India Native Arrested in Houston Airport on Weapons Charge Out on Bail

UPDATE: The judge lowered the bail to just $5,000. The Times of India reports that Kumar is, "an activist film-maker traveling in America to expose Islamic 'terrorism'."

Prosecutors seem to be satisfied with this and agreed to a plea with time served for the brass knuckles. Kumar said the weapon was for his protection from Islamic fundamentalists. He claims the jihadist materials were "educational tool" used for his lecture to the Hindu Congress of America involving, "interfaith discussion between Hindus and Muslims about the harms of terrorism."

However, no explanation was given for Kumar having over $10,000 in undeclared money.

At the end of the article, The Times of India notes: "The US is going through another mild bout of Islamophobia following the controversy over building a mosque close to the 9/11 ground zero."

Yeah, I'm sure if terrorists from the US bombed one of your temples, you'd have NO PROBLEM with us coming over 10 years later and wanting to erect a Christian CHURCH near the site.

And how's that Kashmir thing going?

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Kudos to the Houston airport security screeners who pulled this man out for a second screening. But are sharp screeners going to do any good when judges set BAIL for potential terrorists?

Screeners became suspicious when a FOREIGN NATIONAL from Mumbai, India was acting nervous as he stood in the security checkpoint line at Houston's Intercontinental Airport. Vijay Kumar, 40, was said to be fidgeting and sweating profusely. Security pulled him out of line to give a more thorough screening. I know--wow--it's almost like they'd been trained in Israeli security measures!

They found a set of brass knuckles in his checked baggage, which produced a felony charge of Possessing a Prohibited Weapon in a Prohibited Place. Other items found were books on espionage, bomb-making/disarmament and other, radical Muslim publications, plus over $10,000 in cash, which allegedly had not been declared as required.

Will we end up needing
Dog the Bounty Hunter?

Kumar told police that he had attended an "Islamic seminar." However, despite all that effort by law enforcement, a judge set BAIL for Kumar at $50,000. What many don't realize is using a bail bondsman only requires putting 10% down which covers their fee. The bail bondsman pays the bail. Now if you skip bail, the bondsman can come after you ala Dog the Bounty Hunter, but that's not going to be a problem for someone planning to skip across the open U.S. border and get back home to India via another country

Hint to Judge: Terrorists have LOTS of money so $50K bail is chump change. And a foreign national is hardly going to have ties keeping him in the U.S. Update: Local Houston Fox reported tonight that Kumar is out on bail.

Another troubling aspect is there's almost no reporting on this. Even the report that Kumar made bail was mentioned in passing as if it was no big deal that someone with books on bomb making made bail and could be anywhere.

Massa, Lohen and Rather: The 'Moonbats' are Out!

Is there a full moon? The moonbats took flight recently.

Tickle Me Moonbat

Stimulus Package?

King of the moonbats was undoubtedly former representative Eric Massa. Massa appeared on the Glenn Beck TV show ostensibly to dish dirt on being forced out (his claim) from office because he wouldn't vote for the health care bill. Which on the face of it didn't make sense--Massa was in the Congress, not the more narrowly divided Senate. In fact, his leaving would mean Pelosi has a better chance of passing a health care bill if they went for the 51% reconciliation.

Massa changed stories faster than Rahm Emanuel can wrap a fish. Suddenly it was HIS idea to leave--he wasn't forced out. But despite the house probe (no pun intended), he said he didn't do anything illegal; it was all harmless fun. His idea of lighthearted fun--getting into tickle fights with young, male staffers on his fiftieth birthday. Obviously Massa has his own ideas about what constitutes a stimulus package: He also lived with several young, male staffers until he was advised this wasn't a good idea. One thing is pretty certain, Massa has been living in a pretty small closet for some time....

Luna Lindsey

Lindsey Lohen gets the moonbat nod for taking on the eTrade baby. The lawsuit involves a Super Bowl commercial where the eTrade baby is video conferencing with his girlfriend over his trading conquests. The girlfriend asks, "That milkaholic Lindsey, wasn't there, was she?" Baby Lindsey's head pops into the frame and says, "Milka-what?"



Lohen claims the video is based on her because she is known as "Lindsey" just like Prince or Madonna are known on a single name basis. eTrade denies the claim. It could be speculated that "Lindsey" is just is trying something outrageous to jump start her dying career. Or that she's actually got such a big ego that now everything must be about her! In fact, a search of IMDB database, for "Lindsey," Lohen doesn't appear at all, but a girl named Lindsey who was in a TV documentary called "Rehab." Now there's an idea, Ms. Lohen.

