the sermons of your own pastor, the Right Reverend “God Damn America” Jeremiah Wright. It is a matter of record that this has been your church for over 20 years. It is a matter of record that you were married there by this very pastor, and that your children were baptized there.
The good Reverend saw fit to visit Khadafy in Libya with you and to give a lifetime achievement award to Louis Farrakhan, of all people. We have all now seen excerpts of his sermons all over the airwaves by now. And you have publicly stated that this man IS your “spiritual mentor”.
BUT, your pastor is NOT the reason I am NOT voting for you. His words were disturbing enough, but it is your own HUGE church congregation, seen jumping, hooting and howling to his words in the background that disturb me the most. And please don’t tell me you attended church there and never once heard a “discouraging word” in the 20 years you attended there. Don’t tell me, that in addition to the good reverend, that you are now not having anything to do with all those other people seen hooting and howling out in the audience in the background of his fiery tirades. Even Oprah Winfrey got disgusted and walked out. I am no Oprah fan, but still she did the right thing.
Now YOU look me in the eye and ask me to believe that you never heard such language in all the years you attended there ! This is like me telling you that I attended dozens of Klan rallys and never once heard the “N” word. Yep. And Bill Clinton “did not inhale”. Yes, Mr. Obama, we all have friends who have said stupid things that embarrassed us, but NOW you have asked me to believe something that is so incredibly stupid that you are telling me that I am just stupid enough to believe you. THAT is the main reason that I will never vote for you. I am deeply sorry, that in a country teeming with enormously talented African Americans who would make a good President, that the political system has chosen YOU. You are a pathetic and plastic excuse for an American, who will not even salute the Flag during the Pledge of Allegiance. God forbid you ever get near the Oval Office.
Now, did I mention Bill Clinton?
AH YES ! This brings us to MRS. WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON, who this candidate really is, in spite of all the other names she may care to call herself. This “feminist” piece of work of course would like to be referred to as MS. and we all know who wears the pant suit in that family. MS. Clinton, (sugar), it is just as depressing to realize that there are dozens of women who would also make great Presidents. But, fortunately, the horrible state of the selection process has selected YOU. Ms. Clinton, I’m sorry, but you could not tell the truth if we waterboarded your worthless a– ! Still you play the role of the “embarrassed but dignified noble wife”. What utter malarkey ! I am not voting for you for a world of reasons, but the main one is the same as my not voting for Senator Obama. You persistently insult my intelligence. It COULD be conceivably possible that you did not know about Monica Lewinsky, extremely remote, but possible if we stretch our imaginations a bit. But you turn around and then ask me to believe that you also did not know about Paula Jones and the legion of other women who were chewed up and spit out by your lecherous excuse for a husband. Puleese turn off this broken record !!!
But let’s set aside your hubby’s flagrant peccadilloes. The real reason I will never vote for you is that I don’t think the country can survive EIGHT MORE YEARS of Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, Sandy Berger stuffing his socks with classified intelligence, Janet Reno’s goon squad, and the myriad other corruptions that seem to stick to you like your ugly face. So our former President can’t keep his dick in his pants. The REAL issue is that he committed perjury under oath when he lied about it and the pathetically-attempted coverup that followed.
Like you, he is totally incapable of telling the truth. He could not do it if you tortured him, and in voting for you, we would get the BOTH of you, all over again. The same folks who could have taken out Osama Bin Laden over
4,000 dead Americans ago!
And please stop telling me that you have “8 years of experience” to lead us. You were the freakin’ first lady already, not the Commander in Chief. Jeez ! The sum of your “experience” is that of the most worrisome and incompetent meddling in the history of the White House. You even cursed your pitiful staff and the Secret Service agents who were and still are unfortunately charged with risking their lives to protect your worthless, thieving hide, and all at the expense of other people who have to work for a living.
Your single pathetic platform is to finance the illegal drugs, alcoholism and bad habits of the very lowest and most irresponsible freeloaders in America and to then “garnish the wages” (your own words) of every law-abiding and hard-working American to pay for it. This disaster you refer to as “Universal Health Care”. Where have you been the last 30 years ? Did you not see that socialism is a failure wherever it has been tried ? Did you not notice that the Soviet Union has collapsed since it gave no reward to those who worked the hardest for the fruits of their own labors to pay for those who will not ??
It is interesting to see all the dead bodies that you and your hubby have left in your wake. Suicides, mysterious deaths, cover-ups that make Richard Nixon look like a rank amateur. The utter contempt and unbelievable arrogance of some of your strongest supporters, most notably the recently resigned and disgraced Governor Eliot Spitzer, the epitome of hypocritical and malevolent arrogance gone wild, one of your most ardent, wealthy and powerful political supporters. A man the news media refuses to admit IS a “super delegate” in your own political machine, a fine example of your own “adopted” state of New York. No wonder you moved there to run for Senator !
