Friday, May 7, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Photos From The Downtown Los Angeles May Day Immigration Rallies And Why The Double Standard In The Media Coverage As Compared To The Tea Parties
Are there extreme signs at Tea Parties? Of course, the media makes sure to show you the sign of Obama with a Hitler mustache. There are, however, three differences between the May Day and Tea Party rallies. First, the Tea Parties have been rallying for well over a year and there has been not a single arrest or act of violence by anyone at any protest. On the other hand, in Santa Cruz, California, members of the May Day immigration rally on behalf of illegal aliens did turn violent. Further, police also had to be called in to stop protesters turning violent at Arizona's capitol after Arizona's recent bill was passed. Just today in downtown Los Angeles, the AP reports Los Angeles police arrested "protesters who chained themselves together on a downtown street to protest Arizona's new immigration law... Dozens of helmeted officers surrounded the demonstrators before declaring an unlawful assembly and moving in. No injuries are reported. Officer Gregory Baek says the protesters will be booked for delaying, resisting and obstructing officers." If the Tea Parties would misbehave in a fashion that represented just a small fraction of what was seen at some May Day or anti-Arizona rallies, there would be front page non-stop news coverage trumping up the extremism of the Tea Parties. Second, extreme signs that appeared in any Tea Party surely got coverage while signs that are extreme at May Day rallies on behalf of illegal immigration seem to get absolutely none. Finally, the Tea Party rallies exhibit a sense of patriotism, with American flags and recitals of the pledge allegiance being an important part of every rally. The same cannot be said for the May Day rallies which seem sometimes to display an overtly anti-American overtone.
The following are but a few photos from the Downtown L.A. May Day rally that the media will not show you, which included flags of Cuban Communist Che Guevera (the "butcher of La Cabaña") and signs comparing Latinos in America to the Jews in Europe during the Second World War:
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Last Navy Seal Acquitted For Treatment Of Iraqi Terrorist
Human Events reports that "Navy SEAL Officer 2nd Class Matthew McCabe was found not guilty Thursday evening on charges of assaulting detained terrorist Ahmed Hashim Abed, dereliction of duty, and impeding an investigation based on a false statement. A seven member military jury deliberated for an hour and forty minutes before reaching a verdict. For a verdict to be reached, two-thirds of the jury had to agree on each charge. Upon hearing the verdict, McCabe's mother gasped, covering her mouth with her hands, while his father and sister smiled. McCabe and his counsel shared a few hugs and pats on the back. "I was trying not to cry," McCabe's mother later told HUMAN EVENTS. Last month in courts martial in Baghdad, Petty Officers Julio Huertas and Jonathan Keefe, also Navy SEALs, were acquitted of charges that they failed to safeguard Abed. McCabe was the only SEAL charged with actual assault."
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Students Sent Home For Wearing Patriotic American Flag T-Shirt On Cinco De Mayo
One moronic girl says that the boys wearing patriotic clothing should apologize for having "disrespected" the students of Mexican heritage, and that "we wouldn't do that on Fourth of July." This is the liberal public education system at work. First, how does wearing American flag clothing "disrespect" anybody on any day within the United States? It's asinine. Secondly, why would an American student, even if they were of Mexican heritage, feel "disrespected" by the American national flag? Thirdly, it is not at all like wearing a Mexican flag on Fourth of July. It would be analogous to a kid in Mexico getting sent home from school because he wore Mexican flag clothing on the Fourth of July.
These school officials should feel ashamed and they should be the ones apologizing to the students they sent home and threatened with suspension for "defiance." I would encourage the parents of the students wearing patriotic flags to sue the school officials and the school district for violating the First Amendment's right to free speech of their patriotic children. In 1969 the Supreme Court ruled in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District that schools are allowed to regulate speech if it will substantially and materially disrupt the educational objectives of the school, otherwise there are free speech rights and content-based regulations are not allowed. That case dealt with students that decided to wear black armbands showing peace symbols on them to their schools in protest of the Vietnam War, and the Supreme Court said that the students could not be suspended by the school for doing so. With that precedent, would any court in the land dare rule that patriotic clothing in an American school can be a source of "substantial and material disruption"? I doubt it. This seems like one of most clear cases where a school's disciplinary actions, if subject to the Tinker test, would be found to violate students' First Amendment rights.
