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Fox News co-host Eric Bolling on Wednesday defended the New York Police Department's spying program that targets Muslims by claiming that "every terrorist on American soil has been a Muslim."

On Fox News' The Five, Bolling dismissed a lawsuit filed by Muslim Advocates, a legal rights group, because "the people that had their constitutional rights violated the most were the 9/11 victims, the 3,000 who were killed by 19 hijackers who happened all to be Muslims."

"It's a strange thing that a lot of groups will do if they feel they're being targeted is turn America's system of civil rights and the Constitution back on the government," co-host Dana Perino agreed. "Now that's one of the things we have to struggle against."

Fox News political analyst Juan Williams, who was dismissed from NPR in 2010 for remarks about Muslims, suggested that the group had a valid case.

"The reality is what the lawsuit says is that they are being targeted simply on the basis of their religion," Williams explained. "So, it's as if, you know, in Syria or one of these countries where all Christians are being persecuted, you said, 'I'm going to go into every Christian home of church just on that basis that I suspect that you're a terrorist.' Well, that's not fair to people in the Muslim community, most of whom are not terrorists."

"How is it every terrorist on American soil has been a Muslim?" Bolling wondered.

"Wait a second," Williams shot back. "You mean to say Oklahoma City [bombing] was conducted by a Muslim?"

"In the last 15 years," Bolling added.

"Oh, come on," Williams replied.

In the last 15 years alone, there have a number of high-profile of domestic terrorist attacks on U.S. soil that did not involve Muslims.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation suspected Dr. Bruce Ivins of being behind the 2001 anthrax attacks. Jim David Adkisson was accused of killing two people and wounding seven others at a Tennessee church in 2008 because he wanted to kill liberals and Democrats. Anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder was convicted of the 2009 murder of Dr. George Tiller. White supremacist James W. von Brunn killed a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2010. And Andrew Joseph Stack flew a plane into a Texas office building in 2010, possibly targeting the Internal Revenue Service.

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Countdown's Keith Olbermann talked to former Marine Sgt. Shamar Thomas about his experience confronting the police in Times Square during the #OWS protests where he defended the occupiers right to assemble and march peacefully.

Thomas explained he became inspired to get more involved in the protests after seeing some of the police brutality during the first week in October.

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A New York Police officer was caught on video Wednesday night telling a female officer that he was looking forward to using his nightstick later that evening.

"My little nightstick is going to get a workout tonight -- hopefully," he said. To make his point, the officer struck the ground with what appeared to be a baton.

That same night, local media filmed police using batons and pepper spray during the arrest of about 28 people involved in the Occupy Wall Street protests.

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In an interview that aired Sunday, New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly shocked CBS' Scott Pelley by telling him that the NYPD has the capability to shoot down a plane if needed.

"Are you satisfied that you've dealt with threats from aircraft, even light planes, model planes, that kind of thing?" Pelley asked.

"Well, it's something that's on our radar screen, Kelly replied. "I mean in an extreme situation, you would have some means to take down a plane."

"Do you mean to say that the NYPD has the means to take down an aircraft?" a stunned Pelley wondered.

"Yes, I prefer not to get into the details but obviously this would be in a very extreme situation," Kelly explained.

While some may find the NYPD's firepower comforting, others may question whether a department accused of wrongly pepper-spraying protesters can be trusted not to overreact.

Well isn't this nifty.

via the NY TIMES cityroom blog:

The above video, posted by USLaw.com, captures a confrontation on Saturday between the police and several protesters from the Occupy Wall Street movement.

In slow motion, and with annotation explaining what is happening, the video seems to show a high-ranking member of the New York Police Department spraying a substance — the video says it is Mace or pepper spray — toward several women who were standing behind a wall of orange netting. After the spraying, one woman can be seen dropping to the ground, screaming in apparent pain.

More than 80 people were arrested on Saturday as they marched from the financial district, where many have been encamped for over a week, north toward Union Square.

Another version now has over 200,000 views at YouTube since yesterday.

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Well this is just stupid and pointless. That Major League Baseball had former Yankees' manager Joe Torre deliver this wrong-headed move rather than commissioner Bud Selig is so typical of them.

The clip above is edited from 9/11 Baseball Remembers, with the first games in New York following the events of 9/11/2001. No doubt MLB lawyers will be calling in a few moments.

NEW YORK (AP) — Major League Baseball denied the New York Mets' request to wear baseball caps Sunday night honoring New York emergency service departments for their game against the Chicago Cubs on the 10th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Joe Torre, MLB's executive vice president for baseball operations, told The Associated Press in a phone interview the decision was made to keep policy consistent throughout baseball.

"Certainly it's not a lack of respect," Torre said. "We just felt all the major leagues are honoring the same way with the American flag on the uniform and the cap. This is a unanimity thing."

The Mets wanted to wear caps honoring police, firefighters and other first responders like the ones they wore on Sept. 21, 2001, in the first professional sporting event in New York after the World Trade Center collapsed 10 days earlier. And they spoke with Torre on several occasions over the course of the last month.

