Puppet Masters
"To say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes you throw up. What kind of country do we live that says only people of non-faith can come into the public square and make their case?" Santorum said Sunday at a campaign event here in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
Santorum is locked in a tight race with Mitt Romney in Michigan, whose GOP presidential primary is being held Tuesday.
He made his initial comments about the Kennedy speech during an appearance earlier Sunday on ABC's This Week. "I don't believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute," he said on the talk-show program.
The money is part of a little-known grant intended to help law enforcement fight drug crimes. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush and Obama administrations have provided $135 million to the New York and New Jersey region through the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, known as HIDTA.
Some of that money -- it's unclear exactly how much because the program has little oversight -- has paid for the cars that plainclothes NYPD officers used to conduct surveillance on Muslim neighborhoods. It also paid for computers that store even innocuous information about Muslim college students, mosque sermons and social events.
When NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly was filled in on these efforts, his briefings were prepared on HIDTA computers.
The AP confirmed the use of White House money through secret police documents and interviews with current and former city and federal officials. The AP also obtained electronic documents with digital signatures indicating they were created and saved on HIDTA computers. The HIDTA grant program is overseen by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Russian pro-government Channel One television said Ukrainian special services in the Black Sea port of Odessa had held two men linked to a group seeking an Islamist state in Russia's North Caucasus.
"I can officially confirm that they were preparing an (assassination) attempt on Putin," said Marina Ostapenko, a spokeswoman for the SBU.
Ostapenko said two men were under arrest. One was seized in Odessa after being wounded in an explosion at an apartment in the city on January 4 which also killed another alleged plotter.
The second man, who was on the international wanted list, was arrested a month later after initially escaping, she said.
"We found him in an apartment and detained him without a single shot being fired on February 4," she said.

Afghan soldiers secure the scene of a "suicide attack" at the gate of an airport in Jalalabad, Nangarhar province east of Kabul, Afghanistan, February 27, 2012.
Several others were wounded in the blast early Monday at the gates of Jalalabad airport.
Provincial officials say most of the casualties appear to be civilians. Two airport guards and a soldier were also among the dead.
The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack, which followed days of unrest across Afghanistan in response to the burning of Qurans by NATO personnel at Bagram Air Base. More than 30 people, including four U.S. military personnel, have died in protests since the Quran burning.
On Sunday, Afghan authorities began an intense search for an Afghan intelligence official suspected of killing two U.S. officers Saturday at the Interior Ministry in Kabul.
The evidence provided therein clearly indicates:
- The unmentioned existence of a 3rd Macondo well (the real source of the explosion, DWH sinking and ensuing oil spill).
- The current condition of this well being such that it can never be properly capped.
- The compromised condition of the seabed floor being such that there are multiple unnatural sources of gushers continuing to pour into the Gulf, with Corexit dispersant still suppressing its visibility.
- That the highly publicized capped well (Well A) never occurred as reported, and in fact was an abandoned well, hence it was never the source of the millions of gallons released into the Gulf.
In the column, publisher Andrew Adler describes a scenario in which Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu would need to "give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel."
The purpose? So that the vice president could then take office and dictate U.S. policies that would help the Jewish state "obliterate its enemies."
Adler wrote that it is highly likely that the idea "has been discussed in Israel's most inner circles."
Numerous Jewish leaders quickly condemned Adler, who has now apologized for the column, resigned, and put the newspaper up for sale. An Israeli columnist noted that the hatred being stirred up against Obama is similar to conditions in Israel that led to the murder of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist.
Syrian media outlets reported Friday that President Bashar Assad's security forces seized huge quantities of weapons used by rebels across the country, including Israeli-made arms.
According to the unconfirmed reports, Assad's troops seized a machinegun, Israeli-made bombs, automatic rifles, various explosive devices, protective vests, night-vision equipment and military uniforms, among other things.
Syrian television showcased the weapons Friday evening and claimed that some of the arms originated in Israel. Some of the weapons featured Hebrew inscriptions, yet it was unclear who was holding the arms and where the images were photographed.

Al-Jazeera's chairman, Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer al-Thani, speaks during a ceremony marking the 15th anniversary of the launching of the Qatar-based Arabic satellite news channel in Doha, on 1 November 2011. Once a thorn in the side of the US Empire, Al Jazeera is now its key propaganda tool in the Middle East Region.
On Wednesday, the entire staff of the Al Jazeera network allegedly received an email instructing them to change their computer and email passwords.
Earlier in the week, the network's server had been hacked by the self-styled Syrian Electronic Army, and some of its secrets were released to the media.
The major find to be made public was an email exchange between anchorwoman Rula Ibrahim and Beirut-based reporter Ali Hashem. The emails seemed to indicate widespread disaffection within the channel, especially over its coverage of the crisis in Syria.
Ibrahim wrote to her colleague saying that she had "turned against the revolution" in Syria after realizing that the protests would "destroy the country and lead to a civil war." She went on to deride the opposition Free Syrian Army, which she described as "a branch of al-Qaeda."
In arming the Wahhabi Legion and feeding it with satellite intelligence, France conducted a secret war against the Syrian army, which caused more than 3,000 deaths among the military, and more than 1,500 among civilians in ten months of fighting.
This information was partially revealed by Thierry Meyssan during an appearance on the top Russian TV channel, on Monday, 13 February 2012, followed by an article published on Tuesday, the 14th, by Komsomolskaya Pravda and finally through a Voltaire Network TV video.










