Don Singleton

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Emperor Bush???

Chris Weigant: pontificates on Huffington Post that the White House Declareed Bush Emperor because Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege.

The Constitution set up three co-equal branches of Government. The Legislative Branch, which is to pass laws, the Executive branch which administers the laws (including the Justice Department), and the Judicial Branch, which decides what the laws mean. If Congress does not believe that a presidential Executive Order is right, they should appeal to the Judicial Branch for a ruling. They should not be able to order Justice Branch lawyers to take the head of the Executive Branch to court in a political move to try to usurp Executive Branch authority.

Because the Democrats control Congress, and the Republicans control the White House, Chris wants the Legislative Branch to show that it can override whatever the White House does. I wonder whether if the situation was reversed, and if there was a Democrat in the White House, and if the Republicans controlled the Legislative branch, if he would be as eager to see the Legislative Branch try to rule the entire government.

President Cheney

NYT reports Vice President Dick Cheney will take over as president on Saturday — but only temporarily, White House officials say — while President Bush undergoes anesthesia during routine screening for colon cancer.

Gateway Pundit urges President Cheney... Use Your Presidential Powers & Pardon Scooter! and then he posts a poll where you can express your wishes: Should President Cheney Pardon Scooter Libby?

Yes- but only in his final minutes of office.
Yes- with great fanfare.
No- let him rot.
Yes- And, frogmarch Pelosi to prison for violating Logan Act.
Bomb Iran.

I am sure he is kidding, and it never will happen, but it is worth a good laugh.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Hummer Owner Gets Angry Message

WaPo reported On a narrow, leafy street in Northwest Washington, where Prius hybrid cars and Volvos are the norm, one man bought a flashy gray Hummer that was too massive to fit in his garage. So he parked the seven-foot-tall behemoth on the street in front of his house and smiled politely when his eco-friendly neighbors looked on in disapproval at his "dream car." It lasted five days on the street before two masked men took a bat to every window, a knife to each 38-inch tire and scratched into the body: "FOR THE ENVIRON."

The idiot can't even spell.

.... Now, as Groves ponders what to do with the remains of his $38,000 SUV, he has been the target of a number of people who have driven by the crime scene in his upscale neighborhood and glared at him in smug satisfaction.

How do they know he has not bought carbon credit indulgences so he can be like Al "do what I say, not what I do" Gore

Gaius blogged Walt Kelley's famous line from Pogo comes to mind: We have met the enemy and he is us. The extreme rhetoric and continued ratcheting upward of demands for coercive action by the environmental extremists can only lead to this outcome in the end. Vigilantes are vigilantes, regardless of their cause. It is only a matter of time until someone gets killed* by some self-appointed "defender of the earth" for daring to "damage" the environment. And the extremists will continue to define downwards what constitutes "damage".

Kim Priestap blogged The environmental movement is nothing more than the new collective. You are required to go along with their dogma, and if you don't you will pay the price. The scientists who don't buy into the false hype of global warming have found this out as well.

Riehl World View blogged "Hummer Hate" Crime In DC

Ed Koch bails out

Ed Koch wrote on RealClearPolitics I'm bailing out. I will no longer defend the policy of keeping U.S. troops in Iraq to assist the Iraqi central government in the ongoing civil war. While our men and women in the military suffer casualties daily, the Iraqi government refuses to take the major political actions required to end the civil war.

I don't think any Muslim government is prepared to do anything they need to do to achieve peace.

... For well over a year, I have urged the administration to issue an ultimatum to our Muslim allies of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan and Kuwait, all Sunni nations and our NATO allies in Europe. Unless they joined us with boots on the ground and contributed to the ongoing cost of the war against Al Qaeda and the insurgency in both Iraq and Afghanistan, we would leave.

Our Nato allies in Europe are too chicken to do anything, but the Arab allies you mention face a major threat deom Iran if we leave.

... "But getting out has at least four advantages. First, no more Americans will be dying while refereeing a civil war.

We are not doing that.

Second, the fear of an all-out civil war, as we do prepare to leave, may be the last best hope for getting the Iraqis to reach an 11th-hour political agreement.

