Aggressive-Voice Daily

Ace Pundit

2007-05-29T22:24:00.000-04:00

Things are changing around here. I'm now Ace Pundit blogging at AcePundit.com. Really, it's a much easier domain name to work with.

Update your bookmarks!

A Crime to Hate Homosexuals?

2007-05-03T15:44:00.000-04:00

Congress is gearing toward the passage of an expansion to the federal hate crime law that would encompass attacks motivated by the victims' gender or sexual orientation. The president - for only the third time in his presidency - has threatened to veto it.

With strong backing from the Democratic majority, it looks like President Bush has yet another bill coming to his desk that doesn't fit his agenda. It will only be the third one to be sent back to Congress, but the president is currently at a perfect 2-2, having successfully defeated the recent troop-funding bill that called for a withdrawal timetable, and last year's federally funded stem-cell research bill. It is likely he'll go 3-3 if the Democrats can’t get enough Republicans to back the "Hate Crimes Prevention Act."

Today the conservative National Review Online posted an editorial echoing the fears of opponents that the strengthen law would obstruct free speech (emphasis added):

Many proponents of hate-crimes laws profess to have no desire to move against free speech. But we fear that it may be a short jump from prosecuting "hate crimes" to prosecuting "hate speech." It is true that the law routinely looks into defendants' motives, and that some motives tend to draw tougher sentences than others. But our social divisions, especially over homosexuality, make it especially dangerous for the law to inquire into defendants' prejudices—and "prejudices." We want to deter and punish crimes against blacks, women, homosexuals, and everyone else. But we do not want to open the door to legal punishment for harboring incorrect thoughts about controversial issues—especially when those incorrect thoughts are part of the historic teaching of our major religions.

Yes it sounds like the National Review just admitted religion is possibly responsible for the so-called homophobia that inspires crimes against homosexuals and that the preservation of traditional religious teachings (albeit "wrong") justifies the potential consequences.

It's not the easiest position to defend but it's the right one and there are plenty of reasons to oppose federal hate-crime legislation. The "Hate Crimes Prevention Act" sounds like a good idea when you read it, but if our current murder prevention laws don't prevent people from committing murder, can we really expect this legislation to change the minds of the perpetrators who are going to do it but for racist reasons?

But the "Hate Crimes Prevention Act" shouldn't just be opposed because it's not going to prevent anything, it should be opposed primary because Congress has no business legislating our thoughts - however bigoted they may be. Punishing someone harder for committing a likewise offense as someone else but for "hateful" purposes is a violation of the First Amendment's free speech clause and maybe even the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause, and would probably not pass constitutional muster with the Supreme Court.

Such legislation would artificially inflate the value of some classes by denying justice to others; say, by making the punishment harsher when the victim (in a rare circumstance) is of a different color or sexual orientation. And because the majority of crimes are intra-racial and between members of the same sexual orientation, the "Hate Crimes Prevention Act" only intends to serve a minority of victims.

To be sure, we do have ways of punishing criminals based on their motives and other factors that led them to committing the crime. After a decision to convict in a criminal trial the jury gets to weigh the mitigating and aggravating circumstances of the crime and sets the punishment accordingly. Sometimes the law restricts how much freedom juries and judges have but they usually have the discretion to tack on additional punishment, especially when the crime is particularly heinous.

The "Hate Crimes Prevention Act" and similar laws are fruitless, unnecessary, and will only increase President Bush's veto winning streak.

UPDATE: The House has passed the bill by a vote of 237-180.

Larry Hincker: Still the Voice of Virginia Tech

2007-04-17T13:20:00.000-04:00

The same man who said the defeat of a bill last year that would have allowed concealed-weapon permit holders to carry guns on campus "will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus" is still an active mouthpiece after yesterday's tragedy at Virginia Tech - where it was hardly safe.

Larry Hincker, associate vice president for university relations, said at a recent news conference that "police are having difficulty finding information" about Cho Seung-Hui, the recently identified 23-year-old shooter from South Korea who killed 32 people yesterday before turning the gun on himself.

"He was a loner," Mr. Hincker said.

Somebody should tell Mr. Hincker that there have always been Cho Seung-Huis on college campuses and there are many more ticking time bombs just like him waiting to go off. Should we still feel safe knowing that?

Representative Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah County, who introduced last year's bill that would have allowed students to stop Seung-Hui in his tracks should reintroduce his much-needed legislation. Then, regardless of its outcome, we can all hear what else Larry Hincker has to say on the matter.

My article yesterday presents the case for guns on campus.

Deadliest Massacre in US History Strikes "Safe" VT Campus

2007-04-16T21:52:00.000-04:00

As we take the time to mourn the terrible tragedy that occurred today on the campus of Virginia Tech , brace yourself for the countless TV pundits now flooding the airwaves and cable news programs with their opinions on how the availability of guns is compromising the safety of college campuses. But what you won’t hear much of - if at all - is the defeat of a bill that would have allowed students to carry guns to school, and a spokesman from Virginia Tech who had the audacity to call his campus “safe” as a result of the bill’s defeat.

It was a massacre today; 33 dead in what is being called the worst shooting incident in American history. And of course the liberal media and anti-gun reporters are all over it - blaming such tragedies and the ones before today on the availability of guns.

But let's for a second draw this theory out to its logical conclusion and realize that it's the EXACT opposite. We want to blame everything on the availability of guns yet 32 innocent students and faculty members died today because there were NO guns on campus...except for the ones being wielded by the killer of course.

And with gun control that's what you’re going to get every time: a defenseless populace in the crosshairs of a deranged killer who magically finds himself in possession of a gun despite a ban or law saying he can't have one.

Last year the Virginia House of Representatives killed House Bill 1572, a proposal drafted by Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah County, on behalf of the Virginia Citizens Defense League that would have allowed students and employees to conceal weapons on college campuses.

Anti-gun advocates were giddy over the bill's defeat. In a statement made shortly after that should make all Americans sick today, Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said with a smile: "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus."

Just how safe, Mr. Hincker? So safe that because your students can't bring guns onto campus more than 30 of them had to die today? Well it looks like one person decided he wasn't going to follow the toothless law and couldn't have been any more successful in his plan to kill as many people as possible.

But Mr. Hincker isn’t alone of course. The selfish Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police were also against the bill. And why not? By the very nature of their job they're allowed to protect themselves.

And if you've been following the timeline of events, protecting themselves is about all the police in Virginia know how to do, despite two hours in between the first and much deadlier second shooting.

About one year ago a Virginia Tech student was disciplined for bringing a handgun to class, regardless of the fact that he had a concealed handgun permit. You see, even though this student was qualified to carry a handgun and was seen by the state as someone who could conceal one in most places, a ridiculous and deadly policy allowed for him to be punished because he was forbidden to carry one on campus.

Opponents of legislation that would allow law-abiding students and employees to bring guns onto campuses have no rational arguments to make in opposition but can only harp about how the availability of guns makes the environment dangerous. We don't know if there's any truth to that claim, but we do know just how dangerous it is on college campuses without that much needed legislation.

NOTE: Michelle Malkin is all over the anti-gun bias in the news.

Still a Woman's Right to Her Body?

2007-03-17T15:59:00.000-04:00

An aggressive nationwide movement to force schoolgirls into the clinic for vaccination against a virus that causes cervical cancer has come to a halt - at least for now - in Texas.

Republican Governor Rick Perry had signed an execute order requiring that sixth-grade girls be vaccinated against some strains of human papillomavirus (HPV), a sexually transmitted virus that causes most cases of cervical cancer. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, about one in four U.S. women ages 14 to 59 is infected with it.

But the Texas House voted 118-23 last Wednesday to approve a bill that would keep the vaccine off the list of required shots for school participation and instead make them voluntary. The measure now goes to the state Senate where a majority of members are co-sponsoring an identical bill.

If the governor decides to continue angering his conservative base and veto the bill that would oppose his plan and make the vaccines optional, the 118 votes against him would be more than enough to override it.

In New Mexico, Democratic governor and presidential hopeful Bill Richardson is expected to sign a bill this week that would make it mandatory for girls in that state to be vaccinated long before nearing high school, and talk of similar laws is brewing in other states.

In plain language, these laws state: HPV is a sexually transmitted virus, and even though not every child is sexually active we want to vaccinate them anyway because we have no faith in them or their parents.

But aren't we supposed to discourage underage girls from a premature sexual lifestyle? How do we explain to them that they must receive a vaccination against a virus that they can only get from having sex, but at the same time tell them about the importance of abstinence?

Or have we just thrown in the towel and accepted that in today's time most young school girls are sexually active? It's nothing short of shameful that there exists a lobby taking the defeatist road and failing to acknowledge the fact that requiring schoolgirls who do abstain from sex before losing interest in their Barbie doll collections are being insulted and treated as untrustworthy.

We don't distribute clean needles at homeroom because, let's face it - there's a drug problem in our schools and a lack of clean needles exposes our youth to HIV. But we do shoot them up with vaccines because underage sex is sadly a more acceptable practice than drug use. We wouldn't dare consider a "safe needle program" in middle schools, but vaccines that protect the sexually active is deemed okay because it's inevitable.

Ironically, it's the liberals and champions of abortion and "Women’s Rights" that are most supportive of legislation that would require young girls to receive a vaccination with inherent medical risks (albeit smaller than the benefits) unless they or their parents take proactive steps to waive it.

Are we no longer screaming that government has "no right to our bodies" because it's a "woman's choice?" If not, tell that to the thousands of schoolgirls who will be marched into clinics next year with their sleeves rolled up without choice if they want to continue their studies.

Vaccinations should always be optional, especially those that only benefit the sexually active. Forcing everyone to be vaccinated sends the wrong message, just as handing out clean needles would be too.

Keep Your Hands Off Your Child!

2007-01-19T20:36:00.000-05:00

Some nutball Democrat (Sally Lieber) in California doesn't like the discipline of "spanking" and has introduced legislation that would ban parents from doing it to their own children who are under the age of three. Unfortunately for her a new poll finds most California residents oppose the bill:

(CBS 5 / KCBS) SAN FRANCISCO Do parents have the right to spank their children? It is a controversial issue, and while a Bay Area lawmaker wants it addressed in Sacramento -- a majority of those surveyed for a new CBS 5 poll expressed opposition to a spanking ban.

A poll of 500 Bay Area adults conducted for CBS 5 by Survey USA on Thursday found 57% would oppose such a bill, while only 23% would support it. The poll, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4%, showed 11% undecided.

The proposed law would make spanking a child under 3 misdemeanor child abuse, an extenstion of current corporal punishment laws.

Violators could spend a year in jail, and pay up to $1000 in fines. Enforcement is unclear.

Not only is enforcement unclear, but so is the definition of "spanking." I cannot imagine how you would make this an objective law. Would even the slightest tap on the rear be illegal?

But rather than debate how we can make this a good law, let's just scrap it all together and allow parents to raise their own kids how they see fit. What’s next: banning parents from serving dessert before Johnny eats his peas?

Give me a break.

24 is Back

2007-01-14T23:36:00.000-05:00

Season six of 24 kicked off tonight with a two-hour premiere and will continue tomorrow with another two hours on Fox. The plot once again revolves around terrorism and a bit of political discourse was injected into the first hour as the president's cabinet debated brining back internment camps but for Muslims.

In one scene an Islamic kid was assaulted by a white neighbor after his father was arrested by the FBI for ties to terrorism. Turns out the kid himself is working for the bad guys.

More commentary after tomorrow's two episodes.

Deadly European Union Policies

2007-01-06T15:11:00.000-05:00

We can only hope the United States is still far from membership to a harmful intergovernmental organization such as the European Union whose insane overreaching social policies has claimed another victim (emphasis mine):

A MAN died after two ambulance crews could not be sent to his aid -- because they were on EU-enforced lunch breaks.

The victim collapsed in a betting shop, five minutes from his local ambulance station. But under the barmy European Working Time Directive, exposed by The Sun last month, crews couldn't be disturbed.

A paramedic was sent in a car and realised the unnamed man was having a heart attack. He dialled 999 but an ambulance did not arrive for half an hour. By then, the patient had died on the floor in Edmonton, North London.

Last night London Ambulance Service chiefs ordered a full probe. The EU rules -- which have angered staff -- mean crews in the capital can be called out only in the last ten minutes of their 30-minute breaks. Otherwise, they are banned from helping, even if there is a road crash outside their building.

Other UK ambulance services have chosen to opt out of the rules.

A London spokesperson said last night: "We can confirm crews were on a rest break at the time. Our sympathies are with the patient's family."

No position that serves the interest of public safety should ever be tied to mandatory "rest breaks," but that is the case in countries that are members of the European Union. It is one of many policies that strap resources for the sake of uniformity across Europe and often cause more harm than good.

In addition to these "rest breaks" employees controlled by EU policies are limited to working 48-hours per week, even if the overtime work no longer allowed is essential to a comfortable living.

This is why I oppose the smoking bans and trans-fat bans, and whatever ban comes next week at the orders of some regulatory body that has no basis for getting involved in affairs best handled by those who are affected by them.

Yes, employees should be afforded lunch breaks during their duties, but in an effort to secure a midday rest hour the safety and wellbeing of others has been severely jeopardized.

Oh Deliciously Deadly Trans Fats!

2006-12-30T22:31:00.000-05:00

We know the stuff in them will inevitably kill us, but who doesn't occasionally indulge in a handful of hot and crispy French fries or a box of icy-glazed donuts? New York doesn't care if you do, just as long as those delectable treats don't contain any artery-clogging trans fats by July 1 of the new year. Is this law against trans fats necessary?

As a follower of the trans fat threat long before it became a widely known fact that said hydrogenated oils are potentially worse than saturated fats, I knew it would be a matter of time before they would be legally unwelcome in public restaurants.

But even as the first city to ban trans fats in public establishments, NYC is hardly the driving force behind the movement to eliminate trans in the food we consume. When the public became aware of trans fats a few years back, companies began finding new ways to prepare their products without compromising taste - and with much success.

Can you tell the difference between an Oreo today and one you enjoyed five years ago? How about a Doritos chip? Did you even know a difference existed? With companies making the transition on their own why are city legislators trying to get involved when they clearly don't have to?

Universal followed Disney having just announced that hey will begin phasing out trans fats from there theme park menus in 2007. Before you know it you won't be able to find a product with trans fats anywhere.

The point is that government intervention is not always necessary. When it does step in the consequences can be worse than the problem it tries to resolve. In an effort to protect the public from the dangers of secondhand smoke, countless restaurants and businesses found themselves closing down after devastating smoking-bans sent smokers home early with fuller wallets.

In Florida the law is extremely tough on restaurant owners and one friend of mine in particular really felt the crunch. Apparently Florida legislators and those in other states believe they should be able to decide how private restaurants should be run, even though no one is ever forced to go into one and inhale secondhand smoke. You know what you're getting into when you venture into an establishment frequented by smokers.

Similarly, you know what you're doing every time you chomp into a greasy hamburger. And by all means if that's what you want to do then you should be allowed to do it. Fortunately companies are smoothly switching from trans fats to healthier oils with not much of a cost adjustment, and patrons are hardly noticing.

Most are doing it voluntarily, and so far the NYC trans fat ban hasn't resulted in any businesses closing down. But we should not be comfortable with the government prying itself into the restaurant industry. Now it's a trans-fat ban, but what will it be tomorrow? Portion restrictions, carb limits? I wouldn't be surprised by any of it.

The Impact of Buttons

2006-12-16T16:07:00.000-05:00

In a somewhat surprising 9-0 decision, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals erred when it ordered a new trial for a murder defendant whose victim's relatives wore buttons with the victim's picture on them at his trial.

The Ninth Circuit believed Mathew Musladin was denied his right to a fair trial because the buttons were prejudicial, and because they were in plain view of the jury, the said buttons may have influenced the jury's verdict.

Without deciding if the buttons could have indeed had that effect, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court's decision because the Ninth Circuit didn't apply a legal principle the Supreme Court had adopted.

In a way the High Court dodged the issue because it didn't set a clear principle or standard for wearing buttons at a defendant's trial. The likely reason is because the opinion's author - polarizing Justice Clarence Thomas - might not have had enough votes on his side had he tried to convince them that it's reasonable in most or all circumstances to wear buttons at a defendant's trial.

Instead, Justice Thomas utilized the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which states that a writ of habeas corpus "shall not be granted" by a federal court unless a state court issued a decision "that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States."

Taking that avenue the justices determined that the Ninth Circuit was wrong in granting habeas corpus because the state court that tried and convicted Musladin didn't run contrary to federal law.

Musladin was convicted in 1994 of killing his estranged wife's boyfriend, Tom Studer. At his trial, Musladin's lawyer objected to the buttons that were worn by the victim's family. The judge however, said the buttons presented "no possible prejudice to the defendant."

A California appeals court agreed and upheld the conviction because they saw the buttons as nothing more than a sign of "normal grief" by the family. The first federal court to look at the case also upheld the conviction, until it finally got thrown out when it got to the predictably liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals based in San Francisco.

I am positive Justice Thomas would have written a broader decision if he could have that would have permitted buttons at trials because victims' relatives have a right to grieve in public. The decision to wear those buttons should be allowed if they aren't prejudicing the jury or influencing the outcome of the trial.

But waiting in the wings were Justices John Paul Stevens, Anthony M. Kennedy and David H. Souter who wrote separately and did not sign Justice Thomas's opinion because they wanted to explore the possibility that such buttons could be a problem in the courtroom.

With Justice Kennedy being viewed as the critical swing vote on a lot of cases that stand 4-4 before his vote, the more conservative justices such as Thomas have to be careful in their writings if they don't want to lose him. And in the attempt to appease Justice Kennedy the justices sometimes have to write narrowly enough to also satisfy the remaining members of the court.

Should the Supreme Court eventually get to decide if wearing buttons in court is permissible? I see no problem with them. A jury is going to see the grieving family anyway, and if that doesn't influence their verdict I don't see how the addition of an attached button is going to either.

You can read the decision here.

And They're Back

2006-12-15T23:09:00.000-05:00

And just like that the boneheaded decision to take down the “Holiday” trees at Sea-Tac airport was reversed:

SEATAC, Wash. (AP) -- Christmas trees are going back up at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Pat Davis, president of the Port of Seattle commission, which directs airport operations, said late Monday that maintenance staff would restore the 14 plastic holiday trees, festooned with red ribbons and bows, that were removed over the weekend because of a rabbi's complaint that holiday decor did not include a menorah.

This is of course good news. Airports are hardly a cheery place to be at - especially on Christmas Eve/Day -- and the inclusion of a few harmless plastic trees symbolizing the most popular holiday on Earth is a sensible way to brighten the mood.

Fry Mumia

2006-12-09T21:10:00.000-05:00

Michelle Malkin reminds us that 25 years ago today Mumia Abu-Jamal, an Islam convert, shot and killed a Philadelphia police officer in cold blood and was subsequently convicted and sentenced to death. The death sentence was later thrown out on appeal but Abu-Jamal remains in prison serving a life term.

For reasons that still boggle my mind Abu-Jamal is a celebrated hero with a street named after him in the French city of St. Denis. I guess being a member of the Black Panther Party automatically makes you a political prisoner, but in my mind he's just another dirt bag off our streets.

Not a Merry Christmas in the Skies

2006-12-09T20:47:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately this Christmas I will be one of countless Americans having to spend part of it in the sky, but the good news is I won't be going through Sea-Tac Airport which has caved in to the demands of a few citizens who didn't like the presence of "Holiday" trees in the airport because they didn't "represent all cultures and religions."

Having to fly on Christmas alone will be depressing enough for some people, and now they will be robbed of the last sense of the holidays because Sea-Tac has taken down its trees down indefinitely. So anybody who wants to say there is no War on Christmas is obviously not paying any attention to stories like this.

I will personally do my part and raise a complaint or two if the airports I'm at on Christmas are as bare as Sea-Tac.

