Saturday, August 6, 2011
Friday, August 5, 2011
U.S. Debt Shot Up $239 Billion On Tuesday — The Largest One-Day Bump In History
The Washington Times reports that "U.S. debt shot up $239 billion on Tuesday — the largest one-day bump in history — ...earned in this week’s debt-limit increase deal... That increase puts the government already remarkably close to the new debt limit of $14.694, which means one day’s new borrowing ate up 60 percent of the $400 billion in space Congress granted the president this week." To read the article visit http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/aug/3/us-eats-most-debt-limit-one-day Tweet
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Kurt Schlichter On Thwarted Islamist Former US Solider Attack: "How To Stop A Jihadi GI: The Army Learns, But Libs Don't"
Army veteran and trial lawyer Kurt Schlichter writes in the New York Post:
As a poster boy for the anti- war left, Pvt. Naser Jason Abdo seemed almost too good to be true: an assimilated American Muslim turned soldier -- turned pious conscientious objector, after it suddenly occurred to him that some of the guys he might be pointing his M4 at were Muslims too.Tweet
And he really was too good to be true. As an Army deserter, accused child-porn aficionado and now admitted aspiring jihadi who botched his attempt to pull off a second Fort Hood massacre, the precocious Abdo has already managed to clinch the lowlife triple crown at age 21.
It's sad that a wide array of military-haters, terrorist apologists and media meat puppets (ABC and CNN, among others, publicized his claims) were so willing to be suckered by this creepy little degenerate's tale of one religious man's oppression by bigoted warmongers.
Here's the bright side: The military's politically correct code of silence about potential psychos in its ranks is broken.
When Abdo spouted off with his jihadi-friendly views during training, there was none of the tolerance and excuse-making that enabled Maj. Nidal Hasan to pass up through the ranks until he'd murdered 13 people while shouting "Allah Akbar!"
When Adbo announced his sudden conversion to pacifism -- not mentioning the apparent exemption for Muslims who kill Americans -- the Army didn't rush to rubber-stamp his newfound reluctance to fight. Instead, it spent months investigating his conscientious-objector application -- much to the horror of Abdo's liberal cheering section.
Then, when Abdo's government computer turned out to be packed with child porn, the Army again made the right call and prosecuted him, instead of quietly hustling him out the door. Letting Abdo go be civilian society's problem would have saved it a lot of hassle, but avoiding conflict is not what earned the 101st Airborne its reputation.
And after Abdo slunk away AWOL, he showed up outside Fort Hood -- where a local gunstore owner didn't let political correctness stop him from reporting the little weirdo who wanted to buy a lot of firepower.
Who knows how many lives not being politically correct just saved?
The military learned its lesson about the threat of Islamic terrorists in its ranks the hard way. Before the invasion of Iraq, Sgt. Hasan Akbar tossed a grenade into a tent and killed two soldiers; he has a date with a needle. Everyone remembers the Fort Hood killer, but fewer have heard of Marine reservist Yonathan Melaku, a 22-year-old charged with shooting at DC-area military buildings last fall.
Many within the tight-knit military world know someone hit by one of these attacks. (One of my friends was wounded by Akbar, while Maj. John Gaffney, who was murdered at Fort Hood, served in the brigade adjacent to mine.) But now the chain of command is exercising reasonable caution -- without persecuting loyal American Muslim troops.
After all, it's not about being Muslim -- Abdo is the rare one who seems to think Muslims do not belong. He was mouthing the claims of the enemy when he told ABC News, "Any Muslim who knows his religion or maybe takes into account what his religion says can find out very clearly why he should not participate in the US military."
In reality, few Americans have worked as closely with Muslims around the world as servicemembers. And while the enemy is often Muslim, so are many of the allies who our soldiers fight, bleed and die with.
As for Abdo, he'll get his wish: He won't be deploying to Afghanistan with the Screaming Eagles (not that they'd have him). Too bad for him that the soldiers sitting on his court-martial are a far cry from the peaceniks, appeasers and cable hosts that made up his fan base.