Good point.

Third, as the civil war in Iraq plays out, it could, painfully, force the realignment of communities on the ground that may create a more stable foundation upon which to build a federal settlement. Fourth, we will restore our deterrence with Iran. Tehran will no longer be able to bleed us through its proxies in Iraq, and we will be much freer to hit Iran - should we ever need to - once we're out.

We should take our troops to Afganistan. And the closest way is through Iran.

Moreover, Iran will by default inherit management of the mess in southern Iraq, which, in time, will be an enormous problem for Tehran.".... I adopt Friedman's reasons as mine and repeat that I would support our troops remaining in Iraq if our allies were to join us. But they have made it clear they will not.

I propose that we do what the British did when they withdrew their troops from the historic Palestine Mandate they had assumed in 1922. They simply notified the United Nations that they would be gone by May 15, 1948, and they were, leaving to the U.N. to decide what it would do. It voted to partition Palestine and create two states: one Jewish and one Arab. Palestinians and Arab nations rejected the U.N. solution and waged war against the new Jewish State of Israel. With the exception of Egypt and Jordan, they still continue in a state of war with Israel, 59 years later.

The UN at it's best. And if they did it todaym the UN would probably screw the Jews even more.

I believe we can be out of Iraq in a few months if we want to leave, departing by way of Turkey in the north and via Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan in the south and west. We should leave to the Iraqi army the supplies and materials they will need to protect themselves and take all else with us, after first arming the Kurds. Common decency requires that we take with us those Iraqi civilians who helped us and would be in danger when we left.

Better vet them very very closely, or we will be bringing more trouble back here.

We should prepare for the battles that will take place on American soil by the Islamic forces of terror who are engaged in a war that will be waged by them against Western civilization for at least the next 30 years. They must be defeated for if, God forbid, they defeat us they will put us, the infidels, to the sword. They refer to Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and other Muslims they disagree with religiously as infidels.

That will not happen. Armegodon will happen, and the the 1.000 years of Christ's kingdom on earth.

Remember the words of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who earlier this year at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay confessed to killing journalist Danny Pearl on February 1, 2002: "I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the City of Karachi, Pakistan." He is the same Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that CNN referred to as "the suspected mastermind of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks." Remember, they have threatened to kill Pope Benedict XVI.

Remember also how we refused to take seriously the threats Adolf Hitler made in his book Mein Kampf. There were only 80 million Germans at the start of World War II. There are now one billion 400 million Muslims. There is still not yet a majority who subscribe to the Wahabist fundamentalist belief popular in Saudi Arabia that they have a duty to kill the infidel who will not convert or pay tribute. But there are tens of millions of Muslim fanatics, including English doctors, who believe that is their sacred duty. Wake up, America.

Distortion from the BBC

An article by the BBC had the headline Four men jailed over cartoon demo and started Four men have been jailed for their part in protests outside the Danish embassy in London, against cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammad.

Both were distortions. As the article later revealed

Mizanur Rahman, 24, Umran Javed, 27, and Abdul Muhid, 24, were each jailed for six years for soliciting to murder after telling a crowd to bomb the UK. A fourth man, Abdul Saleem, 32, was jailed for four years for stirring up racial hatred at the protest in 2006. The men, from London and Birmingham, were convicted at the Old Bailey. Judge Brian Barker said their words had been designed to encourage murder and terrorism.

these poor, misunderstood fellows were not jailed for a cartoon demo or for protesting. They were jailed for urging people to blow other people up, and for something as simple as a few cartoons.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Death by stoning a 'wise measure'

AKI reported Iran's chief prosecutor Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabad has defended the death penalty by stoning describing it as a "wise measure".

That might depend on whether you were the stoner or the stonee.

John 8:7 says "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."

"Death by stoning and all the measures contained in the Sharia (Islamic law) are wise measures' he said in speech delivered Monday in Zanjan, a town located some 200 kilometres west of the capital Tehran.

Even if they are inconsistent with 21st century values?

