Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
Chaos in Iran: I’m ready for martyrdom, says Mousavi; Videos: Woman murdered in cold blood; Update: Obama calls on regime to end violence; Update: Obama goes out for ice cream; Rumor: 150 dead? Report: Mousavi’s office sends letter to Obama?
The Weekly Standard
Miranda Rights for Terrorists
When 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad was captured on March 1, 2003, he was not cooperative. “I’ll talk to you guys after I get to New York and see my lawyer,” he said, according to former CIA Director George Tenet.
Of course, KSM did not get a lawyer until months later, after his interrogation was completed, and Tenet says that the information the CIA obtained from him disrupted plots and saved lives. “I believe none of these successes would have happened if we had had to treat KSM like a white-collar criminal – read him his Miranda rights and get him a lawyer who surely would have insisted that his client simply shut up,” Tenet wrote in his memoirs.
If Tenet is right, it’s a good thing KSM was captured before Barack Obama became president. For, the Obama Justice Department has quietly ordered FBI agents to read Miranda rights to high value detainees captured and held at U.S. detention facilities in Afghanistan, according a senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. “The administration has decided to change the focus to law enforcement. Here’s the problem. You have foreign fighters who are targeting US troops today – foreign fighters who go to another country to kill Americans. We capture them…and they’re reading them their rights – Mirandizing these foreign fighters,” says Representative Mike Rogers, who recently met with military, intelligence and law enforcement officials on a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan.
Democrats Weigh Health Mandate as Obama Urges Taxing Wealthy
President Barack Obama wants Congress to consider taxing the wealthy instead of workers to pay for a health-care overhaul, as House Democrats discuss a plan to require health insurance for most Americans.
Democrats Weigh Health Mandate as Obama Urges Taxing Wealthy – Bloomberg.com.
What were we stimulating?
Since Congress passed President Barack Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus bill in February, administration officials have traveled to at least 66 events across the country to tout the massive spending program or hand out stimulus cash to grateful local officials.
But a POLITICO examination of the travel reveals a distinctly political trend line: Top officials have hosted events predominantly in states that Obama won in 2008.
What’s more, the examination revealed that Obama officials all but avoided Southern states that Obama lost.
A political pattern to stimulus tour – Eamon Javers – POLITICO.com.
The Case for Working With Your Hands – NYTimes.com
The Case for Working With Your Hands – NYTimes.com.
Like the mechanic, the manager faces the possibility of disaster at any time. But in his case these disasters feel arbitrary; they are typically a result of corporate restructurings, not of physics. A manager has to make many decisions for which he is accountable. Unlike an entrepreneur with his own business, however, his decisions can be reversed at any time by someone higher up the food chain (and there is always someone higher up the food chain). It’s important for your career that these reversals not look like defeats, and more generally you have to spend a lot of time managing what others think of you. Survival depends on a crucial insight: you can’t back down from an argument that you initially made in straightforward language, with moral conviction, without seeming to lose your integrity. So managers learn the art of provisional thinking and feeling, expressed in corporate doublespeak, and cultivate a lack of commitment to their own actions. Nothing is set in concrete the way it is when you are, for example, pouring concrete.
Forget Whether She Qualifies as a “Racist.” Would Judge Sotomayor Qualifiy as a Juror? – Andy McCarthy – The Corner on National Review Online
In every trial — every single trial — judges solemnly instruct American citizens who are compelled to perform jury duty that they will have a sworn obligation to decide cases objectively — without fear or favor. If a person is unwilling or unable to do that, if the person believes he or she has a bias or prejudice, especially one based on a belief that people are inferior or superior due to such factors as race, ethnicity, or sex, the person is not qualified to be a juror. Indeed, prospective jurors are told that they are not qualified if they harbor even the slightest doubt about their ability to put such considerations aside and render an impartial verdict. If the judge or the lawyer for either side senses bias, the juror is excused “for cause” — the parties are not even required to use their discretionary (or “peremptory”) jury challenges to strike such a juror; rather the judge makes a finding that the juror is not fit to serve.
EXCLUSIVE: Career lawyers overruled on voting case – Washington Times
The incident – which gained national attention when it was captured on videotape and distributed on YouTube – had prompted the government to sue the men, saying they violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by scaring would-be voters with the weapon, racial slurs and military-style uniforms.
EXCLUSIVE: Career lawyers overruled on voting case – Washington Times.
American capitalism gone with a whimper – Pravda.Ru
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.