Lohen once said, "It is clear to me that my life has become completely unmanageable because I am addicted to alcohol and drugs." Does she now plan to track down this anonymous participant in the documentary and demand that she stop using her name?

Sheer Politics thinks that picking on a baby just makes Lohen a Mean Girl.

Moonstruck

Dan Rather (with BFF)

Dan Rather is always good for a moonbat report. It's no wonder most fellow liberals have stopped having him on TV. This time, even Chris Mathews couldn't talk over Dan fast enough to cover up Rather's latest foot-in-mouth. Dan Rather stated that Obama was so ineffective as a president he, "...couldn’t sell watermelons if you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic."

 Rather wrote an apology (of sorts) in the Huffington Post:

"It's an expression that stretches to my boyhood roots in Southeast Texas, when country highways were lined with stands manned by sellers of all races. Now of course watermelons have become a stereotype for African Americans and so my analogy entered a charged environment. I'm sorry people took offense."

Frankly, we're tired of his explanations that every gaffe he utters is some expression from his boyhood in Texas. Somehow, no one else has heard these "folksy" expressions before and Texans certainly are not living in the same time period that Rather apparently is.

Notice that he never really apologies: He says he's sorry, "people took offense" not that he said something offensive. That's a cop-out, non-apology.

IRS Bomber Update: Victim's Family to Sue Stack's Estate?

As if things need to get even more twisted.... God help us when lawyers get involved!

Last week, the adult daughter of Joe Stack from a former marriage made headlines by calling her father a "hero." Stack was the pilot of a plane, which deliberately crashed into Austin's Echelon building, killing IRS employee, Vernon Hunter, and injuring several others The building housed offices of the IRS and the crash killed both Stack and IRS employee Vernon Hunter. Said Bell, "His actions at the end were extremely horrific and I'm deeply sorry for my father." While admitting his actions were wrong, she added, "But if nobody comes out and speaks up on behalf of injustice, then nothing will ever be accomplished. But I do not agree with his last action with what he did. But I do agree about the government." She agreed her father was a hero and said, "Yes, because now maybe people will listen."

Understandably, Hunter's family was outraged. Ken Hunter told Fox News, "Are you telling me that an American citizen committing an attack of terrorism against the United States is heroic?" Hunter went on to say that his father, a Vietnam veteran, was the only hero.

Bell later recanted her statement saying, "We are mourning for Vernon Hunter."

Then it came out that the Hunter family was going to file a lawsuit against Stack's estate and named Stack's widow, Sheryl as part of that lawsuit as executrix. Said Hunter family's legal representative, Daniel Ross, "My client of course has stated that her heart goes out to Mrs. Stack and she considers Mrs. Stack as much a victim in this as anyone else," Ross said.

Right, except that now you want to take anything, she has left. I have total sympathy for the Hunter family, but going after his widow, who is also a victim in this, is just wrong.

Ross claimed money was not the motivating factor, but then said it was his job to discover if there was anything left in the Stack estate such as insurance policies. He also wanted to question Stack and speculated that, had she talked to authorities that night, the attack might have been prevented. Mrs. Stack and her daughter had allegedly stayed at a hotel the night Joe Stack set fire to their house.

Sheryl is a single mother, who's homeless after her husband flipped out and burned down their house before crashing his plane filled with fuel into a building. She's probably going to have to deal with the IRS if over any joint or business bank accounts over any non-payment of Stack's taxes, which she may not have even known about previously. And now you want to pile on? For all the talk of 'she's a victim, too' she's not exactly being treated like one.

A few days later, the attorney reported they are removing Sheryl Stack from the lawsuit as they have reached an agreement regarding keeping Hunter's autopsy private. It has not been said, however, that they are dropping the lawsuit. No doubt, lawyers have had enough time to find Sheryl Stack's pockets are not deep enough. The question is, who are they going to sue now? The IRS? The airplane manufacturer? The Echelon building's engineers?

But it's not about the money....

Funeral services were held for Hunter Friday.

Is it Time for Keith Olbermann's Countdown to Oblivion?