Interview With the Chief

2006-11-19T17:26:00.000-05:00

ABCNEWS landed this exclusive interview with the Chief Justice of the United States. In it he talks about his new role as the highest judge in the land as well as how he conducts business at the Court. It's a good interview for those looking for a little more insight into a man we still hardly know.

My favorite part: He didn't join the hippy protesters during his student years at Harvard. That says a little about what we should expect from a judge whom many still see as moderate.

Pay-Per-Review

2006-11-19T17:17:00.000-05:00

Disclaimer: The following is a paid review for a promising new site called ReviewMe.

While perusing the internet for political stories to discuss I came across a friend's site who talked about ReviewMe, a new site that allows advertisers to pay well-established bloggers to honestly review their sites for maximum exposure.

Becoming a member is extremely easy and takes virtually seconds to establish an account. Bloggers who wish to solicit reviews for money must submit their blog for evaluation. Once the details are entered such as title, description (plus keywords), RSS feed and URL, your site is immediately evaluated and accepted or declined based on your overall popularity on the web. ReviewMe looks at your Alexa and Technorati ranking, as well as the number of RSS subscribers you enjoy. Reviewers may have up to six blogs to review on. The more popular your blog the more money you can earn.

While reviewers may be inclined to write favorably because they're getting paid, ReviewMe's policy explicitly states that reviews must be honest and not unfairly influenced. This is a good requirement and advertisers should be aware that they can't pay for a positive review unless it's earned.

The only problem I foresee is the ratio of paying advertisers to paid bloggers. For this new concept to work there must be a generous number of advertisers willing to pay bloggers (mostly amateurs) to review them.

To advertise you simply go to the website and chose which blogger you would like to review you. Each site's popularity is listed for you to consider.

Who's Being Hateful Now, Sir Elton?

2006-11-12T00:21:00.000-05:00

There's no doubt I appreciate his timeless musical contributions to the world, but I must say there are fewer political opinions I value less than those of singer/songwriter Elton John. As a homosexual who feels religion spurs hatred toward gays, Sir Elton has taken the hypocritical path to the issue and proclaims we must not tolerate religion, because - like him - it lacks tolerance.

From AFP:

LONDON (AFP) - Religion should be outlawed because it lacks compassion and promotes hatred of homosexuals, gay pop star Elton John said in an interview.

"I think religion has always tried to turn hatred towards gay people. From my point of view, I would ban religion completely," he was quoted as saying.

Every rational person understands that religion in no way advocates "hatred" towards gays. But then again, it might not be as clear as it should be until we define "hatred" and how it applies to this debate.

To many people, any opposition to sex-same marriage constitutes hatred. To this class of radicals, anyone who believes the institution should be limited to one man and one woman is a bigot. As a result we will never make any progress because we refuse to see where these people are coming from. We refuse to be, well, "tolerant" of conservatives who value marriage to a certain degree that does not allow for exception to the rule.

It's a two-way street, this tolerance concept is, and rather than contribute meaningfully we are witnessing the hypocrisy of a gay man who craves tolerance so much that he has turned his back just like the supposed enemy of tolerance: religion.

But religion is not the culprit. Ignorance is. A person who would be violent toward a gay man just because of his sexuality is suffering from something other than being religious. Homophobes who are uncomfortable around gays aren’t so because Jesus told them to fear queers, but because they don’t know how to act any other way.

Saying we should ban religion is taking the low road, disgraceful, and borderline fascism. The rules may be a little different in Europe, but here in America the right to be religious is essential to calling our nation a free one. I have no more respect for the person who is hostile toward religion or spirituality than the person who abhors alternative lifestyles.

Pledge of Morons

2006-11-10T16:35:00.000-05:00

I hope we don't see more of this as a result of the Democrats winning Congress:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Student leaders at a California college have touched off a furor by banning the Pledge of Allegiance at their meetings, saying they see no reason to publicly swear loyalty to God and the U.S. government.

The move by Orange Coast College student trustees, the latest clash over patriotism and religion in American schools, has infuriated some of their classmates -- prompting one young woman to loudly recite the pledge in front of the board on Wednesday night in defiance of the rule.

If only these idiots would realize that swearing loyalty to God is exactly how we go about not swearing an uncomfortable level of loyalty to the U.S. government. But they malign the Pledge as if it were a conservative conspiracy to force Christianity upon hoi polloi.

Adherence to an organized religion is not at all what the Pledge is about. We say "one nation under God" to recognize our independence from a mortal leader with absolute authority over us. So if you have a problem with our government or President Bush in particular, reciting the Pledge is a great way to express it!

Kudos to Christine Zoldos, the 18-year-old political science major who didn't cower to the liberal ignorance in California and ignored the ban. It's good to know there are patriots in all parts of the country.

I'm getting tired of the endless assaults on the Pledge of Allegiance, and I hope the new Democrat-controlled Congress will take a stand against the ideological extremists on their side of the political aisle by publicly supporting the Pledge, especially in our schools where morality is most needed.

Webb of Salaciousness

2006-10-29T14:12:00.000-05:00

Embattled Republican Senator George Allen of Virginia may have caught a break with the revelation of a few "interesting" passages posted on the Drudge Report this week from the fiction novels of his Democratic opponent, Jim Webb.

With control of Congress at a boiling point and an election less than 10 days away, Democrats are optimistic about taking over the House and/or Senate with two years of the Bush administration left remaining.

One race that's absolutely critical is in Virginia, where current Senator George Allen is fighting off bogus charges of racism and cultural insensitivity. Lucky for him however when his campaign discovered this little gem among others written in various fiction novels by Jim Webb:

"A shirtless man walked toward them along a mud pathway. His muscles were young and hard, but his face was devastated with wrinkles. His eyes were so red that they appeared to be burned by fire. A naked boy ran happily toward him from a little plot of dirt. The man grabbed his young son in his arms, turned him upside down, and put the boy's penis in his mouth." (Lost Soldiers; Webb, Jim pg 333).

Webb was quick to respond, saying "I actually saw this happen in a slum in Bangkok when I was there as a journalist." It does appear that this rather unusual behavior graphically depicted in "Lost Soldiers" is practiced in certain cultures. So who are we to judge?

But then there's the book "Something to Die for" and this line:

"Fogarty...watch[ed] a naked young stripper do the splits over a banana. She stood back up, her face smiling proudly and her round breasts glistening from a spotlight in the dim bar, and left the banana on the bar, cut in four equal sections by the muscles of her vagina."

Did he witness that as a reporter too?

Surely this is all small beer and has nothing to do with Webb's qualifications or suitability to serve in the Senate. After all, Ted Kennedy has made a fine career for himself in Washington...and he killed a woman.

You can read more of Webb's good stuff as well as his defense over at Drudge Report. It isn't anything to get all worked up over, but as a George Allen supporter I certainly don't mind watching Webb's downfall.

Hating O'Reilly

2006-10-27T21:40:00.000-04:00

After previewing the latest scuffle between Fox's Bill O'Reilly and the hot-headed talk-show host David Letterman, one must wonder why O'Reilly was ever invited in the first place.

According to the NY Post, it gets ugly, fast:

Am I right about one thing: You guys over there at Fox and guys like Rush Limbaugh, you guys know it's all just a goof, right? You're just horsing around. You're doing it 'cause you know it'll be entertaining?" Letterman adds he's never seen O'Reilly's show because, "I dial up Fox and it's always 'The Simpsons.' "

O'Reilly tries to lighten the mood by telling the audience he and Letterman are "on the same bowling league" and asks whether he'd appear on "Dancing With the Stars."

"Bonehead!" snaps Letterman, who then starts shaking his fist and waving his arms at O'Reilly as the subject turns to the war in Iraq. "Let me ask you a question - was there more heinous, more dangerous violence taking place [before America invaded] Iraq, or is there more heinous, dangerous violence taking place now in Iraq?"

"Oh, stop it," O'Reilly scolds the host. "Saddam Hussein slaughtered 300,000 to 400,000 people, all right, so knock it off…It isn't so black and white, Dave - it isn't, 'We're a bad country. Bush is an evil liar.' That's not true."

"I didn't say he was an evil liar," Letterman shoots back. "You're putting words in my mouth, just the way you put artificial facts in your head!"

Letterman admits he hasn't read O'Reilly's new book, "Culture War," because "I looked at it. I said, 'What is it, a book on sailing?' "

So Letterman has never watched O'Reilly's show. He has never read his latest book, or any of them. But he has a rather unfavorable opinion of him. Classy. And he's not alone. The best-seller at Fox has spent the better part of last year using his massive influence to get weak-on-crime states to pass tougher laws against child predators - laws which used to be laughable, and yet he has become one of the most detestable figures in the media.

Go figure.

Arizona Voter-ID Law Stands

2006-10-21T16:11:00.000-04:00

The Supreme Court issued its first significant ruling of the term last Friday, deciding unanimously that Arizona could put its new voter-ID rules into effect for the Nov. 7 election. The law states that voters must present proof of citizenship when registering to vote and identification when they cast their ballots, despite claims that Proposition 200 -- approved by Arizonian voters in 2004 -- is unfair to minorities.

A similar law was struck down in Georgia by a lower court not too long ago, one that bought the claim that requiring proof of citizenship is burdensome to minorities.

Friday's ruling however is unlikely to affect nation-wide election law, as the decision was not based on the legality of such a law but instead on the time-restrictions Arizona faces before heading to the polls.

"Given the imminence of the election and the inadequate time to resolve the factual disputes, our action today shall of necessity allow the election to proceed without any injunction suspending the voter identification rules," the court said in its unsigned opinion.

If the Supreme Court ever does decide on the merits of such laws that restrict voters from casting a ballot without proof of identification, I am confident the Roberts-led group with Samuel Alito in his first full term will rightfully uphold them as constitutional.

Democrats argue that requiring a photo-ID is tantamount to racial discrimination because poor minorities supposedly have a hard time acquiring identification. Never mind that you can get one at no cost if you lack the financial means, and in some cases the district in which you reside will provide free transportation to get you that ID.

There may be some truth to the notion that these initiatives to restrict voting (almost exclusively by Republicans) is done to keep Democratic-voting minorities away from the polls, but to say it's unfair to require everyone to possess a photo-ID because black people don't have the resources to get one is insulting.

The real reason why these laws must be in place nationwide is simply to prevent voter fraud. As the nation awaits an upcoming election that can significantly alter the makeup of Congress, it is imperative that the results are as legitimate as possible lest we repeat the 2000 election hangover.

In Arizona's case, Proposition 200 was designed to prevent illegal aliens from voting. Considering that illegal aliens shouldn't even be in this country in the first place, keeping them away from the polls is the logical conclusion to this scenario.

Voting in a federal election is a privilege bestowed upon American citizens who wish to exercise the greatest freedom afforded to them. It should not be cheapened by political activists who are afraid people won't show up to vote because they don't have a measly ID card.

Axing a Despicable Film

2006-10-07T15:34:00.000-04:00

It looks like the major movie theater chains won't be showing "Death of a President" to audiences anytime soon. The faux documentary, which depicts the death of President Bush using a mix of real news segments and dramatized fiction, garnered both praise and controversy after it’s premiere at the Toronto Film Festival.

At least two chains are passing on the flick, according to Reuters":

"We would not be inclined to program this film," Regal Entertainment Group CEO Mike Campbell said. "We feel it is inappropriate to portray the future assassination of a sitting president, regardless of political affiliation."

Texas-based Cinemark USA also has declined to play the indie film, corporate spokesman Terrell Falk said. "We're not playing it on any of our screens," Falk said. "It's a subject matter we don't wish to play. We decided to pass on the film."

I do question the mentality of anyone who would find enjoyment in such a film, let alone wanting to see it in the first place.

To be sure, my opposition to many of Bush's policies is almost limitless, but to appreciate a film that depicts his fictional death while he's a sitting president is contemptible.

Suspended for Being Patriotic

2006-09-13T20:57:00.000-04:00

Yes our public school system is a complete joke. Nothing new to report here, but this story is particularly disgusting because patriotic students were suspended from school for wearing t-shirts with writing on them:

Ben Lewandowski says he was only trying to be patriotic when he wore a homemade T-shirt featuring an American flag bumper sticker and the words "Remember 9/11" to Lincoln Park High School on Monday.

After all, it was Sept. 11 -- five years after the terrorist attacks.

The 17-year-old Lincoln Park resident put the shirt on Monday morning and headed to school -- where he was quickly sent to the office and suspended for three days for violating the school's dress code.

He was one of at least seven students sent home for wearing shirts featuring patriotic images and messages. It comes less than a week after three siblings were suspended for wearing shirts emblazoned with the First Amendment, despite warnings, and a week after more than 200 students were sent home on the first day of school for violating the district's dress code -- which bans apparel with writing or pictures.

For Lewandowski, who was sent home on the first day of school for wearing a shirt with writing on it, Monday's incident was his second offense.

"I was frustrated," said the junior, whose desire to become a firefighter was fueled after the Sept. 11 attacks. "It just made me so mad that I can't be patriotic."

Lincoln Park Schools Superintendent Randall Kite said the high school held a moment of silence Monday to give students an outlet to show their patriotism. He said some students had asked last week whether they could wear shirts to commemorate the day, and they were told no.

"We didn't think it would be appropriate, because of the dress code, to wear T-shirts with writing," he said Tuesday.

According to the dress code, students are allowed to wear school-sanctioned clothing, such as T-shirts bearing the school's mascot or clothing that supports school organizations.

Kite said the district had lawyers review the policy before it was enacted. Members of the district's school board have said the dress code is lenient compared with other districts such as Detroit and Pontiac, which have banned jeans and T-shirts completely.

Southfield's school district implemented a dress code last year similar to those enacted in Detroit and Pontiac this year. Southfield Schools Deputy Superintendent Ken Siver said Tuesday that the district didn't have any problems Monday with students violating the policy to wear patriotic garb.

Still, some Lincoln Park parents say they feel the district has gone too far.

Kaye Belcuore's granddaughter, 14-year-old Karly Belcuore, was sent home Monday from Lincoln Park High for wearing a T-shirt with patriotic messages on it.
"I think it's a little ridiculous under the circumstances," Kaye Belcuore said.

Kelly Galley agrees. Her three children -- 13-year-old twins Monique and Jaicen Massa and 11-year-old Jaymie Massa -- were suspended last week for protesting the dress code by wearing T-shirts with the First Amendment on them. Jaymie had stayed home from Lincoln Park Middle School on Tuesday, but Monique and Jaicen wore the shirts again -- their third offense -- and were suspended again, this time for five days. One more offense and they'll be expelled.

Galley said it's likely she'll end up homeschooling.

At least the Galley-family story will have a happy ending when the kids are finally home schooled and not subjected to the mercy of schoolboard members and other bureaucratic officials.

Remember 9/11

2006-09-11T12:54:00.000-04:00

A lesson we may never learn:

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to think "profiling" is worse than the slaughter of innocent people...

Politicians Have Feelings Too

2006-09-08T00:58:00.000-04:00

You see kids, congressional candidates are more than just vote-hungry politicians devoid of soul:

WASHINGTON - Voters weary of campaign advertising will get a reprieve Monday in the political equivalent of a moment of silence.

Several candidates say they are pulling their campaign ads for the day to mark the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

In Pennsylvania, where Republican Sen. Rick Santorum and Democrat Bob Casey have filled the airwaves in one of the nation's most competitive races, both said Thursday they are pulling down their commercials fninor the day.

Casey "thinks it is a day for remembrance and not for politicking," said Larry Smar, a campaign spokesman.

Santorum's campaign press secretary expressed a similar sentiment.

"We had always planned to be dark that day," said Virginia Davis. "We knew it would be disrespectful to run ads that day. We had never even placed a buy."

Take that Casey. Not a single buy from the Santorum campaign. And not a single buy from me either - in regards to this stunt. It would be easier to believe Sept 11th isn't a day for "politicking" if it weren't true that both parties have been using it to attack the other ever since that horrible morg five years ago.

More Than Just a Few Volts?

2006-09-06T15:21:00.000-04:00

They say cocaine doesn't mix well with alcohol and other drugs. Now we can add tasers to the list:

A forensic pathologist says she couldn't tell whether police use of a Taser contributed to the death of 44-year-old Robert Bagnell in Vancouver more than two years ago.

Bagnell died after he was restrained and Tasered by police as they tried to remove him from a bathroom at a Granville Street hotel in June 2004.

Dr. Laurel Gray told a coroner's inquest on Tuesday that Bagnell had four times the lethal level of cocaine in his blood, and had also taken amphetamines.

She also told the inquest that she found a series of 13 red marks on Bagnell's body - most of them in pairs about two centimetres apart.

The pathologist said she could not tell whether the marks were caused by a police Taser.
A police account of the fatal incident states that officers applied a Taser twice, and that Bagnell continued to struggle after being hit by the Taser.

Gray said if the Taser caused the cardiac arrest, Bagnell's heart would have stopped immediately after the 50,000 volts of electricity were applied.

The Bagnell family has launched a lawsuit against the Vancouver Police Department, the officers involved and the maker and distributor of the Taser, with the hope of getting the device banned in British Columbia.

The debate concerning the use of tasers by police is continuing to intensify now that another suspect has died after receiving the nasty jolt. Advocates for the use of tasers maintain that they are non-lethal devices that help officers subdue unruly suspects who would otherwise be subjected to greater injury with a more punishing weapon.

Human Rights groups such as Amnesty International opposes such devices and claims that they have been responsible for more than 90 deaths in the United States and Canada alone. Surely they will be following this particular story and fuel the anti-taser movement.

If tasers alone are in fact brining out fatal results, its use by police needs to be seriously questioned. However all too often those killed after being tased were found with lethal amounts of drugs in their system. After all, it's only logical that someone who needs to be tased in order to be subdued was under a chemical influence.

Cocaine, a stimulant that can make users aggressive and uncharacteristically strong, puts an unhealthy amount of a stress on the heart that is only worsened when accompanied by 50,000 volts of electricity.

Supporters of the device would say consuming illegal drugs is something you do at your own risk and the threat such users face should not outweigh the positive effects of tasers. Agencies worldwide tout the success of the device, and one study found that the presence of a taser alone is enough to convince a criminal to surrender for fear of getting shocked.

I have yet to draw my own conclusion on the use of tasers. I've never been confronted by a belligerent thug set on causing my great harm - and well, if a taser can be used instead of a gun, I think they serve a vital purpose.

Crime Control is the Best Gun Control

2006-09-05T15:34:00.000-04:00

The mayor of New York City wants to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, and is calling for laws that will have nothing to do with criminals. His plan:

Mayor Bloomberg renewed his call for stronger gun control laws yesterday after the fatal shooting of a hero sanitation worker.

"Our nation has to finally get serious about keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and cracking down on the few reckless gun dealers who make their living catering to them," Bloomberg said.

The mayor has been pushing for stricter gun control across the country and has lobbied Congress to change laws so it's easier to track guns used in crimes.

Or we can make it harder for criminals to commit crimes in the first place, but for some reason it's "mean" to suggest keeping violent criminals where they belong - in jail.

Who's #11?

2006-09-04T23:43:00.000-04:00

Not Florida State. Say hello to the Top 10 and better things in the weeks to come. The FSU/Miami rivalry is always ugly. We knew going into tonight's contest would be a game of defense, and tonight Florida State proved it has a nasty one.

Congrats FSU.

A Good Plan for Abortion Opponents

2006-08-24T15:04:00.000-04:00

While my pro-life (or "anti-choice.....to have an abortion") friends are frowning upon the decision to allow over-the-counter sales of Plan B birth control, I see this as an opportunity to make a stronger case against the abortion option as a "necessity." There's good news in this:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Women may buy the morning-after pill without a prescription - but only with proof they're 18 or older, federal health officials ruled Thursday, capping a contentious three-year effort to ease access to the emergency contraceptive.

Girls 17 and younger still will need a doctor's note to buy the pills, called Plan B, the Food and Drug Administration told manufacturer Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc.

The compromise decision is a partial victory for women's advocacy and medical groups that say eliminating sales restrictions could cut in half the nation's 3 million annual unplanned pregnancies. Opponents have argued that wider access could increase promiscuity.

