During a trip to Jamaica, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dismissed fears of a quagmire and said the mission should not be abandoned now. Clinton said the Libyan opposition has made "very clear progress" in its political organization, as well as in its fight against forces loyal to Gadhafi.
"But the bottom line is, whose side are you on?" she said to reporters. "Are you on Gadhafi's side or are you on the side of the aspirations of the Libyan people and the international coalition that has been created to support them? For the Obama administration, the answer to that question is very easy."
Saturday, June 25, 2011
New York Legislature Redefines Marriage, Allows For Gay Couples To Wed
With a historic vote by its Legislature late Friday, New York became the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage since Massachusetts led the way, under court order, in 2004.
While there is reason to disagree with the decision made by the legislature of New York, at least it was a decision of the legislature of New York. New York did not have its judicial overlords cloaked in robes declaring that the Constitution of the United States or of the State of New York required New York to redefine the institution of marriage to include gay couples. Instead, the political process took its course and the legislature ratified this change as is within its power.
In fact, New York's Court of Appeals (which is the State's highest court) actually explicitly ruled that there was no constitutional requirement to change marriage laws to include gay couples. That decision from 2006 can be read here: http://www.courts.state.ny.us/reporter/3dseries/2006/2006_05239.htm Tweet
Friday, June 24, 2011
Hypocrite Hillary Clinton To Libya War Skeptics: " Whose Side Are You On?"
Now take a listen to what Senator Hillary Clinton had to say when ranting against Bush:
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House Passes Resolution Against War In Libya, But Refuses To Defund Military Action
The House refused to vote President Barack Obama the authority for U.S. military operations against Libya on Friday but stopped short of cutting off funds for the mission, a mixed message reminiscent of congressional unease on Vietnam and more recent wars.Tweet
In a repudiation of the commander in chief, the House voted overwhelmingly against a resolution that would have favored letting the mission continue for one year while barring U.S. ground forces, a resolution the president said he would welcome.
The vote was 295-123, with 70 Democrats abandoning Obama one day after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had made a last-minute plea in a Capitol Hill meeting.
But shortly after that vote, the House turned back a Republican-led effort to cut off money for military hostilities in the Libyan war.
The vote was 238-180. The funding measure would have barred drone attacks and airstrikes but allowed the United States to continue actions in support of NATO.
New Colonial Period TV Drama Produced By Tea Party Members
The one-hour drama is called Courage, New Hampshire, and it premiers Sunday at a movie theater in Monrovia, California:
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Dennis Miller: We Need To Stop Fighting Half-Wars
Dennis Miller radio rant on this can be listened to by visiting http://dennismillerradio.com/b/We-Need-to-Stop-Fighting-Half-Wars/-724788590344899095.html Tweet
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Ron Paul And Barney Frank Introduce Bill Legalizing Pot
A group of US representatives plan to introduce legislation that will legalize marijuana and allow states to legislate its use, pro-marijuana groups said Wednesday.Tweet
The legislation would limit the federal government's role in marijuana enforcement to cross-border or inter-state smuggling, and allow people to legally grow, use or sell marijuana in states where it is legal.
The bill, which is expected to be introduced on Thursday by Republican Representative Ron Paul and Democratic Representative Barney Frank, would be the first ever legislation designed to end the federal ban on marijuana.
Sixteen of the 50 states as well as the District of Columbia have legalized the use of marijuana for medical purposes.
But planting, selling or commercially distributing marijuana remains illegal under federal law.
Washington Post's Robert Kagan On Afghanistan: "Make No Mistake...The Entire Military Leadership Believes The President’s Decision Is A Mistake"
The Washington Post's Robert Kagan on Obama playing politics with national security at the expense of the lives of troops abroad and the success of the mission:
TweetThe press is reporting that the top military leaders have “endorsed” President Obama’s Afghan troop withdrawal decision. With all due respect to the fine reporters, that is not the news. Under our Constitution, military leaders have no choice but to endorse the president’s decision after giving him their best advice. They could resign, of course, but to have the entire senior military leadership resign over a president’s decision contrary to their advice would be a disaster, and not least for the troops on the ground.
