From: Newsmax Insider Report

Click here to view this email as a web page

Insider Report from Newsmax.com
Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
1. Public School Teachers Paid More Than Most Households
2. Pakistani Dr. Afridi's Prison Sentence Is Overturned
3. Washington, D.C., Drivers Are Worst in Nation — Again
4. 50,000 Stray Dogs Roaming Detroit Streets
5. Bombshell: Venice, Italy, Bans Gondolas
6. We Heard: Rachel Maddow, Eliot Spitzer, Judicial Junkets

Seniors Scoop Up Unclaimed $20,500 Check? (See if You Qualify)

---

1. Public School Teachers Paid More Than Most Households
Despite the clamor about low teacher pay in America, the average teacher in a taxpayer-supported public school earns more in base salary alone — with summers off — than the median U.S. household earns in an entire year.
According to a new report from the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the average base salary for a full-time public school teacher in the 2011-2012 school year was $53,100.
The Census Bureau estimated that the median household income in the United States was $50,054 in 2011, the latest year for which figures are available.
The income earned by public school teachers is also significantly higher than the base salary of the average private school teacher, $40,200 a year, according to the NCES.
Many public school teachers earn more than their base salary. For example, 41.8 percent of teachers receive additional income to work in extracurricular activities in the same school system; 4 percent earn additional compensation based on students' performance; and 7.3 percent receive income from other school-system sources, such as state supplements.
On top of that, 16.5 percent of public school teachers have another job outside the school system.
When all sources of income are included, the average public school teacher earned $55,100 in the school year studied.
Teachers at public high schools earned even more: $57,700 in 2011-2012, and teachers at schools with at least 1,000 students made $59,100.
In contrast, teachers at private elementary schools earned just $38,400 that year, and those who work in a community classified as a "town" earned only $31,200.
Footnote: The NCES figures for public school teachers do not include their often generous retirement pensions.
Editor's Note:

• Suzanne Somers Found the Doctors Who Beat Cancer

---

2. Pakistani Dr. Afridi's Prison Sentence Is Overturned
Readers of the Insider Report are familiar with the plight of Dr. Shakil Afridi, the Pakistani physician who helped America track down Osama bin Laden and was sentenced to 33 years in prison by Pakistan.
Now the good news out of Pakistan is that his sentence has been overturned on appeal and he has been granted a new trial.
A judge on Thursday ruled that the previous judge had exceeded his authority in handing down the sentence, and the new trial must be heard by a more senior official, according to the BBC.
Afridi's cousin Qamar Nadeem Afridi told the BBC that the ruling is a "great development," although Afridi will remain in prison until the retrial is concluded.
As the Insider Report disclosed most recently in mid-July, Afridi was arrested weeks after the U.S. raid on Abbottabad, Pakistan, where al-Qaida leader bin Laden was living in a compound. American officials later said Afridi had helped in the hunt for the terrorist chief by conducting a vaccination campaign in Abbottabad to obtain DNA evidence from the compound confirming that bin Laden was hiding there.
The raid created an uproar in Pakistan, which felt the operation was a violation of its sovereignty.
In May 2012, a court in the tribal area near the Afghan border sentenced Afridi to 33 years in prison after convicting him of providing assistance to an obscure military group in the area.
A Pakistani commission ruled in July that Afridi should be put on trial for his role in the bin Laden affair, even though it conceded that he had already been jailed on "trumped-up charges" that had "completely undermined the credibility of the country and its judicial process."
Afridi has consistently said he was unaware that the target of the vaccination operation was bin Laden.
A few months after his conviction, he spoke to Fox News from prison using a smuggled phone, and claimed he had been tortured with cigarette burns and electric shocks during his interrogation. He also said he was blindfolded for eight months and handcuffed for a year, and had to "bend down on my knees to eat with only my mouth, like a dog."
The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Congress has withheld $33 million of financial aid for Pakistan, $1 million for each year of his prison sentence.

From: Newsmax Insider Report

Click here to view this email as a web page

Insider Report from Newsmax.com
Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
1. Public School Teachers Paid More Than Most Households
2. Pakistani Dr. Afridi's Prison Sentence Is Overturned
3. Washington, D.C., Drivers Are Worst in Nation — Again
4. 50,000 Stray Dogs Roaming Detroit Streets
5. Bombshell: Venice, Italy, Bans Gondolas
6. We Heard: Rachel Maddow, Eliot Spitzer, Judicial Junkets

Seniors Scoop Up Unclaimed $20,500 Check? (See if You Qualify)