The pills are a concentrated dose of the same drug found in many regular birth-control pills. When a woman takes the pills within 72 hours of unprotected sex, she can lower the risk of pregnancy by up to 89 percent. If she already is pregnant, the pills have no effect.

The earlier it's taken, the more effective Plan B is. But it can be hard to find a doctor to write a prescription in time, especially on weekends and holidays. Hence the push to allow nonprescription sales.

The two-pill pack of Plan B costs from $25 to $40. A Barr spokeswoman estimated that pharmacists dispense about 1.5 million packs a year.

Plan B's maker was disappointed that FDA imposed the age restriction and pledged to continue working the agency to try to eliminate it.

But higher-ranking officials rejected that decision, citing concern about young teens' use of the pills without a doctor's oversight. Barr reapplied, asking that women 16 and older be allowed to buy Plan B without a prescription. Then, last August, the FDA postponed a final decision indefinitely, saying the agency needed to determine how to enforce those age restrictions.

But opponent Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, said Plan B's wider availability could give women a false sense of security, since it isn't as effective as regular birth control. Wright also worries that adult men who have sex with minor girls could force the pills upon them.

"Statutory rape is a very serious problem. This decision is going to allow statutory rapists to rely on this drug to cover up their abuse," Wright said.

The purpose of Plan B is simple: to stop unwanted pregnancies - the kind that results in abortions. Conservatives fear the availability of this drug will promote promiscuity and give women a false sense of security, but I don't think that's for us to determine. Condoms have the same consequences but we're at a point where we know they're necessary.

Adult women will have to be trusted to use Plan B responsibly, and at its price range I don't see many girls substituting it every time they have sex for traditional forms of birth control. It's to be used when traditional birth control fails.

Critics are right to say Plan B should be restricted to adults or minors with permission. At no time should it be easier for underage girls to buy contraception than cigarettes or lottery tickets.

And because underage girls must have permission, the argument that rapists will force Plan B upon them is moot. What is a problem however is the ability for rapists to drive underage girls across state lines to get abortions unbeknownst to their parents (recently addressed by the Senate).

In a perfect world unwanted pregnancies would not exist. Needless to say we don't live in one, and something like Plan B can help reduce the number of pregnancies that end up in the trashcan.

This Monument Still Stands

2006-08-18T22:37:00.000-04:00

The clean-slated judge who was unanimously confirmed by the Senate in 2003 probably just raised a few eyebrows with this decision:

OKLAHOMA CITY - A federal judge on Friday said a Ten Commandments monument outside a courthouse can stay, rejecting arguments that it promotes Christianity at the expense of other religions.

U.S. District Judge Ronald A. White in Muskogee ruled that Haskell County did not violate the Constitution by erecting the monument. The county did not "overstep the constitutional line demarcating government neutrality toward religion," he wrote.

The county argued that the monument outside the Stigler courthouse was part of a historical display that included other monuments recognizing war veterans, the Choctaw Tribe and others. The Ten Commandments monument has the Mayflower Compact etched on the other side.

"A significant factor is that someone comes and looks at all the monuments on the lawn, they can't just single out the Ten Commandments monument and say, `Ah ha!' and that means government is impermissibly endorsing religion," said Kevin Theriot, an attorney for the Haskell County commissioners.

Micheal Salem, an attorney representing the American Civil Liberties Union and Stigler resident James W. Green, said he thought "the court's decision really represents a loss for religious freedom." He said he would have to thoroughly review White's decision before deciding whether to appeal.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that religious displays on government property are not inherently unconstitutional and must be considered on a case-by-case basis.

That's right, according to this ACLU attorney, the ruling "represents a loss for religious freedom." Apparently religion is only free when every last remnant of it is shielded from public view.

The Supreme Court looked at two similar cases a few years ago and came to opposite conclusions on the constitutionality of religious displays. Because each case must now get individual attention, we don't know whether a display is constitutional or not until the highest judge who hears the case makes a decision.

With Alito now on the Supreme Court we may get a more definitive answer in the near future. In both 2005 cases, Justice O'Connor - whom Alito replaced -joined the side that found the displays unconstitutional.

Yahoo! Changes Again

2006-08-16T19:51:00.000-04:00

If you're like me you get used to your homepage and don't want it messed with. I had enough of a problem when Yahoo! moved its e-mail button from the left to the right side of the screen last update, but now they've completely redone their homepage and I don't like it one bit. I'm currently using the old page but it will expire the first of September.

So now I have to get used to a new new page, only to see it change probably some time early next year. Bastards!

Cancer Will Be Gone...But So Will Earth

2006-08-15T21:36:00.000-04:00

A Democratic candidate from Maryland promises to cure cancer by 2015 if elected:

With a month to go before primary voters head to the polls to choose Senate nominees, Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin kicked off yesterday a weeklong effort to highlight his congressional record and vision on health care by making the mother of all campaign promises - to cure cancer.

But wait, he's not the only Democrat making ten-year predictions. Even if Cardin is right, we must contend with the more ominous prediction from Al Gore, who says that by 2015 our precious planet will have imploded from the consequences of Global Warming.

And while we're on the subject of predictions, the Democratic Party never said exactly when they'll catch Osama bin Laden if they take back Congress. But they'll catch him, they say. And Benjamin Cardin will cure cancer.

Hardly a Case of Moral Equivalency

2006-08-14T16:34:00.000-04:00

Remember when a whole lot of people had to die because a Swedish newspaper printed those cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed? Now Iran wants to turn the tables and is inviting cartoonists to do their best by depicting the Holocaust. Amazingly, these idiots think a cartoon of Mohammed is comparable to what we can expect in this new fun contest:

TEHRAN (AFP) - An international contest of cartoons on the Holocaust opened in Tehran in response to the publication in Western papers last September of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

"We staged this fair to explore the limits of freedom Westerners believe in," Masoud Shojai, head of the country's "Iran Cartoon" association and the fair organizer, said.

"They can freely write anything they like about our prophet, but if one raises doubts about the Holocaust he is either fined or sent to prison," he added.

"Though we do not deny that fact that Jews were killed in the (second world) war, why should the Palestinians pay for it?" Shojai told the opening ceremony of the month-long fair in Tehran's Palestine Contemporary Art Museum.

He added that around 1,100 cartoons were submitted by participants from more than 60 countries and that more than 200 are on show.

He said the top three cartoons will be announced on September 2, with the winners being awarded prizes of 12,000, 8,000 and 5,000 dollars respectively.

This cute little stunt is only going to prove just how fanatic the extremist Muslims are. When they saw a cartoon of their prophet, people had to die. When their precious cartoons are released I highly doubt it will look like the end of the world.

Fox News Journalists Kidnapped

2006-08-14T16:20:00.000-04:00

And Huffington Post readers are responding accordingly. Sick stuff.

Call them what you want; they're still Islamic Fascists

2006-08-11T12:20:00.000-04:00

President Bush pinched a few nerves yesterday with his choice of words:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Muslim groups criticized President Bush on Thursday for calling a foiled plot to blow up airplanes part of a "war with Islamic fascists," saying the term could inflame anti-Muslim tensions.

U.S. officials have said the plot, thwarted by Britain, to blow up several aircraft over the Atlantic bore many of the hallmarks of al Qaeda.

"We believe this is an ill-advised term and we believe that it is counterproductive to associate Islam or Muslims with fascism," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations advocacy group.

Which is why he didn't say we're at war with Islamic people. We're at war with Islamic fascists. By using the word "Islamic" as an adjective Bush was purposely not associating Muslims with fascism, hence the qualifier. And if you haven't heard by now, the roster of suspected terrorists has not a Tom, Dick or Harry among them:

Umir Hussain, 24, London E14
Muhammed Usman Saddique, 24, London E17
Waheed Zaman, 22, London E17
Assan Abdullah Khan, 22, London E17
Waseem Kayani, 28, High Wycombe
Waheed Arafat Khan, 24, London E17
Cossor Ali, 24, London E17
Tayib Rauf, 21, Birmingham
Ibrahim Savant, 26, London E17
Osman Adam Khatib, 20, London E17
Shamin Mohammed Uddin, 36, Stoke Newington
Amin Asmin Tariq, 23, London E17
Shazad Khuram Ali, 27, High Wycombe
Tanvir Hussain, 24, London E10
Umar Islam, 28, (born Brian Young) High Wycombe
Assad Sarwar, 25, High Wycombe
Abdullah Ali, 26, London E17
Abdul Muneem Patel, 17, London E5
Nabeel Hussain, 21, Waltham Forest

Lest you be confused with the suspects from an earlier plot foiled in Canada a few months ago:

Fahim Ahmad, 21, Toronto;
Zakaria Amara, 20, Mississauga, Ont.;
Asad Ansari, 21, Mississauga;
Shareef Abdelhaleen, 30, Mississauga;
Qayyum Abdul Jamal, 43, Mississauga;
Mohammed Dirie, 22, Kingston, Ont.;
Yasim Abdi Mohamed, 24, Kingston;
Jahmaal James, 23, Toronto;
Amin Mohamed Durrani, 19, Toronto;
Steven Vikash Chand alias Abdul Shakur, 25, Toronto;
Ahmad Mustafa Ghany, 21, Mississauga;
Saad Khalid, 19, of Eclipse Avenue, Mississauga.

We've got a Steven, the one word that didn't crash my spell-check, despite it being followed by a Vikash Chand Abdul Shakur. Folks, if it's Islamic, and fascist, it's an Islamic fascist. But because we don't want to sound hateful we must pretend everyone's a possible suspect and make airline travel more miserable than it's ever been.

Faux Support of a "Friend"

2006-08-09T18:00:00.000-04:00

The conservative National Review has endorsed Joe Lieberman's independent Senate run on the heels of his defeat in the Democratic primary. The reason isn't explained too well in an editorial titled A Friend in Need:

Joe Lieberman may go on to win his Senate seat as an independent, and we hope he does. But the Connecticut primary race was about the future of the Democratic party as much as it was about the future of his seat. And while the margin may have been small, Lieberman's loss was big.

He is an 18-year incumbent. He was his party's candidate for vice president six years ago. He is squarely in the mainstream of his party on most issues. He had the backing of most of the party's establishment. Yet he lost. The election was close enough that it is possible to think that Lieberman could have won if he had started campaigning earlier, or had kept in closer touch with his constituents. But the question posed to Democrats was whether they could tolerate a man who, while toeing the liberal line on abortion and taxes, supported the Iraq War and was willing to work with a Republican president. The answer is no.

Since the race now pits Lieberman against Democratic nominee Ned Lamont, a creature of fevered liberal bloggers, and a Republican candidate who is a non-conservative nonentity, we're backing Lieberman.

National Review is backing Lieberman for one of two reasons; A Lieberman victory would mean one less "D" in the tabulation for Senate control. The fact that he could be a hard-left liberal and vote liberal all the time is irrelevant, just as long as Republicans control the Senate and lead the committees. The goal of the game is 51. If you subtract one "D" for an "I" you make it that much harder for the Democratic Party to become the majority.

The other reason to support Lieberman is for his position on the Iraq War and willingness to work with the President. Because NR just loves this freakin' cowboy and is blood-thirsty for more combat they are willing to ignore their pro-life, anti-tax principles to support a true liberal who happens to be too far to the right for the Democratic Party.

PC-Chairman Kills Effective Ad

2006-08-08T20:13:00.000-04:00

The political correctness police are at it again:

PHILADELPHIA - Health officials yanked public service advertisements urging HIV testing after a gay advocacy group expressed concerns about images depicting young black men in a gun's cross hairs.

"Putting the face of a black man in the cross hairs of a gun paints a damaging message about violence and black men," Lee Carson, chairman of the Black Gay Men's Leadership Council, wrote in a letter to the city's interim health commissioner last month.

The $236,000 campaign, which ended abruptly Monday, was geared at gay and bisexual men and featured the tagline, "Have YOU been hit?"

It's an analogy, and an effective one. No one is talking about blacks and violence. If we're going to discuss the dangers of HIV, let's be honest add talk about the group most at risk: gay men - black or not.

So here we had an abrasive ad campaign that might have gotten attention but because some might find it "offensive" it has been pulled indefinitely. Maybe Lee Carson needs to re-examine the purpose of his job.

Putting the French Back in Fries

2006-08-02T21:24:00.000-04:00

Finally our cafeterias in Washington don't look so retarded anymore:

WASHINGTON (AFP) - French fries are back on the menu of cafeterias that cater to US lawmakers on Capital Hill, more than three years after they were replaced by "freedom fries" in anger over France's refusal to join the US-led war in

Of the five food outlets that had heeded calls by House Republicans to inject patriotism into their menus in March 2003, the last two that still used "freedom fries" reverted back to the original name in the last two weeks.

I wonder if any Republican lawmakers will be protesing this by opting for egg salad over the fried potatoes that have no relationship whatsoever to France.

Rangel to Call it Quits if Dems Lose

2006-08-02T21:11:00.000-04:00

It's no fun losing all the time:

WASHINGTON - Rep. Charles Rangel (news, bio, voting record), a senior Democrat in Congress and the dean of New York's congressional delegation, said Wednesday he'll retire if the Democrats don't retake control of the House this year.

"Hell, if we don't take back the House, then the Democrats would go down in history, saying that there's no group in the world that can grab defeat from the jaws of victory," Rangel said in an interview Wednesday. "It just seems like America is so frustrated and fed up like I am and if she's not, then I may have to say maybe it's me."

Can we get this in writing?

Gay Singers and Queer Juries

2006-07-26T15:41:00.000-04:00

Here's a shocker: Lance Bass of 'N Sync is gay. If only this had been confirmed back in 1998 when he was worth something; oh the fun we could have had with this story. Now we wait for the tape to emerge on the internet of what really happened on that tour bus.

But on a more serious note, the woman who systematically murdered her five children in a bathtub was found not guilty today by reason of insanity. She will spend some time in a state hospital until doctors determine she can released back into society amongst those of us who haven't systematically murdered our five children in a bathtub.

So I guess the type of insanity that would force a woman to drown her five children is a temporary one.

Democrats Fight to Weaken Parental Rights

2006-07-25T21:42:00.000-04:00

It's not a ban on abortion. It's not a restriction on abortion. It's a bill that would make it a crime to drive a pregnant minor across state lines to get an abortion without notifying her parents. So why does Hilary Clinton think a lot of girls will die because of this? Well according to Democrats we live in a country of abusive parents who rape their children and force them to give birth to their bastard offspring.

This bill should have passed without objection:

WASHINGTON - A bill that would make it a crime to take a pregnant girl across state lines for an abortion without her parents' knowledge passed the Senate Tuesday, but vast differences with the House version stood between the measure and President Bush's desk.

The 65-34 vote gave the Senate's approval to the bill, which would make taking a pregnant girl to another state for the purposes of evading parental notification laws punishable by fines and up to a year in jail.

The girl and her parents would be exempt from prosecution, and the bill contains an exception for abortions performed in this manner that posed a threat to the mother's life.

Struggling to defend their majority this election year, Republican sponsors said the bill supports what a majority of the public believes: that a parent's right to know takes precedence over a young woman's right to have an abortion.

"No parent wants anyone to take their children across state lines or even across the street without their permission," said Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. "This is a fundamental right, and the Congress is right to uphold it in law."

Bowing to public support for parental notification and the GOP's 55-44-1 majority, Democrats spent the day trying to carve out an exemption for confidants to whom a girl with abusive parents might turn for help. It was rejected in floor negotiations.

Democrats complained that the measure was the latest in a series of bills designed chiefly to energize the GOP's base of conservative voters.

"Congress ought to have higher priorities than turning grandparents into criminals," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.

No one knows how many girls get abortions in this way, or who helps them. But Democrats say the policy would be dangerous to pregnant teens who have abusive or neglectful parents by discouraging other people from helping them.

"We're going to sacrifice a lot of girls' lives," said Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., countered that opponents "want to strip the overwhelming majority of good parents their rightful role and responsibility because of the misbehavior of a few." He pointed out that the judicial bypass provision would help pregnant teens with abusive parents get around the law.

Ted Kennedy is worried about grandparents becoming criminals if the bill becomes law. I am worried that without it adults who have sex with children have no problem discarding the evidence, as was the case in Ohio where parents are seeking records of an unauthorized abortion their minor had who was impregnated by a 21-year-old. The boyfriend claimed he was her brother and was successful in getting a Planned Parenthood clinic to abort a child that was conceived illegally by a man who shouldn't be having sex with minors.

But the Democrats in the Senate know their support and money come from pro-abortion groups who oppose any legislation whatsoever that would make it a tad more difficult to get one, even though all we're talking about is making sure parents are aware that their daughter is being carted off somewhere to get her uterus scrambled.

Senator McConnell got it right. You can't even begin to justify allowing a minor across the street without their parent's permission, let alone into another state. But this bill doesn't even require permission - as it should - it simply requires that parents be notified so, you know, if a child doesn't make it back home after a long road trip they at least have an idea of where to begin their search.

That Democrats are currently trying to prevent this bill from ever reaching the president's desk is a telling sign of what we can expect to come if Democrats pick up considerable ground in this November's election.

What a Sad Little Man

2006-07-23T11:38:00.000-04:00

Someone didn't get enough attention from his father as a child:

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - Keith Olbermann was eagerly anticipating his first meeting with Bill O'Reilly. It didn't happen.

The feuding cable TV personalities both attended a charity fundraiser thrown by New York Yankees manager Joe Torre last November. Olbermann picked up his name tag and spotted O'Reilly's tag on the table.

"He never got within 20 feet of me," Olbermann told the Television Critics Association's summer meeting Saturday. "I swear to God, every time I looked up, he would suddenly look down. He was staring over at me. But we're about the same height, so I really don't think he's going to come talk to me. If I were about a foot shorter, I'm sure there would be a confrontation of some sort."

During his "Countdown" show on MSNBC, Olbermann regularly tweaks O'Reilly, whose "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox is No. 1 in the cable TV news ratings. Olbermann generally runs third in the same time slot.

O'Reilly has referred to Olbermann - although not by name - as a "notorious smear merchant" and pointed out his low ratings.

Nothing is more transparent than Keith Olbermann's publicity whoring in his attempt to prove that MSNBC isn't a complete joke. He's the Tom Green of journalists who would dress up like Greta Van Susteren if it meant another puff piece by his friends in the mainstream media. If you haven't seen his show, you're not alone. He can't get anywhere near O'Reilly's numbers but is always talking about how he is "the worst person in the world."

Interesting, I don't recall Olbermann doing anything to get tougher laws passed across the country against sex offenders. Oh, but that would require influence of which he has none.

Silenced for Mentioning Jesus in Public

2006-07-15T19:28:00.000-04:00

It's a fruitless lawsuit but I'm all for it if it embarrasses the fascist administration for its handling of the student whose speech was too taboo for a graduation ceremony:

LAS VEGAS - A high school valedictorian who had the plug pulled on her microphone as she gave an address referring to Jesus Christ has filed a lawsuit against school officials, claiming her rights to religious freedom and free speech were trampled.

Brittany McComb, 18, said she was giving her June 15 commencement address to some 400 graduates of Foothill High School and their family members when the sound was cut.

"God's love is so great that he gave his only son up," she said, before the microphone went dead. She continued without amplification, "...to an excruciating death on a cross so his blood would cover all our shortcomings and provide for us a way to heaven in accepting this grace."

McComb's lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of Nevada, names the principal, assistant principal and the employee of the school in Henderson who allegedly pulled the plug.

McComb said she was warned that her speech would be cut off if she did not follow an approved script that deleted references to Christ and invitations for others to join the faith. But she memorized the deleted parts and said them anyway.

"In my heart I couldn't say the edited version because it wasn't what I wanted to say," she told The Associated Press. "I wanted to say why I was successful, and what inspired me to keep going and what motivated me. It involved Jesus Christ for me, period."

The lawsuit asks the court to declare that school officials deprived McComb of her rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, The Rutherford Institute, the conservative legal group backing the lawsuit, said in a news release.