Make no mistake, however. The entire military leadership believes the president’s decision is a mistake, and especially the decision to withdraw the remainder of the surge forces by September 2012. They will soldier on and do their best, but as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, put it, in characteristic understatement, they believe the decision will increase the risk to the troops and increase the chance that the mission will not succeed. It bears repeating that the deadline imposed by the president has nothing to do with military or strategic calculation. It has everything to do with an electoral calculation. President Obama wants those troops out two months before Americans go to the voting booth.
This may prove a disastrous political calculation, too, however. If the war is going badly in the summer and fall of 2012, it will be because of the decision the president made this week. Everyone will know he did it against the advice of his commanders. Everyone will know he did it for political reasons. So if the war is going badly a year from now, whom do you think the American people will blame? There will still be 70,000 American troops in Afghanistan, but as part of a losing effort. Will Americans reward Obama at the polls under those circumstances? This was a shortsighted decision from every perspective. There is still time for the president to fix it. He just needs to say that the deadline is flexible and depends on circumstances on the ground. That would go some way toward repairing the damage he has done.
New York Times On Obama Overruling His Top Generals In Making His Decision On Afghanistan
TweetMr. Obama announced plans to withdraw 10,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year. The remaining 20,000 troops from the 2009 “surge” of forces would leave by next summer, amounting to about a third of the 100,000 troops now in the country. He said the drawdown would continue “at a steady pace” until the United States handed over security to the Afghan authorities in 2014.
The troop reductions, which were decided after a short but fierce internal debate, will be both deeper and faster than the recommendations made by Mr. Obama’s military commanders, and they will come as the president faces relentless budget pressures, an increasingly restive American public and a re-election campaign next year.
Mr. Obama’s decision is a victory for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has long argued for curtailing the military operation in Afghanistan. Mr. Obama indicated a willingness to move toward more focused covert operations of the type that the United States is conducting in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere. “When threatened, we must respond with force,” he said. “But when that force can be targeted, we need not deploy large armies overseas.”
The pace of the withdrawal is a setback for the president’s top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, who has been named director of the Central Intelligence Agency. General Petraeus did not endorse the decision, said another official. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates argued publicly against a too-hasty withdrawal of troops, but he said in a statement on Wednesday that he supported Mr. Obama’s decision.
Rob Natelson: "More Evidence The Constitution Limited Federal Power"
To read this article by the former University of Montana Law Professor visit http://blog.tenthamendhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifmentcenter.com/2011/06/more-evidence-the-constitution-limited-federal-power/ Tweet
Dutch Court Acquits Geert Wilers In Hate Speech Trial
The New York Times reports:Geert Wilders, the fiery right-wing Dutch politician, was acquitted on Thursday of hate speech charges by an Amsterdam court, which found that his inflammatory comments about Muslims were protected by rules governing discourse in a free society.
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Mr. Wilders, 47, had faced a possible one-year prison sentence on five charges of inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims. He has become an important force in Dutch politics, making provocative statements including comparing the Koran with Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and calling for an end to Muslim immigration.
Mr. Wilders also made a short film, “Fitna,” in 2008 that portrayed Islam as inherently violent, and he joined Newt Gingrich in New York last year to oppose the building of an Islamic community center and mosque near the World Trade Center site.
But the presiding judge of the Amsterdam District Court, Marcel van Oosten, found that while offensive, Mr. Wilders’s actions were protected speech. In dismissing the charges, Judge Oosten described some of Mr. Wilders’s comments as “rude and denigrating” and others as “on the edge of what is allowed,” Radio Netherlands reported.
Mr. Wilders’s supporters clapped as the judge concluded his remarks.
The verdict had been expected as prosecutors themselves had called for his acquittal, arguing that the statements were directed “against a religion as such and not against individual persons or a group of people.”
Under the case law of the Dutch Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights, it was not possible to convict him, G. J. Alexander Knoops, a Dutch lawyer and professor of international criminal law at the University of Utrecht, said in an e-mail. But the Muslim organizations that brought the case won a Court of Appeal ruling that it should go ahead over the objections of the prosecution.
“The judgment is in line with the case law of the European Court on Human Rights,” Mr. Knoops wrote, “which in 2010 held that only when certain statements incite to violence, there is a role for criminal law.”
“The same approach is taken by the U.S. Supreme Court,” he added, for example in cases involving the Ku Klux Klan.
The court gave the plaintiffs 14 days to appeal, but Mr. Knoops said the complainants had little ground for such action: “In our system, only the prosecution can appeal a judgment,” and that is “highly unlikely.”...
