Saturday, May 21, 2011
Herman Cain On Israel: You Mess With Israel, You Mess With the U.S.
As Herman Cain put it, "It demonstrates once again, the arrogant disregard of this American President for the opinion of the American people who like the relationship we have with Israel."
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Friday, May 20, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Why Obama's "Cairo II" Speech Was Wrong And Unprecedented In Declaring That Israeli Borders Must Be "Based" On The "1967 Lines"
There are no "1967 lines." The 1967 lines actually include the entire West Bank (also known as Judea and Samaria), Golan Heights, Gaza, and the Sinai, and Israel has been pulling back from the 1967 lines ever since that war. At best President Obama meant the "pre-1967 lines." What Obama is actually talking about of course is what should be called the 1949 armistice lines. It is the line that was born out of the attack on the newborn Jewish State that Obama is referring to. "1949 armistice lines" immediately reminds anyone of the Arab wars and rejection of Israel's creation and is therefore a far more accurate phrase. Change the wording to accurately reflect the line being spoken of and you should realize that the indefensible borders that led to the 1967 "Six Day War" in the first place is what is now considered and for the first time being declared publicly by the United States as what negotiations should be "based" upon. This is now the current state of affairs with the present occupant of the White House making his ridiculous proclamation. Now the new line from which all negotiations are to be based are the indefensible 1949 armistice lines.
While it is true that the so-called "1967 lines" have been the working premise for negotiations since at least 2000, no President has ever before publicly and explicitly endorsed the "1967 lines" as what everything negotiated needs to "based on." In that respect, it is unprecedented and a radical departure from previous public American pronouncements.
The Jerusalem Post specifically explains the response of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to Obama's statement in his so-called "Cairo II" speech. While "thanking Obama for his commitment to peace, Netanyahu said he 'expects to hear from President Obama a reconfirmation of commitments to Israel from 2004 that received wide support in both houses of Congress.' This was a reference to a letter from president George W. Bush to prime minister Ariel Sharon that did not call for a return to the 1967 lines, and that recognized that any agreement would take into account the changed realities on the ground – a line interpreted by Israel to mean a recognition that it would hold on to the large settlement blocs." So Israelis, including the Prime Minister, and apparently many others inside and outside of Israel, took this line from Obama's speech to now mean that there is a new baseline from which Israel must be forced to swap land if it wishes to in any way deviate from that line. Netanyahu came out swinging very strongly against Obama's speech, and the tension between the United States and her close ally Israel is clearly at palpably record levels. This is a radical shift in American policy. Obama's speech is a priori implying that those blocs mentioned in Bush's letter to Sharon are illegitimate rather than what Bush recognized them as, a "reality on the ground." At the very best in order to be kept by Israel Obama is saying that concessions must be made. Further, aside from certain blocs, it would seem that if Israel required maintaining a line that allowed for a defensible border, that such security considerations would also be further cause for Israeli concessions. The point here is it is a departure from the letter from Bush to Sharon that taking a different tone explicitly said "[i]n light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion."
It should also be pointed out that "1967 lines" would assume that all of Jerusalem's holy sites belong to the Palestinians as well. Prior to the 1967 War the holy sites of Jerusalem were all under the control of Jordan, and Jews were prohibited from even visiting the Western Wall. The Palestinians are now going to increase their claims to very important parts of Jerusalem given that President Obama has now said the "1967 lines" are the basis for all negotiation.
Finally, it appears that Obama knew that inserting this line was something that was unprecedented and that was changing the guideposts for negotiation at the outset from defensible borders for Israel that reflect "realities on the ground" to "1967 lines." The Los Angeles Times reported that top aides, "including National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and senior Mideast adviser Dennis Ross, had argued against laying out U.S. proposals. But Obama, accepting the arguments of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and others, decided that he could use the momentum of change in the Middle East, and that doing so would help convince the Arab world that the administration was on the side of reform." So the fact is that the administration inserted the language against the advice of some top foreign policy and Mideast advisers in order to placate the Arab world. Those that may have liked to attribute more pure motives or benign intent will be hard pressed to do so now that this internal deliberation has already been made public.
Then again, maybe we all got it wrong and Obama was saying that Israel should take back the Sinai and Gaza and follow the "1967 lines." In that case, I'm all for it, and this was the most pro-Israel public statement ever made.
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Statement From Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu In Response To Obama's Speech And "1967 Lines"
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's full statement released on the Israeli Embassy website:
Israel appreciates President Obama’s commitment to peace. Israel believes that for peace to endure between Israelis and Palestinians, the viability of a Palestinian state cannot come at the expense of the viability of the one and only Jewish state.Tweet
That is why Prime Minister Netanyahu expects to hear a reaffirmation from President Obama of U.S. commitments made to Israel in 2004, which were overwhelmingly supported by both Houses of Congress.
Among other things, those commitments relate to Israel not having to withdraw to the 1967 lines which are both indefensible and which would leave major Israeli population centers in Judea and Samaria beyond those lines.
Those commitments also ensure Israel’s well-being as a Jewish state by making clear that Palestinian refugees will settle in a future Palestinian state rather than in Israel. Without a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem outside the borders of Israel, no territorial concession will bring peace.
Equally, the Palestinians, and not just the United States, must recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people,and any peace agreement with them must end all claims against Israel.
Prime Minister Netanyahu will make clear that the defense of Israel requires an Israeli military presence along the Jordan River.
Prime Minister Netanyahu will also express his disappointment over the Palestinian Authority’s decision to embrace Hamas, a terror organization committed to Israel’s destruction, as well as over Mahmoud Abbas’s recently expressed views which grossly distort history and make clear that Abbas seeks a Palestinian state in order to continue the conflict with Israel rather than end it.
"The root of the conflict is, and always has been, their refusal to recognize the Jewish state. It is not a conflict over 1967, but over 1948, over the very existence of the State of Israel."
Newt Gingrich To Rush Limbaugh: My "Right-Wing Social Engineering” Comment Wasn’t Directed At Paul Ryan
TweetIn a live interview with Rush Limbaugh Thursday afternoon, Gingrich said he hadn’t actually criticized Ryan’s plan in his Sunday appearance on “Meet the Press,” and that he wasn’t referring to the Wisconsin congressman when he said those words.
“It was not a reference to Paul Ryan. There was no reference to Paul Ryan in that answer,” Gingrich told Limbaugh, who was in the process of gently grilling him about why he used those words in the NBC interview.
Limbaugh asked Gingrich why, then, did he call Ryan to apologize for the remark, if it wasn’t made in reference to Ryan.