"We need to distinguish between the law of bloodmoney and the of executions carried out after the death sentence has been passed. The first is a right the Sharia recognizes to the victims, while the second is a law wanted by men", Najafabad said.

The issue of death by stoning has recently made headlines again in Iran after the practice was used to execute a man in Iran's Takestan region. The penalty was carried out on the order of a local judge acting against the advice of Iran's chief judicial authority official Seyyed Mahmoud Shahroudi.

"Ayatollah Shahroudi, is not against death by stoning, but sometimes he doesn't agree with how this measure is applied", the head of Iran's state appointed Human Rights Commission Mohammad Javad Larijani said.

What method does he want to see used in stoning? Does it have to do with the size of the stones, or what?

"No one can be against stoning by death because this form of punishment is contained in the Sharia," said Larijani, adding that he believed the practice did not run contrary to international human right accords signed by Iran.

Is that because they failed to mention stoning?

Iraqis Being Smuggled Across the Rio Grande

The Blotter reported The FBI is investigating an alleged human smuggling operation based in Chaparral, N.M., that agents say is bringing "Iraqis and other Middle Eastern" individuals across the Rio Grande from Mexico.

Does this give you a clue why we said "Close the Border First." Then we can work on a guest worker program to get people to pick lettuce.

An FBI intelligence report distributed by the Washington, D.C. Joint Terrorism Task Force, obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com, says the illegal ring has been bringing Iraqis across the border illegally for more than a year.

And what have you been doing in the meantime to plug the hole?

Border Patrol officials in the area said they were unaware of the specifics of the FBI's report, and federal prosecutors in New Mexico told ABCNews.com they had no current cases involving the illegal smuggling of Iraqis.

What about other Middle Eastern individuals.

The FBI report, issued last week, says the smuggling organization "used to smuggle Mexicans, but decided to smuggle Iraqi or other Middle Eastern individuals because it was more lucrative." Each individual would be charged a fee of $20,000 to $25,000, according to the report.

More than a lettuce picker can afford.

The people to be smuggled would "gather at a house on the Mexican side of the border" and then cross the Rio Grande into the U.S., the report says. "Unidentified individuals would then transport them to train stations in El Paso, Texas or Belen, New Mexico," according to the FBI document.

2008 Election

Yahoo! News The latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that nearly a quarter of Republicans are unwilling to back top-tier hopefuls Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain or Mitt Romney, and no one candidate has emerged as the clear front-runner among Christian evangelicals. Such dissatisfaction underscores the volatility of the 2008 GOP nomination fight.

Or maybe we are just not concerned in 2007 about who will be elected in 2008 and take office in 2009,

In sharp contrast, the Democratic race remains static, with Hillary Rodham Clinton holding a sizable lead over Barack Obama. The New York senator, who is white, also outpaces her Illinois counterpart, who is black, among black and Hispanic Democrats, according to a combined sample of two months of polls.

So Obama should just drop out?

A half year before voting begins, the survey shows the White House race is far more wide open on the Republican side than on the Democratic. The uneven enthusiasm about the fields also is reflected in fundraising in which Democrats outraised Republicans $80 million to $50 million from April through June, continuing a trend from the year's first three months.

Republicans are saving their money until it really matters. Probably investing it so that it grows more money.

"Democrats are reasonably comfortable with the range of choices. The Democratic attitude is that three or four of these guys would be fine,"

But the top leader is not a guy, and it a girl with a lot of baggage. The only reason for wanting her back in the White House is she might bring back some of the stuff she stole when she left the first time.

Most of both fields are filled with senators and former senators, with a former mayor thrown in. They don't have a clue about what it takes to run the country. And the only former governors are very far behind the back in both races.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Progress in Iraq

This video from Dan Riehl is the kind of thing I would love to see on television -- a visual image of progress in Iraq. Yeah, that's right -- Progress. In. Iraq.

Hat tip to Lorie Byrd
I would love to see the MSM report this.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

An angry Dennis Kucinich

Yahoo! News reported An angry Dennis Kucinich

Is there any other kind?

lashed out at John Edwards on Friday, saying his Democratic rival showed "a consistent lack of integrity" by suggesting fewer candidates should participate in presidential forums and then trying to explain his remark to reporters.

