Drudge didn’t have it first. CNN didn’t have it first. Fox News didn’t have it first. Who was the first to report on the raid on the Pakistani compound where Osama bin Laden was sent to take his eternal celestial dirt nap? A local IT consultant did, that’s who. The story broke as Sohab Athar, the IT consultant who was living in Abbottabad, Tweeted about helicopters swarming overhead and a “window-shaking bang” at around 9pm last night.
Mr Athar, believed to be living near to bin Laden’s compound, wrote his first tweet at about 9pm last night, when he noticed a helicopter.
He then wrote: “A huge window-shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope it’s not the start of something nasty.”
He later added: “Since Taliban (probably) don’t have helicopters, and since they’re saying it was not ‘ours’, so must be a complicated situation.”
The realisation hit him at about 6am today as he wrote: “Uh oh, now I’m the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it.”
Under his username ReallyVirtual, he later added: “Interesting, I didn’t think my name would trend on Twitter before releasing a couple of rock albums and a few award-winning software.”
I wonder how long it will take before @ReallyVirtual eclipses Lady Gaga in number of followers.
Oh, and it can’t be said enough…. I LOVE ME SOME NAVY SEALS!
Osama bin Laden, hunted as the mastermind behind the worst-ever terrorist attack on U.S. soil, has been killed, sources told ABC News.
His death brings to an end a tumultuous life that saw bin Laden go from being the carefree son of a Saudi billionaire, to terrorist leader and the most wanted man in the world.
Bin Laden created and funded the al Qaeda terror network, which was responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The Saudi exile had been a man on the run since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan overthrew the ruling Taliban regime, which harbored bin Laden.
In a video filmed two months after the Sept. 11 attacks, bin Laden gloated about the attack, saying it had exceeded even his “optimistic” calculations.
“Our terrorism is against America. Our terrorism is a blessed terrorism to prevent the unjust person from committing injustice and to stop American support for Israel, which kills our sons,” he said in the video.
Further updates coming, for sure.
***UPDATE 11:10 PM ET***
CNN is reporting that UBL was killed in a mansion in Islamabad, Pakistan. DNA samples obtained from blood relatives allegedly confirm the identity of the person killed in that strike on the mansion in Islamabad.
Wow! I think I’ve just seen a future President in this interview. And no, it’s not David Gregory. David kept trying to trip Marco up, but he was too deft for that. It appeared to me that Gregory was trying to make Rubio say something he would regret, but there was no chance of that. Marco is dead-on with his assessments, and you can tell he has the courage of his convictions. Watch the future President of the United States, Marco Rubio, win this round over Gregogry.
Hi… please forgive the appearance of my site. I have a tag somewhere in the code that is wreaking havoc, and until I can find it, my site is all caddywampus on me. Please bear with me as I work to correct it.
Listen…I’m no fan of Obama, and like Mark Levin, I’d vote for a can of orange juice before I’d vote for Obama in 2012. Somewhere along the way, just because our president is black, videos like this are becoming more mainstream and more acceptable on YouTube and other sites, and it should not be.
This is tastleless to the n’th degree, but if it’s okay for black people to do this, how is anything ANY of the Republican candidates do remotely deemed racist at all?
If this country ever truly wants to progress and become a more civilized nation, why is trash like this even tolerated? I’m not asking for this garbage to be censored, but I’d love to see at least SOME condemnation of things like this to be more prevalent. Can we please all agree this is unacceptable in a civilized world? You cannot condemn one group of people for being allegedly “racist” while simultaneously approving of another group of people for creating videos such as this, villifying a single race of people in the process of glorifying the creators of these videos? One need only search certain terms on YouTube to find thousands of videos like this one. And they’re all equally disgusting.
What say you, Eugene Robinson, Goldie Taylor, Donna Brazile, Marc Lamont Hill, etc., etc.? I’m waiting for you all to openly condemn videos like this on YouTube. If you don’t, then I have no reason to listen to your small and petty complaints of racism from Fox News, Republicans as a whole, and GOP candidates in the 2012 primary. Your silence about videos like this are tacit approval of them.
As is said in many places, “hilarity ensues” (h/t Mediaite):
Frances Martel does a fabulous write-up about it, and I couldn’t have said it any better, so here it is direct from the Mediaite post:
“Are you offended?” O’Reilly asked Harpootlian, who replied that he was not, but that he found the fact that Republicans had “no outreach to African Americans” a problem “in a state where we have an African-American Republican Congressman.” “Adding insult to injury, this debate ignoring Martin Luther King’s birthday!” he added, which made O’Reilly ask who was ignoring the debate and why. The Republicans, Harpootlian replied, because “no one has raised any issue with Fox about it being appropriate or inappropriate.”
O’Reilly then asked whether there was a reason for this– namely, something that happened in 2008. Harpootlian did not remember what happened in 2008 (a Democratic primary debate on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day) and who sponsored it (the Congressional Black Caucus), which prompted several awkward seconds where Harpootlian was obviously caught flat-footed. With this development, O’Reilly then told him that, “by injecting race into this, you do a disservice.” Harpootlian finally replied, blaming Republicans for injecting race into the matter by calling this “the most important election since 1860.” “We in the South have a little different version of that election,” he noted, suggesting that talking to Southerners in such a way was a sort of dog whistle. O’Reilly disagreed and just asked Harpootlian to give it up, adding, “you’re getting killed here!”
Today on Neil Cavuto, radio talk show host and constitutional scholar, Mark Levin was on to discuss his new book, “Ameritopia.”
Levin’s previous book, “Liberty and Tyranny” was a best-seller, as was another book before that titled, “Men in Black.” “Liberty and Tyranny” is a must-read for anybody who wants to know how we got to the point where we are in America today.
I’ve been stewing on this and stewing on this figuring out the right way to convey how I feel about it, and I’ve been struggling with just the right words to describe my sentiment. I read a fabulous screed by Deebow over at BlackFive, but it wasn’t until I saw the headline in a Weekly Standard piece today that quoted Lt. Col. Allen West (R-FL) on this matter. I couldn’t have said it better myself:
‘Shut Your Mouth, War Is Hell’
Yes, you got that right. Congressman West has weighed in on this flap over the Marines taking a piss on dead Taliban terrorists, sending an email to the Weekly Standard, who got his permission to print what he said. Here’s a portion of his commentary:
“All these over-emotional pundits and armchair quarterbacks need to chill. Does anyone remember the two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were beheaded and gutted in Iraq?
“The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.
“As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell.”
I’m not even quite sure that what the Marines did was wrong, but since when in the hell did we become so indignant and self-righteously outraged about treating killers like they deserve to be treated? Sure, they probably shouldn’t have videotaped what they did, but who the hell cares? And don’t give me this “don’t stoop to their level” B.S. either. Until you have been in the shoes of our warriors, or our first responders (cops, firefighters, etc.), or, heck, even ever been a crime victim yourself, you have no idea what you would do, given the same circumstances.
Dedicated_Dad: It HAS been going on long before King O'bummer, but has really kicked into OVERDRIVE since his coronation.
It has spiked just like every OTHER negat...
Dedicated_Dad: This is ART!
First Amendment, beeeyotch!
If you have a problem with black-folks expressing themselves however they please, then you are CLEARLY ...
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mark mac: hey miss america, defend this while you are at it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2089462/U-S-Army-probe-launched-sickening-video-soldiers...
Melissa Amber Digiulio: Hi stop Judge Judy this is Melissa Amber Digiulio call me 954-430-7283...
Fake_ear: If Chris did this he would be guilty of assault and battery, but he didn't. Looks to me like Fox, O'Reilly, and Kyle have opened themselves up to a m...