“It was interpreted in a way which was causing trouble which he doesn’t need or deserve,” Gingrich said. “My answer wasn’t about the budget, and I promptly went back to say publicly that I would have voted for the Ryan budget.”
Right Wing Israeli Members Of Israeli Knesset: Obama Is The New Arafat
The Jerusalem Post reports that "Knesset members on the Right expressed outrage on Thursday night at US President Barack Obama's call for the creation of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps in an exchange of territory for security. They called upon Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to reject Obama's plan when he meets with him on Friday in Washington."
"Barack Hussein Obama adopted the staged plan for Israel's destruction of Yasser Arafat, and he is trying to force it on our prime minister," said Likud MK Danny Danon. "All that was new in the speech was that he called for Israel to return to 1967 borders without solving the crisis. Netanyahu has only one option: To tell Obama forget about it."
National Union MK Michael Ben-Ari also slammed Obama's speech, calling it "a landmine with pretty wrapping."
Environment Minister Gilad Erdan, who as a minister close to Netanyahu said, "Once they [the Palestinians] have everything from the start, they have no reason to make any concessions."
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Romney: Obama "Threw Israel Under The Bus"
President Obama "disrespected" Israel and threw it "under the bus" in a wide-ranging speech on the Middle East on Thursday, GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney charged.Tweet
Romney strongly criticized Obama, who, in a speech at the State Department, called for Israel to return to its border lines as drawn before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Slams Obama's Unprecedented Call For Israel To Return To Indefensible 1967 Borders: "Doesn't Understand The Reality"
The Jerusalem Post reports that "Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Thursday issued a quick response to US President Barack Obama's Middle East speech that was noticeably negative in tone. While thanking Obama for his commitment to peace, the statement put out by the PMO said that the establishment of a Palestinian state cannot come at Israel’s expense. Netanyahu said he expected to hear from Obama a re-affirmation of the 2004 letter from President George W. Bush to Ariel Sharon that did not call for a return to the 1967 lines, and recognized that any agreement would take into account the changed realities on the ground -- a line interpreted by Israel to mean a recognition that Israel would hold on to the large settlement blocs. The statement also said that the Bush letter made clear that Palestinian refugees would be absorbed in a future Palestinian state, something that was not explicitly mentioned in Obama’s speech... Netanyahu also said that he will make clear in his meeting with Obama that Israel will need to remain on the Jordan River, and that he was disappointed by Fatah’s reconciliation with Hamas."
“Without a solution to the refugee issue by settling them outside of Israel," the statement said, "no territorial concession will end the conflict." A senior official in the PMO said following the speech, "They don't understand the reality."
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Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Perfect Metaphor For The Nanny State: The "Adult Baby"
As the National Geographic narrator points out in this twisted relationship below, "she's not Stanly's mom, but she's happy to play that role." The same can be said of our political leaders, the only difference being that most of us do not get some sick joy when we treated like "adult babies."
I have to comment that I don't think the expert in the clip above is right at all about people feeling "threatened by something that is out of the ordinary" or by the "taboo" that is this "adult baby." People feel disgusted that a grown man could regress to the point that they are putting on diapers and not be sent to a real psychologist for immediate treatment. Not a soul feels "threatened" by these literally childish antics.
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Defense Secretary Robert Gates Says He Believes "Somebody" In Pakistan Knew About Osama Bin Laden
Robert Gates says he believes "somebody" in Pakistan knew about Osama bin Laden. Tweet
Study Shows Drinking Together Is Recipe For Happy Relationship
Researchers at the University at Buffalo are claiming after examining the results of a recent study. They found that couples who have a cocktail or two (or even three) together reported feeling "increased intimacy and decreased relationship problems the next day" as compared to boyfriends and girlfriends who drink apart or don't drink at all. But to reap the benefits, you want to cut yourself off at three beverages, say the scientists. That's because twosomes who consumed four or more drinks experienced more relationships problems, including fewer hook-ups. Tweet
Conflict Worthy Of Recusal? Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan May Have Crafted Legal Defense To Obamcare
Documents obtained by Judicial Watch demonstrate that Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan is rather compromised:
TweetOn March 21, 2010, Katyal urged Kagan to attend a health care litigation meeting that was evidently organized by the Obama White House: “This is the first I’ve heard of this. I think you should go, no? I will, regardless, but feel like this is litigation of singular importance.”
In another email exchange that took place on January 8, 2010, Katyal’s Department of Justice colleague Brian Hauck asked Katyal about putting together a group to discuss challenges to Obamacare. “Could you figure out the right person or people for that?” Hauck asked. “Absolutely right on. Let’s crush them,” Katyal responded. “I’ll speak with Elena and designate someone.”
However, following the May 10, 2010, announcement that President Obama would nominate Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court, Katyal position changed significantly as he began to suggest that Kagan had been “walled off” from Obamacare discussions…
“Any reasonable person would read these documents and come to the same conclusion: Elena Kagan helped coordinate the Obama administration’s defense of Obamacare. And as long as the Justice Department continues to withhold key documents, the American people won’t know for sure whether her involvement would warrant her recusal from any Obamacare litigation that comes before the High Court,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
Danish Film Director Makes Pro-Nazi Comments And Says That Israel Is "A Pain In The Ass" At Cannes
The Associated Press reports that "Lars von Trier brought the end of the world to the Cannes Film Festival — then the Danish director really shook things up, saying he sympathizes with Adolf Hitler, thinks Israel is a pain and plans to make a porn flick with Kirsten Dunst... Asked about his German heritage, von Trier launched into a rambling train of thoughts, starting with how he used to think he was a Jew and his disappointment when he learned he was not."
"I really wanted to be a Jew, and then I found out that I was really a Nazi, because, you know, my family was German," von Trier said. "Which also gave me some pleasure. ...
"What can I say? I understand Hitler, but I think he did some wrong things, yes, absolutely. But I can see him sitting in his bunker in the end," von Trier said. "He's not what you would call a good guy, but I understand much about him, and I sympathize with him a little bit. But come on, I'm not for the Second World War, and I'm not against Jews. ...
"I am very much for Jews. No, not too much, because Israel is a pain in the ass."
Von Trier then asked, "How can I get out of this sentence?"
Going on to say he liked Hitler aide Albert Speer, von Trier finally wrapped up with the wisecrack, "OK, I'm a Nazi."
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U.S. Sanctions Implemented Against Syria
The United States is to implement sanctions on Syria’s dictator Bashar Assad for his maltreatment of protesters. This comes 55 days and an estimated 850 deaths:
TweetThe Obama administration will slap sanctions on Syrian President Bashar Assad and six senior Syrian officials for human rights abuses over their brutal crackdown on anti-government protests, for the first time personally penalizing the Syrian leader for actions of his security forces, officials said.
