Fox News Poll: Record 38 percent say US less safe today than before 9/11

As September 11 approaches, a new Fox News national poll finds that nearly 4 voters in 10 (38 percent) feel the United States is less safe today than before the terrorist attacks 12 years ago.  That’s up five percentage points from 2011 (the last time this question was asked), and is the highest number saying the country is less safe in a Fox News poll. 

Just 23 percent felt less safe in 2004 (the first time this question was asked).

The new poll also shows a slim 51-percent majority thinks the U.S. is safer today.  That’s down from 54 percent who felt the country was safer in 2011, and down from a high of 58 percent in 2004.

Just 38 percent of Republicans say the U.S. is safer today, which represents a substantial drop from 60 percent who felt that way in 2011. 

The decline among independents is much smaller: 47 percent say the country is safer now, down from 52 percent two years ago.

Sentiment among Democrats has gone in the opposite direction: 64 percent feel the country is safer today, up from 50 percent in the 2011 poll. 

Meanwhile, by a 48-45 percent margin, more voters approve than disapprove of the job President Obama is doing handling terrorism. 

This is the only issue area in which the president receives positive ratings.  Even so, his current 48 percent approval on terrorism makes this a new low approval for him on the issue.

Via: Fox News

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Holder Names Benghazi Victims in 9/11 Memorial Remarks

Attorney General Eric Holder added the names of the Benghazi fallen to his short 9/11 remembrance speech at the Justice Department this morning, while President Obama mentioned the attack in his remarks at the Pentagon’s wreath-laying ceremony.

“Especially this morning, here at the United States Department of Justice, as we lift up the memories of those who were taken from us so suddenly, we must also renew our shared commitment to the uniquely American values that have always defined this great nation, and must guide this department’s work every single day,” Holder said in remarks to department staff.

“This is the only fitting legacy we can build for the innocent victims of that terrible morning. The public servants and the military personnel who lost their lives at the Pentagon. The workers who were struck down in their offices at the World Trade Center. The heroic passengers who brought down a hijacked airliner in a field in Pennsylvania. And so many first responders and ordinary, but really extraordinary, citizens who ran toward burning buildings and saved countless lives, as so many others were racing away,” the attorney general continued.

“We pay tribute to each of them, and to many others who have given their lives in the service of this country since 9/11, from the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who have fought on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, to patriots, like Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods, Sean Smith, and Ambassador Chris Stevens, who were taken from us just one year ago in Libya.”

Via: PJ Media

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Surprise: ‘Million Muslim March’ Really Was ’9/11 Truther Convention’

Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and the hosts of The Five were all criticized in early August when they sounded alarms about the purpose of Wednesday’s “Million Muslim March.”The Five’s Eric Bolling preemptively accused the organizers of the march of putting on a “9/11 truther convention.” Well, surprise! It turns out he was completely right. 

The Media Research Center sent an interviewer down to the sparsely populated “Million Muslim March” on Wednesday where he probed former Princeton University professor Cornel West and march organizer Chris Phillips about the purpose of the event.

When asked about the march’s mission, West first indicated that it was to protest against “the precious and priceless folk who have been killed by U.S. drones.”

RELATED: ‘Hundreds’ Participate in ‘Million Muslim March’ on 9/11 Anniversary

When asked if Islamic extremists were behind the September 11 attacks, West replied that this question was a “good question.”

“From what I see, I think that certainly bin Laden said he did it and had connections,” West said, “But I’m also open to the conversation and investigation.”

He conceded that Osama bin Laden did “have something to do with” the attacks of September 11.

When directly asked if “Muslims” perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, Phillips replied that he did not. “I’m asking questions and finding my own truth,” Phillips said.

Via: Mediaite.com

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How The New York Times Remembers 9/11 Aftermath: Flag-waving a 'Cousin to Intolerance'

Since it’s the twelfth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, here’s a slightly dated outrage. On September 4, TV critic Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times tackled a CNN documentary called “The Flag,” which focused on an American flag that three firefighters raised at Ground Zero late on the afternoon of the attacks. A photo taken for the New Jersey newspaper The [Bergen] Record “became a heartening, patriotic symbol for many on an otherwise awful day, and so did the flag itself.”

But the flag disappeared, and that story spurred the CNN program. Genzlinger ruined the review by dragging out the old leftist saw that flag-waving and “intolerance” are closely related:

The photographer rebelled at efforts to make him a celebrity, and so did the three firefighters. A plan to turn the photograph into a sculpture became a source of controversy. Nationwide, flag-waving was sometimes a cousin to intolerance.

This is the same critic who complained about the PBS series on the Constitution that put liberal NPR game-show host Peter Sagal on a motorcycle ride across America – that was an ecological offense: “

And when did Mr. Sagal’s vehicle of choice, a motorcycle, morph into a symbol of freedom, when anyone who has ever been awakened by one late at night wishes the Bill of Rights had something in it about freedom from noise pollution?

Anyway, what’s irksome about the format is that it has become so common that it just feels like an excuse for the host to do some traveling in a way that unnecessarily burns fossil fuel. If you’re making a travel show, sure, get in or on some eye-catching vehicle and drive across America. If you’re making a show about current constitutional debates, just read a newspaper. If you need to go someplace where such a debate has occurred, take public transportation.