---

1. Public School Teachers Paid More Than Most Households
Despite the clamor about low teacher pay in America, the average teacher in a taxpayer-supported public school earns more in base salary alone — with summers off — than the median U.S. household earns in an entire year.
According to a new report from the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the average base salary for a full-time public school teacher in the 2011-2012 school year was $53,100.
The Census Bureau estimated that the median household income in the United States was $50,054 in 2011, the latest year for which figures are available.
The income earned by public school teachers is also significantly higher than the base salary of the average private school teacher, $40,200 a year, according to the NCES.
Many public school teachers earn more than their base salary. For example, 41.8 percent of teachers receive additional income to work in extracurricular activities in the same school system; 4 percent earn additional compensation based on students' performance; and 7.3 percent receive income from other school-system sources, such as state supplements.
On top of that, 16.5 percent of public school teachers have another job outside the school system.
When all sources of income are included, the average public school teacher earned $55,100 in the school year studied.
Teachers at public high schools earned even more: $57,700 in 2011-2012, and teachers at schools with at least 1,000 students made $59,100.
In contrast, teachers at private elementary schools earned just $38,400 that year, and those who work in a community classified as a "town" earned only $31,200.
Footnote: The NCES figures for public school teachers do not include their often generous retirement pensions.
Editor's Note:

• Suzanne Somers Found the Doctors Who Beat Cancer

---

2. Pakistani Dr. Afridi's Prison Sentence Is Overturned
Readers of the Insider Report are familiar with the plight of Dr. Shakil Afridi, the Pakistani physician who helped America track down Osama bin Laden and was sentenced to 33 years in prison by Pakistan.
Now the good news out of Pakistan is that his sentence has been overturned on appeal and he has been granted a new trial.
A judge on Thursday ruled that the previous judge had exceeded his authority in handing down the sentence, and the new trial must be heard by a more senior official, according to the BBC.
Afridi's cousin Qamar Nadeem Afridi told the BBC that the ruling is a "great development," although Afridi will remain in prison until the retrial is concluded.
As the Insider Report disclosed most recently in mid-July, Afridi was arrested weeks after the U.S. raid on Abbottabad, Pakistan, where al-Qaida leader bin Laden was living in a compound. American officials later said Afridi had helped in the hunt for the terrorist chief by conducting a vaccination campaign in Abbottabad to obtain DNA evidence from the compound confirming that bin Laden was hiding there.
The raid created an uproar in Pakistan, which felt the operation was a violation of its sovereignty.
In May 2012, a court in the tribal area near the Afghan border sentenced Afridi to 33 years in prison after convicting him of providing assistance to an obscure military group in the area.
A Pakistani commission ruled in July that Afridi should be put on trial for his role in the bin Laden affair, even though it conceded that he had already been jailed on "trumped-up charges" that had "completely undermined the credibility of the country and its judicial process."
Afridi has consistently said he was unaware that the target of the vaccination operation was bin Laden.
A few months after his conviction, he spoke to Fox News from prison using a smuggled phone, and claimed he had been tortured with cigarette burns and electric shocks during his interrogation. He also said he was blindfolded for eight months and handcuffed for a year, and had to "bend down on my knees to eat with only my mouth, like a dog."
The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Congress has withheld $33 million of financial aid for Pakistan, $1 million for each year of his prison sentence.

Difference ... Thanks again, Lou!

This is the difference between chicken salad and chicken shit: President George W. Bush's speech after the capture of Saddam Hussein: "The success of yesterday's mission is a tribute to our men and women now serving in Iraq . The operation was based on the superb work of intelligence analysts who found the dictator's footprints in a vast country. The operation was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting force. "Our servicemen and women and our coalition allies have faced many dangers in the hunt for members of the fallen regime, and in their effort to bring hope and freedom to the Iraqi people. Their work continues, and so do the risks. Today, on behalf of the nation, I thank the members of our Armed Forces and I congratulate them!" And chicken shit: Obama's speech after the killing of bin Laden: "And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the Director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network. Then, last August, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan . And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and I authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad ,Pakistan ." Do what you can to make sure this man starts his retirement soon.

osama's most recent musings

Search the Citizen

The last 25 stories

• Free speech, social media collide at Goodyear school
• Bin Laden’s final months come to light
• Arizona Attorney General’s Office is investigating Pinal Truth Squad group
• NBC sportscaster Bob Costas to receive ASU Cronkite Award
• Phoenix dental clinic helps kids, teens without insurance
• $8.5 bil Arizona budget expected to be OK’d
• Pinal County questions search of 3 iPads
• Conservative blogger Greg Patterson confirmed for regents seat
• Buckeye police: 5 men vandalized cars with pellet gun
• Boy dies after head-on crash in Phoenix
• Arizona lawmakers target mortgage settlement
• Similarities sought in Tucson case, assaults
• Phoenix Coyotes get steal of a deal in Antoine Vermette
• ASU baseball’s Trevor Williams named Pac-12 Baseball Pitcher of Week
• ASU softball’s Katelyn Boyd named Pac-12 Player of Week again
• Gary Hall Jr. among inductees into U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame
• Phoenix Mercury training camp off and running
• Phoenix Coyotes’ fourth line instrumental to success in NHL playoffs
• Arizona Cardinals like a lot about QB Ryan Lindley
• Arizona Diamondbacks’ aggressiveness pays off again in win over Miami Marlins
• Pat Corbin solid in major-league debut as Diamondbacks defeat Marlins
• PV power restored after squirrel gets into substation
• Train in Flagstaff smashes stalled vehicle on tracks
• Man, 92, in Prescott crosswalk killed in hit-run
• Ten former ASU football players sign free agent NFL contracts

  

NEWS FROM THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC

Bin Laden’s final months come to light

by Joby Warrick on Apr. 30, 2012, under Arizona Republic News

A few months before Osama bin Laden’s death, websites linked to al-Qaida ran excited commentary about a proposed new killing machine dubbed the “human lawn mower.” The idea was to attach rotating blades to the front of a pickup truck and drive the contraption into crowds.