The officials said the Treasury Department will announce the sanctions on Wednesday, a day before President Barack Obama delivers a major speech on the uprisings throughout the Arab world with prominent mentions of Syria. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the formal announcement of the sanctions.
The Obama administration had pinned hopes on Assad, seen until recent months as a pragmatist and potential reformer who could buck Iranian influence and help broker an eventual Arab peace deal with Israel. Obama returned an American ambassador to Damascus for the first time in years.
Assad’s increasingly brutal crackdown left U.S. officials little choice but to abandon the effort to woo Assad, and to stop exempting him from the same sort of sanctions already applied to Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Hillary Clinton On Meeting With Useful Idiot Jimmy Carter After His Visit To North Korea: "Hell No!"
Apparently on April 29 "Clinton reacted strongly when asked in a morning meeting if she wanted to meet with Carter. From the Nelson report: The performance of President Carter and his delegation in N. Korea this week was either shameful or fatuous...or both...and exemplifies why Carter had no...zero...USG support going in, and even less coming out, per an alleged eye witness account of Sec. St. Clinton at the morning meeting the other day: 'Do you want to meet with Carter?' Clinton is looking at papers, and just says 'No.' Then she pauses, looks up and adds, 'HELL no!!!'" Tweet
Incest, Bestiality, And Sodomy: The Supreme Court Decision Of Lawrence v. Texas (2003), And Why Justice Scalia's Dissent Is Still Right
The more one researches the issue, the more the facts concede Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s point in his 2003 dissent that the logical extension of Lawrence v. Texas (where the Supreme Court overturned Texas's sodomy law) should be the elimination of laws against adultery, incest, polygamy, bestiality, and more once morality alone can no longer serve as the basis for legislation. One of the first and primary objections to Scalia's argument is to claim that comparing the issues in Lawrence to incest or bestiality goes too far. This is not the case.
As one example, Georgetown University law professor Milton Regan actually writes in his 1993 article Reason, Tradition, And Family Law: A Comment On Social Constructionism that “an incest prohibition…is a direct interference with at least the right to marry, and perhaps with a less well-defined right of...sexual privacy.” This logic should directly lead to such laws being overturned as per Lawrence if the act of incest is being described by some legal theorists in much the same way as the act of sodomy in terms of being within a right of sexual privacy or autonomy, and morality now no longer being a sufficient basis for prohibiting it as per the Supreme Court's ruling in Lawrence.
Moving on to bestiality, one finds that bestiality in the law was in fact another form of the once prohibited act of sodomy. American Jurisprudence, a well-known encyclopedia of United States law (second edition is cited as Am. Jur. 2d), states that “persons who engage in acts of sex with animals are generally subject to prosecution for the offense of sodomy. The Uniform Code of Military Justice likewise defines sodomy, in part, as including any "unnatural carnal copulation by a person with an animal.” So not only was Scalia correct that sodomy laws being overturned means bestiality laws should be overturned, but bestiality laws were legally indistinguishable from sodomy laws, at least insofar as bestiality was merely a subgroup of sodomy. This was so true to the point that a legislative overview tells us that Lawrence actually resulted in bestiality laws being wiped from the books. The 2007 Legislative Overview states that “[t]he Lawrence ruling had an indirect and unanticipated impact on animals because many states still had catchall, ‘crimes against nature’ laws in effect that outlawed sodomy as well as bestiality. Although state legislatures created new laws against sexual assault, they did not always create new laws prohibiting bestiality.” I suppose the only real difference is that to Scalia, this should have been an anticipated direct effect of the Lawrence ruling.
The more one looks into it the more the evidence and arguments seem to pile up for Scalia’s corner. Therefore it is worth looking to a 2006 Brigham Young University Law Review article by Mitchell Park entitled Defining One's Own Concept of Existence and the Meaning of the Universe: The Presumption of Liberty in Lawrence v. Texas which in large part attempts to criticize and rebut Scalia’s supposed misunderstandings of the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence. I think his attempts were feeble and weak, but they are the best efforts I have yet to see in attempting to directly respond to Scalia's dissenting opinion. I will in Scalia’s defense therefore address several points made by Park.
First, Park cites “the point made by [Harvard Law] Professor Tribe that it is somewhat disingenuous to compare the insular and miniscule part of the population that wishes to voluntarily engage in acts of bigamy, bestiality, or incest with the significant population of homosexual Americans who define their very identity as gay or lesbian persons.” This is laughable. No wonder it it comes from a Harvard professor. Since when do Constitutional protections have less significance when an insular minority is at issue and take greater effect when a “significant population” is involved? In fact, isn’t being more of an insular and discrete part of the population a reason for greater protection? I thought a minority right against the tyranny of a majority was part of the whole idea behind a Bill of Rights and the Civil War Amendments. Would Tribe apply this to almost any other Constitutional provision? Do Protestants have more of right than Catholics who have more of a right than Jews who have more of a right than Muslims to free exercise of religion by virtue of the numbers of adherents within the United States? And the issue here is not numbers, but the principle being applied. The amount of people a law may happen to target does not in any way change the underlying principle that would lead some laws to be overturned, and others to be upheld.
Park further argues that “by focusing on the physical act of homosexual sodomy in his analysis,” Scalia misses “the broader point…that it is the liberty interest of the individual to define his own concept of existence…that is truly at stake.” He did not miss that famous passage from the 1992 abortion case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey being regurgitated in Lawrence at all. The Court in Planned Parenthood stated, and this line was quoted in the Lawrence decision, that "[a]t the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." Scalia responded to this directly in his Lawrence dissent saying, “I have never heard of a law that attempted to restrict one’s ‘right to define’ certain concepts; and if the passage calls into question the government’s power to regulate actions based on one’s self-defined ‘concept of existence, etc.,’ it is the passage that ate the rule of law.” It appears Park missed the broader point of Scalia’s dissent.
