Was There a Plot to Kill Obama? | Newsweek Politics: Conventions

More Than Just Hot Air
Daniel Gross 6/27/2009 12:00:00 AM
It only seems as though every company in America is downsizing. "We're hiring three or four people every week," says Prem Nath, senior vice president at Ascent Solar in Thornton, Colo. Spun out of a technology incubator in 2005, the company is ramping up production of thin-film energy-producing cells printed on malleable plastic, which it sells in credit-card-size patches (to power a BlackBerry) and in 15-foot strips for roofing material. Nath notes that the nearby National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) validated that the material converts about 10 percent of the sun's power into electricity. Ascent is installing production lines in a huge space behind the main office.
18-Wheel Surprise
Christopher Dickey 5/21/2009 12:00:00 AM
When the 18-wheel police truck pulled across the street in front of them and cops from the New York City Police Department's Emergency Service Unit wearing full battle gear started smashing in the smoked-glass windows of their SUV on Wednesday night, the four men who allegedly conspired to bomb Bronx, N.Y., synagogues must have known they'd been had. Perhaps the most intriguing question in this latest homegrown terrorist plot to be busted up by the Federal Bureau of Investigation is how these characters could have been so stupid to begin with. The record of Al Qaeda is fearsome, of course. But the record of Al Qaeda wannabes in the United States has followed the same pattern repeatedly, whether they plotted to blow up New York City's Herald Square subway station in 2004, or shoot troops at New Jersey's Fort Dix or incinerate John F. Kennedy Airport, both in 2007.
Fears for Obama
Mark Hosenball 10/29/2008 12:00:00 AM
With the presidential election only days away, federal officials are looking closely for any uptick in threats to presidential candidates from white supremacist or other extremist groups. But in contrast to the pre-election atmosphere of four years ago, U.S. agencies have picked up little "chatter" about looming Islamic terror plots—and scant indications of any imminent pre-election messages from Al Qaeda leaders like Osama bin Laden.
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One Strike And You're Out

This is no theoretical debate. A new federal law, slipped unobtrusively into a spending bill in September, says that anyone convicted of even a misdemeanor in a domestic-violence incident--ever--is prohibited from owning, carrying or transporting a gun. The law was widely praised then as a quick and easy way to curb an escalation of violent acts against wives and children--and if a cop got caught up, so be it. It also plugged a legal loophole; while felons were already barred from owning guns, most domestic-abuse cases are prosecuted as misdemeanors.