Edwards is a trial lawyer. When did they ever show a consistent presence of integrity?

"This is a serious matter and I'm calling him on it," Kucinich, an Ohio congressman, said in a telephone interview Friday. "Whispering, trying to rig an election,

What election was he trying to rig, and for whom? He does not stand any better chance of being elected than you do.

then denying what's going on and making excuses. It all reflects a consistent lack of integrity."

But consistent for politicians and lawyers, and he is both.

James Joyner blogged And, while I fully agree with the sentiments expressed by Edwards and Clinton in their private exchange, they’re not covering themselves with glory in their disingenuous attempts to deny they meant it.

Kidnappers of BBC correspondent

Times Online reported THE mastermind behind the kidnapping of Alan Johnston, the BBC correspondent, is an experienced terrorist who fought with Al-Qaeda alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan.... The kidnappers expressed bizarre resentment that Johnston, 45, had done nothing to thank them for their hospitality while they held him at gunpoint in a tiny cell. “We used to give him everything he wanted,” Abu Zobayer, an aide to Dagmoush, said.

You gave him everything he wanted? What about freedom? Did he ever ask you to let him go?

“We spent £70 on his food every week. The Matouk restaurant [one of the best eateries in Gaza] got rich because we had to feed him.”

If you had freed him you could have pocketed the money, like most of the Fatah and Hamas leaders.

Johnston has said that he fell ill from the food he was served. Zobayer commented: “It’s not our problem that we gave him everything and he only ate a little.”

If a little made him sick, a lot might have killed him.

Although they did not torture him physically, the kidnappers seemed to have no concept of the psychological torture they were inflicting on the BBC correspondent. “We had people with him all the time to try to help him to relax,” said Zobayer.

Were they armed? Having someone pointing a gun at you is not very relaxing.

“We gave him a radio so that he could listen to his own channel. I myself sat with him to try to make him feel comfortable and feel that he will be released.”

I suspect he would have rather been home sitting with his own family.

Betsy Newmark blogged How rude of him not to appreciate all that the kindnappers were doing for him.

Jeff Hall blogged I'm no expert, but I imagine that Muslims believe that lying is a sin,

Actually Muhammad said "war is deceit" - Bukhari 4:52:267

like murder and suicide,

Which ~~Satan~~ their Allah seems to condone.

so I guess Mr. Abu is telling the truth. Otherwise, one might suppose there was some other reason why they had someone with Alan Johnston all the time.

They did not want him to be lonely. Also maybe they were stealing food from his £70 a week trays from "one of the best eateries in Gaza"

Which Harry Potter character are you?

I scored as Harry Potter, I can be a little reckless and hot-headed at times, but a more brave and courageous friend would be hard to find.

Harry Potter

80%

Albus Dumbledore

75%

Severus Snape

70%

Ron Weasley

70%

Sirius Black

65%

Remus Lupin

65%

Draco Malfoy

60%

Ginny Weasley

60%

Hermione Granger

55%

Lord Voldemort

40%

Your Harry Potter Alter Ego Is...?
created with QuizFarm.com

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Bible search

Bible Search now available. See the sidebar.

al-Maliki can handle it

Yahoo! News reported Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki shrugged off U.S. doubts of his government's military and political progress on Saturday, saying Iraqi forces are capable and American troops can leave "any time they want."

Where is al-Maliki? In Baghdad? Lets pull the troops out of Baghdad and go after al Qaeda and see how long it takes before al-Maliki is getting us to come back and save his ass.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Red Mosque army raid

Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported "The military action on the Red Mosque is causing hatred in the hearts of Muslims in Pakistan," former parliamentarian Hafiz Fazal Mohammad told hundreds marching in the south-western city of Quetta, near the Afghan border.

Think what moderate and secular Pakistanis felt when radicals from the Red Mosque blew up stores selling videos and CDs must have thought.