Park also argues that “nowhere in its opinion [in Lawrence] does the majority signal a willingness to dispense with morals-based legislation altogether.” But that is exactly what it does, and the very same law review article concedes as much. Park writes that “[i]f anything, the Court follows a longstanding practice of not relying exclusively on a morals-based rationale for upholding lawmaking.” The 1986 decision of Bowers v. Hardwick stands as evidence of Supreme Court disagreement about that being some “longstanding practice.” Park himself even says within the same article that “[t]raditional morality, at the end of the day, is no justification for coercion on the part of the state.” He spends much ink on Lawrence not demanding that all laws relating to sexuality be dispensed, but just demanding a harm now need be cited to support any such law. This in effect means citing morality cannot alone suffice, and Lawrence indeed then signaled dispensing with “morals-based legislation” (emphasis added). Only if legislation is based on harm or some other principle can it be upheld. This was not the holding of Bowers, the controlling Supreme Court decision before Lawrence, and had the State of Texas known the Supreme Court was going to change the rules of the legal game after a mere 17 years it would have simply made a “harm principle” argument. Amicus briefs were entered on both sides in that case as it relates to the possible health effects on the individuals and society of the sodomy at issue. In oral arguments, Texas’s counsel specifically said he was not relying on the amicus entered in Texas’s favor on the health issue, because morality alone in accord with Bowers would be enough. Had Texas known differently, they surely could have adopted the amicus brief on health effects as part of their argument.
Park’s main argument is made when he writes that “[a]s for laws against bigamy, bestiality, incest, and prostitution, it should be noted that, unlike prohibitions against sodomy, these laws are in most cases designed to prohibit actual harms, as opposed to mere ‘moral’ harm.” For example, he says “[t]here is a substantial public health concern that pervades the taboo against bestiality.” Often in regards to incest one also hears the argument that laws and taboos against it are designed to prevent genetic abnormalities. Besides for the point just made about how health concerns can always be brought to the forefront if the lawyers know they have to, even if only artificially to protect a law’s existence, I was unaware that bestiality or incest is chiefly or even principally illegal because of health concerns. If that were the case, it should be completely legal (not to mention considered morally non-problematic) so long as no health issue is implicated. Does that sort of rationale really exemplify the real reasons behind and the extent of the reach of bestiality or incest laws? Would incest be morally and legally acceptable so long as one of the relatives copulating could show he or she was infertile? Would bestiality be seen as a Constitutional right so long as the animal is happy and healthy while the human being performs sex acts with it? I don’t think that’s the case at all, and to suggest as much is ludicrous. The law casts a much wider net than Park would have you believe by his pretenses and forced excuses once he has dismissed traditional sexual morality from the picture.
But even besides the fact that these pure harm-based justifications do not represent the scope of the sexual prohibitions themselves as seen in law, would any of these justifications be legitimate outside the scope of bestiality or incest? For example, if preventing genetic deformities is some noble goal of banning incest, could the State force anyone who is to be married to be tested for the increased possibility of producing offspring that have genetic abnormalities and ban those that are more inclined toward this from wedding? Could all premarital sex be outlawed on the basis that it leads to the harm that is the spread of sexually transmitted diseases? I doubt Park is suggesting this, and there is no possible reason outside of traditional morality to believe that incest or bestiality should legally be any different.
Park even states that “laws against adultery” could be sustained under Lawrence because they “clearly fall under the purview of the harm principle because the philandering spouse obviously harms his or her counterpart.” Clearly and obviously? When an author says something is both clear and obvious in the same sentence without explaining the clear and obvious, it’s actually worth thinking more about. It is only clear and obvious if one assumes there is something important about marriage and fidelity within the institution, or even something important about sexual exclusivity within all intimate relationships, in the first place. Distinguishing harm from notions of morality is not always so obvious and clear.
The overarching sexual libertarian argument about the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s provisions put forward by Park is an absurdity constantly being couched in terms of “original meaning” throughout his article. He may put forward the libertarian Constitutional argument that the Fourteenth Amendment creates a bottomless well from which judges can enforce the John Mills harm principle and strike down any law a court feels does not meet that principle, but do no pretend the original meaning demands such results or the result in Lawrence! Justice Scalia persuasively pointed out in his dissent in regards to “original meaning,” that “sodomy was a criminal offense at common law and was forbidden by the laws of the original 13 States when they ratified the Bill of Rights. In 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, all but 5 of the 37 States in the Union had criminal sodomy laws. In fact, until 1961, all 50 States outlawed sodomy, and today [as Lawrence is being handed down], 24 States and the District of Columbia continue to provide criminal penalties for sodomy performed in private and between consenting adults.” The idea that the original meaning in 1868 of the Due Process Clause or the Privileges or Immunities Clause was to anyone that sodomy or like laws must be overturned is nonsensical and simply not historical. It is an utter abuse of the “original meaning.”
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Dennis Prager On Anti-Semitism: "Yes, Jews Are The Chosen People" "
To read this very interesting article by Dennis Prager in which he says that he is convinced "that, along with all the rational explanations, there is one explanation [for antisemitism] that transcends reason alone. It is that the Jews are God’s chosen people" visit http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/267401/yes-jews-are-chosen-people-dennis-prager. Tweet
John Bolton: Managing Pakistan After Bin Laden
Former Ambassador to the UN John Bolton discusses managing Pakistan after the Bin Laden raid and how removing troops from Afghanistan will be seen in Islamabad as weakness. Visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703730804576313102116341240.html?mod=googlenews_wsj to read the full article for yourself. Tweet
Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) Says He Doesn’t See The High Gas Prices As An Issue “At All”
Almost 7 in 10 Americans believe that the high price of fuel causes them financial hardship. But...
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Some California City Lifegaurds Make More Than $200,000 A Year
The Orange County Register reports:
TweetIn a phone conversation, Brent Jacobsen, president of the Lifeguard Management Association, defended the lifeguard pay in Newport Beach: “We have negotiated very fair and very reasonable salaries in conjunction with comparable positions and other cities up and down the coast.” “Lifeguard salaries here are well within the norm of other city employees.” And therein is the problem: Local public worker pay has become all too generous and out of line with private sector equivalents.
On face, the compensation packages for these guards are staggering. But take into consideration the retirement benefits being paid to currently retired lifeguards and lifeguards who will retire at these pay levels in the future and the problem is further compounded. Lifeguards are able to retire with 90 percent of their salary, after only 30 years of work at as early as the age of 50.
Osama Bin Laden's Sons Whining That Their Mass Murderer Enemy Combatant Most Wanted Terrorist Father Was Not Arrested And Given A Trial
There is now a letter for all to see, in which Bin Laden’s adult sons incredulously “demand an inquiry . . . into the fundamental question as to why our father was not arrested and tried but summarily executed without a court of law.” From the letter: "If OBL has been killed in that operation as President of United States has claimed then we are just in questioning as per media reports that why an unarmed man was not arrested and tried in a court of law so that truth is revealed to the people of the world. If he has been summarily executed then, we question the propriety of such assassination where not only international law has been blatantly violated but USA has set a very different example whereby right to have a fair trial, and presumption of innocence until proven guilty by a court of law has been sacrificed on which western society is built and is standing when a trial of OBL was possible for any wrongdoing as that of Iraqi President Sadam Hussein and Serbian President Slobodan Miloševic’. We maintain that arbitrary killing is not a solution to political problems and crime’s adjudication as Justice must be seen to be done."
I maintain, given that these are the sons of the world's most wanted Islamoterrorist, that they ought to stop their whining and second guessing of Navy Seals on the ground. Taking Bin Laden alive would have first and foremost been useful for intelligence gathering purposes. As to a trial, while taking him alive and giving him some sort of trial might have been good public relations for the U.S. and potentially provide a soap box for Bin Laden himself if he were tried in a civilian court where he could use the witness box as a podium to spew his venom (something not so outlandish given the current occupant of the oval office), the fact is that the Navy Seals made what must have been a split second decision to shoot and not take any chances. There is no evidence that they were given a "kill only order" as opposed to a "catch or kill order," and if those brave soldiers and intelligence operatives decided in that moment that it was in their interest and safety to shoot Bin Laden's brains out rather than take any chances, then no one in their right mind should be criticizing them from the comfort of the sidelines, least of all the offspring of that monster Bin Laden.
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Navy Rescinds Order To Allow Chaplains To Conduct Gay Marriages
The Navy has rescinded that order pending “further … policy review”:
TweetThe Navy has abruptly reversed its decision to allow chaplains to perform same-sex marriages once the military’s ban on openly gay service members is lifted, after dozens of House lawmakers complained.
Rear Adm. Mark Tidd, chief of Navy chaplains, issued a one-sentence memo Tuesday announcing that the earlier decision has been “suspended until further notice pending additional legal and policy review and inter-Departmental coordination.”
A senior Navy official told Fox News the legal counsel determined the suspension would be necessary “until broader legal and policy questions are answered.”
The original memo would have allowed for Navy chaplains to perform gay marriages in states where it is legal only after the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is repealed. Military training to apply the new law allowing gays to serve openly began earlier this year and is expected to be completed by midsummer.
But 63 House members wrote to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus to object to the Navy’s initial ruling, saying the service was violating the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act by appearing to recognize and support same-sex marriages.
Congressman Rob Bishop On Why He Is Introducing The Repeal Amendment To The Constitution In Congress
14 trillion Reasons for a Repeal Amendment
By Rep. Rob Bishop:Amidst the noise and grasping of day-to-day politics, the pending vote on the debt limit offers a unique moment of clarity. The sheer gravity of the problem requires us to stop and think about the very structure of our government, what its purpose is, how it should operate, and who should make the key decisions. The coming debate on this issue presents America with an opportunity to remember and to reassess our basic ideas and principles about the American system of government.
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I applaud Speaker Boehner for recognizing that our country is at the brink. The ever-growing debt is simply unsustainable. His speech this week to the Economic Club of New York demonstrated a recognition that we must consider serious changes to the way Washington works if our nation is to avert a steady, or possibly sudden, decline. One phrase from Speaker Boehner’s speech proved particularly insightful: “Many of our problems can be traced to a misguided belief by politicians that the American economy is something that can be controlled or micromanaged or influenced positively by government intervention…”
Speaker Boehner is correct. However, it’s not just the economy that can’t be “controlled or micromanaged” from Washington. American society itself is so diverse, so organic, so varying in its geography, culture, and demographics that we see the same fatal conceit when government tries to manage it from one central location. That is, unfortunately, what we have done over the past 80 years.
Today, the national government simply does too much. It has usurped power and responsibilities designed for states and the people. Unless this changes, we will never be on sound fiscal footing.
Over time, the relationship between people and the national government has become horribly out of balance.
In the early days of this country, nearly all problems were addressed in the neighborhood or through local community meetings. Some issues were elevated to the state legislature, but very few ever made their way to the Washington. This system of local control was intentional because decisions made by and for people closest to the problem are uniquely tailored with local interests in mind. Today, the opposite has become the norm. Almost any issue or problem is treated as a matter in which the federal government has authority to intervene. As this occurs, the roles of states, local governments and communities are being diluted.
To address this growing problem, I plan to introduce the Repeal Amendment, which would help return power and rights back to the states and people respectively, just as our Founding Fathers intended when they drafted the Constitution.
The tenants of the Repeal Amendment are simple: if two-thirds of the states collectively find a federal law or regulation abhorrent or misguided, they should have the power to repeal said law or regulation. The law would then be sent back to Washington for further consideration, at which time Congress may choose not to act again on the matter, or they may vote to override the states’ repeal and pass it in finality. This check will apply against Republicans just as it will against Democrats. It is not a partisan issue. It is simply about restoring a balance of power.
Victories For Pro-Life Groups In Court And At The State Level
Watch this CBS report to see for yourself these great gains for the pro-life movement against abortion in State legislatures and even from a court: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKtwj6gayws. I don't much care for the choice of headlines chosen by CBS for this youtube video. How about victories for "pro-life groups" or even "anti-abortion groups" instead? That being said, the video above is about how a federal judge allowed Indiana to become the first state to cut off public funding to Planned Parenthood - the latest success in an unprecedented string of victories for so-called "anti-abortion rights" groups.
The "National Right to Life applauds U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt’s decision to deny a request by Planned Parenthood of Indiana for a temporary restraining order against a new Indiana law that denies state-directed funding for businesses and organizations performing abortions in the state. Judge Pratt’s order allows the funding cuts passed by the Indiana legislature and signed by Governor Mitch Daniels earlier this month to immediately take effect" (See http://www.nationalrightto
These advances are good news, and as the pro-abortion activist says in the CBS news report, "elections matter." This includes the State level as well where clearly important pro-life legislation can be passed. It's good to see 2010's election results have had an impact on State legislation on the issue. But Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey still need to be overturned. A Supreme Court (or at least 5 members) that adheres to Constitutional sanity is what is truly needed to overturn those terrible decisions and restore to the States their proper Constitutional role in deciding the proper regulation or legal restrictions of the clearly non-federal issue of abortion.
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The Individual Mandate Fails To Meet The "Necessary And Proper" Clause Requirements Of The Constitution
The argument of an informative Independence Institute amicus brief submitted to the 11th Circuit in Florida v. Department of Health and Human Services. Here’s the summary of argument:
TweetThe Necessary and Proper Clause was one of a large family of similar clauses commonly appearing in eighteenth-century legal instruments delegating authority from one party to another. Those clauses followed several possible formulae. The Necessary and Proper Clause is a specimen of the most restrictive of those formulae: It does not actually grant additional authority beyond that conveyed by other enumerated powers. Rather, it is a recital, designed to inform the reader of two legal default rules:
First, that express grants of enumerated powers, stated elsewhere, carry with them subsidiary incidental powers (“necessary”).