The original judges in the trial were ordered to step down in October after Mr. Wilders’s lawyers argued that the jurists were biased against him.
Obama's Afghanistan Troop Withdrawal "Concerns" House Speaker John Boehner
“We all want our troops to come home as soon as possible, but we shouldn’t adhere to an arbitrary timetable on the withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan. This decision should not be based on politics or economics. America’s brave men and women in uniform have fought to achieve significant progress in Afghanistan, some having paid the ultimate price. I look forward to hearing the testimony of our military commanders in the days ahead.”
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Obama Announces Afghanistan Troop Withdrawal, Against General David Petraeus
Let's remember that he ignored General Stanley McChrystal by sending an extra 30,000 new troops instead of 40,000 after quite a lot of dithering, and has now decided to withdraw those same troops against the express advice of General David Petraeus.
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Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Texas Governor Rick Perry Signs Mezuzah Protection Bill: Cannot Restrict Religious Displays On Doorposts
TweetYears after a Jewish couple in Houston were fined for displaying a mezuzah on the door frame of the condo they rented in the Heights, a new Texas law prohibits home owners’ associations from banning such religious objects.
The bill was one of the final pieces of legislation signed by Gov. Rick Perry at the end of the session Friday and prevents restrictions against “displaying or affixing on the entry to the owner’s or resident’s dwelling one or more religious items the display of which is motivated by the owner’s or resident’s sincere religious belief.” (An association may still put rules in place to restrict the size of an item or ban objects with offensive imagery or language. Full text of the bill is available here.)
“People assume that religious freedom is something you just have, and they take it for granted. It’s good to know that these laws are out there,” said Monica Lundeen Smith, whose case led Rep. Garnet Coleman, of Houston, to push the bill through the Texas legislature. Similar laws are on the books in Illinois and Florida, both responses to mezuzah cases.
The Torah instructs Jews to keep God’s commandments “upon the doorposts of thy house,” so Jewish homes and businesses hang small boxes containing a tiny Torah scroll by entrance doors, called mezuzot. They serve as a reminder of God’s laws and some believe they also provide blessings and protection to the dwelling.
Lundeen Smith, a Conservative Jew who grew up at Congregation Brith Shalom and later attended Congregation Beth Yeshurun, had hung a mezuzah at every place she’d lived, so she didn’t even think twice about hanging the few-inch long object outside their condo.
Even though the hallway of the complex was littered with doormats, Christmas decorations, plants and other décor, “we got a letter four months in saying to take the ‘item’ down. We thought, ‘OK, they must not know what it is, we’ll just explain it to them,’” she said.
But it wasn’t that easy. As renters, they were unable to negotiate the terms of a lease they’d already signed, even if it was to resist religious discrimination.
The Heights at Madison Park fined them for not removing the object and the couple, with the help of Lundeen Smith’s lawyer parents, sued and countersued. They lost the case and moved out of the complex when their lease was up. In 2009, the Lundeens reached out to Coleman, their representative, to keep their case from happening to other people of faith.
“I filed this bill to extend religious freedom in situations where it may not exist. In this situation it was very clear that this couple was singled out because of their faith. Thanks to this family’s courage and willingness to share their story, other Texans will not have to go through a similar experience,” said Coleman.
CAIR Loses, For Now, IRS Tax-Exempt Status
The Investigative Project on Terrorism reports:
Donations to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) no longer are tax deductible after the organization was among 275,000 tax-exempt organizations purged earlier this month by the Internal Revenue Service.TweetThe groups failed to file required annual reports, known as form 990s, detailing their revenues and expenses, for three consecutive years. CAIR had been a non-profit on its own, but in 2007, the IRS approved a separate tax-exempt CAIR Foundation. The foundation never filed any subsequent reports. Both the foundation and CAIR national are on the purge list.
CAIR has 30 state chapters throughout the country, many of which have their own non-profit designations which remain active.
While the IRS believes most of the organizations stripped of status have shut down, those still operating can apply for reinstatement. Meanwhile, CAIR's web site continues to solicit donations by touting them as tax deductible two weeks after the IRS issued the list and notifications were sent to all 275,000 purged groups.