High school students have no free-speech rights, at least not in a broad sense because we all know how creative students are - and what often happens when their behavior goes unchecked in the name of free speech. For example, what if instead the valedictorian claimed she had a First Amendment right to say something inappropriately vulgar? (Pretend for just a moment that there's something worse than mentioning God in a speech.)

So I expect the lawsuit to go nowhere but at least the story is getting publicity. People around the country are getting to see just how ridiculous the politically correct forces are. McComb did not proselytize or encourage her fellow students to believe in Jesus. She simply credited God's "only son" for her success, and she should have been afforded the few minutes to say so without interruption.

Of course the ACLU could care less about Brittany McComb because they're more concerned about the students who have the right to not hear the word God. I mean, there could have been atheists in the crowd and hearing the forbidden three-letter word might have offended them.

ACLU lawyer Allen Lichtenstein was happy with the school's decision, saying "Proselytizing is improper in school-sponsored speech at valedictorian graduations."

Proselytizing? Thanking God is now a form of proselytizing? Did I miss the part in the story about McComb passing around Bibles or a signup sheet for potential converts during the brief speech? Of course, if she credited "Sex and the City" reruns for her straight-A performance we wouldn't be in the mess. But alas, what got her through high school is the one thing too dastardly to mention before a graduating class.

Opposing Election Legitimacy in Georgia

2006-07-14T13:37:00.000-04:00

Here's yet another constitutional right invented by a federal judge: the right to vote without being asked to identify yourself. Absurd? Of course it is, but not as absurd as the idea that blacks and the poor aren't capable of getting of photo ID.

But it's true according to a federal judge:

ROME, Georgia (AP) -- The same federal judge who threw out Georgia's voter ID law last year blocked the state Wednesday from enforcing its revised law during this year's elections.

U.S. District Judge Harold Murphy's ruling, which he delivered verbally from the bench, was much broader, also including the November 7 general elections and any runoffs.

If the rulings stand, Georgia voters will not have to show a government-issued photo ID to cast a ballot this year. The state's primary election -- which would have been the first election for which the IDs were required -- is scheduled for Tuesday.
Murphy said the state's latest attempt at requiring voter photo IDs discriminated against people who don't have driver's licenses, passports or other government-issued IDs.

"That is the failure of this legislation as it stands," he said.

In October, the judge rejected a more-stringent voter ID requirement, saying it amounted to an unconstitutional poll tax because of the fees associated with getting the required ID.

This year, the Legislature passed a law that made the IDs free and available in all counties.

Murphy commended lawmakers for addressing problems with the previous version but said more work is needed. The latest version still denies citizens equal protection under the law, he said.

So it costs not a single penny to get a photo ID in Georgia, but to require one in order to vote is somehow an act of discrimination against the poor. Then we have critics who say the law was implemented to dissuade blacks and other Democrat-supporting minorities from going to polls, so therefore we compare a legitimate law aimed at stopping voter fraud to a racist poll tax.

But unlike the poll tax, a law requiring a photo ID is easy to overcome; all you have to do is get a photo ID! And did I mention they're free? Oh, but of course there's an excuse as to why even that is unreasonable. Maybe the next charge will be that the law is unfair because it "discriminates" against those who just don't like getting their picture taken.

Carolla Creams Coulter

2006-07-13T22:03:00.000-04:00

I must congratulate Adam Carolla for his impressive victory over conservative powerhouse Ann Coulter the other day. In a fierce debate between the two on his show, Carolla was so intellectually superior that Coulter couldn't make even a single argument...of course it was kind of impossible for her to do so considering Carolla dropped her from the show.

Queerty couldn't have been more impressed, bragging that Coulter "met her match." The exchange went like this:

ADAM CAROLLA: Ann Coulter, who was suppose to be on the show about an hour and a half ago, is now on the phone, as well. Ann?

ANN COULTER: Hello.

CAROLLA: Hi Ann. You’re late, babydoll.

COULTER: Uh, somebody gave me the wrong number.

CAROLLA: Mmm… how did you get the right number? Just dialed randomly — eventually got to our show? (Laughter in background)

COULTER: Um, no. My publicist e-mailed it to me, I guess, after checking with you.

CAROLLA: Ahh, I see.

COULTER: But I am really tight on time right now because I already had a —

CAROLLA: Alright, well, get lost.

Damn those liberals are smart. Here I thought they had reached the apex of their intellectual dominance over conservatives by mastering the art of pie-throwing, but now they have figured out how to achieve the same effect by simply cutting off their microphones.

You Can Thank the Feminists

2006-07-12T16:24:00.000-04:00

I've always wondered if the feminist movement did more harm than good to their fellow sisters. To some feminists I am a women-hating misogynist just for asking. To be sure, women have come a long way because of feminism. Now they can get abortions, work 9-5 jobs, and die on the battlefield as a member of the US. Military. And according to a new study, the more hours a woman works the more she suffers from a host of detrimental effects.

Whatever it takes to reach equality:

LONDON (Reuters) - Working long hours has a greater negative impact on women than men because it makes them more likely to smoke, drink coffee and eat unhealthy food.

Both sexes consume less alcohol if they spend more time working, researchers said on Wednesday, but toiling extra hours makes women crave unhealthy snacks.

"Women who work long hours eat more high-fat and high-sugar snacks, exercise less, drink more caffeine and, if smokers, smoke more than their male colleagues," said Dr. Daryl O'Connor, a researcher at Britain's Leeds University.

"For men, working longer hours has no negative impact on exercise, caffeine intake or smoking," O'Connor said in a statement released by the Economic and Social Research Council, which funded his study.

O'Connor's team of scientists were studying the impact of stress on eating habits. They looked at what causes stress at home and at work and how people react to it.

The results show that one or more stressful events such as making a presentation, a meeting with the boss or missing a deadline was linked to eating more between-meal snacks and fewer or smaller portions of fruits and vegetables.

"Stress disrupts people's normal eating habits," he said.

The people who were most vulnerable were so-called emotional eaters.

"These individuals have higher levels of vulnerability and tend to turn to food as an escape from self-awareness," O'Connor said.

"When they feel anxious or emotionally aroused or negative about themselves, they try to avoid these negative feelings by turning their attention to food."

The same stress also impacts the household when a working woman takes it home. It leads to unstable relationships. It leads to divorce. It leads to children spending more time in daycare when both parents are away from the home.

And as more women enter the workforce an increasing number enter the prison population - at a higher rate than any other demographic. More women are seeking employment opportunities than ever before, but more are also seeking criminal opportunities.

But it's worth it to feminists. They still have work to do, and probably won't rest until gender-segregated bathrooms are a thing of the past, every NFL team has at least one female linebacker, women are on the front lines in battle, and life-expectancy becomes indistinguishable between the genders.

I admit I'm not a woman, and I have no idea what it's like to desire an unrealistic level of "equality" between the sexes. But in light of everything that has happened as a result of the feminist movement, was it really such a bad thing being a housewife who spent more time running a family than working overtime in a stressful office?

More Guns, Less Crime

2006-07-11T23:11:00.000-04:00

It's a war zone here in Florida if you read the Brady Campaign press releases. We're an "F+" state because we hate our children and want to kill them all with handguns, but the statistics tell a different story.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Florida's crime rate dropped for the 14th straight year in 2005 to its lowest mark since 1971 because of tougher laws, increased financial support from the Legislature and law-abiding citizens with guns, Gov. Jeb Bush said Tuesday.

"This report shows that staying tough on crime works," said Bush. "Law abiding citizens that have guns for protection actually probably are part of the reason we have a lower crime rate."

The crime rate, compiled by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, decreased 3.7 percent from 4,855 crimes per 100,000 people in 2004 to 4,677 crimes per 100,000 people last year.

Last year Bush signed a bill that allows people who feel threatened on the street, in a bar, at a ball game - or just about anywhere - to "meet force with force" to defend themselves without fear of being prosecuted.

"You send a real powerful signal when you know the citizen has a good potential of being armed and doesn't have to back off anymore," said John Birch, president of the Illinois-based Concealed Carry, Inc.

Opponents, however, have said the idea would legalize shootouts in the streets.

A telephone message left for comment after hours with the The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence in Washington, D.C. was not immediately returned (Go figure; emphasis mine).

"The people that commit the majority of the crimes are habitual offenders," Bush said. "They're the ones that commit a crime after crime after crime."

Which is why we need tougher sentences for habitual offenders. Too often you hear about a young girl taken from this world by a depraved sex offender. And every time we ask why their exhaustive criminal history hasn't kept them behind bars.

Why is John Couey currently on trial for the rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl when he never should have been out of prison in the first place? If it wasn't enough that he broke into the home of a sleeping 12-year-old to cup her mouth and kiss her, maybe the last straw should have been the time he masturbated in front of a 5-year-old girl and had her touch his genitals. Forget the fact he was convicted for burglary and illegally concealing a handgun, that's the small stuff on his rap sheet. After committing unspeakable acts to two young girls on two separate occasions, why was he allowed to be around a third - a third who was raped, murdered and buried alive?

But I digress. We know Florida has a long way to go, but making it easier for law-abiding citizens (you know, those of us who don't expose ourselves to young girls) to possess firearms is a giant step in the right direction.

Penn and Friends to Go a Day Without Fine Dining

2006-07-06T14:33:00.000-04:00

But two days is just too much for the rich and famous:

SEAN PENN, SUSAN SARANDON and WILLIE NELSON are just some of the big names who will be lending their support to anti-war activist CINDY SHEEHAN's hunger strike.

Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed while serving in Iraq, began her "Troops Home Fast" protest outside the White House on Independence Day. Her plan is to abstain from eating and consume only water and juices throughout the summer.

Penn, Sarandon and Nelson, meanwhile, will participate in a "rolling fast" along with actor DANNY GLOVER, author ALICE WALKER and nearly 3,000 activists nationwide. The concept involves each participant to refuse food for 24 hours on designated days and then pass the fast over to the next individual.

I've never understood the point of hunger strikes other than the fact that they make for great publicity stunts. Cindy Sheehan opposes the war in Iraq so much that's she going to go the summer without eating. Why? Will her going on the brink of starvation change the hearts and minds of the Bush administration? We know what her cause is, and we know she's supported by our friends in Hollywood whom we are told will go on their own little 24-hour hunger strike - though it's debatable just how hungry you could get by going only one day without food.

Liberal Professor Feels Violated by Justice Scalia

2006-07-06T14:16:00.000-04:00

Supporters of criminal rights were enraged when the Supreme Court ruled in Hudson v. Michigan this term to weaken the exclusionary rule and allow evidence to be submitted at trial even if collected improperly. Among them was a liberal professor whose own theory was used against him by the smartest justice on the Supreme Court.

In his piece titled Scalia got it wrong in police ruling for the L.A. Times, professor Samuel Walker fumes over the decision:

A FRIEND e-mailed me last week with exciting news -- the Supreme Court had cited one of my criminal-justice policy books in an important, late-term decision. My law professor friends tell me that being mentioned by the court is a huge deal. And my 93-year-old mother in Cleveland will certainly be impressed that her son has finally done something worthy of note

Alas, as I surfed the Net for news about Hudson v. Michigan, my excitement turned to dismay, then horror.

First, I learned that Justice Antonin Scalia cited me to support a terrible decision, holding that the exclusionary rule -- which for decades prevented evidence obtained illegally by police from being used at trial -- no longer applies when cops enter your home without knocking.

Right of the bat, Walker exposes his political identification by calling the ruling "a terrible decision" as he obviously believes in the merits of the exclusionary rule. It's no surprise whenever this professor disagrees with Scalia, especially when he incorporates his own writings.

What caught me off guard in Walker's piece is the part that reveals just how liberal he is when it comes to the Supreme Court and his vision of how it should be deeply involved in political matters governing our country:

Scalia quotes my book, "Taming the System: The Control of Discretion in American Criminal Justice," on the point that there has been tremendous progress "in the education, training and supervision of police officers" since the 1961 Mapp decision, which imposed the exclusionary rule on local law enforcement.

My argument, based on the historical evidence of the last 40 years, is that the Warren court in the 1960s played a pivotal role in stimulating these reforms. For more than 100 years, police departments had failed to curb misuse of authority by officers on the street while the courts took a hands-off attitude. The Warren court's interventions (Mapp and Miranda being the most famous) set new standards for lawful conduct, forcing the police to reform and strengthening community demands for curbs on abuse.

Scalia's opinion suggests that the results I highlighted have sufficiently removed the need for an exclusionary rule to act as a judicial-branch watchdog over the police. I have never said or even suggested such a thing.

To the contrary, I have argued that the results reinforce the Supreme Court's continuing importance in defining constitutional protections for individual rights and requiring the appropriate remedies for violations, including the exclusion of evidence.

Walker accuses Scalia of misrepresenting his opinion, but all the justice did was use the same findings to come to a different conclusion. Walker believes the exclusionary rule has required law enforcement to reform its policies over the years and that it should continue. Scalia believes it is no longer necessary. The difference is Scalia has a much better constitutional argument to make while Walker has to rewrite the purpose of the judicial branch...and admits it:

The ideal approach is for the court to join the other branches of government in a mix of remedies for police misconduct: judicially mandated exclusionary rules, legislation to give citizens oversight of police and administrative reforms in training and supervision.

No single remedy is sufficient to this very important task. Hudson marks a dangerous step backward in removing a crucial component of that mix.

But the Supreme Court was never supposed to "mix" with the other branches to do whatever today's criminologist feels is important. The Court was created specifically as an independent branch to correct legislative wrongdoings among a limited number of other things unrelated to this topic. Laws governing police should be written -- naturally -- by lawmakers.

Libertarians have a right to be concerned about the outcome of this case because police now get more power to conduct investigations. But let's not overestimate the Fourth Amendment. We are protected against "unreasonable searches and seizures." There was nothing unreasonable about the evidence seized from Hudson - even with the police having failed to properly "knock and announce."

So Much for Privacy

2006-07-05T21:46:00.000-04:00

As it turns out, Rush Limbaugh won't be charged for possessing a bottle of VIAGRA that had his physician's name on the prescription label. VIAGRA, as I am told by the Associated Press reports, is a drug that treats erectile dysfunction, and was confiscated by authorities when Limbaugh arrived at an airport in Miami. Because he had VIAGRA.

What Would Obama Do?

2006-06-29T19:10:00.000-04:00

What's wrong with a portrait of Jesus that's been hanging in a high school hallway for the last thirty years? Everything, 'cause you never know when a secular student might walk by and become indoctrinated by Christian dogma. I wonder what Barack Obama would have to say about this:

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Two civil liberties groups sued in federal court Wednesday to remove a picture of Jesus that has hung in a high school for more than 30 years.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the West Virginia American Civil Liberties Union say the painting, "Head of Christ," sends the message that Bridgeport High School endorses Christianity as its official religion.

Let's pretend, for a second, that instead of Jesus was a portrait of Buddha. Would the Criminal Liberties Union be up in arms over that? Of course not, because only symbols of Christianity are deemed offensive - even an innocuous portrait of Jesus that in this case only serves the purpose of decor.

So what say you, Barack Obama, who believes Democrats should make an effort to court evangelicals? Please explain to your pals why they're nuts for supporting the groups filing suit against this school? This should be a no-brainer, but for Democrats it never is.

Big Legal Win for Guantanamo Detainees

2006-06-29T16:48:00.000-04:00

The Supreme Court announced its ruling today in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld divided along idelogical lines with John Roberts abstaining due to his involvement at the D.C. Circuit level and Anthony Kennedy joining the liberals in a 5-3 decision that is 185 pages long.

The actual vote is a little confusing. Stay with me now: John Paul STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I through IV, VI through VI-D-iii, VI-D-v, and VII, in which KENNEDY, SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER joined, and an opinion with respect to Parts V and VI-D-iv, in which SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER joined. BREYER filed a concurring opinion, in which KENNEDY, SOUTER, and GINSBURG joined. KENNEDY filed an opinion concurring in part, in which SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER joined as to Parts I and II. SCALIA filed a dissenting opinion, in which THOMAS and ALITO joined. THOMAS filed a dissenting opinion, in which SCALIA joined, and in which ALITO joined as to all but Parts I, II-C-1, and III-B-2. ALITO filed a dissenting opinion, in which SCALIA and THOMAS joined as to Parts I through III.

It will take me a little while to read the whole thing, but I rarely agree with a John Paul Stevens opinion. I'll post highlights from the opinion and dissents when I'm finished.

Barack Obama Fakes Interest in Evangelicals

2006-06-28T21:26:00.000-04:00

And here I thought Democrats had learned a lesson from DNC Chairman Howard Dean when he made a fool of himself during his presidential run saying he wanted to be the candidate "for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks."

Winning elections is all about getting the votes; something Democrats haven't successfully done in a long time. Realizing there's big numbers in the religious bloc, the popular first-term senator from Illinois is trying to tap that reserve.

The only problem: he's a Democrat:

WASHINGTON - Sen. Barack Obama chastised fellow Democrats on Wednesday for failing to "acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people," and said the party must compete for the support of evangelicals and other churchgoing Americans.

"Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the wall of separation. Context matters," the Illinois Democrat said in remarks prepared for delivery to a conference of Call to Renewal, a faith-based movement to overcome poverty.

"It is doubtful that children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance feel oppressed or brainwashed as a consequence of muttering the phrase `under God,'" he said. "Having voluntary student prayer groups using school property to meet should not be a threat, any more than its use by the High School Republicans should threaten Democrats."

Sounds reasonable, right? But that kind of thinking is considered "extreme" by many far-left liberals who don't want the phrase "under God" recited by children in fear of indoctrination. They don't want voluntary prayer groups anywhere near schools. They get behind the ACLU, an organization that sues the government every time a single red cent of tax money ends up in a church.

Just what incentive is there for religious voters to go blue? As if one speech by Senator Obama is going to convince the religious masses. And it's not like Obama is somehow a friend of the faithful just because he wants their votes. Since he became a senator in 2004, Obama has so far opposed every federal judicial appointment by President Bush who is seen as a threat to the constitutional right to abort a fetus in the ninth month.

He talks about voluntary prayer groups in school as being okay, but the judges his party appoints routinely strikes them down as unconstitutional. Obama was one of only 22 senators to oppose John Roberts for the Supreme Court, placing him to the left of most Senate Democrats. He opposed Samuel Alito and many of Bush's appellate court picks - for the same reasons the party is getting scorn from Obama in the first place.

Forgetting that he always opposes judges who loosely interpret the "separation of church and state" doctrine, Obama criticizes his party for not loosely believing in the "separation of church and state" doctrine:

"Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering the public square."

As a result, "I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people and join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy."

Obama mentioned leaders of the religious right briefly, saying they must "accept some ground rules for collaboration" and recognize the importance of the separation of church and state.

So Obama wants it both ways. He wants religion to be tolerated in public but not to the point that it violates church and state. But at what point does that happen according to Obama? If reciting the Pledge is okay, how about a monument of the Ten Commandments? I can see him sweating already.

Democrats will never win the Christian vote because they don't understand Christians. I can't think of a better way to earn the respect of evangelicals than to vote for an amendment protecting the flag from desecration. Sure enough, just yesterday the proposal fell one vote shy in the Senate because most Democrats opposed it. Gee, to think if only Obama had voted in favor of the amendment it would have successfully passed the Senate.

But to Democrats, supporting an amendment protecting the flag is "silly" and a "waste of time." Yet it's those silly patriotic issues that are important to evangelicals, and yet Democrats can't even get that issue right. Let's not even go near abortion - perhaps the single most important issue to religious Christians, an issue they're still fuming over ever since the Supreme Court invented a right to the practice back in 1973.

Sorry Obama, your party is far from getting the religious voters on your side.

Chief One-With-No-Job

2006-06-27T13:11:00.000-04:00

One more university professor who equates Americans to Nazis is no more:

BOULDER, Colo. - The top official at the University of Colorado's flagship campus called on the school Monday to fire Ward Churchill, the professor who compared some World Trade Center victims to a Nazi and then landed in hot water over allegations of academic misconduct.