It's not Abdo's religion that is going to seal his fate -- it's that he's a sniveling coward who tried to murder his brothers in arms. The only way he could get less sympathy is if he had Jane Fonda as a character witness.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Trial Of Hosni Mubarak Begins And Grips Arab World
Some thought it would inspire those protesters trying to oust their own leaders, such as Syria's Bashar al-Assad, who has used his military to try to crush an uprising against his rule.Tweet
"The trial no doubt inspires Syrians and raises their hopes of the victory of their cause for freedom...to see those implicated in the bloodletting of Syrians and theft of the wealth of Syria put behind bars," said Imadeddin al-Rashid, an Islamic law professor who fled Syria.
The opening of the trial coincided with a push by Syrian forces into the heart of Hama.
In Yemen, protesters were glued to small television sets they had brought into the tents where they camped out in Sanaa.
Mubarak was not the first Arab leader to fall in the Arab Spring, but he is the first to stand trial in person. Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, who was toppled first, fled to Saudi Arabia and was tried in absentia.
There are contrasts with the trial of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, kicked out of office by a U.S.-led force and not his own people.
If convicted, Mubarak could face the death penalty, though few expect that outcome even if some protesters wish it.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
IBD Editorial: Debt Deal "'Painful' Cuts? Anything But"
To read the important article showing just how measly these so-called "cuts" are, visit http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/580096/201108011834/Painful-Cuts-Anything-But.htm. As IBD puts it, "according to IBD's analysis of available budget numbers, the deal's $2.4 trillion in 10-year cuts amounts to a mere 5% trim off total projected federal spending during that time. It's like a 400-pound man boasting that he plans to drop 20 pounds over a decade, while his doctors warn about the risks of losing weight so fast." In fact a friend of mine pointed out that a closer analogy would be a 400-pound man boasting that he was only going to gain 100 pounds in the next decade instead of 120.
On the other hand, Republicans controlling one half of one branch of government, and in that half the tea party element being just a part of the majority therein, it is hard to imagine real reforms coming to fruition. I guess the main victory was no "revenue" (i.e., tax) raising, but the "cuts" are obviously not meaningful and do not address the underlying problems at all, and what would be most useful, a Constitutional Amendment, for some reason stood no chance. Getting someone serious in the White House, keeping control of the House, and making gains in the Senate are going to be essential if any real solutions to this problem are going to even be fathomable.
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Atheists Sue To Remove World Trade Center Cross From 9/11 Museum And Memorial
The Heritage Foundation reports:
TweetAttempts to eradicate religious symbols from the public square were in full force last week as a group of New York City atheists filed a lawsuit demanding that a building fragment known as the World Trade Center cross be removed from the 9/11 Museum and Memorial at Ground Zero.
American Atheists, Inc., claims that the cross, which was moved to a permanent position at the 9/11 tribute last week, is not only “offensive and repugnant” to non-believers but an apparent source of physical discomfort to atheists.
Two days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, rescue workers noticed a set of steel girders in the shape of a cross upright in the Twin Towers’ rubble. They salvaged the 20-foot tall object, later telling a local friar that the girders became “a sign that God never abandoned us at Ground Zero.”
In the long days and months of rescue and clean up following 9/11, rescue workers, families of victims, and mourners visited the impromptu memorial, saying prayers for loved ones and leaving mementos of the fallen. Friar Brian Jordan explained further, “We interpreted it as a cross because we were in desperate need for some type of consolation, of support and comfort, which this cross provided.”
However, what became a symbol of remembrance and consolation for many in the aftermath of the September 11 horrors is now a supposed source of indigestion and nausea to others. In their lawsuit filed last week demanding removal of the cross from the publicly funded 9/11 Memorial and Museum, American Atheists listed “dyspepsia,” “headaches,” and “mental anguish” as physical injuries allegedly suffered by non-believers at the mere thought of the cross being included in a permanent display.