Donors still could deduct the money on their tax returns if CAIR is reinstated between now and April 15. All the purged organizations have 15 months to seek reinstatement. But it is unclear whether CAIR will file the required papers or whether their explanation about past reporting failures will be enough to satisfy the IRS.
"This listing should have little, if any, impact on donors who previously made deductible contributions to auto-revoked organizations because donations made prior to the publication of an organization's name on the list remain tax-deductible," an IRS statement said. "Going forward, however, organizations that are on the auto-revocation list that do not receive reinstatement are no longer eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions, and any income they receive may be taxable."
To regain its exempt status, CAIR must file the missing three annual reports, along with a new application for exempt status. Finally, it must explain why it failed to file the 990s for three consecutive years and explain any new procedures which will ensure future compliance.
The annual reports include financial information on donations and other sources of income, operating expenses and names and payments given to directors and key staff members.
The CAIR Foundation won exempt status in 2007 and then never filed any annual reports. That year, the Washington Times reported that CAIR's membership plummeted by 90 percent, from a high of 29,000 people in 2000 to less than 1,700 in 2006. CAIR vehemently denied the report when it was issued. But a year later, when the organization sought to have its name removed from a list of unindicted co-conspirators in a Hamas-financing prosecution, CAIR attorneys tied the diminishing support to the 2007 co-conspirator list.
"Furthermore, the amount of donations that they have been receiving has dwindled well below their monthly budget, and as their associational activity necessarily relies upon donations from the public, the government's labeling of them as an unindicted co-conspirator has chilled their associational activity."
Anecdotal information indicates the group increasingly has turned to foreign donors for operating revenue. In 2006, State Department records obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism show, CAIR sent delegations to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates seeking millions of dollars in support.
The delegation included CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad, spokesman Ibrahim Hooper, then-board chairman Parvez Ahmed, and current chairman Larry Shaw.
In 2009, Awad solicited Libyan Dictator Muammar Gaddafi to help underwrite a program to distribute 1 million copies of the Quran to government officials and the general public in America and to help start up a new foundation Awad was trying to launch.
When it applied for exempt status, the CAIR Foundation told the IRS that it would solicit "nationwide, although it is expected that the largest support will come from Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, where CAIR-Foundation's visibility is most prominent to potential donors."
White House Announces Gruesome New Tobacco Label Warnings
Apparently its news that cigarettes are unhealthy, and the federal government has therefore taken upon itself to gross you out with new labels.
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Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Humanitarian Intervention And Military Action: Four Questions Regarding The War In Libya
Let no one pretend the United States was not dragged into this intervention. It is a purely humanitarian mission that Europe took the lead on, and that the US for that reason felt impelled to join. Once America was in, it became another American war. "The mightiest military alliance in history is only 11 weeks into an operation against a poorly armed regime in a sparsely populated country, yet many allies are beginning to run short of munitions, requiring the U.S. once more to make up the difference," said U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in Brussels on June 10, 2011. If that's the case, one has to wonder why Europe took the initial lead in the first place.
Though I don't necessarily disagree with the general idea that some form of force can be justified for solely humanitarian missions, there are four issues or questions that I have regarding this war in particular and that I think every American should be asking:
- What about Congressional approval? Because there is not Congressional approval for an offensive action that has lasted months, it can therefore credibly be argued as utterly unconstitutional. That was Barack Obama's position before he became President. Then again, he ran as the anti-war candidate and opened up a new front while President, so that's not worth much now, is it?
- Why has America not gotten involved in Syria? Or Iran in 2009? Yemen? Bahrain? Is the new rule for humanitarian intervention that basically you can go ahead and slaughter your own people, so long as you are quiet about it. Is the message that if you don't go announcing your plan to slaughter every opponent to the world like madman Moammar Gaddhafi then you'll be alright? Maybe we've discovered the "Obama Doctrine." Unless of course the actual "Obama doctrine" is that you don't use force unless first David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy think you should.
- If we are going to use military force for humanitarian purposes, why not have it coincide with national security interests? Gaddhafi was no threat at all to the United States, he even abandoned his nuclear program as a direct result of the invasion of Iraq. Before this war with Libya, relations were actually becoming more normalized than previously. So when it comes to terror-sponsor Syria, or perhaps Iran which has a nuclear program and put down protests with force in 2009 after sham elections, why does America stand on the sidelines (or desire to be seen as not "meddling")? It's not an aversion to the use of force, because we attacked Libya. Is Libya really a more worthy target than Iran or Syria? Is it more pure to act when no U.S. interest is involved (like in Libya) than to act when humanitarian missions coincide with U.S. interests (as Bush believed was the case with Iraq/Afghanistan, and as would be far more the case with Iran/Syria)?