Interim Chancellor Philip DiStefano said Churchill has 10 days to go to a faculty committee to appeal his recommendation. Churchill, a tenured professor of ethnic studies, has denied allegations of plagiarism.

In an essay written shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks, Churchill described some of the victims in the World Trade Center as "little Eichmanns," a reference to Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann. The essay was largely ignored until January 2005, when it came to light before Churchill was to speak at Hamilton College in upstate New York.

The essay triggered calls for Churchill to be fired, but university officials concluded he could not be dismissed because of free speech protections. They did order an investigation into allegations of academic misconduct, which concluded two weeks ago.

The school's committee on research misconduct said Churchill "has committed serious, repeated, and deliberate research misconduct."

DiStefano agreed and said he has told Churchill he hopes to dismiss him.

Churchill has been relieved of academic work but will remain a paid faculty member as long as the firing is in the appeals process, university officials said.

If Churchill appeals to the faculty committee, members would make a recommendation to university system President Hank Brown, spokeswoman Jeanine Malmsbury said. Brown would then make a recommendation to the Board of Regents, which has the final say.
If Churchill doesn't appeal, Brown would recommend action to the regents.

Churchill's defenders (yes, he has defenders) make argue he's being persecuted for exercising his First Amendment rights. But this case is not about the First Amendment, it's about a loony professor who shouldn't have a job indoctrinating his students; not to mention the credible charges of plagerism against him.

If a professor wanted to go the distance and a preach Nazism he certainly has the First Amendment right to do so against prosecution by the state, but he doesn't have protection against his firing for being a loony professor.

Supreme Court Upholds Kansas Death Penalty

2006-06-26T15:20:00.000-04:00

In its final week before summer recess, the Supreme Court this morning announced their decision in Kansas v. Marsh. It was a splintered 5-4 ruling with Justice Alito once again breaking a tie-vote that resulted from O'Connor's departure.

Majority: Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito
Minority: Stevens, Souter, Ginsberg, Breyer

The Court upheld the constitutionality of a Kansas law that instructs juries to impose the death sentence if aggravating evidence of a crime's brutality and mitigating factors explaining a defendant's actions are equal in weight.

Michael Lee Marsh was convicted in the June 1996 killings of Marry Ane Pusch and her 19-month-old daughter, Marry Elizabeth. Pusch was shot, stabbed and her throat was slit. Her body was set on fire. The toddler died several days later from severe burns.

Writing for the majority, Justice Thomas explains that the instruction, however unique, falls in line with the traditional practice of juries determining the sentence of a guilty defendant:

Kansas jurors, presumed to follow their instructions, are made aware that: a determination that mitigators outweigh aggravators is a decision that a life sentence is appropriate; a determination that aggravators outweigh mitigators or a determination that mitigators do not outweigh aggravators -- including a finding that aggravators and mitigators are in balance -- is a decision that death is the appropriate sentence; and an inability to reach a unanimous decision will result in a sentence of life imprisonment. So informed, far from the abdication of duty or the inability to select an appropriate sentence depicted by Marsh and JUSTICE SOUTER, a jury's conclusion that aggravating evidence and mitigating evidence are in equipoise is a decision for death and is indicative of the type of measured, normative process in which a jury is constitutionally tasked to engage when deciding the appropriate sentence for a capital defendant.

Continuing, Justice Thomas criticizes the dissenting opinion of Justice Souter for going off-topic in discussing DNA evidence:

JUSTICE SOUTER argues (hereinafter the dissent) that the advent of DNA testing has resulted in the "exoneratio[n]" of "innocent" persons "in numbers never imagined before the development of DNA tests." Post, at 5-6. Based upon this "new empirical demonstration of how 'death is different,'" post, at 8, the dissent concludes that Kansas' sentencing system permits the imposition of the death penalty in the absence of reasoned moral judgment. But the availability of DNA testing, and the questions it might raise about the accuracy of guilt-phase determinations in capital cases, is simply irrelevant to the question before the Court today, namely, the constitutionality of Kansas' capital sentencing system.

The dissent's general criticisms against the death penalty are ultimately a call for resolving all legal disputes in capital cases by adopting the outcome that makes the death penalty more difficult to impose. While such a bright-line rule may be easily applied, it has no basis in law. Indeed, the logical consequence of the dissent's argument is that the death penalty can only be just in a system that does not permit error. Because the criminal justice system does not operate perfectly, abolition of the death penalty is the only answer to the moral dilemma the dissent poses. This Court, however, does not sit as a moral authority. Our precedents do not prohibit the States from authorizing the death penalty, even in our imperfect system. And those precedents do not empower this Court to chip away at the States' prerogatives to do soon the grounds the dissent invokes today.

Justice Scalia defends the majority's decision today and reminds his colleagues how often DNA evidence has been used to vindicate an innocent prisoner:

There exists in some parts of the world sanctimonious criticism of America's death penalty, as somehow unworthy of a civilized society. (I say sanctimonious, because most of the countries to which these finger-waggers belong had the death penalty themselves until recently - and indeed, many of them would still have it if the democratic will prevailed.) It is a certainty that the opinion of a near-majority of the United States Supreme Court to the effect that our system condemns many innocent defendants to death will be trumpeted abroad as vindication of these criticisms. For that reason, I take the trouble to point out that the dissenting opinion has nothing substantial to support it.

It should be noted at the outset that the dissent does not discuss a single case - not one - in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred in recent years, we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent's name would be shouted from the rooftops by the abolition lobby. The dissent makes much of the new-found capacity of DNA testing to establish innocence. But in every case of an executed defendant of which I am aware, that technology has confirmed guilt.

In dissent, Justice Souter calls the Kansas law "morally absurd" because the death penalty must be imposed when "the case for aggravation has failed to convince the sentencing jury:"

In Kansas, when a jury applies the State's own standards of relative culpability and cannot decide that a defendant is among the most culpable, the state law says that equivocal evidence is good enough and the defendant must die. A law that requires execution when the case for aggravation has failed to convince the sentencing jury is morally absurd, and the Court's holding that the Constitution tolerates this moral irrationality defies decades of precedent aimed at eliminating freakish capital sentencing in the United States.

But the case for aggravation hasn't failed just because there's an equal number of mitigating factors. Let's not forget that the defendant slashed a woman's throat and burned her daughter to death. His sentence is hardly "freakish." In fact I would want more than just one mitigating factor to outweigh the aggravating ones before commuting his sentence. But the jury was convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was responsible for his crimes and found enough aggravating circumstances to sentence him accordingly per Kansas law.

Happy Birthday Clarence Thomas

2006-06-23T15:32:00.000-04:00

The unintelligent negro and most-maligned justice on the Supreme Court (who secretly pays Scalia to write his opinions) turns 58 today. In 1991 he replaced Justice Thurgood Marshall on the bench after a grueling and taxing confirmation process.

Unlike his predecessor, Thomas doesn't view the Constitution as an open invitation to change the law as he sees fit, or decide one day that capital punishment is unconstitutional - when it's clearly not according to the Fifth Amendment. But even more amazingly, he doesn't side with the criminal every time in habeas corpus cases, and believes that the laws that govern the people should be decided on by the people.

I can't think of a better way to honor the Georgia native than for 86-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens to step down at the end of the month. That way President Bush can nominate someone just like Thomas to join him on the bench come next term.

Still Waiting for 'Godless' Reviews

2006-06-22T13:50:00.000-04:00

It's unfortunate Ann Coulter had to say what she did about the 9/11 widows. Not because she was wrong, but because that's all her critics have been bitching about since the book's release. Every article on the book is simple a rehash of "radical" quotes that do nothing more than bail out the critic who can't come up with a good rebuttal argument.

Here's a good piece explaining my point:

Ann Coulter's new book Godless: The Church of Liberalism is a rollicking read very tightly reasoned and hard to argue with. After all, the progressive mind regards it as backward and primitive to let religion determine every aspect of your life, but takes it as advanced and enlightened to have the state determine every aspect of your life. Lest you doubt the left's pieties are now a religion, try this experiment: go up to an environmental activist and say "Hey, how about that ozone hole closing up?" or "Wow! The global warming peaked in 1998 and it's been getting cooler for almost a decade. Isn't that great?" and then look at the faces. As with all millenarian doomsday cults, good news is a bummer.

But nobody's talking too much about the finer points of Miss Coulter's argument. Instead, everyone -- from Hillary Rodham Clinton down -- is going bananas about a couple of paragraphs on page 103 and 112 in which the author savages the 9/11 widows. Not all of them. Just the quartet led by Kristen Breitweiser and known as "the Jersey Girls." These four widows have been regular fixtures in the New York TV studios since they first emerged to complain that the average $1.6 million-per-family compensation was insufficient. The 9/11 commission, in all its ghastly second-guessing showboating, was largely their project.

I don't always agree with what Ms. Coulter writes about, but I'm getting pretty sick and tired of people downplaying her intelligence without having the ability to refute it head on. Yes, it is just so much easier to copy-and-paste quotes from her book and call it day.

Divided Supreme Court Sides With Police; Weakens 'Exclusionary Rule'

2006-06-16T15:57:00.000-04:00

Yesterday the Supreme Court announced their decision in Hudson v. Michigan, a high-profile case that was reargued after the retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor to presumably break a 4-4 tie without her vote. New Justice Samuel Alito joined the conservatives in a 5-4 ruling to side with law enforcement officers who improperly entered the home of Booker Hudson by not appropriately "announcing their presence" even though they had a search warrant to enter the premises.

Traditionally, police knock on the door and wait approximately 15-20 seconds before serving a warrant on a suspect. In this case police did not knock and waited between three and five seconds before entering Hudson's home - not giving Hudson enough time to hide (or use) his loaded gun and cocaine rocks.

The opinion of the court, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, does not give police a free pass to conduct business as they wish or shield them from disciplinary action or civil suits, but instead says that evidence found by police officers who enter a home to execute a search warrant without first following the requirement to "knock and announce" can be used at trial.

Before yesterday's ruling, evidence inappropriately collected could be excluded by a trial judge as part of the "exclusionary rule" established in the 1961 landmark case Mapp v. Ohio.

In his opinion joined by new Chief Justice John Roberts, new Justice Samuel Alito, and Justices Clarence Thomas and Anthony M. Kennedy, Scalia argued that the evidence was going to be found anyway, which is the point of serving a warrant in the first place. "The cost of entering this lottery would be small, but the jackpot enormous: suppression of all evidence, amounting in many cases to a get-out-of-jail-free card."

Moderate-to-conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy joined in most of the ruling but came short of wanting to end the knock requirement. "It bears repeating that it is a serious matter if law enforcement officers violate the sanctity of the home by ignoring the requisites of lawful entry," he said. He also noted that legislatures can intervene if police officers do not "act competently and lawfully."

Justice Stephen G. Breyer, writing for the dissenters, said the ruling "weakens, perhaps destroys, much of the practical value of the Constitution's knock-and-announce protection." He said the majority's reasoning boiled down to: "The requirement is fine, indeed, a serious matter, just don't enforce it." He was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

I support the majority's opinion because it rightfully weakens the "exclusionary rule" that at one point in history may have been necessary to combat corrupt police who subjected innocent people to a sub-par judicial system.

In today's time the "exclusionary rule" does more to help the bad guys than anything else because crucial evidence needed to convict might not make it to trial if not collected exactly by the books. In the case of Booker Hudson, had the liberal justices got their way and the "exclusionary rule" applied, the seized weapon (which was loaded) and rocks of cocaine would not have been admissible, and Hudson would have likely been set free had there not been other charges pending.

Scalia argued that the evidence was "going to be found anyway," but that's simply the best-case scenario. Had the cops waited an additional 30 seconds as the liberal justices would have preferred, the evidence could have easily been flushed down the toilet and the suspect could have used the extra time to reach his gun and assault the serving officers.

Alas, in the debate over civil rights and police procedure, officer safety is often downplayed, as it has been in this case. To be sure, we must not forget that all persons are innocent until proven guilty, but that's for the courts to decide. If police find a dead body, it should be admitted into evidence whether it was found legitimately or not.

Many court watchers see Hudson v. Michigan as a sign of a Supreme Court that has become more conservative with the addition of two new justices last term. When it was first argued before she retired, Justice O'Connor sounded ready to side with the defendant. Thankfully, it is now Alito who matters.

Protecting the Flag

2006-06-14T20:23:00.000-04:00

The movement to grant the flag constitutional protection is picking up momentum in Washington. According to USA TODAY the amendment is currently shy by one vote in the Senate:

WASHINGTON -- The Senate is one vote away from passing a constitutional amendment that would ban desecration of the U.S. flag, the closest that amendment supporters have been to passage.

The American Legion, which supports the amendment, and the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposes it, both say there are 66 votes to pass it.

Whether advocates can find the 67th vote to send the flag amendment to the states for ratification remains unclear. A Senate vote is set for the week of June 26.

The House of Representatives last year approved the flag amendment 286-130. It was the seventh time it had done so since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Texas law banning flag burning in 1989. The next year, the court ruled that the federal Flag Protection Act violated the First Amendment's free speech guarantee.

Four times in the Senate, the flag measure has failed to receive the two-thirds majority required of constitutional amendments. In 2000, the amendment came up four votes short with 63.

All 50 states have approved non-binding resolutions endorsing an amendment. "That is unprecedented and shouldn't be ignored," American Legion legislative director Steve Robertson says. "We will see if the senators are listening to their constituents or not."

Thirty-eight, or three-fourths, of the 50 states must ratify the measure to make it the 28th Amendment.

An amendment protecting the flag against desecration is not one I'm enthusiastic about, but if there's enough support for its passage then I see no harm done. Those who get off on burning the American flag will just have to find something else to do that is both offensive and protected by the First Amendment.

How Government Burns Our Billions

2006-06-14T15:26:00.000-04:00

This should disgust everybody:

WASHINGTON - The government doled out as much as $1.4 billion in bogus assistance to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, getting hoodwinked to pay for season football tickets, a tropical vacation and even a divorce lawyer, congressional investigators have found.

This is why it has always been a general philosophy of mine that the federal government should have the least amount of money in the form of our tax dollars as possible. The feds running the show have been utterly incompetent in handling the Katrina disaster, but that's hardly anything new for the government. You'd think something could have been in place to make sure hurricane relief wasn't paying for porn and sex changes.

The G-Word Stays on Money - For Now

2006-06-13T20:22:00.000-04:00

What are atheists to do now that their hands will continue to be sullied by that dirty money with the word God written on it? Life's pretty good in this Christian nation - read first, then come help me persecute some non-believers:

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. district court judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit brought by a California atheist against the U.S. government for its use of the phrase "In God We Trust" on its coins and currency.

Michael Newdow, the Sacramento, California lawyer and doctor who had previously launched a court challenge on behalf of his daughter over the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance said in schools, had argued that "In God We Trust" on monetary instruments violates his rights.

Newdow claimed that by using coins and currency bearing the phrase, he is forced to carry religious dogma, proselytize and evangelize for monotheism.

Judge Frank Damrell of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California held in his opinion that "In God We Trust" is secular in nature and use, and its appearance on coins and currency does not show government coercion on behalf of monotheism.

Newdow told Reuters he would appeal to the San Francisco-based U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled in his favor in his "under God" lawsuit, a decision later overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court, which found Newdow could sue not on behalf of his daughter because he lacked custody.

Of course he'll appeal to the 9th Circuit, the most radically liberal and most often unanimously overturned appeals court in the nation by the Supreme Court. But until then, Newdow will continue to be "forced" to carry "religious dogma," and lots of if he continues to be the lead crusader and spokesperson for people who melt at the sight or sound of the letters G, O and D.

Not Good News for Criminals

2006-06-13T15:27:00.000-04:00

At least this right is actually in the Constitution:

SAN FRANCISCO -- A state trial judge sided Monday with the National Rifle Association in overturning a voter-approved city ordinance that banned handgun possession and firearm sales in San Francisco.

Measure H was placed on the November ballot by the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors, who were frustrated by an alarmingly high number of gun-related homicides in the city of 750,000. The NRA sued a day after 58 percent of voters approved the law.

In siding with the gun owners, San Francisco County Superior Court Judge James Warren said a local government cannot ban weapons because the California Legislature allows their sale and possession.

"My clients are thrilled that the court recognized that law-abiding firearms owners who choose to own a gun to defend themselves or their families are part of the solution and not part of the problem," NRA attorney Chuck Michel said. "Hopefully, the city will recognize that gun owners can contribute to the effort to fight the criminal misuse of firearms, a goal that we all share."

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit also is considering a challenge to a similar handgun ban in the District of Columbia that alleges the law violates a Second Amendment right of individuals to bear arms.

The D.C. challenge is much more important than the San Francisco trial for a few reasons. The San Francisco suit does not deal with the constitutionality of owning guns, but is instead a generic separation of powers test. Moreover, the case only deals with San Francisco. To be sure, this is great news for its citizens who are uneasy about the crime rates that have recently risen.

The D.C. case is the big one that everyone should be paying attention to. It's an actual challenge to the Second Amendment of the Constitution, which for most of our history has received little attention from the federal courts. Regardless of the outcome, there is a chance the Supreme Court will be asked to consider the constitutionality of a handgun ban and rule for the first time on the definition of the "right to bear arms."

The Hypocritical Right

2006-06-08T01:12:00.000-04:00

Don't get me wrong, I'm all onboard with conservatives when it comes calling people who are offended by public displays of religion retarded, but those sentiments extend to people who get nervous when they see two plastic dolls of the male persuasion holding hands:

BOSTON - Macy's department store has removed a window display marking Boston's gay pride week after a group that opposes gay marriage complained it was offensive.

The display at the downtown Boston store featured two male mannequins, with one wearing a gay pride rainbow flag around his waist, next to a list of several planned Boston Pride Week events.

MassResistance, formerly the Article 8 Alliance, which has campaigned against gay marriage and gay-themed textbooks in public schools, objected to the display and said the mannequin wearing the flag had a "skirt" on, the Boston Herald reported.

ACLU of Massachusetts spokeswoman Sarah Wunsch criticized Macy's for "succumbing to the bigotry" of what she said was a fringe anti-gay group.

It doesn't matter who you are. No one is above society or has the right to not be "offended" by whatever it is that day they don't like. If you're not comfortable with what Macy's is advertising in their storefront window, don't shop there! Stop trying to ruin everything for us normal people.

As for the ACLU, don't get me started with them. They'll tolerate any public display of homosexuality or desecration of religion no matter how extreme, but a plaque of the Ten Commandments will have them running for the courts.

Let's just learn to relax, people. 6-6-06 has passed and we're all still here.

Coulter: Big Meanie

2006-06-07T19:37:00.000-04:00

This is rich. Ann Coulter is currently under attack (somewhat deservedly) for making the case that liberals use victims (Cindy Sheehan, the 9/11 widows) to spout their arguments so they can't be refuted, because that would just be plain mean. Sure enough, Coulter tries to refute and is blamed for it accordingly.

Adam Lisberg of the New York Daily News is currently recovering from a stroke:

Ann Coulter has been accused of cynically dumping gasoline on the fires of American political discourse - scorching liberals, feminists and just about anyone else who doesn't agree with her.

Liberals, she insists, "want to take more of our money, kill babies and discriminate on the basis of race."

Yes liberals want to take more of our money. It's called taxes. Yes liberals want to kill more babies. It's called abortion. Yes liberals want to discriminate on the basis of race. It's called affirmative action. What's so controversial about that often-repeated quote? Oh, ok - abortionists don't "kill," they "dilate and extract."

With her blond tresses and endless skinny legs showcased in trademark micro-miniskirts, Coulter has fashioned herself into a highly marketable icon of the right.

The more outrageous she is, the more money she makes.

Her first four books - the fifth was published yesterday - have been best sellers, spawning a genre of acid blond conservative female writers.

Right. So if an author has a slew of best sellers, it must be because she is engaged in a marketing scheme designed to make as much money as possible regardless of the substance of the books. Don't bother reading what she has to say, it's just to make money!