The environment there is perfect for the likes of you!
Yes, I would vote for a woman, but I will NOT vote for YOU !
Which leaves us with Senator John McCain.
John, you are a flawed man. You are a bit old, a bit looney, and you have a notoriously bad temper. This perfectly qualifies you, in my humble opinion, to lead us for the next eight years. I WANT your trembling hand on the nuclear button.
Think about it.
We have Kim Jong IL, Chavez and Ahmadenijad all running around like lunatics, threatening America and threatening to plunge the world into nuclear Armageddon. We have Putin and the Chinese blustering and rattling their sabers at us. I want John McCain in the Oval Office and I want him to be really pissed off at all these other nut jobs around the planet.
John, once you are elected, I want you to go into the Oval Office and throw one of your perfect FITS. Jump up and down and throw something through a plate glass window. Rip the drapes down and foam at the mouth a bit. And I want the whole thing on camera so that Ahmadinejad can see it. I want ALL of these “world leaders” to lay awake at night and to break out in a cold sweat every time they think of messing with the United States of America.
I want the nuclear button sitting right next to the alarm clock on your night stand. I want pictures of this to be sent to Iran, Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, and those other a– holes in the sheets, the Saudis.
On the domestic front, poor John did try and reach across the aisle to the opposition in a desperate effort to compromise and to get the Congress to do something. You may not agree with his efforts, but at least he TRIED. For all his efforts, all he got handed to him was his head in a basket. The liberals are pissed at him and the conservatives are pissed at him. Just my kinda guy.
I predict that John will select Senator Joe Lieberman as his running mate. Good choice. I want a Jew whose memory of the Holocaust is still fresh in his mind and who is royally pissed off at all of these towel-headed morons in the Middle East to be the next in line if something should happen to John. Shalom, Vice President Joe. One heartbeat from the Oval Office.
Finally. John McCain knows on a most personal level what it is to suffer horrible torture for years and to see others die, right in front of
you, for their love of America. When you ask him about it, he will tell you that what he did was “nothing special”. Even more incredibly, he states that ANY American who truly loves his country would do exactly the same as he did in that situation. You and I will have a hard time believing that, but the real point is that John McCain believes that about the “average American”, and that, dear friends and neighbors, is why I will cast my one poor ballot for on election day for John McCain — warts and all.
God Bless America.
——————————————————————————–
Wondering what’s for Dinner
Who’s putting together the lists. Employees probably scour names for potential terrorists and they come across something like . . .
Joe Schmo
John Green
Sissy Mitchell
Cathy Dull
David Dire
Frank Grindstone
Barney Brown
Kathy Grim
Yusuf Islam
“Whoa Bill Bob! Stop right there. I think we got us one.”
I was on a secondary no-fly list (I’m a tall blond WASP housewife with two blond kids and a WASPy name and a WASPy husband- a high risk group apparently). I had to call and request that they take me off. I was told it was probably my common sounding name that caused me to be put on the list. I was pulled aside at every single US airport I initiated a flight in, practically strip searched, asked where I was going, who I was seeing, they would go through my luggage by hand, look through my Treo and the kids GameBoys. Every single flight. They’d make the kids step away from me, and if my husband wasn’t traveling with us the kids were quite upset. They’d separately question the kids. The weird thing is, coming back into the US they never stopped me and asked anything other than the usual agricultural questions, even when I had travelled through north Africa. I’d get waved through with a ‘Welcome Home!’.
And, as the Harvard study on airport security asked, what could you hide in your shoe that you couldn’t hide in your underwear? That’s what really annoyed me. All that scare mongering and wasted time, all for show.
Richard Gage, AIA is on Air America tonight from 9-11p ET (Clout with Richard Greene)
Brilliant! Great website.
Absolutely wonderful stuff. My only concern for Colbert is how he’ll have to change his show once the Bush admin is history. The Dems will have their own foibles, but there’s no way he’ll have such a rich pallete of idiocy to draw from when they’re gone.
“them” in my previous comment refers to the members of the Bush admin.
I need to remember that preview is my friend.
Sondra,
If I got a rambling email that long, it would immediately go to the spam list
The only way to really destroy tyranny is to laugh at it.
The smart tyrants know that.
Stay careful Hasan. Keep up the good work.
sciguy @ 16:
No way, think about all the fake, mindless scandals the right wing pulled on Clinton. You think they’re not going to pull more of the same if Obama is elected, especially if he does what Clinton didn’t and introduce some needed (probably mild at best) social programs? There will be no shortage of fake controversies or straw men if Obama is elected, comedians will continue to have a field day with the logic-less right wing in this country.