- But perhaps most importantly, there is an authority in Benghazi and this is a civil war against Gaddhafi. If our purpose is humanitarian, and Gaddhafi was the humanitarian threat, why the hell is this loony dictator still in power after all this time if he's defying the world's superpower and her supposedly militarily advanced allies? Why has he not been toppled or killed and this civil war done with already? If you are going to deal with a humanitarian crises, why not deal with it? If you want to fight, why not go for a knockout and be done with it, and then pass the reins over to the fellows in Benghazi to take over? I don't see how it cannot be seen as very disgraceful that Gaddhafi is still in power as we speak.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Jihadists In Pakistan Kidnap Nine-Year-Old Girl And Try To Use Her As Suicide Bomber
The Independent reports:
A girl of nine has told how she escaped Pakistani terrorists who tried to use her as a human bomb.TweetSohana Jawed said she was kidnapped on her way to school in Peshawar, and forced to wear a remotely-controlled suicide jacket. But she escaped her captors as they prepared to send her towards a paramilitary checkpoint.
Sohana, wearing her a blue and white school uniform, recounted her ordeal during a news conference with police in Lower Dir district. Militants in Pakistan have often used young boys to carry out attacks, but the use of young girls is rare....
New Study On Islam In America Shows Very Alarming Extent Of Radicalism In American Mosques
Investor's Business Daily writes in a an informative and chilling editorial:
An alarming new study shows homegrown terrorists are not just radicalized in prisons or chat rooms but in mainstream U.S. mosques. Now if someone would just tell the White House.TweetA survey of 100 randomly selected mosques in America finds 81% of them feature Islamic literature — not including the Quran and Sunnah — that advocates violence. And 85% of the imams running the mosques actively recommend these tracts.
Only 19% of the mosques do not disseminate Islamic materials sanctioning jihadi violence, according to the peer-reviewed data collected by two scholars sponsored by the Washington-based Center for Security Policy. If accurate, this turns everything we've been told by Washington on its head.
Despite pleasant platitudes to the contrary, the majority of mosques are not preaching interfaith tolerance and assimilation. While some do, they are the exception — the fringe. It's the mainstream mosques that are actually radical. Fully four of every five, in fact, may be potential hotbeds for terrorist activity.
And the overwhelming majority adhere, at least in their worship rituals, to Shariah law — the strict Islamic legal code practiced in Saudi Arabia. The survey found, for example, that most American Muslim women are forced to pray separately from men and cover themselves with scarves and veils.
We're not talking about mosques in Saudi Arabia or Iran. Or even Britain. These are Islamic centers operating right here inside America — more than likely in your neighborhood. And new ones are popping up every day.
A popular tract distributed in U.S. mosques is "Milestones" by Sayyid Qutb, the man who inspired Osama bin Laden. If anyone restricts others from accepting Islam, Qutb exhorts Muslims, "then it is the duty of Islam to fight him until either he is killed or until he declares his submission."
What's stunning is that this tract is categorized by the authors — whose study is published in the latest issue of "The Middle East Quarterly" — among the featured Islamic literature advocating "moderate" violence. And that grouping is in the minority. More than half the mosque tracts surveyed exhort Muslims to commit "severe" acts of violence.
This is the first empirical evidence answering the question vexing experts: What is radicalizing the growing crop of homegrown Muslim terrorists in America? The answer may be Muslim places of worship.
Will the administration pay attention? Don't bet on it. It's too busy doing outreach with these very same mosques. The State Department coordinates diplomatic training programs with Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center just outside the capital, even though the mosque has been the subject of several FBI terror probes including the 9/11 case.
Meantime, White House national security advisers are conducting formal outreach with another Washington-area mosque, ADAMS Center, even though its imam also heads an organization named an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terror-finance case in U.S. history. And even though his mosque has been cited for distributing violent Saudi propaganda.
Also, the Justice Department recently stepped in to defend the construction of a mega-mosque in Tennessee, though the top mosque officials include a convicted felon and a Hamas supporter who had to be suspended by the mosque after local press exposed his radical ties.