Perhaps noting other litigants’ recent difficulties in gaining legal standing, American Atheists is suing partially on the grounds that cognizable, physical injury results from viewing a publicly displayed religious symbol. One spokeswoman said that to her, the cross was nothing but an “ugly piece of wreckage that does not represent anything…but horror and death.”
The cross, like many other artifacts (including religious symbols connected to the attack and its victims) that will be housed beside it in the city’s 9/11 museum, stands as a historical remembrance of one way people expressed grief and found solace at the site of the terrorist attacks. In a radio address this week, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg likewise defended inclusion of the cross in the museum: “This clearly influenced people. It gave them strength. In a museum you want to show things that impacted people’s behavior back then, even if you don’t think it was right. It’s history. Museums are for history.”
To heed the demands of secularists, however, would require the government to refuse the inclusion of a significant piece of history simply because it also has religious connotations. Recognition of the role of the cross in these events does not amount to a state endorsement of Christianity. Such attempts to whitewash any mention of religious beliefs from the public square distort the design of American religious freedom and misconstrue the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of—not from—religion. As Heritage’s Jennifer Marshall explains about the American model of religious freedom:
Far from privatizing religion, it assumes that religious believers and institutions will take active roles in society.… In fact, the American Founders considered religious engagement in shaping the public morality essential to ordered liberty and the success of their experiment in self-government.
The American Atheists’ suit comes on the heels of threatened legal action by atheists who are offended by a Brooklyn street sign that was ceremonially renamed “Seven in Heaven Way,” honoring the memory of seven firefighters who died rescuing others on September 11. Kenneth Bronstein of the New York City Atheists, a plaintiff in the World Trade Center cross case, claims that the religious connotation of the word heaven in a public street sign is greatly “offensive.” However, misplaced hurt feelings—like sensitive stomachs—are unlikely to amount to a serious constitutional argument.
Rob Natelson And David Kopel - "Health Laws of Every Description": John Marshall's Ruling On A Federal Health Care Law
If John Marshall, the greatest of Chief Justices, were to hear a challenge to the constitutionality of Obamacare, or the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, how would he rule? Would the nationalist justice who, according to the New Deal Supreme Court, “described the Federal commerce power with a breadth never yet exceeded,” agree that federal control of health care was within that power? Visit http://www.fed-soc.org/doclib/20110603_NatelsonKopelEngage12.1.pdf to read an accurate answer to that question.
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Professor Rob Natelson On Why The President Raising The Debt Ceiling Unilaterally Would Be Unbelievably Foolish And Unconstitutional
To listen to the interview with Professor Rob Natelson visit http://audio.ivoices.org/mp3/iipodcast498.mp3 Tweet
6th Circuit Of Appeals: Criminal Defense Attorney Falling Asleep During Trial Is Not Necessarily "Ineffective Assistance Of Counsel"
Professor Jonathan Adler explains:
If your defense attorney falls asleep during your trial, and you are convicted, do you have an ineffective assistance of counsel claim? That may depend on how long your attorney was asleep, and whether you can demonstrate prejudice. Yesterday, in Muniz v. Smith, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit denied a habeas petition alleging ineffective assistance of counsel because the defense attorney fell asleep while the defendant was under cross-examination. A courtroom nap, by itself, is insufficient to establish ineffective assistance of counsel unless the attorney is asleep for a “substantial portion” of the trial, and that could not be demonstrated here. Further, the defendant could not demonstrate he was prejudiced by his attorney’s nap.Tweet
Monday, August 1, 2011
Joe Biden Calls Tea Partiers "Terrorists"
Politico reports:
TweetVice President Joe Biden joined House Democrats in lashing tea party Republicans Monday, accusing them of having “acted like terrorists” in the fight over raising the nation’s debt limit, according to several sources in the room.
Biden was agreeing with a line of argument made by Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) at a two-hour, closed-door Democratic Caucus meeting.
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