Now critics are mad because on The Today Show Coulter defended her point against the 9/11 widows, a group of women who lost their husbands on Sept. 11 and started a political campaign to embarrass President Bush. Trust me, he doesn't need the help.

But when you say, as the group of four widows did, that President Bush was responsible for 9/11, you deserve whatever criticism comes your way. Making such statements puts yourself into the political arena and all bets are off. We're sorry you lost a loved one, but don't expect immunity from criticism after you call the president a terrorist.

Liberals who haven't read the new book are spamming the Amazon page for Godless with their pseudo-reviews and 1-star ratings. Doesn't matter though, it's currently the #2 book in its second day.

Surprise, Surprise: Suspect in Clemson Student's Murder a Repeated Sex Offender

2006-06-06T23:22:00.000-04:00

I guess this guy still has some "rehabilitating" to do:

GREENVILLE, S.C. - Authorities say they have issued arrest warrants for murder, rape and kidnapping against a Tennessee man in the death of a Clemson University student strangled with her bikini top.

Jerry Buck Inman's DNA matched samples taken from Tiffany Marie Souers' apartment, State Law Enforcement Division Chief Robert Stewart said Tuesday night.

Inman has not been arrested. He is considered extremely dangerous and is likely in a green Chevrolet Camaro or an Econoline van, prosecutor Bob Ariail said.

The 35-year-old construction worker was registered as a sex offender in Florida in September for kidnapping and sexual battery. His last address is listed as Dandridge, Tenn.

Inman also had a felony record from North Carolina, but Stewart wouldn't elaborate. Ariail did say that he still thinks this is the first time the suspect has killed someone.

Souers, a 20-year-old civil engineering junior from Ladue, Mo., was wearing only a bra when she was found on her bedroom floor a few miles from campus. The bikini top was still around her neck.

So here we have a guy who's a registered sex offender in two states, has a prior history of kidnapping and sexual battery, and is now running freely from authorities as a suspect in the brutal rape and murder of a Clemson student. The sad thing is that you could cut his rap sheet in half and he would still deserve a good thirty or more years behind bars. Alas, certain members of society's penchant for "rehabilitation" and early release programs allow for barbarians the opportunity to strike again.

The police chief was quoted in the above article as saying this is most likely the first time the suspect has killed anyone. But how come we're not asking why Inman had the opportunity to upgrade his criminal resume to murder in the first place?

Select Quotes from Godless

2006-06-06T17:44:00.000-04:00

Before I post my complete review of Ann Coulter's Godless I figure a few choice quotes (but certainly not the best) will do in the mean time:

"The New York Times and the rest of the mainstream media will only refer to partial birth abortion as 'what opponents refer to as partial birth abortion.' What do its supporters call it? Casual Fridays? Bean-with-bacon potato-chip dip?"

"Moreover, if women are so pro-abortion why are virtually all abortionists men? If ever there was a need for a Take Our Daughters To Work Day, it's at the abortion mills."

"This leads to the astonishing spectacle of Teddy Kennedy in full-dress sanctimony, getting all high and mighty with Supreme Court candidates as if the nominee had done something heinous like drown a girl and walk away from it because he had diplomatic immunity in the state of Massachusetts."

"Throughout the 2004 campaign, the Democrats were looking for a Democrat who believed in God - a pursuit similar to a woman searching for a boyfriend in a room full of choreographers."

"And, of course, [Michael] Moore sat with Jimmy Carter at the National Democratic Convention, which drew more than a few glances, mostly from people wondering when the luxury box would collapse."

Obviously a sense of humor is required to digest any polemic of Coulter's, and Godless is no different, so be ready for the onslaught from angry liberals who will be too busy calling Coulter a "hateful liar" to actually read the book.

Gasp, Conservative Allowed on NBC!

2006-06-06T14:49:00.000-04:00

I'm currently in the middle of Ann Coulter's Godless, out today for the 6-6-6 holiday and will have much to say when I'm finished (yes, this blogger will actually read it before making any statements ) - both on the good and bad. Meanwhile, I am highly amused by the liberals' response to her book tour.

Atrios awarded his "Wanker of the Day" trophy to NBC for having the audacity to put a conservative on its program. To be sure, Matt Lauer of The Today Show was no panderer, but instead grilled her the entire time about her attacks on the 9/11 war widows - only proving her point that widows are used as props for arguments because you can't attack them!

Prepare for 'Godless'

2006-06-05T15:54:00.000-04:00

Lest your calendar is without the red markings, tomorrow is 6-6-6, and I am thrilled. No, not in anticipation of another crappy remake of a so-so horror movie, but because Ann Coulter's Godless arrives in a bookstore near you! But if gas prices are hitting your wallet too hard you stay home can order a copy from Amazon.

Naturally discussion and comments of the book are soon to come.

Gay Marriage Amendment Shot Down

2006-06-05T15:15:00.000-04:00

Dead in the water:

WASHINGTON - President Bush and congressional Republicans are aiming the political spotlight this week on efforts to ban gay marriage, with events at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue — all for a constitutional amendment with scant chance of passage but wide appeal among social conservatives.

Bush said Monday he is "proud to stand with" those who support a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. The president's remarks Monday were timed to coincide with the Senate opening three days of debate on the issue. Neither chamber, though, is likely to pass the amendment by the two-thirds majority required to send it to the states — three quarters of which would then have to approve it.

"Appeal" is exactly what this amendment is all about. Conservatives need to be reminded every now and again why they elected and re-elected the president who has been anything but a Reagan-style conservative. It didn't matter that the amendment had no chance, at least President Bush can now campaign for his party as a supporter of traditional marriage when the time comes.

Of course, supporters of the amendment deny it having anything to do with the upcoming election, one that Democrats desperately need to turn out in their favor. Republicans are just as desperate, as they need a strong turnout to retain their majority status in either or both houses. If the Democrats lose again they might as well just pack up and go home.

Is gay marriage something that should be debated? To me it just seems like a bad time when we have more pressing issues to worry about. But being that we're in an election year, these are the kinds of issues that are going to get attention whether we like it or not.

It's always good to see passionate debate. It's not however, fun endure the typical rhetoric from the minority party.

"A vote for this amendment is a vote for bigotry pure and simple," said Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, where the state Supreme Court legalized gay marriages in 2003.

This is why I can't stand the current Democratic leadership. Instead of rationally debating the issues, key players in the Democratic Party play the bigotry card, and Kennedy does it chronically. If you thought he was brutal to Samuel "wrong for the country" Alito, just wait until he gets to smear the next Supreme Court appointee.

He is not good for the nation's discourse.

But if anything, at least the amendment is being handled properly - in the halls of Congress. Had it passed, the states would get their say and be able to ratify it. While I and most Libertarians are opposed to any amendment that would curtail instead of expand liberties, this is how our democracy is supposed to work. We don't need unelected judges determining society's values for us.

Must be this Tall to Ride

2006-06-01T01:28:00.000-04:00

Everyday we are reminded that there's no shortage of loopy judges in this country. Take District Judge Kristine Cecava for example, whose inscrutable logic has placed her at the top of the list. When a 50-year-old rapist came before her facing 10 years in prison for making sexual contact with a 12-year-old girl, she decided that a 5'1, he was too short for prison.

This is yet another reason why I'm sometimes afraid to read CNN:

LINCOLN, Nebraska (AP) -- A petition drive is calling for the resignation of the judge who sentenced a sex offender to probation instead of prison in part because of his short stature.

The campaign is aimed at Cheyenne County District Judge Kristine Cecava, who last week sentenced Richard W. Thompson to 10 years of intensive probation instead of prison on two felony child sexual assault charges.

Cecava said at the sentencing hearing that she did not believe the 5-foot, 1-inch Thompson could survive in prison.

That may be well and true, but unfortunately for Cecava, she is a judge and her job isn't to baby-sit felons. Prison staff, wardens and officers baby-sit and look out and care for felons. A judge's job is to apply the law fairly, and somewhere I believe there's a constitutional requirement to apply it -- you know -- equally.

During the more sane times in our nation's history we would look at something like remorse as a mitigating factor in determining a criminal's prison sentence. We would look at the intentions of the offender. Here I thought we were through with judging someone based on their physical appearance, but I couldn't be anymore incorrect. Now, instead of giving someone a harder sentence because they're black, we can just say it's because they're 6'1 or strong enough to eat the prison's meatloaf four times a week.

But there will be no prison meatloaf for Richard Thompson. Saved by his stature, he will be spared prison and be asked - oops, I mean "ordered" -- to obey the terms of his probation. He will be electronically monitored for the first four months; I guess, because after the fourth month we can just "trust" him to not have inappropriate contact with young girls.

In addition to the monitoring, Thompson is not allowed to be alone with anyone under 18. He's not allowed to date or live with a woman who has children under 18. Whew, talk about a serious burden on the poor guy. Now Thompson will have to find a beach, park, school, mall, store, community pool, gymnasium, stadium, Disney World or some other public venue to ogle underage girls.

But none of this seems plausible to the ignorant judge who actually had the audacity to say:

"I truly hope that my bet on you being OK out in society isn't misplaced…It's very hard to keep you in society when I know the risk is another child getting hurt."

But apparently the risk of another child getting hurt isn't as important as the risk of a less than luxurious prison experience for a guy who had the mindset to sexually abuse a girl 40 years his junior.

But the most dastardly aspect of the judge's decision isn't that she subverted her role as a judge when deciding that Thompson wasn't fit for prison, it's that her decision begs the question: how severe must the crime be before we admit the idiocy of the liberals' rehabilitation argument? Where do we draw the line? Sure, a 5'1 man who had sexual contact with a prepubescent girl may not be fit for prison, but neither is the 5'1 man who had sexual contact with a prepubescent girl...and then killed her afterward.

Capitalism Sucks

2006-05-30T16:27:00.000-04:00

Yes, that's the mindset at Democratic Underground. And not one user disagrees. The thread begins: "I can't think of a worse economic system under the sun."

How about the many "systems" that resulted in such a depression that its citzens fled en masse to greater countries? Please remind me why so many Cubans risk their lives to reach Florida every day.

A Woman's "Choice" for Perfection

2006-05-29T21:14:00.000-04:00

Opponents of the right to kill one's unborn child are often portrayed by feminists and liberals as intolerant woman-hating brutes who get off on controlling women's bodies. We are told abortion is necessary because fathers are regularly raping their daughters. We are told it is necessary because poor women can't afford another mouth to feed. But one thing we are never told by the abortion activists is that sometimes the baby just isn't pretty enough.

Whether it's blue eyes and blonde hair that make a perfect human, or simply a foot that has a decent arch, there are plenty of traits that can make a person inferior. The golden standard may change from generation to generation, culture to culture, but the one thing that has remained constant is how to deal with such imperfections: the deprivation of live.

The Daily Mail reports on the other reasons why abortion is so handy:

The ethical storm over abortions has been renewed as it emerged that terminations are being carried out for minor, treatable birth defects.

Late terminations have been performed in recent years because the babies had club feet, official figures show.

Babies are being aborted with only minor defects.

Other babies were destroyed because they had webbed fingers or extra digits.

Such defects can often be corrected with a simple operation or physiotherapy.

The revelation sparked fears that abortion is increasingly being used to satisfy couples' desire for the 'perfect' baby.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that between 1996 and 2004, 20 babies were aborted after 20 weeks because they had a club foot.

It is one of the most common birth defects in Britain, affecting one in 1,000 babies each year. That means around 600 to 700 babies are born annually in the UK with the problem, which causes the feet to point downwards and in severe cases can cause a limp.

However it can be corrected without surgery using splints, plaster casts and boots. Naomi Davis, a leading paediatrician (sp) at Manchester Children's Hospital who specialists in correcting club feet, said: 'I think it is reasonable to be totally shocked that abortion is being offered for this.

Figures also show that four babies were aborted since 1996 because they were found to have webbed fingers or extra digits, which can be sorted out with simply surgery.

Remarkable pictures recently have revealed how at just 23 weeks baby in the womb appears to smile, yawn and flinch in pain.

Club foot? That's just gross. Webbed fingers? What, is the baby a fish or something? Clearly we have no room in society for the retarded, and seeing someone with a constant limp is just unsightly. In the never-ending quest for perfection, it's all about the looks, baby. And when your baby doesn't make the grade, you are faced with a serious dilemma.

Thankfully you can fix your less than-perfect child. No, not with simple surgery. Well, yes, that works too. But for the busy woman who's always on the go or just doesn't like the idea of it, she can always elect to have an abortion. Just one visit to an accommodating clinic and that freak will be sucked from your womb so fast you'll hardly be able to call it an inconvenience...for you anyway.

So Much for Child Safety Locks

2006-05-24T15:37:00.000-04:00

Call Michael Moore. Another teen got his hands on daddy's gun:

With a man breaking through the front door, a Hollywood 15-year-old loaded his father's gun, waited for the intruder to come in and shot him, police said.

Keil Jumper, 22, who police said has a long rap sheet, was later found bleeding in an area between two houses. Police said Jumper was seriously injured but his injuries didn't appear life threatening.

The incident happened about 3:30 a.m. Saturday, when Jumper attempted to break down the front door, then picked up a bicycle to smash the window, police said. The sounds terrified a family of eight to 10 people who were asleep in the home, which is on South 61st Avenue in Hollywood, police said.

Police said the teenager is unlikely to be charged in the case. But they said Jumper, who was shot several times, will be -- once he's discharged from Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood.

The teen is unlikely to be charged? Try the teen is likely to receive a medal.

Judge Powerless to Stop Prayer

2006-05-21T22:12:00.000-04:00

This First Amendment case is a great example of how powerless the judiciary is to enforce its own rulings. When U.S. District Judge Joseph McKinley told a high school graduating class that they couldn't recite a simple prayer, the students responded in mass defiance to a standing ovation and approval from the administration.

If only more graduation ceremonies were as exciting as this one:

RUSSELL SPRINGS, Ky. (AP) - A federal judge on Friday blocked a southern Kentucky high school from including prayers in its graduation ceremony, prompting students to begin reciting the Lord's Prayer during the opening remarks.

About 200 students interrupted the principal's comments with the prayer, drawing thunderous applause and a standing ovation from the crowd.

Earlier in the day, a judge banned prayers from the ceremony in response to a lawsuit filed this week by the American Civil Liberties Union. The lawsuit sought a restraining order on behalf of an unidentified student at Russell County High School in Russell Springs, 90 miles south of Louisville.

Later in the ceremony, senior Megan Chapman told the crowd that God had guided her since childhood. She was interrupted repeatedly by cheering as she urged her classmates to trust in God as they go through life.

A sign across the street from the high school at a garden center declared "We believe in prayer" in response to the judge's ruling.

The student mentioned in the lawsuit had appealed to Principal Darren Gossage to drop the prayer from the ceremony, but the principal refused, ACLU attorney Lili Lutgens said.

Lutgens argued that any prayer would be unconstitutional because it would endorse a specific religion and religious views. U.S. District Judge Joseph McKinley granted the temporary restraining order, prohibiting the school district from having even a student representative say a prayer during the ceremony.

Superintendent Scott Pierce said he was pleased with the students' response to the ruling.

"This was a good learning process for them as far as how to handle things that come along in life," Pierce said. "They exhibited what we've tried to accomplish in 12 years of education — they have the ability to make these compelling decisions on their own."

I am not the least bit sympathetic toward atheists who are so full of themselves that they would attempt to keep a harmless prayer out of a high school graduation ceremony. Lest it's been awhile since you last read your copy of the U.S. Constitution, the Establishment Clause plainly states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

The ACLU has for the last century depended on liberal judges to expand the First Amendment in such a way that "Congress" also means: neighborhood associations, courthouses, teachers, attorney generals - and now, high school students.

The argument that religious commencement speeches violate the Constitution is a silly one. For the three or so tedious hours family and friends come together to celebrate the graduation of the senior class, church and state remain in their respective corners. So now that we've got that out of the way, there's no rational reason to fiercely oppose such speeches in such a way that one would go to the lengths of filing a federal lawsuit.

And I know. Not everyone is Christian. Not everyone believes in God. But just because you don't believe in what's being espoused in a planned sermon, doesn't mean you have the right or authority to censor it. It's not as if you're compelled to submit yourself to a specific religion when it's the subject of an oration. Like the pointless valedictorian speeches with hackneyed directives to make "the most of yourself" and "the world a better place," the remedy for the person who doesn't want to hear anything about Jesus or the path to God is to simply block it out.

Yes, we must tolerate the minority, but we must also tolerate the majority (and in Kentucky where the crowd got so enthusiastic - it's a pretty big majority), and it's absurd that the interest group with the word "liberty" in its name finds more of it in a shield against religious exposure than the ability of free persons to practice it as they see fit

It's Our Fault if Mexicans Die

2006-05-17T23:12:00.000-04:00

Mexico, which opposes any U.S. militarization of the border despite the fact that its side is crawling with soldiers, has actually threatened to sue us in our own courts if the National Guard become "directly involved in detaining migrants."

So why does Mexico oppose the National Guard on the border? Because the presence of troops would force illegal migrants to travel on more perilous routes to avoid detection - in order to break federal law. If anything were to happen along to way to these immigrants, it would of course be our fault.

It's hard to believe after reading this AP story that President Bush is still best buddies with the president of our neighbor to the south:

"If there is a real wave of rights abuses, if we see the National Guard starting to directly participate in detaining people ... we would immediately start filing lawsuits through our consulates," Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez told a Mexico City radio station. He did not offer further details.

Mexican officials worry the crackdown will lead to more deaths. Since Washington toughened security in Texas and California in 1994, migrants have flooded Arizona's hard-to-patrol desert and deaths have spiked. Migrant groups estimate 500 people died trying to cross the border in 2005. The Border Patrol reported 473 deaths in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

Juan Canche, 36, traveled more than 1,200 miles to the border from the southern town of Izamal and said nothing would stop him from trying to cross.

"Even with a lot of guards and soldiers in place, we have to jump that puddle," said Canche, referring to the drought-stricken Rio Grande dividing Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas. "My family is hungry and there is no work in my land. I have to risk it."

In Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas, Honduran Antonio Auriel said he would make it into the U.S.

"Soldiers on the border? That won't stop me," he said. "I'll swim the river and jump the wall. I'm going to arrive in the United States."

Look, if you want to swim in my pool against my wishes and jump the fence to get in, don't expect me to be responsible if you drown. The plight of many Mexicans to seek a better life is an understandable one, but once you take your first step into the desert you take on a great risk that you alone decide to try.

The United States government is charged by the Constitution to protect this nation and has the wherewithal to do so. Our commissioned officers have sworn to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." And who are these foreign enemies? Terrorists. Terrorism as we all know, is a real threat, and one of the more practical solutions to keeping malicious invaders out of our country is to maintain an awesomely fortified border.

Unfortunately a vast number of migrants who seek only a better life get caught up in the mess, but our resolve must remain absolute. Our government is bending over backwards, trying to figure out a fair way to assimilate migrants into our society. But those who are jumping the gun take a deadly risk, and many will run into tragic consequences.

The threat of lawsuits is simply absurd. The U.S. government should be condemning them as pure foolishness and should be making it loud and clear that our federal courts will not compensate the parties of criminals who ignore our laws when they venture illegally into the United States.

Japan's Got it Right

2006-05-17T14:21:00.000-04:00

Those guys don't mess around:

TOKYO (Reuters) - Foreigners arriving in Japan will be photographed and fingerprinted on arrival as part of measures to prevent terrorism, under a measure approved by Japan's parliament on Wednesday.

It allows Japan to deport any arriving foreigner it considers to be a terrorist, and requires planes and ships arriving in Japan to submit lists of passengers before arrival.

Japan's Federation of Bar Associations had called for the bill to be scrapped, saying fingerprinting foreigners violates a constitutional requirement to treat people with respect.

A police report in December said Japan was at risk of attack because of its close links with the United States.

Fingerprinting and photographs were introduced at U.S. immigration checkpoints in 2004.