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Attempted Times Square Bomber Shahzad Trained By Pakistani Taliban
The Wall Street Journal reports that "U.S. and Pakistani investigators are giving increased credence to links between Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad and the Pakistan Taliban, with one senior Pakistani official saying Mr. Shahzad received instruction from the Islamist group's suicide-bomb trainer. If the links are verified, it would mark a stark shift in how the Pakistan Taliban—an affiliate of the Taliban in Afghanistan—and related jihadist groups in Pakistan pursue their goals. Until now, they have focused on attacks within Pakistan and in India, not the U.S. For the past several months, Pakistan's military has waged a battle against the Pakistan Taliban and a related group, Jaish-e-Mohammed, in the Pakistani tribal region of South Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan. The Pakistan Taliban's leadership has been heavily targeted by missile strikes from Central Intelligence Agency pilotless drones. Pakistani investigators also are probing Mr. Shahzad's possible connections with Jaish-e-Muhammad, an outlawed Islamist militant group, after the arrest Tuesday of Tohaid Ahmed and Mohammed Rehan in Karachi. A senior Pakistani government official said the two men were believed to have links to Jaish. Mr. Ahmed had been in email contact with Mr. Shahzad; Mr. Rehan took Mr. Shahzad to South Waziristan, the official said. There, Mr. Shahzad received training in explosives in a camp run by Qari Hussain, the official said. Mr. Hussain is a senior commander with Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, the Pakistan Taliban's formal name, and trains suicide bombers, the official said. Mr. Hussain is also a cousin of Hakimullah Mehsud, the Pakistan Taliban's chief. The 30-year-old Mr. Shahzad has admitted to investigators that he received training from militants in Waziristan, U.S. officials said. After several trips to Pakistan, Mr. Shahzad came back to the U.S. with significant amounts of declared cash, law enforcement officials said. 'That's not that unusual, for immigrants to move with lots of cash,' he said. 'There just wasn't anything in his [immigration file] that raised any red flags.' Mr. Hussain claimed responsibility for the attempted attack in a weekend audio message. His message followed a video of Mr. Mehsud, the Pakistan Taliban leader, in which he warned of a wave of attacks on the U.S. 'Our fighters are already in the United States,' Mr. Mehsud said. U.S. and British intelligence officials estimate that about 100 Westerners have in recent years taken advantage of lengthy trips to the region to complete training at jihadi camps in Pakistan and returned to their home countries, according to Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University. That figure includes Najibullah Zazi and David Headley, who recently pleaded guilty in the U.S. in terror cases, and numerous British terror plotters. It also includes Mr. Shahzad, who told border officials in February 2010, upon returning to New York City, that he had been visiting his ailing father in Pakistan. The size of American and British populations of Pakistani descent is so large that it makes detailed scrutiny of travel overseas difficult. There are more than 200,000 Pakistani-Americans, and more than 400,000 Britons of Pakistani heritage. Other countries with smaller diasporas in the U.S. do draw close attention. Americans traveling to Yemen, a hotbed of al Qaeda activities, receive close scrutiny upon return. Last year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation launched a program out of its Minneapolis field office to keep an eye on American Somalis traveling to their homeland. Before Mr. Shahzad's capture, U.S. officials gave little credence to the claims of Taliban involvement, but investigators are now probing the possible connection." Tweet
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
A Group Of 40 Auditors From Across The Globe Flunks The U.N.'s Landmark Global Warming Report
Fox News reports that "A group of 40 auditors -- including scientists and public policy experts from across the globe -- have released a shocking report card on the U.N.'s landmark climate-change research report. And they gave 21 of the report's 44 chapters a grade of 'F.' The team, recruited by the climate-change skeptics behind the website NoConsensus.org, found that 5,600 of the 18,500 sources in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Nobel Prize-winning 2007 report were not peer reviewed. 'We've been told this report is the gold standard,' said Canadian global-warming skeptic Donna Laframboise, who runs the NoConsensus.org site and who organized the online effort to examine the U.N.'s references in the report, commonly known as the AR4. '... Based on the grading system used in American schools, 21 chapters in the IPCC report received an F for citing peer-reviewed sources less than 60 percent of the time. Four chapters received a D, and six received a C. The report also got eight A's and five B's from the auditors, who included Bob Ashworth, a member of the American Geophysical Union, and Dr. Darko Butina, a director of Chemomine Consultancy Ltd." Tweet
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
MSNBC Analyst's Terror Concerns: An Attack Might Strengthen The Tea Parties
To watch the segment on MSNBC visit http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=Xd6UnznzkU. Tweet
How Attempted Times Square Bomber Shahzad Almost Got Away
This is what Shahzad's neighbors had to say:
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Glenn Beck: As An American Citizen Shahzad Should Be Mirandized
To see what Glenn Beck had to say visit http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=Xd6UuzSUaG.
Just to point out, there is actually a good originalist argument to be made that Miranda v. Arizona, which is the basis for the right to be mirandized and have confessions not count as evidence until that takes place, actually had no basis in the Constitution. Justice White began his dissent in that famous case by declaring, "The proposition that the privilege against self-incrimination forbids in-custody interrogation without the warnings specified in the majority opinion and without a clear waiver of counsel has no significant support in the history of the privilege or in the language of the Fifth Amendment. As for the English authorities and the common law history, the privilege, firmly established in the second half of the seventeenth century, was never applied except to prohibit compelled judicial interrogations."
