REPEAT AFTER ME:  "THERE IS NO TERROR THREAT.  IT'S AN INVENTION OF BUSH (!!), THE NEO-CONS, AND THEIR CAPITALIST GIRLFRIENDS" - AT 8:43 A.M. ET:  From Fox News:

NEW YORK — The airport shuttle driver accused of plotting a bombing in New York had contacts with Al Qaeda that went nearly all the way to the top, to an Osama bin Laden confidant believed to be the terrorist group's leader in Afghanistan, U.S. intelligence officials told The Associated Press.

Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, an Egyptian reputed to be one of the founders of the terrorist network, used a middleman to contact Afghan immigrant Najibullah Zazi as the 24-year-old man hatched a plot to use homemade backpack bombs, perhaps on the city's mass transit system, the two intelligence officials said.

Intelligence officials declined to discuss the nature of the contact or whether al-Yazid contacted Zazi to offer simple encouragement or help with the bombing plot prosecutors say Zazi was pursuing.

Al-Yazid's contact with Zazi indicates that Al Qaeda leadership took an intense interest in what U.S. officials have called one of the most serious terrorism threats crafted on U.S. soil since the 9/11 attacks.

COMMENT:  We remain at risk, a risk that will only grow if terror groups get their hands on weapons of mass destruction, something that they're attempting to do.

Our risk also increases if an enemy believes he can get away with terror against the United States, or feels he is so well protected in his homeland that he'll never be caught, or even pursued.

And yet, we have a weak president whose base is a segment of his party that is often hostile to national defense, and which too often believes that threats against the American people are caused simply by cultural misunderstanding.

Once again we learn that elections have consequences, and that the election of 2008 had disastrous consequences. 

There's another election next year.  There are polling signs that the public is waking up.  It is our job to keep Americans awake, and appropriately angry.

October 15, 2009