Imagine there’s no strong America
If the US can no longer sell enough Treasuries to cover the deficit, what happens to the American currency? What happens to American credibility in global financial markets? We could lose a lot more than people realize if we have to start printing money to cover the gap, and the worst part is who might fill the vacuum:
What would a world with the United States in the second financial tier of nations mean? We would have significantly less foreign investment, to start, and that has other implications besides just the impact to our economy. We rely on economic engagement with other nations as a not-inconsequential portion of our national security and foreign policies. …
Without a strong military presence around the world, which would almost certainly disappear just as Great Britain’s did after World War I, the world would be a much different – and more dangerous – place. No nation could guarantee trade security to the extent the American Navy does. Piracy has already become a problem, and without either a massive British or American Navy to suppress it, it would expand enormously. That will aggravate the problems an American return to second-tier status would create in the global economy.
Perhaps another nation could fill the vacuum left by an American collapse, but which nation? What kind of world would global dominance by China, India, or Russia bring, assuming any of these could take that role? How about a coalition of oil producers like OPEC, who have the means to fund it?
Once in a while, I like to engage in a little speculative thinking. Believe me, this is a scenario I’d love to see remain hypothetical, but right now, we’re squandering the very basis of our power, and in ten years, it may be far too late to correct our course.
Hope, Change & Marxism
Doug Ross looked at the possibility that the Obama Administration may have targeted GOP donors in deciding which Chrysler dealerships would have to close their doors.
Doug noted that every single dealer he checked out except one were either GOP donors or donated to Obama’s rivals in the democratic primary.
Here is the list Doug put together:
• Vernon G. Buchanan: $147,450 to GOP candidates and organizations
• Wallace D. Alley and Family: $4,500 to GOP.
• Robert Archer: $4,600 to GOP and conservative causes.
• Homer S. Higginbotham and Family: $2950 to GOP.
• James Auffenberg and Family: $28,000 to GOP; $6,000 to one Democrat candidate.
• Michael Maroone and Family: $60,000 to GOP; $8,500 to two Democrat candidates.
• Jerome Fader: $6,500 to Democrats; $2,500 to Independent Joe Lieberman.
• Stephen Fay and Family: $13,500 to GOP.
• William Numrich: $20,000 to GOP.
• Robert Carver: $10,000 to Democrats including $1,950 to Hillary Clinton, nothing to Barack Obama.
• Robert and Linda Rohrman: $24,000 to GOP.
• Frank Boucher, Jr. and Family: $18,000 to GOP, $1,000 to one Democrat candidate.
• Scott Bossier: $4,300 to GOP.
• Todd Reardon: $17,000 to GOP; $2,000 to one Democrat candidate.
• Russ Darrow and Family: $78,000 to GOP.
• Bradford Deery and Family: $24,700 to GOP.
• Charles Gabus and Family: $30,000 to GOP.
• Brian Smith: $15,500 to GOP.
• Michael Schlossman: $14,000 to GOP; $14,000 to three Democrats ($12,500 to Sen. Russ Feingold).
• Don Hill: $11,000 to GOP; $12,800 to conservative incumbent Rep. Heath Shuler.
• Don Miller: $2,000 to GOP; $1,000 to Feingold.
• Eddie Cordes: $2,150 to GOP.
• Robert Edwards: $1,100 to GOP.
• James Crowley: $19,100 to GOP.
• Stanley Graff: $2,200 to John Edwards (2008 Presidential Run); $500 to GOP.
• John Stewart: $10,500 to GOP.
• John Fitzgerald and Family: $4,600 to John McCain (2008); $2,000 to Hillary Clinton (2008); nothing to Barack Obama.
• William Churchill and Family: $3,500 to GOP.
• Thomas Ganley: $9.450 to GOP.
• Gary Miller: $20,000 to GOP.
• Kevin and Gene Beltz: $18,500 to GOP.
• Arthur Grayson: $14,000 to GOP.
• Eric Grubbs and Family: $26,000 to GOP.
• Michael Leep and Family: $19,500 to GOP; $4,800 to three Democrats including Sen. Evan Bayh.
• Harry Green, Jr.: $10,000 to GOP.
• Ronald Hoover: $5,250 to GOP.
• Ray Huffines and Family: $18,500 to GOP.
• John O. Stevenson: $1,500 to GOP.• James Marsh: $8,200 to GOP.
• Max Pearson and Family: $112,000 to GOP.
Read it all here.