That being said, it is a right afforded to every American citizen based at least on Supreme Court precedent, and Beck has a valid point in that the right that one American citizen has should not be denied to another.
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Monday, May 3, 2010
Times Square Car Bomb Suspect Arrested At JFK Airport Heading To Dubai
MSNBC reports that authorities "arrested a U.S. citizen in connection with the failed bombing attempt in New York's Times Square as he tried to leave the United States, Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday. Faisal Shahzad was arrested by Customs and Border Protection agents as he attempted to board a flight to Dubai at New York's JFK airport, Holder said at an early morning press conference. He was arrested at 11:45 p.m. Monday night, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said... Shahzad, who was born in Pakistan, was accused of driving a car bomb into Times Square, authorities said. He will appear in Manhattan Federal Court later on Tuesday."
"It is clear that the intent behind this terrorist act was to kill Americans," Holder said.
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American Who Visited Pakistan Eyed In Investigation Of Times Square Bomb Plot
Fox News reports that federal "authorities have identified a person of interest in Saturday night's Times Square bomb attempt -- a naturalized American citizen who was in Pakistan for several months and returned to the United States recently, investigative sources told Fox News. The latest developments seem to support investigators' suspicions that there was a foreign connection behind the failed car bomb attempt in New York City, senior Obama administration officials told Fox News, shedding light on the growing body of evidence. Sources say that evidence includes international phone calls made by the person of interest, who has not been identified publicly. Police also have interviewed the registered owner of the bomb-laden sports-utility vehicle. They say he is not a suspect, but he recently sold the dark-colored 1993 Nissan Pathfinder on Craigslist to another individual. It wasn't clear whether the buyer was the person of interest now sought by authorities. The bomb scare forced the evacuation of Times Square on a busy Saturday night, as police used a robot to break into the smoking SUV and diffuse the makeshift explosive, which was made from everyday items, such as propane tanks and firecrackers." Tweet
May Day Riot In Downtown Santa Cruz
If this was a Tea Party, how do you think the media would react? It's a "May Day" immigration rally, and there is little to no reaction at all. Tea Parties have been taking place for over a year all over the country with no violence at all. Yet where was the media coverage about "angry mobs" directed?
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CBS/NYT Poll Reports "Slim Majority" Of Americans Support Arizona's Immigration Law? 51% Say It's "About Right," 9% Say It Does Not Go Far Enough
CBS reports that "a slim majority of Americans believe the controversial illegal immigration measure recently signed into law in Arizona is 'about right' in its approach, according to a newly-released CBS News/New York Times poll. Fifty-one percent of those surveyed say the law, which critics say essentially mandates racial profiling, takes the right approach, and nine percent say it should go even further. Thirty-six percent say the law goes too far. Two in three Republicans say the law takes the right approach, along with roughly half of independents. Among Democrats, support for the law stands at 38 percent. Americans living in the South and Midwest are more likely than those in the East or West to support the measure."
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John Bolton: "Get Ready For A Nuclear Iran"
To read the article from the Wall Street Journal visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703871904575216260958684670.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_t. Tweet
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Reports Claim Pakistani Taliban Is Taking Credit For Attempted Times Square Car Bomb
MYFOXNY.COM reports that "New York City's police commissioner says there's no evidence of a Taliban link to a failed bomb found in an SUV parked in Times Square but said he couldn't rule them out. Fox 5 reported Sunday that the Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the bomb plot. According to Fox News, in a 1 minute video allegedly released by the Pakistani Taliban, the group says the attack is revenge for the death of its leader Baitullah Mehsud and the recent killings of the top leaders of al-Qaida in Iraq." Tweet
Arizona Tweaks Law In Response To Criticism And To Clarify The Legislature's Intent
To read how the Arizona legislature has made some adjustments to the law in response to critics and in order to clarify their intent visit http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/in-response-to-critics-arizona-tweaks-new-immigration-law-92495249.html. Tweet
Even After Arizona's Law, Half Of What Is Expected Turn Out For L.A. Immigration Rally
The Los Angeles Times reports that "Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck estimated that about 50,000 immigration rights activists participated in Saturday's May Day rally, about half of what police estimated earlier. Police had anticipated a larger crowd because of the controversy surrounding the recent passage of a tough immigration law in Arizona that allows police to check the legal status of people they believe are in the state illegally." Tweet
Mark Steyn: "What Arizona Must Settle With"
To read the article by the great Mark Steyn visit http://article.nationalreview.com/433163/what-arizona-must-live-with/mark-steyn. Tweet
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