.... "The Red Mosque has been turned into pool of blood of innocent Muslims," Anwarul Haq Haqqani, a local leader of religious party Tahafuz Khatam-e-Nabowat Pakistan, said.

Radicals took over the mosque and were brainwashing children to become suicide bombers. Are they the innocent Muslims you speak of.

"This was a barbaric action."

Taking over the mosque, or freeing it.

.... "This was genocide, hundreds of innocent women and children died,"

Genocide is the systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group, not something that kills a few hundred in a military action to remove some radicals that took over a house of worship.

cleric Mohammad Saeed, the head of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the political wing of the banned Kashmiri militant group Laskhar-e-Taiba, said. "It is state terrorism, it is extreme brutality and those who killed the innocent will have a horrible fate," Saeed said.

According to Quran 4.93 "If a man kills a believer intentionally, his recompense is Hell, to abide therein (For ever): And the wrath and the curse of Allah are upon him, and a dreadful penalty is prepared for him." That may apply to the soldiers, but it may also apply to the people the radicals killed trying to enforce their version of Shraia Law.

Can I have a hug?

WaPo reported A grand feast of marinated steaks and jumbo shrimp was winding down, and a group of friends was sitting on the back patio of a Capitol Hill home, sipping red wine. Suddenly, a hooded man slid in through an open gate and put the barrel of a handgun to the head of a 14-year-old guest. "Give me your money, or I'll start shooting," he demanded, according to D.C. police and witness accounts.

The five other guests, including the girls' parents, froze -- and then one spoke. "We were just finishing dinner," Cristina "Cha Cha" Rowan, 43, blurted out. "Why don't you have a glass of wine with us?"

That is quick thinking, and something few would say when someone had a gun to a 14 year old's head.

The intruder took a sip of their Chateau Malescot St-Exupéry and said, "Damn, that's good wine." Then he tucked the gun into the pocket of his nylon sweatpants. "I think I may have come to the wrong house," he said, looking around the patio of the home in the 1300 block of Constitution Avenue NE. "I'm sorry," he told the group. "Can I get a hug?"

That is better than getting shot.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Red Mosque

Yahoo! News reported Sporadic gunfire and explosions could be heard Wednesday from Islamabad's Red Mosque as a Pakistani military operation to seize the complex, which has left over 60 people dead, entered a second day. The army said it had taken control of 80 percent of the compound and was battling die-hard Islamist fighters holed up in basement rooms who were using women and children as human shields.

So generous of the brave Islamist fighters to let the women and children have their virgins.

... Minister of State for Information Tariq Azeem said the intense fighting from fighters using automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades showed the mosque had been infiltrated by hard-core Islamic radicals.

So automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades are not normally found in mosques??? I thought that was normal.

"The way they resisted, the way they engaged our troops, our best trained army for 16-17 hours shows they were trained fighters,"

Not just trained fighters, but trained Islamic fighters, trained in the proper use of women and children as human shields.

he told a news conference late on Tuesday night.

Next attack

Avedon wrote on Atrios Shouldn't it concern us that Republicans are constantly talking about how people will all wise up when the next terrorist attack at home comes?

Certainly the fecal matter will hit the revolving blades (the s#@t will hit the fan).

I mean, they really seem to be looking forward to it, and they take great delight in the thought that, by God, people will see things differently when it happens.

Actually they wonder what the NYT will do to try to cover for the Dems stupidity. Especially if their building is hit this time.

They relish the thought. They hunger for that terrorist attack they need to save their Party.

Or maybe for something that will absolutely destroy the Dems.

I, Not Atrios, think Democrats would be wise to talk on TV about how the last thing we need is to put people in power who have such a stake in having terrorists attack Americans.