Keith Olbermann is pissed off about it.

Those bloodless MLB individuals have been down this path before. Ten years ago, Bud Selig’s initially ruled the Mets and Yankees could not wear the caps during games. The Mets ignored the threat, and MLB decided to give them a pass for a game or two, and then the Mets kept wearing them, and MLB wisely backed off their nonsensical decision. Tonight’s ruling reminded everybody that at the moment of the nation’s greatest grief, MLB’s money-making instinct was unhindered by the blood and destruction and fear.

At least in 2001 the sport was smart enough to shut up. Not this year. MLB first blocked the Washington Nationals from wearing military caps in tribute after a disaster in Afghanistan last month. Then came this decision, complete with in the kind of stupidity that would make a megalomaniac proud: they blamed it on MLB Vice President Joe Torre, the native New Yorker who wore these caps at the end of the 2001 season. So if it hadn’t been shameful already, pinning it on Torre made it doubly shameful.

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Keith Olbermann talked to the AP's Matt Arpuzzo who helped to break this story today -- With CIA help, NYPD moves covertly in Muslim areas.

TPM did a nice summary of the article here -- CIA Helped NYPD 'Mosque Crawlers' Investigate Muslim Communities:

The New York Police Department, with help from the CIA, is running antiterrorism operations outside of their jurisdiction that target ethnic communities in a way the federal government can't, Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo report for the Associated Press.

Undercover officers known as "rakers" and undercover informants known as "mosque crawlers" are sent into minority neighborhoods, the AP reports. The NYPD denied that it targeted ethnic neighborhoods, saying that it only followed leads.

The program, the AP reported, was started by David Cohen, a retired 35-year veteran of the CIA who started at the NYPD in Jan. 2002. He, like police commissioner Ray Kelly, thought that the NYPD couldn't just rely on the federal government to protect the city from a future terrorist attack. CIA Director George Tenet tapped Larry Sanchez to help out Cohen. Sanchez, still on the CIA payroll, schooled officers in the art of intelligence gathering, said the AP.

Cohen started a secret squad that would infiltrate Muslim communities, several current and former officials involved in the program told the AP. One of the biggest issues for the CIA is that their intelligence officials are overwhelmingly white. But the NYPD didn't have that problem thanks to their diverse pool of officers, and were able to find the right fit for their undercover officers: Read on...

Jon Stewart plays it straight last night to lay out the absolute hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy of this situation, both by the politicians and those in the media who fail to do their job and call them out on this.

9/11 first responders watch as Mitch McConnell cries over a friend's retirement, and Jon Kyl explains why the Senate can't work the week after Christmas.

Partial transcript from an earlier segment:

Before we go, I want to talk one last time about something called the Zadroga bill, who was an NYPD detective who died in 2006 from respiratory illness thought to be caused by the dust he inhaled while working at Ground Zero after 2001. This bill would provide $7 billion in medical and financial benefits for Ground Zero workers who get sick, and they're going to pay for it by closing a corporate tax loophole. It's a win-win-win-win, just fucking do it!! The House passed it. The House of Representatives passed it, and it would pass in the Senate, if it came to an up-or-down vote. They have more than the 50 votes they need. But the Senate Republicans have filibustered it, won't allow the bill to come up for a vote. Luckily, yesterday there was some good news from the Senate, the logjam broke.

DIANE SAWYER (12/15/2010): Today the Senate passed that bill to extend tax cuts to all Americans, including the wealthiest, by an overwhelming 81-19 vote.

Meanwhile, one Republican Senator saw fit to call the cops on some 9/11 First Responders yesterday when they visited her office. Congratulations, Susan Collins of Maine.

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Bill O'Reilly goes on a rampage against the ACLU and calls them the "most dangerous, anti-American organization in the country". Why? Because they support the release of the prison abuse photos and their complaint against the NYPD for racial profiling.

I swear watching this man makes my head hurt. First of all, I've watched the ACLU's Anthony Romero go on more than one show and say that the public being able to see those photos is not what matters to him. What matters to him is that there is some accountability for what's been done, and for those who ordered the torture, and to be able to prove that it was not just a few bad apples but systemic abuse that took place because it was the policy of our government to torture prisoners.

How O'Reilly makes the connection between that and the ACLU suing the NYPD for racial profiling is beyond me other than him finding any excuse to bash the ACLU and "left wing loons". Of course following this segment he brings on the hapless Marc Lamont who attempts to call out O'Reilly for saying it's alright for the police to target blacks and Latinos on the street when they've done nothing wrong but he's no match for O'Reilly's bullying and talking over him.

What's particularly disturbing here is O'Reilly's call for his viewers to "confront" the ACLU, the media, and anyone who supports the ACLU. Just what type of confrontation is O'Reilly calling for? O'Reilly seems to be continuing Fox News' shameless habit of not caring how much they rial up the fringe elements in our society and possibly incite some of the crazy ones out there to violence.

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