You might call that transporation intolerance.

Via: Newsbusters

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A Lot to Answer For

Not just Hillary Clinton, but Rand Paul, on this anniversary of 9/11.

Consider the passage from an article that appeared here regarding my reflections on the attacks of September 11, 2001 exactly one year ago today:

Osama bin Laden will never write another fatwa again. But his words will continue to influence jihadists for years to come…. As I write this, Islamic terrorists are planning to carry out terrorist attacks against Americans on our soil and abroad and, one day, they will strike. 

As we all know, on September 11, 2012, jihadists attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi killing four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. In the days following the attack, the Obama Administration claimed the attacks were a spontaneous response to the Internet film The Innocence of Muslims. 

However, it quickly became apparent that this was no spontaneous response to a YouTube video or anything else. Rather, it was a well organized terrorist attack carried out by al-Qaeda on the eleventh anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001. Despite the emergence of this fact and the fact that the State Departmentrejected requests for additional security in Benghazi, Republicans were unable to mobilize public sentiment against the White House and President Obama was easily re-elected.

Republicans also failed to effectively scrutinize then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last January. They were especially ineffective in challenging her infamous reply to Wisconsin GOP Senator Ron Johnson:

With all due respect, the fact is we have four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest? Was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they would kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make?

Via: American Spectator

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Where I Was On September 11 By: Dan McLaughlin (Diary)

12 Years On, But Not Forgotten

Until September 11, 2001, I worked in the World Trade Center, halfway up Tower One. I wasn’t doing political blogging at the time, but was writing “the Baseball Crank” as a weekly baseball column for the online edition of the Providence (R.I.) Journal. Here’s my account of that day, written for ProJo two days later while it was all still fresh. We run this every year on the anniversary.

On Tuesday, they tried to kill me.

I am ordinarily at my desk between 7:30 and 8:30 in the morning, in my office on the 54th floor of one of the World Trade Center’s towers. Tuesday, I was running late – I stopped to vote in the primary election for mayor, an election that has now been postponed indefinitely. Thank God for petty partisan politics.

Around 20 minutes to 9, as I have done every day for the past five years, I got on the number 2/3 train heading to Park Place, an underground stop roughly a block and a half, connected underground, to the Trade Center. The train made its usual stop at Chambers Street, five blocks north of my office, where you can switch to the local 1/9 that runs directly into the Trade Center mall. The subway announcer – in a rare, audible announcement – was telling people to stay on the 2/3 because the tunnel was blocked by a train ahead of us. Then he mentioned that there had been “an explosion at the World Trade Center.”

Now, I grew up in the suburbs, so maybe I’m not as street smart as I should be, but after living in the city a few years, you develop a sense of the signs of trouble (like the time there were shots fired in the next subway car from mine). I didn’t know what the explosion was, maybe a gas leak or something, but I knew that I was better off getting above ground to see what was going on rather than enter the complex underground. So I got off the train to walk to work.

Via: Red State

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Morning Bell: What Shoes Are You Wearing Today?

Look down at your shoes. 

Could you break into a run in those if you needed to?Twelve years ago, the men and women getting ready to go to work at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon didn’t know they would be running that day.

For many New Yorkers, the shoes they picked up off the closet floor that morning would later carry them down flights of stairs and through the streets of the city. They would become worn, covered with dust, and perhaps broken in a matter of minutes.

Some would become pieces of history.

Finance executive Michele Martocci was one of the New York survivors. The shoes she woreon September 11, 2001, will be in the National September 11 Memorial Museum, which is slated to open next Spring.

So will Mickey Kross’s helmet. Parade magazine reports:

At 10:28 a.m., FDNY lieutenant Mickey Kross was in the third-floor stairwell of the north tower when he heard a “tremendous roar,” and the building began to crumble. Kross crouched down in a corner. (“I tried to crawl into my fire helmet … to protect myself,” he recalled.) Hours later, Kross and 15 others climbed out of the rubble—among the few survivors of the collapse.

That day will forever serve as a generation’s reminder of the fragility of life. Today, we give thanks for those who survived. We remember those who were lost in the horrific terrorist attacks. And we salute all the heroes who set aside their own safety in the chaos of that day to help their fellow Americans—whether firefighters, police, emergency responders, or strangers in the crowd.

We will never forget.

Via: The Foundry

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We Should Never 'Move On' From The Evil, Pain, Loss, Lessons Of September 11

I was living in Los Angeles on September 11, 2001. I remember my first visit back home to New York for Thanksgiving that year. My wife and I made the pilgrimage to pay our respects at Ground Zero -- at that point still very much the pile of rubble with the iconic twisted facade still jutting out.

Posters of the missing were still all around -- the collages of faces of the dead. Even this seemed to be like something out of a movie, much like the falling towers and dust clouds which engulfed lower Manhattan looked like so many special effects.

I remember not wanting to look at any of it. Not wanting to see the faces on the poster board, or look at the dust knowing that indeed there was a certain variety of ash in that dirt on the shoe or store window.