While some jihadists admired the idea, one graying veteran of the terrorist movement took a stand against it. That was bin Laden himself, by then living out his twilight years in a Pakistan villa with ample time to think about his legacy. The man who famously ordered jetliners flown into skyscrapers drew the line at cutting down humans like weeds.

 Osama bin Laden’s death: Local reaction |  Osama bin Laden’s death celebrated, observed

“He was upset about it,” said a former U.S. intelligence official who viewed bin Laden’s writings on the subject, part of a trove of documents seized from the terrorist’s compound in Pakistan a year ago this week. “He felt it conflicted with his vision for what he wanted al-Qaida to be.”

Bin Laden’s chances for trying to remake al-Qaida’s image ended abruptly when Navy SEALs kicked in the door of his hideout. But in the year since his death, U.S. officials have gained a deeper understanding of the man, his internal struggles and his plans for the terrorist group he co-founded.

Although some insights from the documents have been revealed over the past year, new excerpts reveal the extent of bin Laden’s obsession with ideological purity as he sought to manage the group’s demoralized and scattered networks in his final years.

They show him seeking to reassert control over factions of loosely affiliated jihadists from Yemen to Somalia, as well as independent actors whom he believed had sullied al-Qaida’s reputation and muddied its central message.

The new details about bin Laden’s final months were provided in interviews with current and former U.S. officials, several of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to provide assessments of documents that are not yet public, as well as a pair of new books that quote extensively from the documents recovered from computer equipment seized during the May 1 raid.

Bin Laden emerges from these accounts as a chief executive fully engaged in the group’s myriad crises, grappling with financial problems, recruitment, rebellious field managers and sudden staff vacancies resulting from the unrelenting U.S. drone campaign.

In some memos, he worried about his own security, and in others, he fretted about missing a huge potential marketing opportunity: the Arab Spring, with its millions of street revolutionaries looking to reshape politics in the Middle East.

The Saudi who built the world’s first truly global jihadist movement is viewed as distracted at times by mundane details, such as which crops should be planted by al-Shabab allies in Somalia. He was coolly cordial with former partner Ayman al-Zawahiri but increasingly drawn to the ideas of a younger lieutenant who possessed a firmer grasp of the power of the Internet and an ambition to modernize al-Qaida’s message.

The new deputy, Libyan-born Atiyah Abd Al Rahman, a veteran of Algeria’s brutal Muslim-against-Muslim violence in the 1990s, emerged in bin Laden’s final year as a key advocate for reining in al-Qaida-inspired carnage in Iraq and other Middle Eastern lands.

With bin Laden’s support, Atiyah, as the aide is informally known, began trying to codify rules of behavior for al-Qaida and its affiliates, warning that killings of innocent Muslims would hurt the organization and probably violate Shariah, or Islamic law.

The killing of Americans, including non-combatants, would meanwhile remain permissible, even obligatory. Bin Laden’s aversion to the “human lawn mower” was noted last year in a report on ProPublica’s website.

“To the end, Atiyah kept trying to rein in attacks inside the Middle East,” said Jarret Brachman, an author and consultant on al-Qaida to U.S. government agencies. “Both he and bin Laden remained rabid in their hatred for the West. But they felt that attacks within Muslim countries were bad for their public image.”

Among the documents seized in the raid were thousands of electronic memos and missives that captured conversations between bin Laden and his deputies around the world, U.S. officials say. Because the security-conscious bin Laden had no Internet connection, the documents were hand-delivered by couriers over circuits that would require up to a month to complete.

Despite bin Laden’s physical isolation, the documents show him as a hands-on manager who participated in the terrorist group’s operational planning and strategic thinking while also giving orders and advice to field operatives scattered worldwide.

The exchanges were described in interviews, as well as in new books, including “Manhunt,” by Peter L. Bergen, and “Hunting in the Shadows: The Pursuit of al Qa’ida after 9/11,” by Seth G. Jones.

“He was not a recluse; he was the CEO of a global terrorist organization,” said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA counterterrorism official and White House adviser on terrorist groups. “He was receiving communications from al-Qaida’s operatives literally around the world, and he was instructing them to carry out acts of terror.”

But bin Laden was a weakened leader, presiding over a group that had lost scores of key operatives to U.S. drone strikes while being pursued around the world.

Increasingly, bin Laden’s musings about future terrorist strikes took on a fanciful air, given the group’s dwindling resources.

Occasionally, his talk of bold attacks was met with shrugs and skepticism, said one senior U.S. counterterrorism official familiar with the documents.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 30th, 2012 at 10:57 pm and is filed under Arizona Republic News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.