Despite overwhelming evidence that many mosques operate as hubs for terrorism, none has been shut down. And more are being built without any investigation into their sources of funding or leadership.
The seminal mosque study proves that al-Qaida doesn't need the Internet or prisons to radicalize Muslims. It's getting plenty of help from our own mosques, which hold services every Friday often to overflow crowds, including ones not far from the Pentagon and just across the Potomac from the White House and Capitol.
Instead of holding more hearings on prison radicalization, House Homeland Security Committee chief Pete King would be well-advised to investigate mosque radicalization, political correctness be damned.
US Supreme Court Unanimously Throws Out Class Action Suit Against WalMart
The AP reports on the unanimous ruling:
The U.S. Supreme Court sided with Walmart today, ruling that female employees can't sue the retail giant in a class action alleging wage discrimination.A narrow 5-4 ruling on a companion issue is critically important to such class actions now coming to an end:The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in April 2010 that the employees could sue, which left Walmart open to $1.6 billion in damages, the AP reports. The Supreme Court said lawyers failed to identify a corporate policy that resulted in thousands of women at Sam's Club and Walmart stores being paid less than their male peers.
TweetThe justices divided 5-4 on another aspect of the ruling that could make it much harder to mount similar class-action discrimination lawsuits against large employers.
Justice Antonin Scalia’s opinion for the court’s conservative majority said there needs to be common elements tying together “literally millions of employment decisions at once.”
But Scalia said that in the lawsuit against the nation’s largest private employer, “That is entirely absent here.”
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the court’s four liberal justices, said there was more than enough uniting the claims. “Wal-Mart’s delegation of discretion over pay and promotions is a policy uniform throughout all stores,” Ginsburg said.
First, if the employer “used a biased testing procedure to evaluate both applicants for employment and incumbent employees, a class action on behalf of every applicant or employee who might have been prejudiced by the test clearly would satisfy the commonality and typicality requirements of Rule 23(a).” Id., at 159, n. 15. Second, “[s]ignificant proof that an employer operated under a general policy of discrimination conceivably could justify a class of both applicants and employees if the discrimination manifested itself in hiring and promotion practices in the same general fashion, such as through entirely subjective decision making processes.” Ibid. We think that statement precisely describes respondents’ burden in this case. The first manner of bridging the gap obviously has no application here; Wal-Mart has no testing procedure or other company wide evaluation method that can be charged with bias. The whole point of permitting discretionary decisionmaking is to avoid evaluating employees under a common standard...
Even if it established (as it does not) a pay or promotion pattern that differs from the nationwide figures or the regional figures in all of Wal-Mart’s 3,400 stores, that would still not demonstrate that commonality of issue exists. Some managers will claim that the availability of women, or qualified women, or interested women, in their stores’ area does not mirror the national or regional statistics. And almost all of them will claim to have been applying some sex-neutral, performance-based criteria—whose nature and effectswill differ from store to store. In the landmark case of ours which held that giving discretion to lower-level supervisors can be the basis of Title VII liability under a disparate-impact theory, the plurality opinion conditioned that holding on the corollary that merely proving that the discretionary system has produced a racial or sexual disparity is not enough. “[T]he plaintiff must begin by identifying the specific employment practice that is chal-lenged.” Watson, 487 U. S., at 994; accord, Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio, 490 U. S. 642, 656 (1989) (approving that statement), superseded by statute on other grounds, 42 U. S. C. §2000e–2(k). That is all the more necessary when a class of plaintiffs is sought to be certified. Other than the bare existence of delegated discretion, respondents have identified no “specific employment practice”—much less one that ties all their 1.5 million claims together. Merely showing that Wal-Mart’s policy of discretion has produced an overall sex-based disparity does not suffice.
Respondents’ anecdotal evidence suffers from the same defects, and in addition is too weak to raise any inference that all the individual, discretionary personnel decisions are discriminatory.
NBC Issues Lame Apology For Shamefully Editing Out "Under God" From Pledge In US Open
Here is a video of NBC cutting out "under God" from the pledge of allegiance:
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Sunday, June 19, 2011
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu To Europe: Stop Treating Palestinians "Like Spoiled Child"
Some leaders in Europe treat the Palestinians “like a spoiled child” and instead need to “tell the Palestinians the truth,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Sunday during a meeting with visiting Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov.