Second, that congressional enactments must comply with standards of fiduciary obligation and administrative reasonableness (“proper”).
This understanding of the Clause appears in the legal practices and leading cases at the time the Constitution was adopted, and also in the history of the Clause itself—the records of its drafting, in the ratification debates, in the Supreme Court’s great case on the subject, M’Culloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819), and in Chief Justice John Marshall’s public explanations of M’Culloch.
Once the meaning of the Clause is understood, the implications for the individual mandate are clear:
The mandate is not “necessary” because power to impose it is not a subsidiary “incident” to Congress’s Commerce Power. The power to compel the purchase of a product is as great or greater than the power to regulate voluntary commerce; therefore the mandate cannot be an incidental power regardless of how helpful it might be. For Congress to possess authority of that kind, it would have to be separately enumerated in the Constitution.
The mandate is not “proper” because it violates the fiduciary obligations of impartiality embedded in the word “proper.” During the debates over ratification, participants recognized that a law chartering a commercial monopoly would be “improper.” A fortiori, compelled purchase from favored oligopolists is improper.
Thus, to the extent that the constitutionality of the individual mandate depends upon the Necessary and Proper Clause, the mandate is unconstitutional.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Two Recent Infringements On The Right Of The People To Keep And Bear Arms In California
First, the California Assembly voted to prohibit the open carry of unloaded handguns.
"You are disarming our citizens" while doing little to disarm criminals, said Assemblyman Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber.Second, in a federal U.S. district courtroom in California,a judge claimed in a ruling that there is no constitutional right to carry a concealed handgun in public. Tweet
"It is not just the right to keep, it is the right to bear arms," said Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Twin Peaks.
Yale Law School Professor Jed Rubenfeld: "Under Any Sane Construction Of The Laws Of War," Osam Bin Laden's Killing Was Lawful
Rubenfeld writes that "under any sane construction of the laws of war, the killing of Bin Laden was lawful regardless of whether he "raised his hands in surrender" or whether the American soldiers were under orders to shoot without giving him a chance to surrender. By suggesting otherwise, human rights lawyers only make international law look out of step with basic morality and common sense."
To read the full article from the Los Angeles Times for yourself click here.
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Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh: Pray For An End to Israel
From Palestine/Hamas:
Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh spoke to Muslim worshipers on Sunday morning, telling them to pray for an end to Israel.
Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat on Sunday also commented on Nakba Day events, telling Israel Radio, "This is the day of my nakba, it is the day when my nation was interrupted. Sixty-three years later, we're still interrupted, we're still under occupation. If I want to go to Jerusalem, I still need to ask permission from one of your kids, your soldiers."
Commenting about a plan in which Israel would agree to a Palestinian state on 1967 borders if the Palestinians agreed to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, Erekat said "Your title is the State of Israel, and that is how we recognize you. It's none of my business to determine who you are. I want to hear the numbers 1-9-6-7 from Netanyahu. Until we don't hear that, we're not going to waste our time."
TweetSunday, May 15, 2011
TSA Statement Misses The Point: Not Understanding The U.S. Constitution And The Original Meaning Of Its Supremacy Clause
The Texas House of Representatives passed a TSA "nullification" bill that would ban passenger searches at airports without probable cause. The proposal would classify any airport inspection that "touches the anus, sexual organ, buttocks, or breast of another person including through the clothing, or touches the other person in a manner that would be offensive to a reasonable person" as an offense of sexual harassment under official oppression. The bill will move onto the Senate for consideration.
The TSA responded in a statement saying, "What's our take on the Texas House of Representatives voting to ban the current TSA pat-down? Well, the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Article. VI. Clause 2) prevents states from regulating the federal government."
The Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution states: "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding."
To understand the original meaning of the Supremacy Clause one should first look to Federalist No. 33. In that January 2, 1788 essay, Alexander Hamilton explained:But it is said that the laws of the Union are to be the supreme law of the land. But what inference can be drawn from this, or what would they amount to, if they were not to be supreme? It is evident they would amount to nothing. A LAW, by the very meaning of the term, includes supremacy. It is a rule which those to whom it is prescribed are bound to observe. This results from every political association. If individuals enter into a state of society, the laws of that society must be the supreme regulator of their conduct. If a number of political societies enter into a larger political society, the laws which the latter may enact, pursuant to the powers intrusted to it by its constitution, must necessarily be supreme over those societies, and the individuals of whom they are composed. It would otherwise be a mere treaty, dependent on the good faith of the parties, and not a government, which is only another word for POLITICAL POWER AND SUPREMACY. But it will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the large society which are not pursuant to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such. Hence we perceive that the clause which declares the supremacy of the laws of the Union, like the one we have just before considered, only declares a truth, which flows immediately and necessarily from the institution of a federal government. It will not, I presume, have escaped observation, that it expressly confines this supremacy to laws made pursuant to the Constitution; which I mention merely as an instance of caution in the convention; since that limitation would have been to be understood, though it had not been expressed.
William Davie similarly also said at the North Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788, “This Constitution, as to the powers therein granted, is constantly to be the supreme law of the land. Every power ceded by it must be executed without being counteracted by the laws or constitutions of the individual states. Gentlemen should distinguish that it is not the supreme law in the exercise of power not granted. It can be supreme only in cases consistent with the powers specially granted, and not in usurpations.” Federalist James Iredell said the same thing at the North Carolina Convention declaring that “[t]his clause [the supremacy clause] is supposed [by the Constitution's opponents] to give too much [federal] power, when, in fact, it only provides for the execution of those powers which are already given in the foregoing articles… If Congress, under pretense of executing one power, should, in fact, usurp another, they will violate the Constitution."
In fact, the succinct citation by the TSA to the Supremacy Clause is exactly the sort of argument made by the Anti-Federalist opponents of the Constitution. George Mason argued at the Virginia Ratifying Convention in 1788, "Now, sir, if the laws and constitution of the general government, as expressly said, be paramount to those of any state, are not those rights with which we were afraid to trust our own citizens annuled and given up to the general government?" Though the TSA's procedures may indeed have strong legal merit given that flying on an airplane is not a right and given the current necessities to secure passengers and maintain safe flights, their arrogant argument is nonetheless a position in line with what George Mason predicted. This was the prediction of a federal government that argued that it could simply trample the rights of the people without question because its laws are supreme. It is not so much the specific procedures that are problematic as it is the careless attitude of a federal government agency regarding its potential Constitutional responsibilities.