But not soon enough. It should be a general rule that if you're not a citizen of a particular country, the government will be paying close attention to you. There's nothing "disrespectful" about fingerprinting foreigners inasmuch as it is quite disrespectful to cause massive casualties as a result of a covert terrorist strike.

We live in fearful times. Sometimes drastic measures must be taken to ensure public safety, even if we must go as far as taking somebody's fingerprints.

More of that Annoying Napoleon Kid

2006-05-16T22:12:00.000-04:00

Apparently a lot of people liked Napoleon Dynamite so much that another DVD edition has been pushed out of the factory: "Like the Best Special Edition Ever!" - two discs that apparently include more of that horrible, horrible dancing everyone loves so.

The question is: If you already have the one-disk Napoleon DVD, do you, like, go out and buy the "Best Special Edition Ever!" edition?

Bush's Immigration Speech: Practical or Pipedream?

2006-05-15T22:23:00.000-04:00

President Bush's immigration speech tonight hardly justified pushing back "24" in order to accommodate an unclear plan that may bring stability to our nation's southern border. The rub, of course, is the enforceability to the president's strategy.

Here is Bush's five-point plan to "deliver a system that is secure, orderly, and fair."

First, the United States must secure its borders. This is a basic responsibility of a sovereign Nation. It is also an urgent requirement of our national security. Our objective is straightforward: The border should be open to trade and lawful immigration – and shut to illegal immigrants, as well as criminals, drug dealers, and terrorists.

Bush is absolutely 100% correct on this. We need a secure border, but a border is only secure if we know who's crossing it. As of now there is no system in place to catch every illegal alien crossing the border. Bush wants to install 6,000 National Guard personnel and eventually hire 6,000 more border patrol agents. But are these numbers sufficient? Fox's Bill O'Reilly wants 15,000 National Guard troops. Why less than half? What kind of technology will the National Guard bring?

Second, to secure our border, we must create a temporary worker program. The reality is that there are many people on the other side of our border who will do anything to come to America to work and build a better life. They walk across miles of desert in the summer heat, or hide in the back of 18-wheelers to reach our country. This creates enormous pressure on our border that walls and patrols alone will not stop. To secure the border effectively, we must reduce the numbers of people trying to sneak across.

Unless you believe in magic, this part of the plan makes no sense. How will a guest-worker program abruptly reduce the number of illegal crossers? If the first part of the plan is successfully implemented, and the border does become "secure," there will be no reason to introduce a plan to reduce the number of illegal aliens crossing the border!

The practical reason for something like a guest-worker program would be to provide a way for foreigners to legally find work in the country without applying for citizenship. The problem is, for this to work foreigners would have to comply with the rules that include returning home after the duration of the stay. But do we honestly expect those on the program to voluntarily leave the country? Can we bridge the program to a plan to legalization? Should we?

Third, we need to hold employers to account for the workers they hire. It is against the law to hire someone who is in this country illegally. Yet businesses often cannot verify the legal status of their employees, because of the widespread problem of document fraud. Therefore, comprehensive immigration reform must include a better system for verifying documents and work eligibility. A key part of that system should be a new identification card for every legal foreign worker.

Like step one, this part is crucial. It's too easy for illegal aliens to find work when employers are welcoming them with open arms. Companies must be heavily fined and punished for knowingly hiring illegal aliens. In Bush's world employers have been tricked into hiring illegal aliens, but how many do it knowingly?

Fourth, we must face the reality that millions of illegal immigrants are already here. They should not be given an automatic path to citizenship. This is amnesty, and I oppose it. Amnesty would be unfair to those who are here lawfully – and it would invite further waves of illegal immigration.

This is the most unclear part of the plan. The president is against full-blown amnesty, but also against mass deportation. He calls for a penalty system that I believe is unattractive to illegal aliens who need an incentive to register in the country legally. Bush is pandering to the moderates while trying not to offend either end too much by pretending you can oppose deportation without granting amnesty.

Fifth, we must honor the great American tradition of the melting pot, which has made us one Nation out of many peoples. The success of our country depends upon helping newcomers assimilate into our society, and embrace our common identity as Americans. Americans are bound together by our shared ideals, an appreciation of our history, respect for the flag we fly, and an ability to speak and write the English language.

That's some sugary sweet goodness for you! This is all well and good, but in order to get to this point we must get step one right, and that requires immediate reinforcement of the border. Will 6,000 National Guard troops do the trick?

Regardless, it is a start. No one will be perfectly satisfied with the program, but at least the illegal immigration issue is getting some serious attention. Here is the recap:

Step One: Secure the Border. (Excellent, but the president's strategy for this is a long shot.)

Step Two: Guest-Worker Program. (Unnecessary; won't reduce number of illegal crossers, but a start to allowing for legal immigration.)

Step Three: Hold Employers Accountable. (Necessary, and can be easily enforced. Make it harder for illegal aliens to find work, and force them to become legal.)

Step Four: Legalize the Illegals. (This is amnesty even if you make them pay a fee for it. Needs clarity if not scrapped all together.)

Step Five: Honor the melting pot. (The president simply being a politician.)

From the Public School Chronicles

2006-05-15T15:27:00.000-04:00

How did this tool not expect a parent to find out and complain about this:

A high school teacher has apologized for asking students to write about who they would kill and how they would do it, and officials said he will likely keep his job.

Michael Maxwell, who teaches industrial technology at Central High School, said his request that students in his beginning drafting class describe how they would carry out a murder was merely a writing prompt. It was not clear why he asked the drafting class to write fiction.

"I made a horrible mistake that I regret," Maxwell said. "I want to apologize to my students, my colleagues and to the community."

This would be no different from a teacher who asked his students to write about who they would brutally rape and how they would go about doing it. To say the teacher made a "horrible mistake" doesn't begin to describe it.

Look, I'm all for creative teaching methods, but sometimes you've just got to teach the damn curriculum and leave it at that.

Border Patrol Turns on Minutemen

2006-05-09T22:50:00.000-04:00

The Department of Homeland Security employs Border Patrol agents to guard the United States/Mexican border by arresting illegal aliens and confiscating illegal drugs. Basically, if it's illegal and on or around the border, the Border Patrol gets involved. To many analysts, pundits and Americans, the Border Patrol is vital to national security and terrorism prevention.

So why is the Border Patrol working with Mexican officials to get illegal aliens across the border under the radar?

Because of the Minutemen. You've heard of them; volunteer American citizens fed up with the government's ineptness and unwillingness to effectively stop the flow of illegal immigration from Mexico. As a result of their presence, the Border Patrol has been sending intelligence to Mexico allowing illegal immigrants to know exactly where the Minutemen are:

According to three documents on the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations Web site, the U.S. Border Patrol is to notify the Mexican government as to the location of Minutemen and other civilian border patrol groups when they participate in apprehending illegal immigrants -- and if and when violence is used against border crossers.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman confirmed the notification process, describing it as a standard procedure meant to reassure the Mexican government that migrants' rights are being observed.

"It's not a secret where the Minuteman volunteers are going to be," Mario Martinez said Monday.

"This ... simply makes two basic statements -- that we will not allow any lawlessness of any type, and that if an alien is encountered by a Minuteman or arrested by the Minuteman, then we will allow that government to interview the person."

Minuteman members were not so sanguine about the arrangement, however, saying that reporting their location to Mexican officials nullifies their effectiveness along the border and could endanger their lives.

"Now we know why it seemed like Mexican officials knew where we were all the time," said Chris Simcox, founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. "It's unbelievable that our own government agency is sending intelligence to another country. They are sending intelligence to a nation where corruption runs rampant, and that could be getting into the hands of criminal cartels.

"They just basically endangered the lives of American people."

Reading this story makes me wonder why we even fund the Border Patrol in the first place when they're revealing the location of volunteers who do nothing more than report alien sightings to the proper authorities.

The "Nobody is Illegal" crowd vilifies the Minutemen volunteers, portraying them as racist and violent, even though despite their outbursts they can't produce any records of Minutemen acting violent toward illegal aliens.

We hear they're a bunch of "heavily armed" gun-toters. And white, really white! But we're not seeing the shootings. We're not seeing the cross burnings. We're not seeing any of the negative embodiment they supposedly represent.

We are however, seeing the effectiveness of the Minutemen, as the higher-ups have been ordering Border Patrol agents to cease arrests in order to keep the Minutemen from "looking good," if you can believe the spitefulness. But they're getting the job done and keeping the illegal immigration issue on the front burner - with or without the backstabbing by the American government.

Bush Seeks Negative Approval Rating

2006-05-08T16:09:00.000-04:00

Not even Tom Cruise gets as much media attention as President Bush's poll numbers. "All-time low!" we are told, and then the next day we read the same headline. Why even waste the ink to print something that will be outdated in 24 hours? "Even lower than yesterday!" will read tomorrow's newspapers, blogs and journals.

But what does this mean for the president and the GOP? Absolutely nothing!

The Democratic Party, completely devoid of a clear agenda by which to lead (oh wait, they promise to catch Osama bin Laden!), is putting all of its chips on a Republican implosion. They look at Bush's poll numbers with glee, hoping that this November Americans will be desperate enough to vote for Democrats again.

According to the most recent USA TODAY poll -- yep, you've guessed it -- "Bush approval rating hits new low." It's at 31%, which I guess is worse than when it was at 34%, bleaker than when it was at 36%.

For Democrats, polls give them solace. They think bad polls for Republicans translate into election victories for Democrats. Pop-Quiz: How many times have Democrats won a majority vote in a national election to become president since FDR?

Answer: Two! Lyndon Johnson in 1964 and Jimmy Carter in 1976. The former was damaged so badly by Vietnam that he opted not to run for re-election, and it took someone like Richard Nixon and his vice-president for Americans to give Democrats another chance. They elected Jimmy Carter, but then fixed that mistake by limiting him to one term in the White House.

But Democrats don't look at history. They look at polls; meaningless polls. As one political pundit put it so perfectly:

And then - despite the fact that every single man, woman and child in America opposed the war in Iraq and despised George Bush - a few months later, Bush won re-election against well-respected war hero John Kerry.

If history is an accurate predictor, Democrats should win Congress easily this year. They should have won it in 2004. Traditionally, the president's party loses Congress in the midterm elections. And we know how bad the Republicans are because Democrats keep reminding us. But then why do Americans continue to keep them in them?

Ramesh Ponnuru's 'The Party of Death'

2006-05-04T15:21:00.000-04:00

I'm late to posting on the blog but over at the main site you can read my review of Ramesh Ponnuru's excellent new book, The Party of Death: The Democrats, The Media, The Courts and the Disregard for Human Life. Here's an excerpt:

With a major midterm election on the horizon it's no wonder the current trend in conservative publishing is the production of "roadmaps" to taking back conservative values and Hugh Hewitt-style steps to ensuring GOP victories in 2006. But few books are delving into the substance on which Ramesh Ponnuru meticulously expounds: the sensitive social issues -- specifically on the topic of life -- of today's political climate.

The book: The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life may at first on a cursory glance look like an assault on liberal values, yet Ponnuru never explicitly charges any mainstream political party of facilitating "the party of death." It is however, no secret or coincidence, that those who support the legality of abortion, stem-cell research and euthanasia are Democrats. "The Democratic Party used to try to protect the weak. But too many of today's Democrats have become part of a 'party of death.'"

For the better, Ponnuru avoids the name-calling game, and instead of going after liberals and left-wingers as the enablers of the party of death, he mostly argues why you shouldn't be a part of it and why the opposing arguments are either flawed or flat-out wrong.

This is a must-read book for all pro-lifers. Buy it here and pass it along to friends and family.

America, You Lost

2006-05-03T23:46:00.000-04:00

As anti-death penalty advocates celebrate the verdict for Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, let us be reminded that the unrepentant terrorist allowed 3,000 Americans to perish on September 11th, 2001. He may not have played a direct role in the attacks, but the fact that he woke up that morning knowing what would soon happen to the thousands of innocent civilians means he deserves the most severe sentence the federal system can bestow.

The rationalization for sparing his life is to deny him martyrdom. So instead, he'll live out the rest of his days in a prison cell that may or may not be furnished with cable television and access to a library.

Moussaoui taunted, "America, you lost. I won," as he was being escorted from the courthouse. And in many respects he is right. He was spared the ultimate sentence even though he took part in the ultimate crime against the United States.

Oh, but maybe supermax prison won't be so peachy. Maybe he will suffer. Maybe the 72 virgins will be spared. Considering the magnitude of this trial, a bitter outcome was unavoidable.

Alito's First Opinion

2006-05-01T22:35:00.000-04:00

Big bad Sam Alito wrote his first opinion that was announced today for a Supreme Court that's supposedly going to "turn back the clock" on civil rights and blah bla-blah bla-blah. Nothing juicy here but being that it's Alito's first written opinion it's worth a mention:

By a 9-0 vote, justices said a South Carolina defendant's constitutional rights were violated by a rule that barred him from introducing testimony blaming another man because the prosecution had introduced forensic evidence that appeared to support a guilty verdict.

Alito wrote that the South Carolina Supreme Court was wrong because it looked only at the strength of the prosecution's evidence and did not consider information that defendant Bobby Lee Holmes had gathered in his defense, including that he was framed by police.

A trial judge excluded evidence that Holmes wanted to present that implicated another man in the 1989 beating, rape and robbery of Mary Stewart, 86, who later died of her injuries.

The prosecution's evidence included Holmes' palm print found on the door of the victim's house, fibers from his sweatshirt discovered on Stewart's sheets and DNA tests that implicated him.

Alito said "the true strength of the prosecution's proof cannot be assessed without considering challenges to the reliability of the prosecution's evidence."

You'd think with DNA evidence the conservatives would have been satisfied enough to throw away the key. After all, Clarence Thomas is the "cruelest justice" and Scalia is Scalia, but this just goes to show how bogus critics of the conservative justices are.

Deconstructing Another Stupid Scalia Critic

2006-05-01T14:51:00.000-04:00

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is such an intellectual force that his critics (of which there are many) can't ever seem to logically deconstruct his arguments. Instead, they attack his character and temperament as if he's supposed to take unfair criticism lying down. A recent article in CQ Weekly is the typical anti-Scalia screed:

Conservatives love Antonin Scalia. And no wonder. The Supreme Court justice just loves to stick it to the liberals. And with life tenure he can get away with it.

This is such an absurd statement that I don't know where to begin. I don't recall Justice Scalia ever discussing his penchant for "sticking it" to liberals, most likely because he's too busy defending the Constitution as a Supreme Court justice. The author of this piece, Kenneth Jost, would have been more accurate in saying liberals love sticking it to Justice Scalia.

In recent weeks, Scalia has denounced people who believe in a "living Constitution" as "idiots" and told critics of Bush v. Gore to "get over it."

Right, because text doesn't change over time. I would agree there's something wrong with individuals (yes even those on the Court) who believe a text's meaning can change over time but only a judge can decipher the change. But why does Jost take offense to Scalia telling critics of Bush v. Gore to get over it? Should liberals still be fuming six years later? Is it Scalia's fault President Bush was re-elected (by the country and Florida) in 2004?

He has defended his decision not to step out of a case involving his duck-hunting companion Vice President Dick Cheney, and he has raised a new question about his impartiality in a pending case by publicly declaring that foreign terrorists are not entitled to jury trials.

Despite there not being a way to factually measure someone's impartiality, liberals are so sure Scalia is biased toward the vice president because they hunted together. But life-tenured justices have nothing to gain by practicing nepotism. That is why John Roberts and Sam Alito can hear cases involving the Bush administration even though the president gave them their jobs. They have no reason to favor him.

But what bothers liberals the most about Scalia is that he has spoken publicly about not favoring U.S. trials for foreign blood-spilling terrorists. It's an opinion many sane individuals have, but generic enough to allow the justice to hear cases involving this matter on the Court. We know what Ruth Bader Ginsburg's opinion is on abortion, but you don't hear conservatives screaming for her to step down whenever the Court hears abortion cases.

I find it humorous that Scalia's critics are still bothered by his "gesture" that nearly killed a reporter, and according to Jost, "that was at the least insulting and arguably obscene." More "insulting" and "obscene" than a reporter who disturbed the justice while he was attending church services in a private capacity?

Scalia has staked out some of the most conservative positions of any Supreme Court justice since perhaps the 1930s. And his vote has been decisive in any of the 5-4 decisions where he joined the majority, like the series of cases under former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist easing the rules for government funding of religious institutions and strengthening states’ rights in disputes over federal powers.

Yes, it is true conservatives usually stake out conservative opinions. It's an unexplained phenomenon scientists are still trying to crack in addition to figuring out why they believe states should have rights impervious to the federal government when everyone knows the men in D.C. knows what's best for the 50 states and its 300 million people.

Scalia's personal influence after 20 years on the court, however, is unclear. In most of those closely divided cases, Rehnquist turned to justices other than Scalia to forge and hold a majority. If he were to retire today, Scalia would be remembered mostly for taking positions in dissenting or separate opinions that even his fellow conservatives sometimes refused to join.

I think Scalia would be remembered as one of the most intelligent justices to serve on the Court, whose critics, like Jost, could only conjecture and be unable to criticize the logic of his opinions.

The reason why Scalia hasn't written an overwhelming number of majority opinions, according to political scientists, is because in order to keep moderate Justices Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor in the crucial 5-4 bloc the opinion would have to be written by a more moderate justice. Don't be surprised when in a few years both Scalia and Thomas are given more majority opinions to write.

On several of his signature issues, Scalia is clearly in the minority on the court. Scalia believes in "original intent" as the only way to interpret the Constitution. At least six of the court's current members disagree, including the new chief justice, John G. Roberts Jr. Scalia believes that foreign law should never be used to help interpret the Constitution. A majority of the justices, including conservative Anthony M. Kennedy, disagree. And none of the other justices agree with Scalia on his stubborn refusal to ever look at legislative history in interpreting congressional statutes.

1: It's way too early to tell whether Roberts believes in "original intent" as he's been on the Supreme Court for less than a year.

2: Of course a majority of justices believe in using foreign law because with Anthony Kennedy they form a liberal majority! But reread how Jost phrases that point, as if there's something wrong with the position that foreign law shouldn't influence interpretation of our Constitution. "Scalia believes that foreign law should never be used to help interpret the Constitution." Why on earth do we need to consult foreign text to interpret how the U.S. Constitution was written? As Scalia has said in his reasoning (conveniently left out by Jost) how do we decide which foreign countries should shape our Constitution? France? Italy? Iran? North Korea? Congo?

I wonder what proponents of a foreign Constitution would say if you tell them a majority of countries have far more strict abortion laws than ours? Can we still use their influence then?

3: Jost is just plain wrong in saying only Scalia refuses to look at history when interpreting legislative statutes. Quite a few justices at some point, including Thomas, have narrowly focused on the text of the law. And that makes sense, American history hasn't always been pretty and if you can get an understanding of the meaning of a stature without conjecture it's the perfect way to go. Jost believes justices can somehow look decades into the past to determine how law makers "felt" when they wrote laws as a tool for modern interpretation.

He accused the six justices who struck down state anti-sodomy laws of taking sides in "the culture war." The five who voted to limit display of the Ten Commandments in government buildings, he said, were guilty of "hostility to religion."

Because justices did take sides in the culture war when they determined it was wrong to ban sodomy. Using Jost's approach, the history of our legislature was hostile to sodomy. Word opinion has been hostile to sodomy. There's nothing in the Constitution that explicitly protects sodomy. Therefore, to say sodomy is a right is to take sides in the culture war.

And justices were hostile to religion when they limited the display of the Ten Commandments because the First Amendment says nothing about displaying religious documents in public.

Jost claims "Scalia's colleagues do not stoop to reply to his personal attacks," but if you read Supreme Court opinions you'll find the justices trading barbs with one another all the time; just read Stevens' concurring opinion (I know, it actually means reading) in Roper v. Simmons, where he attacks Scalia's originalist (and correct) interpretation of the Eight Amendment. But I'm sure Jost doesn't read Supreme Court opinions so I can understand why he lied.