According to government sources, Netanyahu told Mladenov, considered one of the friendliest foreign ministers toward Israel in the EU, that there were individuals in the EU who never hesitated in telling Israel what they expected it to do, but were very reticent to take the same liberties with the Palestinians.
He was specifically talking about a reluctance by some in the EU to call explicitly for the Palestinians to give up on a “right of refugee return” and to recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, even though these Europeans had no qualms about calling clearly for Israel to agree to a Palestinian state along the 1967 lines and to redivide Jerusalem.
By not speaking with the same determination or frankness with the Palestinians, Netanyahu said, these leaders were “doing a disservice to those individual Palestinian leaders who are ready for compromise and deserve their support.”
The government sources named neither the Europeans nor the Palestinian leaders to whom Netanyahu was referring.
Israeli officials have long complained that while the Europeans are very specific when it comes to the solutions they envision regarding future borders or Jerusalem, when it came to an issue like refugees they often suffice with saying that a “just solution must be found.”
Why, one official asked, do they not use that same formula when addressing all issues, saying that a “just solution” needs to be found to the border question, rather than plainly referring to the 1967 lines as the resolution of that issue/ Netanyahu, who is scheduled to travel to Bulgaria and Romania in early July, reiterated Israel’s opposition to the Palestinians’ UN gambit, saying UN recognition would “put into UN cement” the maximalist Palestinian positions and prevent flexibility later.
To advance peace, Netanyahu said, it was necessary to oppose the PA’s move to the UN.
Bulgaria, along with countries like Romania, Poland and the Czech Republic, are considered among Israel’s closest supporters in the EU. When they were part of the Warsaw Pact, however, they were among the nearly 100 countries that recognized a Palestinian state in the late 1980s.
Regardless, Israel is lobbying these countries to vote against recognition of Palestinian statehood at the UN in September, and – according to one government official – Mladenov gave the impression during his meetings in Jerusalem that Bulgaria would not support the Palestinian move.
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Austrian Convert To Islam Arrested For Plan To Crash Plane Into Bundestag
AGI reports:
An Austrian national was arrested in Vienna and charged with terrorism. Detectives believe he was planning to crash a plane into the Bundestag, German parliament headquarters in Berlin. The suspect, 25-year-old Thomas al-J., is a young man who has converted to Islam. He was arrested Wednesday in his apartment in the Austrian capital and has also been accused of recruiting terrorists in order to send them to jihad training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and of funding terrorist organizations.....Tweet
Is Romney Running As A Republican? He Won't Sign Pro-Life Pledge Or Back Off Romneycare, Endorses Global Warming, And Supports Ethanol Subsidies
Romney has already in this race claimed that humans cause global warming. He's even been endorsed by Al Gore for his statements on global warming. He of course has refused to repudiate Romneycare in any fasion, and recently come out in favor of ethanol subsidies. Now he has refused to sign the Susan B Anthony List pledge.
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Obama Overruled Top Pentagon, DOJ Lawyers On Libya War Powers
TweetJeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon general counsel, and Caroline D. Krass, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, had told the White House that they believed that the United States military’s activities in the NATO-led air war amounted to “hostilities.” Under the War Powers Resolution, that would have required Mr. Obama to terminate or scale back the mission after May 20.
But Mr. Obama decided instead to adopt the legal analysis of several other senior members of his legal team — including the White House counsel, Robert Bauer, and the State Department legal adviser, Harold H. Koh — who argued that the United States military’s activities fell short of “hostilities.” Under that view, Mr. Obama needed no permission from Congress to continue the mission unchanged.
Presidents have the legal authority to override the legal conclusions of the Office of Legal Counsel and to act in a manner that is contrary to its advice, but it is extraordinarily rare for that to happen. Under normal circumstances, the office’s interpretation of the law is legally binding on the executive branch…
The administration followed an unusual process in developing its position. Traditionally, the Office of Legal Counsel solicits views from different agencies and then decides what the best interpretation of the law is. The attorney general or the president can overrule its views, but rarely do.
In this case, however, Ms. Krass was asked to submit the Office of Legal Counsel’s thoughts in a less formal way to the White House, along with the views of lawyers at other agencies. After several meetings and phone calls, the rival legal analyses were submitted to Mr. Obama, who is a constitutional lawyer, and he made the decision.
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