Sondra from WestPalm @ 11:
So many things wrong, and I’ll only nip a few things in that excresent e-mail in the bud.
1) Colin Powell is a great man…if you’re Republican. He deliberately misled us into an illegal war that is currently devastating the very region settled human culture began in. Bad example, to use a man who would betray military principles of honor merely for his own agenda. Is that what wingnuts consider heroic?
2) About Kim, Mahmoud, and Hugo:
1) Kim is hemmed in by the PRC. If he pulls a Dubya and tries to finish what daddy started, his puppet-masters will remove him. Not only that, but he basically has a toy army. Man’s too smart to start such a war anyway, what with North Korea’s economy having been too tied with the South for 2-3 decades that a war would spark the very revolution Kim fears.
2) Mahmoud has no power even to play with sharp toys. He is not the leader of the Iranian army, nor is he really anything but a bone the Mullahs threw to his people. And his electoral situation is virtually identical to Bush’s.
3) Hugo is an evil man, but even he realizes that the CIA still has people who could pull off another Allende situation if he blusters too hard.
About the collapse of the USSR: No country can survive decades of having 30% of its budget at minimum dedicated to the army. The Russians collapsed as well because Gorbachev was dumb enough to believe people in Russia actually liked the Communists (who made the Tsars look like professionals.) Communism in its purest form is unworkable, but then so is pure capitalism. Gilded-age America was a nightmare to live in.
The only problem with the left wing bloggers is that if they got their wish to get rid of all the right wingers that they would have no one left to defend their right to be stupid. If you really want a country based on your emotional ideas, move to china and enjoy their freedom (or lack of it).
GWB’s plan to carry the fight to the enemy will go down in history as the single best move made by this country to defeat terrorism. The terrorist, [deleted] desire to shut down the open and free exchange of ideas and thought. [deleted–please consult the commenting policy. Posts made with the intent to insult or incite a flame war are subject to editing or deletion.]
fox_news_rocks @ 22:
The problem with your comment is, it’s not based on reality. Wake up and change channels or better yet, turn off your TV and radio. Rush. Sean and Bill have you brainwashed.
hasan has a website! i am beside myself with admiration, bordering on lust!
oops, that link should be: elahi.org!
ee now this is what I am saying about the left wanting to control the free exchange of ideas.
Site Monitor: Stay with me here. This is a liberal blog. We’re not a neutral site. When you make blanket derogatory statements against “the left”, you are attempting to insult the community here and/or start a flame war. Your point of view was not edited, just your insults. Because we don’t want the flame war. If you are capable of posting without insulting, then we would not edit your post. Please review the commenting policy before posting again.
fox_news_rocks @ 22:
[deleted–do this without name-calling please] (Here you have a poster) who backs the policies that have gotten us to this point. Crumbling economy, overpriced and underperfoming healthcare system, destructive and illogical environmental policy? No worries, Bushie will win over future historians, who will obviously look past the fact that what we’ve done in Iraq is try as best we can to PREVENT democracy. Why would dumb left wingers object to THIS healthcare system? Why would the idiot left object to Iraq when the US has only killed upwards of a million people, dropped thousands of pounds of depleted uranium on Iraq, forced and economic system on them that they don’t want and which has destroyed the country, tried to privatize their oil even though about 70% of Iraqis are against it. The women of Iraq have less rights now than before and Iran, who the right wing here hates, is now much more powerful. Don’t worry though, it will only cost about 3 trillion (with billions un-accounted for) and thousands of Americans lives.
Fox. News. Rocks. Awesome. A real living platitude! People like you DO exist! By the way [deleted], this is an OPEN forum, where tools like you can say whatever you want. Try not towing the party line on the right wing sites, which all require registration, and see how long you last.
To Sondra from WestPalm
Kiss my black ass.
fox_news_rocks @ 22:
fox_news_rocks @ 26:
Fox_News_Rocks: Yes, there are actual policies about posting on blogs. The site monitors are human, they all make mistakes. But, an instructive comparison is this site to say, Michelle Malkin’s. Malkin doesn’t allow any commentors to join, anymore. I joined this site and Orcinus as long as fall 2007 ago, but I see new members show up. Where’s the same from Malkin and her ilk?
China is not based on Communism. Not anymore. The People’s Republic has reverted to default Chinese government, or mild authoritarianism. Sort of like the Roman Empire of Augustus compared to the Empire under Constantine, only Mao was as powerful as Constantine and Augustus is Hu Jintao. The P