But I did look at all of it.

I looked closely.

I took it all in, and I was hurting.

I was crying. Whimpering right there on Wall Street.

I was nauseous.

I felt it was the very least I could do, for while I personally knew one person who died that day, and grew up with the widow of a fallen FDNY hero, I lost no relatives. No loved ones.

Still, I felt it incumbent upon me, as an American, as a New Yorker, as a fellow child of God to feel some pain, to be at least somewhat uncomfortable. Again, the very least I could do.

Via: Fox News

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How the Obama administration commemorates the anniversaries of 9/11 and Benghazi terrorist attack

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has zero respect for the four courageous Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who lost their lives in a terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, one year ago tomorrow.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t be the one to honor former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with this year’s Liberty Medal from the National Constitution Center, today, on the eve of the first anniversary of the Benghazi terrorist attack.

What’s with the Philadelphia-based National Constitution Center allowing the Liberty Medal to be awarded to Clinton on the very eve of the day before she allowed Stevens, Tyrone Woods, Glen Doherty and Sean Smith to die with no help from the administration she was serving?

Where is the National Constitution Center’s on-the-books protocol?

It seems that everything that comes from the Obama administration has an added sting to human dignity.

The day after Hillary Clinton shamefully accepts the Liberty Medal from sycophant Jeb Bush, this is what the Obama administration has lined up for tomorrow, the 12th anniversary of 9/11:

Susan Rice will be in front of TV cameras reading CIA talking points on Syria.

“About a year ago, the White House put Susan Rice, then the ambassador to the United Nations, on TV to read CIA talking points that turned out to be false about the attack in Benghazi, Libya. The b

acklash poisoned her relationship with Republicans in Congress and dashed her chances of becoming secretary of state. President Obama instead named her national security adviser, which didn’t require Senate confirmation,” Dana Milbank at the Washington Post writes today.

Via: Canada Free Press

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Bikers denied no-stop permit for 9/11 rally through D.C. but will ride anyway

The nation’s capital has denied a “no stop” permit for the “2 Million Bikers to DC” rally on Wednesday, meant to “remember those who were killed on 9/11 and honor our armed forces.”

The group said in a statement Sunday that D.C. officials denied their request for a special nonstop ride through town with a waiver for red lights, stop signs and other traffic signals.

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“What could have been a one or two hour ride through will now likely be an all day event,” the group said.

Denial of the permit sparked outrage on the biker group’s website because the District of Columbia reportedly has granted the American Muslim Political Action Committee a permit for the Million Americans Against Fear rally, formerly known as the Million Muslim March, for Wednesday on the National Mall, the PAC announced Saturday.

BizPac Review points out that the Muslim advocacy group also announced it had received a commitment from Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, Missouri Democrat, to speak at the event.

The 2 Million Bikers to DC group offered an apology to D.C. residents, who will undoubtedly be disturbed by the noise.

Via: Washington Times

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Congress scheduled to cast first Syria vote on Wednesday 09/11

Congress is scheduled to cast its first vote on Wednesday on the question of whether to authorize military intervention in Syria. 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said that senators should plan to vote "sometime" on Wednesday on a motion to proceed to the Syria resolution, a procedural vote that will offer an early glimpse at whether President Barack Obama has the necessary votes in the upper chamber to support his request for authorization to strike Syria. 

The vote will follow Obama's prime-time address to the nation on Tuesday evening, as well as the president's visit to Capitol Hill on Tuesday afternoon to huddle privately with Senate Democrats. (Reid said that Obama had also offered to meet privately with Republican senators.)

In remarks on the Senate floor, Reid, the Senate's top Democrat, exhorted colleagues to support the resolution.

"America's willingness to stand for what's right should not end at our borders," the majority leader said.

Reid even invoked a line from Dante's "Inferno:" “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”

Via: NBC News

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ONE YEAR LATER: CAMP BASTION FAMILIES STILL FIGHTING FOR TRUTH By: Michelle Malkin

Next week, “never forget” will resound across America as citizens mark a dozen years since the 9/11 terrorist attack and one year since the bloody disaster in Benghazi. But who will remember the American heroes who came under siege at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan on 9/14/12?

Two heroic U.S. Marines — Lt. Col. Christopher Raible and Sgt. Bradley Atwell — perished in the monstrous battle last year, and nearly a dozen others were injured. What happened at Camp Bastion and whether the Obama administration has learned from the deadly incident are timely questions as Washington prepares for war again in a jihadi-infested region.

And as military families know, there is no such thing as “no boots on the ground.”

The families of the fallen at Camp Bastion are still waiting for the results of an official CENTCOM probe into last year’s attack. They hear that members of Congress will get briefed on the investigation before the families themselves get the details about what happened to their loved ones — and who bears responsibility for the security lapses that enabled the attack.

Atwell’s aunt, Deborah Hatheway, told me: “We are hoping for the best, and that _the attack will always be remembered as one of the most horrific attacks by the Taliban, and that they will never be able to do this again.” A Capitol Hill source tells me the report could be ready by the end of the month.

Via: Human Events

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