The Supremacy Clause itself must be seen in light of the original scheme of an enumeration of federal congressional powers. James Madison wrote in his Report of 1800, which was meant to explain resolutions passed by some States against the Sedition Act of President John Adams that criminalized criticism of his administrationWhen the Constitution was under the discussions which preceded its ratification, it is well known that great apprehensions were expressed by many, lest the omission of some positive exception, from the powers delegated, of certain rights, and of the freedom of the press particularly, might expose them to the danger of being drawn, by construction, within some of the powers vested in Congress, more especially of the power to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying their other powers into execution. In reply to this objection, it was invariably urged to be a fundamental and characteristic principle of the Constitution, that all powers not given by it were reserved; that no powers were given beyond those enumerated in the Constitution, and such as were fairly incident to them: that the power over the rights in question...was neither among the enumerated powers, nor incident to any of them; and consequently that an exercise of any such power would be manifest usurpation... [The States] ratified the Constitution in the sense that no right of any denomination can be cancelled, abridged, restrained, or modified, by the Government of the United States, or any part of it, except in those instances in which power is given by the Constitution" (emphasis added).
The Texas House of Representatives is of the opinion that certain TSA practices violate the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This is clear from the fact that the Texas law uses the standard of a "reasonable person" and requires "probable cause." This is language borrowed directly from the Fourth Amendment and basic jurisprudence therein. The Fourth Amendment reads: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
The understanding of the Supremacy Clause as put forth by the TSA is rather beside the point. The point is that a State law may soon stand in contradiction to a federal law or procedure, and most likely the federal courts will then have to adjudicate the Constitutionality of the TSA screening procedures in order to see which should stand. If the TSA's pat-downs were found to violate the Fourth Amendment then the TSA would be found to be acting outside the bounds of the Constitution. If the TSA engages in unconstitutional procedures, they do not reign supreme. In the words of Hamilton, "these will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such." However, if the TSA screening does not violate the Fourth Amendment, then the Texas law would have to be struck down as violating the Supremacy Clause. Whether the TSA techniques violate the Fourth Amendment is then the most relevant issue, not the Supremacy Clause. I personally doubt the federal courts would find the TSA pat-downs given the current climate of airport security concerns to be an "unreasonable search and seizure." Whether federal courts end up finding the TSA's procedures actually in line with the Constitution's Fourth Amendment is a separate question altogether, but the point is that it is the important one.
Quite apart from the issue of "nullification" and a State being able to declare federal laws it views as unconstitutional null and void, a similar procedural tactic was used by the State of Virginia to challenge Obamacare in federal court. Such State laws arguably gives the State standing now to sue the federal government in federal court to defend its State law. This is precisely how the State of Virginia actually challenged the federal Obamacare law. The Virginia Health Care Freedom Act, passed a few days after the federal health care statute, proclaims that "[n]o resident of this Commonwealth ... shall be required to obtain or maintain a policy of individual insurance coverage except as required by a court or the Department of Social Services." Virginia argued to the District Court that this law gave it "standing to sue" even though the federal act's individual mandate provision is directed at individuals, and does not require the State itself to do anything. Federal District Court Judge Henry Hudson accepted this argument, writing that the Virginia statute (despite what he called its "transparent legislative intent" of blocking the federal law), by its "mere existence ... is sufficient to trigger the duty of the [State] Attorney General to defend the law." Oral arguments in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals recently touched upon this issue, and it should be pointed out that according to the Washington Post "the judges seemed particularly dubious of Virginia’s assertion that it has standing to sue in the case. A lower court judge had previously accepted [Virginia Attorney General Ken] Cuccinelli’s contention that Virginia has a sovereign interest in protecting a state law passed last year by the General Assembly that makes it illegal to require Virginians to be insured." The point is, however, that there is a credible legal argument currently being made, and accepted by at least even some federal judges, that such State laws passed with intent to directly contradict federal law or procedures give a State standing to challenge in federal court a federal law that they believe is outside the scope of the Supremacy Clause by virtue of its unconstitutionality.
Again, this is not to say that the State law must necessarily and automatically trump the federal law as an advocate of State "nullification" of federal law might argue. "Father of the Constitution" James Madison specifically wrote in a letter to Thomas Jefferson in 1823 that the federal courts play an important role in adjudicating the impact of the Supremacy Clause. It is for this reason that the issue of a wayward judiciary unwilling to uphold Constitutional limits on the federal government should indeed be an issue of much concern to all those that support the original Constitution. As James Madison wrote that the Constitution "intended the Authority vested in the Judicial Department as a final resort in relation to the States, for cases resulting to it in the exercise of its functions... and that this intention is expressed by the articles declaring that the federal Constitution & laws shall be the supreme law of the land, and that the Judicial Power of the U. S. shall extend to all cases arising under them: Believing moreover that this was the prevailing view of the subject when the Constitution was adopted & put into execution; that it has so continued thro' the long period which has elapsed..."
Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist correctly noted in dissenting in Richmond Newspapers v. Virgnia (1980), "Nothing in the reasoning of Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in Marbury v. Madison requires that this Court, through ever-broadening use of the Supremacy Clause, smother a healthy pluralism which would ordinarily exist in a national government embracing 50 States." Early Constitutional scholar St. George Tucker also put it plainly when he wrote "[t]hat a law limited to such objects as may be authorised by the constitution, would, under the true construction of this clause, be the suprerme law of the land; but a law not limited to those objects, or not made pursuant to the constitution, would not be the supreme law of the land, but an act of usurpation, and consequently void. "
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Miami Imam And His Two Sons Charged With Supporting The Taliban
The AP reports that "an elderly Miami imam and two of his sons have been arrested on federal charges they provided some $50,000 to the Pakistani Taliban, while three others in Pakistan have been indicted on charges of handling distribution of the funds, authorities say. Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan, 76, was arrested Saturday at the Miami Mosque, also known as the Flagler Mosque. One of his sons, Izhar Khan, 24, another imam at the Jamaat Al-Mu'mineen Mosque in nearby Margate, Fla., was arrested there. Another son, Irfan Khan, 37, was detained in Los Angeles. The three are U.S. citizens. Their mosques are not suspected of wrongdoing, authorities said. Also named in the indictment are three others at large in Pakistan - Hafiz Khan's daughter, grandson and an unrelated man, all three charged with handling the distribution of funds, authorities said. The Pakistani Taliban are designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization. The indictment lists about $50,000 in transactions. According to the indictment, the funds were used to buy guns, support militants' families and promote the cause of the Pakistani Taliban. It alleges that Hafiz Khan owns the religious school in northwest Pakistan that shelters members of the Pakistani Taliban and trains children to become militants." Tweet
Iran's Punishment Of Pouring Acid In Man's For Doing So To Woman That Rejected His Marriage Proposal Postponed
The Daily Mail reports that "A punishment in which an Iranian man was to be blinded by having acid dropped into his eyes has been postponed after international condemnation. Majid Movahedi was convicted and sentenced for pouring a bucket of acid over Ameneh Bahrami after she rejected his marriage proposals. The attack left her blind and severely disfigured. The court-ordered retribution was due to have been carried out yesterday in Tehran. But it is understood the authorities in the Iranian capital decided to postpone the punishment, which is allowed under Sharia law if the victim requests it, because of national and international disquiet including concerns raised by the British Government. Yesterday Ms Bahrami told Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based news service: ‘I was very happy that this was going to end today. And yes, I was going to carry out the punishment myself, but I was afraid that I would get acid on my hands, so a doctor was going to do it. It’s been six years that I’ve been waiting. The verdict is completely legal.’ On November 3, 2004, Movahedi poured a bucket of acid on Ms Bahrami’s head as she was leaving work, after she had rejected his marriage proposal several times. Two weeks after the attack Movahedi surrendered himself to the police. He admitted attacking Ms Bahrami and his punishment was ordered by a court in 2008. Among those unhappy about the prospect of Ms Bahrami exacting such a brutal revenge on her attacker was Amnesty International. The organisation called for a stay of the sentence, which it described as ‘cruel and inhuman . . . amounting to torture’. ‘The Iranian authorities have a responsibility under international law to ensure it does not go ahead,’ it added. Ms Bahrami, who was 24 when she met Movahedi in 2002, now lives in Spain where she has been undergoing medical treatment. She is blind in both eyes and still has serious injuries to her face and body."
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Palestinians Violently Riot Against Existence Of Israel
During the riots which took place as part of "Nakba Day" ("catastrophe day," marking the creation of the State of Israel), Palestinians in Qalandiya hurled rocks, shot flares, firebombs and burned trash cans:
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George Mason Law School Professor Ilya Somin On Japanese Admiral Yamamoto Precedent And The Legal Justification Of Targeted Killing
George Mason law professor Ilya Somin was quoted by Al Jazeera:
Ilya Somin, a professor at George Mason University’s School of Law, echoed Greenberg’s argument that “targeting individual enemy combatants in war is perfectly legal and moral”.
Somin points at US targeting of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander of the Japanese fleet during World War II, and the British and the Czechs’ killing of German SS General Reinhard Heydrick [sic] in 1942, as precedents.
“Surely international law does not give terrorist leaders greater protection than that enjoyed by uniformed soldiers such as Admiral Yamamoto.”
“And if it is legal to individually target the commander of a uniformed military force, it is surely equally legal to target the leader of a terrorist organisation, including Osama bin Laden,” he told Al Jazeera.
To read more from Somin on this issue click here. Tweet
"Palestinian" Jihadist Protesters Confront Israeli Troops At Four Borders
From the New York Times:
"Israel’s borders erupted in deadly clashes on Sunday as thousands of Palestinians — marching from Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank — confronted Israeli troops to mark the anniversary of Israel’s creation. More than a dozen people were reported killed and scores injured in the unprecedented wave of coordinated protests...Later, in a separate incident, an 18-year-old Gazan near another part of the border fence was shot and killed by Israeli troops when, the Israeli military says, he was trying to plant an explosive. The chief Israeli military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, said on Israel radio that he saw Iran’s fingerprints in the coordinated confrontations although he offered no evidence. Syria has a close alliance with Iran, as does Hezbollah, which controls southern Lebanon, and Hamas, which rules in Gaza. Yoni Ben-Menachem, Israel Radio’s chief Arab affairs analyst, said it seemed likely that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria was seeking to divert attention from his troubles caused by popular uprisings there in recent weeks by allowing confrontations on the Golan Heights for the first time in decades... Lebanese officials said the protesters received permission from the Lebanese Army to enter the area around Maroun al-Ras, which is classified as a militarily sensitive region. But military officials said they tried to keep the protesters behind a fence on the Lebanese side of the border, and prevent them from reaching a second fence on the Israeli side. Hezbollah was believed to have helped coordinate the march. A field hospital affiliated with the group, the Martyr Salah Ghandour Hospital, which operates in Bint Jbeil, a large town in southern Lebanon, was present at the scene. In Syria, dozens of checkpoints safeguard the border area, which has been relatively peaceful since a truce in 1974. The arrival of hundreds, or thousands, would require, if not government permission, at least an official willingness to look the other way."
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Muslim Truck Driver In Tel Aviv Plows Into Cars, Murdering One Person, Injuring 17, While Shouting "Death To Jews" And "Allahu Akbar"
A witness who claims he stopped the driver who hit several cars on Tel Aviv's Bar Lev Street Sunday in what police called a suspected terror attack said he initially thought the driver had just lost control of his brakes.TweetArik Levy told Israel Radio that when he went to go help the driver, he saw him continue to hit cars and street lights, and heard him saying "Allahu Akbar" and "death to Jews."
Levy said he ran up to the driver, the two struggled for a short time, and then police arrived at the scene after 10 minutes.
Another witness who saw the incident told The Jerusalem Post the driver "looked crazy."
The eye witness, 18-year-old Natalie, said she saw the truck driver driving in zigzags, and "deliberately hitting everything he saw."
"It was obvious it was deliberate," she said. "He was looking at the road and then back down at his wheel. He looked crazy."
Bar Lev street was strewn with wreckage, with several badly-damaged vehicles parked in different areas on the street. Some of the vehicles were lying in the middle of the dividing fence in the opposing traffic lane, street signs were flattened and there was glass on street...
Ben Stein: "Arab Spring" Is A Fraud
To read this article visit http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/05/15/sunday/main20063017.shtml. Tweet
Georgia Passes Illegal Immigration Law
Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed into law on Friday an immigration bill giving police authority to question suspects about their immigration status which is similar to a controversial measure passed in Arizona.
The law also requires many private employers to check the immigration status of newly hired workers on a federal database called E-Verify.
Deal said the law will take the burden off Georgia's schools, hospitals and prisons by reducing the number of illegal immigrants in the state.
"This legislation is a responsible step forward in the absence of federal action," Deal said during a signing ceremony in his office at the Capitol.
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