Oh please, Br'er Fox, please don't throw me in that briar patch. I would love to see the Dems take that position. Even a left wing commentator would have to mention that we had not been attacked for five years, and ask whether the Dems really don't want to fight the Islamoterrists in Baghdad and Basrah and would they prefer Boston, Baton Rouge, Birmingham, Bismarck, Boise, Buffalo, Broken Arrow, or Beaumont; not fight them in Mosul and would they prefer Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Mobile, Memphis, Muskogee, or Mesquite; not fight them in Karkuk and Karbala and would they prefer Kansas City, Knoxville, Ketchum, or Kilgore; not fight them in Tall Afar and Tikrit and would they prefer Tulsa, Tallahassee, Tampa Bay, Terre Haute, Toledo, Topeka, Tucson, Tahlequah, Texas City, or Texarkana..

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Sandra Day O'Connor

Dahlia Lithwick wrote in Slate Magazine How Sandra Day O'Connor became the least powerful jurist in America.

She left. Duh.

During the final weeks of the Supreme Court term, it was hard not to be struck by one recurring theme: Former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor—a few short years ago the "most powerful woman in America," a "majority of one," the "most powerful person on the court," and the most "powerful Supreme Court Justice in recent history"—had somehow become the most disregarded.

Should they have ignored the law just to let a former justice's opinion prevail.

With the court's newly dominant conservative wing focused pretty much on whether to ignore or overrule her outright, it's clear that one real casualty of the new Roberts Court is O'Connor's lifetime of work on an extraordinary range of constitutional issues. What can we conclude about the court's swing voters, about O'Connor herself, or about the Roberts Court, from the speed with which her legal legacy is being dismantled?

That is the priblem with having judges legislate, When they are gone, their effect is gone. What should happen is that the Legislative Brahch should legislate, and the Judicial branch should JUDGE.

So far, the court has explicitly minimized—or, more frequently, stepped distastefully over—O'Connor's theoretical framework for abortion, campaign finance, and affirmative action.

A justice should not have a theoretical framework for anywhing. The theoretical framework they work with is the laws passed by the legislature, and howmthey comport with the Constitution.

That's to name just a few. My friend Marty Lederman predicted as much when O'Connor first retired two years ago; still, the speed of it all is proving to be unsettling, if not downright unseemly.

Growing Talk of Jordanian Role in Palestinian Affairs

NYT reported Inside a drab cellphone shop, set deep inside the sprawling Baqaa refugee camp on the outskirts of this city, Muhammad Khalil and his friends were as gloomy as the fluorescent lights that flickered on the ceiling. “Everything has been ruined for us — we’ve been fighting for 60 years and nothing is left,” Mr. Khalil said, speaking of the Palestinian cause.

I wonder if he will ever figure out that it was the big Arab countries that moved them out of their homes in the first place so they could try to destroy the newly formed Israel, and when they were defeated, could have easily resettled them in their own countries, instead forced them to live in refugee camps for 60 years.

Just weeks earlier, he might have been speaking enthusiastically to his friends here, in their usual hangout, about resistance, of fighting for his rights as a Palestinian and of one day returning to a Palestinian state.

Returning? There has never been a Palestinian state. They were always ruled by someone else, from Romans, to Babelonians, all they way to Ottomans and then Jordanians. And they never thought to ask for their own state, until Israel won the land in a war.

Last Wednesday, however, he spoke of what he saw as a less satisfying goal for the Palestinians here and one that raises concerns for many other Jordanians: Palestinian union with Jordan.

Jordanians are worried because they like peace with Israel, and they have forced these people to live in squaller for so long. The same is true of Gaza and Eqypt.

“It would be better if Jordan ran things in Palestine, if King Abdullah could take control of the West Bank,” Mr. Khalil said, as his friends nodded. “The issue would be over if Jordan just took control.”

But does Jordan want you.

Even a few months ago, talk of some kind of Palestinian union with Jordan would have sounded quaint or even conspiratorial, 40 years after Jordan lost control of the West Bank in the 1967 war and nearly two decades after King Abdullah’s father, King Hussein, formally ceded administrative control of the territory to the Palestinians.

To get rid of you.

But as the Palestinian territories have been engulfed in turmoil, with Gaza and the West Bank now divided economically and politically, as well as physically, talk of a less ambitious, but no less delicate, federation between Jordan and the West Bank has begun rippling through many Jordanian and Palestinian circles.

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