The irreconcilable right wing cares little for the dignity of the court...That's politics perhaps. Scalia, however, is no politician, but a robe-wearing justice. The court - and the public it serves - deserve better.

Better what? Better justices like Ruth Bader Ginsburg who naps during oral arguments? Would that bring "dignity" back to the Court? Does America deserve more justices like the liberals in Kelo who gave the federal government the right to take your property and give it to another private party?

Just what, Mr. Jost, do you mean when you say America deserves better? Because I believe America deserves better, too. More justices like Scalia to frustrate people like Jost who frequently criticize their opinions without bringing up a single one of their legal arguments to debate. But I understand. It's much easier to after Scalia for using the word "idiot" to accurately describe his critics.

Limbaugh Avoids Slammer

2006-05-01T00:12:00.000-04:00

A zealous prosecutor who once claimed to have a grab bag of charges against Rush Limbaugh has worked out a deal with the radio host to drop a single count of fraud against him in 18 months if Limbaugh agrees to continue drug treatment.

In case you didn't know the details, Rush admitted awhile back to being addicted to prescription painkillers had had sought like-prescriptions from four different physicians. A really bad writer at The Huffington Post, Jason Pollock was hoping to see Mr. Limbaugh in the orange jumpsuit:

As most of you now know, Rush has spent some time at the police station. Addicts can't control themselves and he just can't seem to get off his precious pills.

However, through all of this the Drudge Report is running a headline with Rush's face that plainly says, 'Not Guilty.' Are you kidding me?

Is Mr. Drudge trying to get the country and the world to laugh?

Just like everyone knows that Karl Rove is guilty and not 'focusing on the election,' everyone knows that Rush is a drug addict and that he was in fact doctor shopping.

I think the lines between the Daily Show and the Drudge Report are blurred more and more every day. Both media outlets make a point and get people to laugh. The difference is that Jon Stewart is making people laugh by telling them the truth and the Drudge Report is making people laugh because he reports mainly lies.

I am so sick and tired of the right wing constantly telling the world about how people should live clean and moral lives when they are the ones living lives of deceit and crime.

So we know Karl Rove is guilty. We know Limbaugh is guilty. We know Jon Stewart's fake journalism satire tells the truth while Drudge Report lies (even though 99% of the site links to official news sources) and right-wingers live "lives of deceit and crime."

Analyzing this garbage would be giving too much credit to Pollock.

Colbert Does Bush

2006-04-30T22:52:00.000-04:00

Last night C-Span televised the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner featuring Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert as the lead roaster.

Liberals are furious the media isn't making a bigger deal of the skewering, claiming Colbert was brilliant and "biting," and that the pro-Bush press (an oxymoron if I've ever heard one) refused to laugh because they were afraid to upset our Great Leader.

Or maybe Colbert just wasn't that funny. Admittedly I missed the show because I have better things to do on Saturday nights, but The Huffington Post is deep in conspiracy theories and both Atrios and Kouskous give Colbert two thumbs up for hammering the president.

Conservatives on the other hand believe he bombed. I don’t know who to believe, but if Colbert was anything like his pal Jon Stewart doing the Oscars then there’s a reason why you didn’t hear much laughter.

Somebody Must be Listening

2006-04-26T15:12:00.000-04:00

I'm getting a little tired of these doomsday reports regarding progressive radio. Forever Bill O'Reilly has been gloating over the financial troubles at Air America Radio, having predicted many times its early demise. This new Drudge flash reports: "Left-leaning new media has hit turbulence at the marketplace, newly released stats show."

Yet Air America is in its third year and continues to find markets despite conservatives telling us no one's listening. Until the network is dead I find it pointless to talk about how poorly it's doing.

When it first premired a few years back I looked forward to Al Franken's comedic take on the political issues, but unscripted the monotone pundit is mediocre at best. I used to tolerate Randi Rhodes but she's just another liberal shrill who says the same thing everyday about how horrible conservatives are.

I won't miss Air America when it's gone, but that's if it ever leaves. Fewer people than ever may be tuning in, but somewhere Al Franken is still talking into a microphone.

Oh Jesus

2006-04-20T20:57:00.000-04:00

Leave it to Georgia to test, try and instigate America's tolerance for religion in the public square. When enough people find out about this class, head for cover:

ATLANTA - Georgia became what is believed to be the first state to offer government-sanctioned elective classes on the Bible, with Gov. Sonny Perdue signing a bill into law Thursday.

The governor also signed a bill permitting the display of the Ten Commandments at courthouses, an issue that has raised thorny constitutional questions.

Critics say the measures blur the line between church and state.

The new law allows elective classes on the Bible to be taught to high school students. Local school systems will decide whether to teach the courses.

Thanks to a ridiculously pragmatic and indecisive Supreme Court last term, we don't really know how constitutional the Ten Commandments are in public (in one case the display wrongly promoted religion, in another it justifiably promoted history; both cases would most likely be constitutional now that Alito has replaced O'Connor who was left-leaning on religion).

It is my belief the First Amendment bars our government from sponsoring a religion in an official capacity. I don't believe it is offended when a public school offers an elective course on the matter. In Georgia's case, the Bible. Nor do I believe the First Amendment would be offended by a Ten Commandments display just as long as its purpose isn't to enforce religious dogma on the populace.

Naturally the law will be tried in federal judiciary, but the current markup of the Supreme Court, I believe, will allow it to stand as it should. No one is compelled to take the religious course, and no one is forced to recognize a monument of the Ten Commandments during their business at the courthouse.

Media Bias, Good Book, Old Justice and Playboy

2006-04-20T13:25:00.000-04:00

I'm amazed we still debate whether or not the media is liberal when mainstream publications like Rolling Stone routinely publish articles about the worst president in history.
Just finished reading an advance copy of Ramesh Ponnuru's The Party of Death, a great book on abortion and other cultural issues. It hasn't been officially released yet but you can snatch up a copy right now from Amazon. A review is forthcoming.
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens turns 86 today. Congratulations, Your Honor. I wish you a happy and healthy birthday with many more to come, but to celebrate them on a golf course instead of the Supreme Court.
Baylor University has barred female students from posing in Playboy, the famous skin rag that's recruiting students for their women of the Big 12 issue. Being that Baylor bills itself as the largest Baptist college in the world, you have to wonder why some of the students there are either surprised or unhappy with the decision.

One More Album I Won't Buy

2006-04-17T18:39:00.000-04:00

Stop what you're doing! In a startling development, some rock musician has come out against President Bush! And how. According to Reuters and other sources, Neil Young has recorded a 10-song "protest album featuring an anti-Iraq war track with 'a holy vow to never kill again' and a song titled 'Let's Impeach the President.'"

Chalk up another moron who thinks Congress has the time and wherewithal to proceed with impeachment hearings when there's more important business being neglected. And again, impeaching President Bush would only mean making Dick Cheney the new president. Bush-haters seem to forget that when dreaming of a country without Bush.

Oh, but we'll get Cheney too!

And Rumsfeld!

And Rice!

And then the whole damn GOP!

Going Nowhere Fast

2006-04-17T16:58:00.000-04:00

Despite the media hype and partisan rhetoric, the confirmation battles of now-Chief Justice John Roberts and now-Justice Samuel Alito were just preseason games. The next confirmation fight could be the Super Bowl if the next justice to retire/die is one of the five moderate-to-liberal justices.

Conservative activists have to be frothing at the mouth now as their party may not have control of the Senate (the house that approves or rejects a president's nominee) seven months from now, and you can be sure at least one liberal justice will try his best to hang on until at least the midterm elections (emphasis added):

WASHINGTON - As Justice John Paul Stevens turns 86 this week, he is the latest jurist to watch in what has become, during President Bush's second term, a vulturine pastime for ideological activists: predicting the next vacancy on the Supreme Court.

Stevens, a Republican who votes with the liberal bloc of the court and who declined an interview for this story, has announced no plans for retirement. In the mid-1970s, he had heart bypass surgery and a polyp removed from his colon, and in the early 1990s, he was treated for prostate cancer. But these days, acquaintances say the Shakespeare buff who has piloted his own planes and plays tennis is healthy, even spry. They say he dabbled with the idea of retirement years ago and instead compromised -- with a condo in Florida where he can read briefs and spend time with his wife, who has had health problems, when he is not needed in court.

Having spent time in South Florida I can't say I'm surprised there are 86-year-olds out there playing tennis and flying planes, but if the good justice is going to stay on this earth for awhile longer I'd sure like him a whole lot more if he'd just retire so that less opinions by Ruth Bader Ginsburg (and John Paul Stevens) will be majority ones.

Just Take Him Away Already

2006-04-12T18:26:00.000-04:00

If this kid suffers any trauma later in life, I won't be surprised if it's because the media obsesses over every incident:

At least one social worker, accompanied by deputies, visited [Britney] Spears' Malibu home Saturday afternoon, L.A. County Sheriff's Lieutenant Debra Glafkides said Wednesday.

The visit occurred after the pop star's seven-month-old son was diagnosed with a skull fracture, Star magazine reported Wednesday.

Spears' baby, Sean Preston, was injured Mar. 31 in a high chair mishap while in the care of his nanny in California. Spears and Federline were in Dallas at the time, the tabloid said.

Add this story to the one about Britney driving with the kid on her lap and you've got a candidate for Worst Mother of the Year. Or maybe accidents happen to kids - being that they're kids - and the media should find something more important to obsess over and leave the Spears' family alone.

The Best Way to Protest Scalia

2006-04-08T22:04:00.000-04:00

Gay students at the University of Connecticut are planning to protest the arrival of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who will soon be delivering a speech at the law school. To show their contempt for his not finding a right to homosexual sodomy in the U.S. Constitution, some of the protesters are planning a same-sex kissing booth:

Some members of the Lambda Law Society, a gay student organization, said they plan to hold a mini-carnival with a same-sex kissing booth during Scalia's lecture.

The group objects to Scalia's stance on gay issues, including his dissent in the Lawrence vs. Texas case, which struck down a law prohibiting homosexual sodomy.

"There's a lot of contentiousness about this because we want to attempt to convey our lack of respect for the justice, but do so in a way that's not offensive but is also fun," said Gavan Meehan, the society's president.

It's not just about showing a "lack of respect" for a justice with whom they disagree, it's about being an immature ass. For the life of me I can't imagine what a gay make-out party would accomplish. It's not like the justice is calling for a law against being gay.

But if you want to protest, I've got a much better idea that will get you a lot more media mileage than a kissing booth: express your displeasure with Scalia's dissent in Stenberg v. Carhart by finding a pregnant woman in her ninth month who would be willing to undergo a partial-birth abortion in public view. An abortion booth would not only be cooler than a same-sex kissing booth, it would also be a lot more original.

Limits of Child Porn Regulation

2006-04-07T23:09:00.000-04:00

It's a thriving, depraved industry that's seeing little resistance from the majority of countries around the world. A bleak report from Security Pipeline:

At a press conference in Washington, D.C., the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children and other participants presented a study on Thursday that reveals the woeful inadequacy of child pornography laws around the world.

The ICMEC's global policy review of child pornography laws in 184 Interpol-member countries shows that more than half have no laws that specifically address child pornography and in many others the existing laws are insufficient.

The ICMEC study found that possession of child pornography is not a crime in 138 countries. In 122 countries, there's no law dealing with the use of computers and the Internet as a means of child porn distribution.

Only five countries - Australia, Belgium, France, South Africa and the United States - have laws deemed adequate by ICMEC to address the issue.

As ahead as the United States is with federal laws against producing/possessing child porn written in the books, it hardly prevents Americans from accessing the contraband; much of it produced and distributed in foreign countries where offenders can easily get away with exploiting children.

The federal government went so far as to pass the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 which made it a crime to possess "virtual" child porn, a law that encompassed drawings, cartoons and computer generated images. The Supreme Court rightly struck it down in a 6-3 ruling on free speech grounds, suggesting virtual pornography can be construed as art if no real minors are being used.

"Real" child pornography, however, is still federally outlawed as far as interstate commerce is concerned, but the problem for law enforcement is catching the offender in the act, being that most perverts don't download child porn in the public library.

And if Americans have such an easy time finding child porn, one could imagine how easy it is in countries with less effective law enforcement.

Queer Logic

2006-04-05T13:58:00.000-04:00

The homosexual-hater is a reminder to Gay Wired just how important it is to win elections:

Justice Scalia's Anti-Gay Comments are Reminder of Need for Fair-Minded Legislators

(Washington, D.C.) - Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese has released a statement condemning comments Justice Antonin Scalia made recently at a Swiss law school claiming there is no Constitutional right to "homosexual conduct."

"Justice Scalia stubbornly refuses to see that all Americans have a right to liberty and privacy under the law," said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. "Justice Scalia was dangerously out of step with Americans in 2003 when the Supreme Court decided this question and he remains so today.

"This is just the latest example of why it's so critical that fair-minded Americans think of the Court when they head to the ballot box. With the Supreme Court tipping further to the right, these sentiments could one day become reality."

According to a clip aired on CNN, on March 8, 2006, Justice Scalia told students at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland:

"Question comes up: is there a constitutional right to homosexual conduct? Not a hard question for me. It's absolutely clear that nobody ever thought when the Bill of Rights was adopted that it gave a right to homosexual conduct. Homosexual conduct was criminal for 200 years in every state. Easy question."

This article simply highlights the ignorance of activist partisans who refuse to accept the role of Supreme Court justices as interpreters of the Constitution instead of guardians of society's moral values.

Here we have a justice who is labeled "anti-gay" because he can't find a constitutional right to homosexual sodomy in the U.S. Constitution. But Justice Scalia believes the Constitution fails to protect the right to "privacy" of any kind, so natural that includes gay sex and heterosexual sodomy. Following the logic of the author, Justice Scalia must also be "anti-straight."

There's a reason why the framers left out a right to privacy in the Constitution, and one of the more obvious explanations is that crimes can be committed in a zone of privacy and should be regulated by the states. Such crimes that can take place include possession of child pornography, illegal weapons, illegal drugs, prostitution and gambling. If the state can regulate these activities (and most agree kiddy porn is a bad thing) then it can also regulate -- according to Justice Scalia though not by the Court's majority -- abortion, contraceptives, and homosexual sodomy.

Oliver Stone: Celebrities Not Worshipped Enough

2006-04-04T00:02:00.000-04:00

Here's an interesting little read at Contactmusic.com from a director who's no stranger to controversy:

Movie-maker OLIVER STONE has blasted media groups who "slander" celebrities for their political comments - because intelligent stars have every right to question their leaders. The Vietnam veteran, who is a fierce opponent of the US leadership, is appalled every time a celebrity is rudely mocked for making his or her thoughts about PRESIDENT GEORGE W BUSH and the war in Iraq public, and he urges journalists to be more supportive.

The NATURAL BORN KILLERS director says, "We're Hollywood wackos and all that stuff, left-wing... (It's) an easy and facile dismissal. I'm still a citizen, I've served my country as a veteran, I've had many jobs before the film business. I know something of life, having lived to this age. We have a right to speak and every time we speak: 'You're an actor, a showbusiness director,' we're making it up! This is not a way of dealing with people. This is slander."

Either the website formatting is to fault or Stone is just incoherent, as the comment is rather unintelligible; but the message is clear. Stone is imagining a hostile media toward loud-mouth celebrities, but save for Fox News Hollywood is the media's darling. They've always had a forum provided by said media to espouse their typical liberal views on everything.

Occasionally, entertainment outlets like South Park take them to task for it. Hey, nobody told George Clooney to talk about being the "sexiest man in Hollywood" during his acceptance speech. He was due for a lampooning.

Nobody minds when celebrities speak their views, we're used to it. But when they get crazy…as Sharon Stone recently did with these "words of wisdom" (so says Salon) during a promotion for Bombed Instinct 2: "It's traumatizing for me to come to Washington during a Republican administration because I don't have any Republican clothes..."

And that's tame for a Hollywood celebrity.

Hammered Out

2006-04-03T23:11:00.000-04:00

The hammer has hammered his last nail. Ok, I apologize for that one. This is probably good for Republicans as they'll be looking to clean up their image for the pivotal 2006 congressional election that's certainly not looking good for them despite fewer seats to lose than their opponents. Will people remember Tom DeLay eight months from now? That might matter.

The former majority leader who has served in the House for 21 years will not seek reelection. With everyone affiliated with the GOP going down in these recent months one must wonder how there are any Republicans left in Congress. If Democrats can't capitalize this year I don't see them making any substantial gains for a long, long time.

Violent Congresswoman Not Yet Out of Woods

2006-04-03T18:28:00.000-04:00

While liberal bloggers hope charges will be filed against Ann Coutler for aledgedly voting in the wrong precinct, they have been curiously silent about Democratic congresswoman Cynthia McKinney's refusal to stop at a congressional security checkpoint and subsequent assault on an officer.

No charges have been filed yet but the case has been forwarded to a federal prosecutor for further examination. But because Ms. McKinney wasn't arrested at the scene as she should have been, I see little purpose in dragging the case through the mud and wasting the district attorney's time. He has more important things to mull, such as Justice Scalia's outrageously offensive gesture that almost killed a reporter.

UPDATE: U.S. Capitol Police have now sought an arrest warrant for the flamboyant congresswoman. So I guess they're really serious about this. I wonder how long the liberal blogs will remain silent for.

Stalking Scalia

2006-03-30T12:01:00.000-05:00

Today's Ronald Cass piece is a great read that covers the media sensationalism flanking Justice Scalia:

One of the week's big news stories was the dramatic account of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, accosted outside a Boston Mass, using a Sicilian hand gesture to explain what he would say to people who question his very public commitment to Catholicism. The implicit question wasn't whether it was alright for a judge to be a practicing Catholic. Instead, it was whether Scalia was improperly committed to positions on cases coming before the Court. Especially on matters like abortion, where the Catholic Church has an official position.

Yet publicly committing to a position - or to a set of beliefs and interpretations - is exactly what liberal Senators and the interest groups that support them were demanding during the recent confirmation hearings of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. No one on the Left seemed concerned that the nominees would be open to criticism, or even recusal, if they declared on the record that the Constitution contained a right to privacy that protected women seeking abortions from state interference or if they embraced a particularly expansive vision of such a right.

Despite the media virtually ignoring the nap Justice Ginsburg took during oral arguments two weeks ago, it never lets go of Scalia because, as Cass notes, "Scalia is the leading voice for a set of legal propositions that run counter to the political, social, and constitutional agenda of the dominant voices in almost every major element of America's Speaking elites."

Liberal blogger Atrios, a proud atheist (go figure), has suddenly become offended that Scalia might have made an improper gesture inside a church: "In other words, he didn't just make the sign for 'f**k you' he said 'f**k you.' In church. What will we tell the children."

I can't blame the justice for dismissing the reporter with that (hardly explicit) gesture, for he did not want to be bothered while attending religious services. He is routinely hounded to a greater degree than any other justice, by a mob of media elites who couldn't hold a candle to Scalia's intellectual capacity.

Ben Domenech on Plagiarizers

2006-03-27T14:29:00.000-05:00

After reading this tidbit you never would have assumed the author himself was a serial plagiarist, but then again, can we really be so sure this is an original work of Benny boy:

Jayson Blair refuses to have any sense of guilt over his actions at the New York Times. He says he received no preferential treatment. He says he deserves to be hailed as a genius for his elaborate lies. He says he laughed at the sheer inaccuracy of his cliched description of Jessica Lynch's West Virginia family home.

Jayson Blair is just one more journalistic pezzonovante amidst a crowd of his peers. The only difference is, he's unashamed of his pretty little lies. In fact, he's proud of them.

The ultimate insult that we could pay towards this wretch would be to forget him. He deserves no more of our time.

Tough talk from a guy who was also unashamed of his lies when he denied his unforgivable activities, only to finally semi-apologize when the piles of evidence stacked against him towered too tall.

And before today we thought we couldn't loath Benny boy anymore than we already did, but now we have him on record berating a fraud no worse than the righteous man himself.

Kudos to INDC Journal and Michelle Malkin for not burying this embarrassing episode we can and should all learn from.