[Guest post by DRJ]

ABC News reports American law enforcement has warned that Al Qaeda in Yemen has at least two female suicide bombers with Western passports and non-Arab appearance:

“They have trained women,” said former White House counterterrorism official Richard Clarke, an ABC News consultant.

There are others who are still out there who have been trained and who are clean skins — that means people who we do not have a record of, people who may not look like al Qaeda terrorists, who may not be Arabs, and may not be men,” said Clarke.”

Plus there have been an increased number of passengers prevented from flying because they are on the No-Fly list. Either the system is working better or there are more attempts to probe American security:

“The alert comes during a week in which American law enforcement officials described an “unusually high” number of people on the no-fly list attempting to board flights to or in the United States.

At least six people on the no-fly list were denied boarding in a 48-hour period between Saturday and Monday this week, according to the officials.”

Some of the passengers were attempting to fly to or from several American cities:

“Two of the six were stopped at London’s Heathrow Airport.

On Saturday, an Egyptian man on the no-fly list was stopped from flying on American Airlines flight 113 from London to Miami.

The next day, Sunday, a Saudi Arabian passenger was stopped from boarding United Airlines flight 929 to Chicago. Officials said the man was sent back to Saudi Arabia by the British.

In two other overseas cases involving people on the no-fly list, a man in Nairobi, Kenya was kept off a flight Sunday that would have connected in Amsterdam to Dallas, and a passenger attempting to fly on American Airlines to Los Angeles was stopped in Saint Maarten before he could board a connecting flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico, according to officials.

American officials say there were two additional incidents, in Minneapolis and in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in which people on the no-fly list were denied boarding, questioned and then allowed to leave the airport without being detained.”

Officials also verified passenger reports from the Christmas Day flight that someone helped Abdulmutallab change planes in Amsterdam.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ

Must See Israeli TV:

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but I can’t decide about this one.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

The bad news is they stopped the Christmas Day bomber from talking:

“In interviews with The Associated Press, U.S. officials described for the first time the details of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s arrest Dec. 25 at Detroit Metro Airport.

Captured after a bomb hidden in his underwear ignited but failed to explode, Abdulmutallab spoke freely and provided valuable intelligence, officials said. Federal agents repeatedly interviewed him or heard him speak to others. But when they read him his legal rights nearly 10 hours after the incident, he went silent.”

The linked article has more details on how Abdulmutallab was handled, what he said, and when he said it. It also confirms that the “on-scene investigators never discussed turning the suspect over to military authorities,” nor did they involve the special counterterrorism unit “because it was not yet up and running.”

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

This post gathers links to letters by Ellie Light or Ellie Jeanne Light written to newspapers or other online media sources as discussed in Patterico’s posts here and here. It will be updated with additions and corrections as we find them.

Current totals:

69 publications in 31 states and the District of Columbia.

3 national publications and a Yahoo link.

2 foreign publications.

Please leave links to new Ellie Light letters in the comments to this post.

— DRJ

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[Guest post by DRJ]

“A mistress catapulted retribution by plastering the country with billboards that show her nuzzling her married lover, an Obama adviser.”

— DRJ

I have posted about Ellie Light at Hot Air, here. An excerpt:

Editors all over the country found Light’s message strangely compelling. It was reprinted at The Politico; the Philadelphia Daily News; the San Francisco Examiner; the Washington Times; and a USA Today blog. In addition, the letter has appeared at literally dozens of small-town papers across the country, with names like the Los Banos Enterprise, the North Adams Transcript, and the Danbury News-Times.

Ms. Light always claims to be a local in these letters. Her real estate holdings are apparently prodigious, as she has claimed residences in Philadelphia, PA; Daly City, California; Mansfield, Ohio; Waynesboro, Virginia; Algoma, Wisconsin; Bangor, Maine; and dozens of other places. Who said Obama supporters were all downtrodden?

The latest count: 47 publications in 23 states.

We’ll keep working on this one. Thanks to DRJ and Stashiu for their ongoing help.

A woman has written the same letter defending Obama to dozens of publications across the country, getting them published in at least 42 newspapers in 18 states, as well as Politico.com, the Washington Times, and USA Today. And the woman, Ellie Light, has claimed residence in many of these states.

Think there might be some phony Astroturfing there?

At the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Sabrina Eaton makes a nice catch:

Ellie Light sure gets around.

In recent weeks, Light has published virtually identical “Letters to the Editor” in support of President Barack Obama in more than a dozen newspapers.Every letter claimed a different residence for Light that happened to be in the newspaper’s circulation area.

“It’s time for Americans to realize that governing is hard work, and that a president can’t just wave a magic wand and fix everything,” said a letter from alleged Philadelphian Ellie Light, that was published in the Jan. 19 edition of The Philadelphia Daily News.

A letter from Light in the Jan. 20 edition of the San Francisco Examiner concluded with an identical sentence, but with an address for Light all the way across the country in Daly City, California.

Variations of Light’s letter ran in Ohio’s Mansfield News Journal on Jan. 13, with Light claiming an address in Mansfield; in New Mexico’s Ruidoso News on Jan. 12, claiming an address in Three Rivers; in South Carolina’s The Sun News on Jan. 18, claiming an address in Myrtle Beach; and in the Daily News Leader of Staunton, Virginia on Jan. 15, claiming an address in Waynesboro. Her publications list includes other papers in Ohio, West Virginia, Maine, Michigan, Iowa, Pennsylvania and California, all claiming separate addresses.

She has more houses than John McCain!

But there are a few more places her little pro-Obama missive appeared, besides those documented.

Like Ben Smith at Politico.

And the Washington Times.

And a blog at USA Today.

And the Sheboygan Press in Wisconsin. And the Stevens Point Journal in Wisconsin — listing an address of Algoma, Wisconsin.

And in addition to the Californian.com link provided in the Plain Dealer story, listing an address in Salinas, CA, there are other California letters with other California addresses.

The letter appears in the Gilroy Dispatch and Morgan Hill Times, both listing an address of San Felipe, CA.

And in Good Times, listing an address in Santa Cruz, CA.

And in TheUnion.com, listing an address of Grass Valley, CA.

And Connecticut’s stamfordadvocate.com.

A letter was sent to a columnist at the local Daily Breeze here in the South Bay area of Los Angeles.

On an unrelated note, recall that recently, Glenn Greenwald flagged the fact that Obama’s pal (and head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs) Cass Sunstein recently wrote this paper suggesting something sounding a lot like Astroturfing:

Sunstein advocates that the Government’s stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups.” He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called “independent” credible voices to bolster the Government’s messaging (on the ground that those who don’t believe government sources will be more inclined to listen to those who appear independent while secretly acting on behalf of the Government).

Who is Ellie Light?

I would like to know.

Wouldn’t you?

P.S. If you find other examples, please leave them in comments with a link. Many more updates in the extended entry.

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