Rumors have long speculated that Olbermann's show is on the way out. Maybe that's because no one can believe his show is still on with such dismal ratings. In the critical 25-54 demographic, not only is his audience 1/4 of the O'Reilly Factor, but now he trails Headline News' Nancy Grace in third place, barely ahead of CNN's Campbell Brown.

Olbermann's latest foot-in-mouth issue was claiming that Tea Parties are ethnically challenged--made up of only white people. He said, "Why are you surrounded by the largest crowd you'll ever see in your life that consists of nothing but people who look exactly like you."

After throwing out that claim, the Dallas Tea Party responded with a great video dispelling his claim and inviting him to their one-year anniversary party. Furthermore, they did a segue from Olbermann claiming a lack in Tea Party diversity to showing the web banner of MSNBC political anchors, all of whom are white. It doesn't help that NBC head, Jeff Zucker was just grilled this week about the subject of diversity in their programming during merger hearings in front of the House Judiciary Committee. NBC wants an okay to merge with cable provider Comcast.



Of course, Olbermann declined the invitation--it might upset his belief system if he was confronted with the truth. He'd rather sit in his comfortable, liberal bubble at MSNBC and spew every thought that comes into his head.

Keith Olbermann has spun out of control...a liberal thrashing like a dying fish, throwing out more and more wild-eye statements, in a failed attempt to get someone to watch. Trying to be a political shock jock, he's become a caricature of himself. If the network keeps him on much longer, they might as well rename themselves S&M NBC because they seem to enjoy the punishment of failing shows.

Austin Echelon Building Hit by Plane - Employee: "It felt like a bomb..."

Update (9:00 p.m. CST): Two bodies have been recovered. No identities released, but it's assumed that one is Stack's. The other is likely the missing, unidentified employee. Two other employees were taken to the hospital in unspecified conditions, but said to be suffering from burns and smoke inhalation. Eleven others were treated for minor injuries.

Update (6:00 p.m. CST): Stack's six-page letter has been removed from his site at the request of the FBI. An archive of the letter is at The Smoking Gun here.

Austin, Texas: The Echelon building in Austin was stuck by a single engine plane. Joe Stack, the named pilot, left a rambling, anti-government manifesto which said, "Well Mr. Big Brother IRS man...take my pound of flesh and sleep well." He left his name and the dates (1956-2010) and today's date at the end.

One IRS employee described the crash. "It felt like a bomb blew off. The ceiling caved in and windows blew in. We got up and ran." Others related that the plane was flying just above the treeline and accelerated, hitting the building deliberately.



Stack was a contract software engineer who had a vendetta against the IRS. Reading through his sprawling statement, it is difficult to understand exactly what happened, but it becomes obvious that he felt personally persecuted for decades. His statement goes back to the 1980s and his complaints run the gambit from the IRS to Arthur Andersen, Enron, GM Executives, Senator Patrick Moynihan and President Bush.

Between the lines, however, it sounds like Mr. Stack blamed a lot of his own problems on the government and others.

"Instead I got busy working 100-hour workweeks. Then came the L.A. depression of the early 1990s. Our leaders decided that they didn’t need the all of those extra Air Force bases they had in Southern California, so they were closed; just like that. The result was economic devastation in the region that rivaled the widely publicized Texas S&L fiasco. However, because the government caused it, no one gave a shit about all of the young families who lost their homes or street after street of boarded up houses abandoned to the wealthy loan companies who received government funds to “shore up” their windfall. Again, I lost my retirement."

Some time after 911, he moves from California to Austin, but complained he had a hard time finding work and that the pay was low.

"To survive, I was forced to cannibalize my savings and retirement, the last of which was a small IRA. This came in a year with mammoth expenses and not a single dollar of income. I filed no return that year thinking that because I didn’t have any income there was no need. The sleazy government decided that they disagreed. But they didn’t notify me in time for me to launch a legal objection so when I attempted to get a protest filed with the court I was told I was no longer entitled to due process because the time to file ran out. Bend over for another $10,000 helping of justice."

For all his complaints regarding money, Stack was a licensed pilot and the owner of the single-engine aircraft that he ran into the building. Early reports that the plane might have been stolen, were incorrect. There is no official word if his body has been found.

Earlier, this morning, Stack also set fire to his house with his wife and daughter inside. A neighbor saw the flames and helped get the mother and daughter out unharmed.

At the end of his diatribe, Stack wrote:

"The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed."