I used to be a big fan of Bob Geldof. I liked his music, and I admired his activism on behalf of the poorest of the poor. I didn't always agree with him, but I found what he was doing to be worthy of admiration. That is why I find this decision regarding the (misguided) Live8 concert to be so shocking to the conscience.

Collecting food for the homeless and hungry is taking a back seat to poverty in Africa as organizers for Saturday's Live 8 concert ban charities from collecting donations at the event.

Organizers have said local fundraising could "dilute the focus" of the concerts, which includes encouraging the world's G8 leaders to eliminate the debt currently owed by African countries.

"That decision came right from Sir Bob Geldof, himself," said Live 8 spokeswoman Katherine Holmes, referring to the Irish rocker fronting the Live 8 concerts.

No, we cannot let there be any effort to actually help the homeless and the hungry -- that would imply that individuals and not just governments have a responsibility to take action on their behalf. Not only that, it would detract from the focus -- that you show your caring and concern more by going to a concert than by actually doing something for another human being.

Posted by: Greg at 01:45 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I understand Planned Parenthood not being charged in this case -- after all, they did the absolute minimum required of them by law. While it might have been desirable for them to take the extra step and actually verify that this little girl had given them the number for a parent rather than the adult who was raping her, such fundamental decency is not required under the law. Instead, they unwittingly facilitated the statutory rape of a 14-year-old.

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters announced today that no criminal charges will be filed against Planned Parenthood over an abortion it performed on a 14-year-old girl on March 30, 2004.

Questions about the legality of the abortion came up after the girl's family filed a lawsuit in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court earlier this year alleging the abortion was performed without parental notification as required by law.

An investigation by Deters' staff found that the girl provided the incorrect phone number for notification. Instead of giving the agency her parent's phone number, she gave officials the telephone number of her 21-year-old boyfriend, the father of her unborn child.

"Apparently they made no effort to confirm to whom they were speaking when they placed their call to notify the parents," Deters said. "They did the minimum they could under the existing law."

Now I am curious about something else, though. Aren't doctors, nuses, and other staff of medical facilities mandatory reporters under the child abuse laws of the state of Ohio? If not, why has this case not produced an outcry from the public toplace upon them the same obligation that teachers and other professionals in a position to become aware of abuse have?

Posted by: Greg at 01:38 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I've wondered why the two boys (I will not dignify them with the title of "men") in this incident haven't been charged with a hate crime. After all, their crime was based upon antipathy towards the victims based upon their actual or perceived national origin, as indicated by an American flag flying from the front of their homes.

Those guys didn't set fire to flags they owned in some sort of symbolic gesture. They burned flags that were someone else's private property, something with a value to the owners that goes beyond the cost of the cloth.

But far worse than that, some of those flags were on poles attached to the owners' homes.

Burning those flags goes way beyond expressing contempt in a petty-criminal sort of way. It is a chillingly dangerous and invasive act.

That makes this less like stupid kiddie-acting-up-anarchism and way too much like the real thing. It is a serious crime.

It is also just like the Ku Klux Klan burning a cross on someone's lawn to terrorize a family or an entire community. The damage isn't just to the wood, and it isn't a crime because of the symbol that was destroyed. The damage is the fear it creates for people in their own homes.

Aren't we told that the reason for hate crime laws is the impact of the crime that goes beyond the impact on the victim personally? Well, we have that here -- won't folks be afraid to express their pride in their country for fear that some creting is going to use that symbol of pride to burn the house down around their ears?

Or is a hate crime a hate crime only when it is expressing hate against the "right" people?

UPDATE: I had not seen this story when I wrote the above post.

A white teenager was charged with a hate crime Thursday for allegedly beating a black man with a baseball bat in the Howard Beach section of Queens, the site of an infamous racial confrontation two decades ago.

Police said Nicholas Minucci, 19, confessed to the Wednesday attack, which left the victim in critical condition with multiple skull fractures and a bruised kidney.

Minucci was charged with assault as a hate crime punishable by a minimum of eight years in prison as well as robbery and criminal weapon possession. Police also arrested a suspected accomplice, 21-year-old Anthony Ench, who was to be charged Friday with assault as a hate crime, authorities said.

A third companion surrendered to police and was being described as a witness.

Minucci's attorney, Lori Zeno, said the victim, Glenn Moore, 22, had tried to rob Minucci and threatened him with a screwdriver. Police said they did not believe Minucci's account.

Police said Moore and two other black men were walking in Howard Beach early Wednesday when they were attacked by three white men. One of Moore's friends said he was intending to steal a car, but Moore was not aware of the plan, officials said.

Prosecutors said Moore's assailants hurled racial slurs and allegedly told him, "That is what you get when you try to rob white boys."

Hate crime? Possibly -- but there appears that there could be an addiional angle of a possible crime by the victim or the group that he was with. I'll be watching how this plays out in the days and weeks ahead.

But again I'll ask the quyestion -- why is this a hate crime, but acts of arson committed against folks for flying an American flag not a hate crime?

Posted by: Greg at 01:33 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Oh, wait -- they are only Democrats. It's not as if the convicted vote-cheats are Republican or anything like that.

A federal jury on Wednesday found five East St. Louis Democrats guilty of vote fraud.

The defendants were found guilty on all counts following a four-week trial in U.S. District Court in East St. Louis.

Four of the defendants -- Jessie Lewis, Sheila Thomas, Yvette Johnson and former city official Kelvin Ellis -- were found guilty of conspiracy to commit election fraud and election fraud.

Democratic Party boss and former City Councilman Charlie Powell was found guilty of one county of conspiracy to commit election fraud.

The five were charged with paying voters up to $10 a vote to vote for Democratic candidates during the Nov. 2 general election.

The jury deliberated about five and a half hours before returning the verdicts.

"This is a wake-up call for East St. Louis," said juror LaMont Reed Jr. of East St. Louis. "I've seen this corruption all my life."

Judge G. Patrick Murphy, who presided over the trial, will set a sentencing date later.

Now when will we hear anything about this PROVEN vote fraud from Howard Dean, Michael Moore, MoveOn.Org, or any other members of the liberal cabal?

Will it be "never", or will it be later than that?

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The spectre of the government throwing reporters into jail rightly strikes fear into the hearts of freedom–lovers everywhere. After all, that is one of the hallmarks of a dictatorship. But not every jailing of a journalist is a bad thing – nor does it offend the First Amendment for a reporter to be held to the exact same standards and requirements of every other citizen. A recent USA Today column puts it well.

Another problem is that claims of privilege turn the press into a privileged class. If ordinary people witness a crime, they have to talk about it. If they participate in a crime — say, by receiving classified documents — they have to say where they got them. Journalists want to be treated differently, but the First Amendment doesn't create that sort of privilege. Nor should we.

The author, Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds himself, is precisely right. While the First Amendment clearly protects the right to freedom of the press, that does not create a special privilege for some sanctified class known as “journalists”. Reporters are, in the end, subject to the exact same laws as every other American. What next – a claim for exemption from laws against speeding because they are rushing to cover a breaking story? A total exemption from libel laws on the grounds that the potential liability that arises from inaccurate reports inhibits the reporting of the news?

I can’t help but think back a couple of decades to my college days. The editorial staff of a campus newspaper went out for a night of heavy underage drinking at the local bars. Several of them drank to excess. On their way home, while crossing the railroad tracks, they decided to play chicken with the 11:30 Amtrak. Five jumped – and the chronically-depressed alcoholic who wrote wonderful satires about campus life embraced the train like a long-desired lover. When the police arrived, his five companions refused to give statements to the police – claiming that as journalists it would compromise their ability to cover the death of their colleague, as well as the (never-to-be-written) feature on under-age drinking in local bars. Any other person making such a claim would have been charged with obstruction.

Now the reporters in the Plame case could, of course, make a Constitutional claim to avoid testifying. They could cite their rights under the Fifth Amendment to not incriminate themselves. After all, they are possibly going to have to admit their role in a criminal enterprise. But doing that would require them to concede that they did something wrong, something criminal. They want to avoid doing so at all costs, for that conflicts with their self-images as paladins out to forthrightly expose the truth. But what they are really out to do is cover up the truth for their own personal convenience.

Reynolds also points out the problem with creating a reporter’s privilege.

Many people who support these privileges say that they would be limited to “real” journalists. But who decides when a journalist is real? If the government decides, isn't that like licensing the press, something the First Amendment was designed to prevent? And if journalists decide, isn't that likely to lead to a closed-shop, guild mentality at exactly the moment when citizen journalism by non-professionals is taking off? All sorts of people are reporting news via Web logs and the Internet. Shouldn't they be entitled to the same privilege?

Press freedom is for everyone, not just professionals. James Madison wrote about “freedom in the use of the press,” making clear that the First Amendment is for everyone who publishes, not just members of the professional-media guild.

Do we really want the government determining who is – and who is not – a journalist? Do we really want to give some bureaucrat the power to grant – or deny – a citizen the full rights guaranteed under the “free press” clause of the First Amendment? Because that will be precisely what will happen when government gets to decide that some folks are “journalists” and have greater rights than other citizens. Let's not create a royalty to whom the rules do not apply.

Posted by: Greg at 10:43 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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The spectre of the government throwing reporters into jail rightly strikes fear into the hearts of freedom–lovers everywhere. After all, that is one of the hallmarks of a dictatorship. But not every jailing of a journalist is a bad thing – nor does it offend the First Amendment for a reporter to be held to the exact same standards and requirements of every other citizen. A recent USA Today column puts it well.

Another problem is that claims of privilege turn the press into a privileged class. If ordinary people witness a crime, they have to talk about it. If they participate in a crime — say, by receiving classified documents — they have to say where they got them. Journalists want to be treated differently, but the First Amendment doesn't create that sort of privilege. Nor should we.

The author, Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds himself, is precisely right. While the First Amendment clearly protects the right to freedom of the press, that does not create a special privilege for some sanctified class known as “journalists”. Reporters are, in the end, subject to the exact same laws as every other American. What next – a claim for exemption from laws against speeding because they are rushing to cover a breaking story? A total exemption from libel laws on the grounds that the potential liability that arises from inaccurate reports inhibits the reporting of the news?

I can’t help but think back a couple of decades to my college days. The editorial staff of a campus newspaper went out for a night of heavy underage drinking at the local bars. Several of them drank to excess. On their way home, while crossing the railroad tracks, they decided to play chicken with the 11:30 Amtrak. Five jumped – and the chronically-depressed alcoholic who wrote wonderful satires about campus life embraced the train like a long-desired lover. When the police arrived, his five companions refused to give statements to the police – claiming that as journalists it would compromise their ability to cover the death of their colleague, as well as the (never-to-be-written) feature on under-age drinking in local bars. Any other person making such a claim would have been charged with obstruction.

Now the reporters in the Plame case could, of course, make a Constitutional claim to avoid testifying. They could cite their rights under the Fifth Amendment to not incriminate themselves. After all, they are possibly going to have to admit their role in a criminal enterprise. But doing that would require them to concede that they did something wrong, something criminal. They want to avoid doing so at all costs, for that conflicts with their self-images as paladins out to forthrightly expose the truth. But what they are really out to do is cover up the truth for their own personal convenience.

Reynolds also points out the problem with creating a reporterÂ’s privilege.

Many people who support these privileges say that they would be limited to “real” journalists. But who decides when a journalist is real? If the government decides, isn't that like licensing the press, something the First Amendment was designed to prevent? And if journalists decide, isn't that likely to lead to a closed-shop, guild mentality at exactly the moment when citizen journalism by non-professionals is taking off? All sorts of people are reporting news via Web logs and the Internet. Shouldn't they be entitled to the same privilege?

Press freedom is for everyone, not just professionals. James Madison wrote about “freedom in the use of the press,” making clear that the First Amendment is for everyone who publishes, not just members of the professional-media guild.

Do we really want the government determining who is – and who is not – a journalist? Do we really want to give some bureaucrat the power to grant – or deny – a citizen the full rights guaranteed under the “free press” clause of the First Amendment? Because that will be precisely what will happen when government gets to decide that some folks are “journalists” and have greater rights than other citizens. Let's not create a royalty to whom the rules do not apply.

Posted by: Greg at 10:43 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Hopefully we will see more suits of this kind -- and citizen success -- in this post-Kelo world. I mean if the government is going to say that your land is “only” worth $14,000 when it takes it but then turns around and sells it for over four times as much, they clearly were in error on the market value of the property.

In May 2004, the city's Redevelopment Agency, a state-approved board, was granted a court order to employ eminent domain - the government's right to seize property - for Shennett's lot.

Last week, Shennett said he learned for the first time in January that his property had been taken. The city sent him letters in 2004, but Shennett says he never got them.

During a hearing on the matter in Superior Court last week, a judge ruled that Shennett was never properly informed and that the commissioners who approved the $14,730 compensation price for the property must meet again and allow Shennett to get his own appraisal.

The Redevelopment Agency, meanwhile, sold the property to Wayne Asset Management of Kinnelon for $60,000 in December.

Despite the discrepancy in price, which has been a source of contention, the city has the right to pay Shennett less for the property than what it was sold for, said William Ward, a Florham Park attorney with the firm Carlin and Ward, which specializes in eminent domain cases.

The city claims that the difference is due to a zoning change that went through in order to enable the development, and that the law therefore allows it to pay Mr. Shennett the value at the time they seized it from him – prior to its own actions that allowed itself to see a 300% increase in value. In other words, the city artificially kept the value down through zoning. Once it found a buyer for the land, it acted to jack the price up to what the new buyer was willing to pay – and as the owner, it received the benefit of the new market value.

Oh, and did I neglect to include a bit about the developer.

In the meantime, Wayne Asset is building a new house on Shennett's property.

Wayne Asset is run by Wayne Alston, a former city councilman who in 1992 was charged by federal authorities with taking $6,000 in bribes from a city landlord and paying himself $15,000 in bonuses from state funds.

But a mistrial allowed Alston to plead guilty to a lesser charge, and he was sentenced to five months in prison and a year of supervised release

Dirty politician, getting favirs from (and giving them to?) his buddies who are still on the council.

Shame!

Posted by: Greg at 11:36 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Hopefully we will see more suits of this kind -- and citizen success -- in this post-Kelo world. I mean if the government is going to say that your land is “only” worth $14,000 when it takes it but then turns around and sells it for over four times as much, they clearly were in error on the market value of the property.

In May 2004, the city's Redevelopment Agency, a state-approved board, was granted a court order to employ eminent domain - the government's right to seize property - for Shennett's lot.

Last week, Shennett said he learned for the first time in January that his property had been taken. The city sent him letters in 2004, but Shennett says he never got them.

During a hearing on the matter in Superior Court last week, a judge ruled that Shennett was never properly informed and that the commissioners who approved the $14,730 compensation price for the property must meet again and allow Shennett to get his own appraisal.

The Redevelopment Agency, meanwhile, sold the property to Wayne Asset Management of Kinnelon for $60,000 in December.

Despite the discrepancy in price, which has been a source of contention, the city has the right to pay Shennett less for the property than what it was sold for, said William Ward, a Florham Park attorney with the firm Carlin and Ward, which specializes in eminent domain cases.

The city claims that the difference is due to a zoning change that went through in order to enable the development, and that the law therefore allows it to pay Mr. Shennett the value at the time they seized it from him – prior to its own actions that allowed itself to see a 300% increase in value. In other words, the city artificially kept the value down through zoning. Once it found a buyer for the land, it acted to jack the price up to what the new buyer was willing to pay – and as the owner, it received the benefit of the new market value.

Oh, and did I neglect to include a bit about the developer.

In the meantime, Wayne Asset is building a new house on Shennett's property.

Wayne Asset is run by Wayne Alston, a former city councilman who in 1992 was charged by federal authorities with taking $6,000 in bribes from a city landlord and paying himself $15,000 in bonuses from state funds.

But a mistrial allowed Alston to plead guilty to a lesser charge, and he was sentenced to five months in prison and a year of supervised release

Dirty politician, getting favirs from (and giving them to?) his buddies who are still on the council.

Shame!

Posted by: Greg at 11:36 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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There is continued progress towards the development of a new Iraqi Constitution. Maybe this will be the breakthrough they need to undercut the terrorist "insurgency".

In a meeting with a group of Sunni and Shiite leaders, the cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, outlined a proposal that would scrap the system used in the January election, according to a secular Shiite political leader, Abdul Aziz al-Yasiri, who was at the meeting. The election had a huge turnout by Shiites and Kurds but was mostly boycotted by Sunni Arabs.

Such a change would need to be written into Iraq's new constitution, which parliamentarians are drafting for an Aug. 15 deadline. Although there has been little public talk about what form elections might take under the constitution, Ayatollah Sistani has been highly influential in Iraq's nascent political system.
Under the proposal, voters in national elections would select leaders from each of the 19 provinces instead of choosing from a single country-wide list, as they did in January. The new system would essentially set aside a number of seats for Sunnis roughly proportionate to their numbers in the population, ensuring that no matter how low the Sunni turnout, they would be guaranteed seats.

Now some folks are saying this should have been done from the beginning, and I donÂ’t disagree. Where I do disagree is the notion that it was the fault of the US and the provisional government. Sunnis boycotted the election under threat of terrorism from the so-called insurgents. Their poor showing was therefore their own fault

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Edward Whelan makes this observation over at National Review’s “Bench Memos” blog.

Justice Souter and his four colleagues who joined his majority opinion in the Kentucky Ten Commandments case evidently get their understanding of this country from the New York Times op-ed page. Consider this bizarre closing to an argument section that aims to refute Justice ScaliaÂ’s dissent:

“

ublic discourse at the present time certainly raises no doubt about the value of the interpretative approach invoked for 60 years now. We are centuries away from the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre and the treatment of heretics in early Massachusetts, but the divisiveness of religion in current public life is inescapable. This is no time to deny the prudence of understanding the Establishment Clause to require the Government to stay neutral on religious belief . . . .”

If the Court is going to rest its ruling in part on prudential (i.e., policy) reasons like this, it would be helpful if it would tell us what the dickens its references to “public discourse” and “the divisiveness of religion in current public life” are supposed to mean. Is the Court giving anti-religious forces the equivalent of a heckler’s veto? Or does it seriously believe that we are in even the remotest danger of a modern-day St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre?

Who gets to decide what religious expressions are too divisive to be permitted? Will it be based upon the reasonable judgment of the average citizen? Or will it instead be based upon the wailing and gnashing of teeth of the most overly sensitive religion-haters and member of minority faiths? After all, we have already seen where the so-called “reasonable man” standard was jettisoned in sexual harassment cases in favor of a “reasonable woman” standard – which quickly evolved to be the easily-offended woman standard. Will such notions lead to yet another layer of PC “sensitivity” being imposed in place of the actual, original understanding of the Establishment Clause as it was written by the Framers?

Posted by: Greg at 11:31 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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In a move that surprised absolutely no one, Kay Bailey Hutchison today announced her intent to run for a third Senate term.

Hutchison's re-election announcement was anticlimactic, coming 10 days after she sent word via a press release on a Friday evening that she wouldn't run against Perry.

About 200 supporters gathered to hear Hutchison speak Monday at an aviation museum next to Love Field. The 61-year-old senator said she wanted to stay in Washington to work on federal issues such as homeland security and tax relief and to move up the Senate GOP leadership ladder.

And Kay has established herself as a serious force in Washington, and can be expected to move up the ladder in Senate leadership. Who knows -- the day might not be far off when she holds one of the higher offices held by a certain former Texas senator named Johnson -- be that Senate Majority Leader, Vice President, or even President.

Hutchison had vowed to serve only two full, six-year terms. She said Monday that she still supports term limits but would not bind herself unless senators from other states also left after two terms.

I agree with Hutchison's reasoning here. It is not good for the state to abide by term limits not accepted by all. Not that I am a term limit fan -- far from it, as I believe them to be antithetical to good government. Just look at cities like Houston, which limit city offeceholders.

Frankly, I find this to be a good thing for Texas, and a better thing for the Texas GOP.

Posted by: Greg at 01:56 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Newsday columnist Less Brains Les Payne wrote one of the more outrageous pieces of race-baiting hate-mongery that I've ever encountered. And to do it, he has to tarnish a victory for racial justice over the hatred of the KKK.

The conviction of the 80-year-old Mississippi racist for a 41-year-old murder reminds us that the new Republican Party, the GOP that gave us Nixon, Ford and Reagan, Bush 41 and his unspeakable son, rode into power on the backs of the Ku Klux Klan.

This triple murder in June 1964, to sum up for the attention-deficient, hastened the passing of the first Civil Rights Act in July of the same year. By promising blacks the vote, this act stampeded white Southerners into the arms of the national GOP and provided the margin needed to dominate Congress and the White House. These party-switchers would, of course, demand their pound of flesh and along the way, pay homage to the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan who made it all possible.

The Civil Rights Act was first introduced by President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated before its enactment. This historic reform prescribed the initiation of equal rights for blacks in voting, education, public accommodations, union membership and in federally assisted programs. Passage of the law fell to President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was a protege of Sen. Richard Russell of Georgia, who led the filibuster against it, declaring: "We will resist to the bitter end any measure ...which would ... bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our states."

After signing the bill into law, Johnson reportedly told close associates that "I am afraid we have lost the South for a hundred years."

Payne, of course, forgets the minor detail that the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act passed precisely because the GOP threw its weight behind the laws that brought about equality for blacks, while the Democrats took the credit for the passage of the legislation that its own Klan-ridden party could never have passed alone. Furthermore, he fails to acknowledge that those who came over to the GOP at the time left behind an equal number of colleagues who continued to oppose civil rights from inside the Democrat party, while the GOP remained a fundamentally pro-civil rights party -- as it is to this day.

Payne also fails to not ethat the only member of Congress with a history of KKK involvement is Democrat Senator Robert Byrd, a Klan organizer, recruiter, and supporter. The "Conscience of the Senate's" recent autobiography still fails to deal forthrightly with facts that are on the historical record regarding his relationship with the KKK years after he quit. On the other hand, whenever a Klansman pokes his head above the hedges in the GOP, he is quickly repudiated by the party -- as can be seen with the GOP response to David Duke. But somehow it is the GOP, in Payne's view, that pays homage to the Klan.

So what has the recent conviction of Klansman Edgar Ray Killen in Philadelphia, Miss., to do with the modern GOP? More than the party would openly admit.

The white South as a touchstone for success has not been lost on the GOP. It was no accident that Ronald Reagan launched his 1980 presidential campaign by trekking to Philadelphia in search of symbol and Mississippi blessings. It was at this terrible place, so sacred then to Cowboy Reagan, that, on the night of June 21, 1964, the Klan abducted and murdered Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner.

Actually, I'll argue it is very much an accident that the campaign began in that place. I've read the transcript of that day's speech (I cannot find it on the web, though) -- it doesn't speak to issues of race or civil rights at all. Here is a key chunk of it, the section that uses the dreaded term "states rights".

What we have to do is bring back the recognition that the people of this country can solve its problems. I still believe the answer to any problem lies with the people. I believe in state's rights and I believe in people doing as much as they can for themselves at the community level and at the private level. I believe we have distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended to be given in the Constitution to that federal establishment.

As you can see, this is not an appeal to themes of race and racism, but rather to the hallmark of Reagan's campaign -- reducing governemnt and decentralizing federal power. Those are themes that resonated tehn and resonate now, but which are clearly race neutral. And while folks like Payne make much of the Philadelphia speech, they do not often have the integrity to mention that the next speech he gave was one devoted to the traditional Republican theme of support for civil rights -- at the convention of the National Urban League.

Les Payne wants to paint every southern Republican -- including those of us transplanted here from northern locales -- as unreconstructed Confederates, night-riding Klansmen, and black-hating Dixiecrats. He is wrong, for the GOP continues to support the principles of equal opportunity that have always animated it. What his column does show is that he is animated with the very racial bias that he thinks propels us.

Posted by: Greg at 03:22 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Will Franklin over at WILLisms has put together a photographic display of notable quotes from our favorite Democrats. Drop in for a quick look.

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I don't like the proposed amendment to ban flag desecration, and I oppose it. To some that makes me a ahte-America-first-liberal sort of guy -- but that isn't it at all, as many of you have read my condemnations of the America-hating Left (and Right) over the last year. Rather, I am concerned about what will be held to constitute desecration (how about a flag patch on the seat of a pair of pants, or anywhere on Michael moore's body?), and the fact that other much more powerful symbols of this country (the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence) are not covered. And yes, I am concerned about the slippery slope that will exist (not might -- will) if we start tinkering with the bedrock principles of the First Amendment -- heck, it is already hard enough to get Congress and the courts to respect them as it is, as we have seen in cases permitting the regulation of political speech in the name of "campaign finance reform".

Mark Steyn, though, has an interesting take on the matter.

more...

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Looks like at least one Texas town had a vested interest in Kelo coming out as it did -- and is wasting no time to make its move to seize the property of two businesses in order to give to another, all in the name of economic development.

With Thursday's Supreme Court decision, Freeport officials instructed attorneys to begin preparing legal documents to seize three pieces of waterfront property along the Old Brazos River from two seafood companies for construction of an $8 million private boat marina.

The court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that cities may bulldoze people's homes or businesses to make way for shopping malls or other private development. The decision gives local governments broad power to seize private property to generate tax revenue.

"This is the last little piece of the puzzle to put the project together," Freeport Mayor Jim Phillips said of the project designed to inject new life in the Brazoria County city's depressed downtown area.

Over the years, Freeport's lack of commercial and retail businesses has meant many of its 13,500 residents travel to neighboring Lake Jackson, which started as a planned community in 1943, to spend money. But the city is hopeful the marina will spawn new economic growth.

"This will be the engine that will drive redevelopment in the city," City Manager Ron Bottoms said.

Lee Cameron, director of the city's Economic Development Corp., said the marina is expected to attract $60 million worth of hotels, restaurants and retail establishments to the city's downtown area and create 150 to 250 jobs. He said three hotels, two of which have "high interest," have contacted the city about building near the marina.

"It's all dependent on the marina," Cameron said. "Without the marina, (the hotels) aren't interested. With the marina, (the hotels) think it's a home run."

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Over at PrisonPlanet.com, Alex Jones has the truly horrific details of the abuse perpetrated by New London officials against those residents whose attempts retain their own property were rebuffed by the liberal majority of the Supreme Court yesterday.

These include;

- An insulting offer of $60,000 from the government on a home worth $215,000.

- Unannounced visits to Cristofaro's elderly parent's home demanding they sign a contract to hand over their property.

- Intimidating and harassing phone calls at all hours of the day.

- Parking bulldozers and wrecking balls outside the houses pointing at the property with threats of "your house is next."

- Revving the engines of the bulldozers outside the houses in the early morning hours of the morning.

- Cristofaro's mother becoming distraught and suffering a heart attack after being served with condemnation papers that said she no longer owned her property and had ninety days to leave.

- A death bed plea from a 93-year-old resident begging "what about my house, what about my house?" The man had been living in his home for 80 years. The contractors would park construction vehicles on his property, make his house literally shake and would, Waco-style, shine bright floodlights into his home as his blind wife cowered in fear.

- A threat to charge residents back rent if they lost the case, effectively meaning the homeowners will have to pay the city to be kicked out of their own homes. One resident, William von Winkle, would owe the city $200,000 in back rent.

- When the Supreme Court decision was made on Thursday, the city had police cruisers and a fire truck casing the neighborhood because they feared the residents would riot. "What were they planning on doing? Hosing us down?" stated Cristofaro.

- Real Estate agents paid by the government to force residents to sign contracts to hand over their homes were on an $8,000 commission to get the signatures by any means possible.

- William von Winkle's apartment tenants were forcibly evicted and locked out from their homes in the early morning hours during winter with snow on the ground, before the city even owned the property. Von Winkle had to break back into his own apartment block to prevent his tenants from freezing to death.

In other words, "We made you an offer -- you cannot refuse."

(Via Random & Politically Incorrect Thoughts!

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All the discussion of the Kelo case has put me in mind of a use of eminent domain down here in Houston that led to the demise of an internationally known store that was over 130-years-old. Now please note that this is a "pure" eminent domain case, dealing with highway expansion that is a true "public use". But the effects were just as devastating, because the deck was stacked and the state held all the cards.

Western-style clothier Stelzig of Texas has possessed the grit of an Alamo defender for more than 130 years, withstanding floods, the Great Depression, recessions and even a bit of cowboy backlash.

By the end of this year, though, the country's oldest Western store could ride off into the sunset, shutting its doors for good. It's a case of Houston's massive highway system gobbling up the retail landscape.

The state acquired the company's land via eminent domain for the West Loop construction project, but the settlement amount for the property is still in dispute. A panel of special commissioners, which sets the amount, ruled in July that the Stelzigs should be paid more than $4.7 million. The state is contesting that ruling.

Until the store gets that money in hand, owners say, they can't buy new property for relocation or build a new store . The state says they must vacate by Dec. 31.

Hardly a storybook ending for a family-owned business spanning five generations, serving everyone from foreign dignitaries to American presidents, oil barons and pop icons to your everyday urban cowboy.

Leo Stelzig Jr. said he thought he found a permanent home for the business his grandfather founded when it relocated to the Galleria-area location from downtown about 18 years ago.

"Then the state comes along and says they're taking it," Stelzig said. "It's not a choice. That puts you in the position where you have to vamonos. And that's terrible."

The odds of the store reopening in the future are remote. "It's pretty slim," Stelzig said. "When you liquidate inventory, furniture and fixtures, that's pretty tough."

"We don't want to quit doing business," his daughter, Frances Stelzig-Butler, chimed in.

The Stelzig property is needed for the $80.97 million road reconstruction project. The contract was awarded by the Texas Department of Transportation in July and work is scheduled to begin in January, says Janelle Gbur, spokeswoman for TxDOT.

Yeah, that's right -- the state didn't like what its own panel decided, so they took the matter to court, which meant that the family got nothing while the state got immediate possession of the property. I've never seen any resolution to the case, so I can only presume that the family is still waiting to be paid for land over which thhousands drive daily.

No doubt we will see plenty of this as communities engage in eminent domain for economic development -- "Take this low-ball offer or we will take the house with no compensation while we tie the matter up in court for the next few years." With a home being the major investment of most Americans, and a small business being the sole source of income for many an entrepreneur, what choice will the victims have? Can you afford to wait for two or three or five years, paying a lawyer and a new mortgage, while a judge or jury decide what you should be paid for a major asset that the government has already confiscated and is already using? Can you afford to wait out the appeals process if you or the state are still not satisfied? I know I can't, and I suspect the same is true of most Americans.

Now there is a mini-happy-ending to this story, but one which strikes me as bittersweet. Stelzig of Texas did get a resurrection of sorts this past year -- as part of a shop at Bush Intercontinental Airport. But gone are the days when it was a thriving business that had customers from around the world and a distinguished place in the fashion world.

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Will Democrats and other leftists deny the accuracy of Karl RoveÂ’s words as applied to MoveOn.Org and its ilk?

The story began with a man who has received little attention in the controversy, a young film student named David Pickering. Visiting his parents' home in Brooklyn on September 11, 2001, Pickering immediately began to worry about the consequences of U.S. retaliation for the terrorist attacks. "It was this incredible moment in which all doors were opened and the world was seeming to come together," Pickering told me in an interview for my book, The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy. "I had this feeling that it would be a shame if that were spoiled by a spirit of vengeance."

The next day, September 12, Pickering wrote a petition calling on President Bush to use "moderation and restraint" in responding to 9/11 and "to use, wherever possible, international judicial institutions and international human rights law to bring to justice those responsible for the attacks, rather than the instruments of war, violence or destruction."

At the same time, Pariser, who had graduated from college the year before and was working at a liberal nonprofit organization in Massachusetts, was writing a similar petition, which he put on a website he created called 9-11peace.org. Pariser noticed Pickering's work and e-mailed him to suggest that they merge their sites. Pickering agreed, and 9-11peace.org featured a petition which read:
We implore the powers that be to use, wherever possible, international judicial institutions and international human rights law to bring to justice those responsible for the attacks, rather than the instruments of war, violence or destruction. Furthermore, we assert that the government of a nation must be presumed separate and distinct from any terrorist group that may operate within its borders, and therefore cannot be held unduly accountable for the latter's crimes. . .

Meanwhile, across the country in Berkeley, California, MoveOn founders Wes Boyd and Joan Blades were writing an anti-war petition of their own. Entitled "Justice, not Terror," it read, in full: "Our leaders are under tremendous pressure to act in the aftermath of the terrible events of Sept. 11th. We the undersigned support justice, not escalating violence, which would only play into the terrorists' hands."

As they staked out their own anti-war position, Blades and Boyd were also following the progress of 9-11peace.org. In a September 2004 interview for The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy, I asked Blades how she had come to know Pariser. "It was after 9/11," she told me. "He put out a message similar in results to the one we had, basically an e-mail petition asking for restraint. It went viral on an international scale. . . . Eli's petition grew to half a million in half a week. Peter [Schurman, the executive director of MoveOn] contacted him because he figured he probably needed some help. We did provide him with some assistance, and we started working together on other issues and eventually merged." In the end, their shared opposition to U.S.-military retaliation for the September 11 attacks brought Pariser and MoveOn together. (For his part, David Pickering moved to Paris to attend film school.)

Critics have suggested that at the very least, Rove's "liberals" charge was overbroad. That's a fair criticism. But as far as MoveOn is concerned, Rove's words were accurate and fair.

The shoe fits – wear it.

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IÂ’ve read a lot of great stuff on the Kelo decision, which effectively gutted the above clause of the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution. The best analysis seems to be that of Professor Stephen Bainbridge.

Unfortunately, the requirement to pay fair market value is a grossly inadequate safeguard on government power for two reasons. First, it fails to take into account the subjective valuations placed on the New London property by people whose families have lived on the land, in at least one case, for a 100 years. In other words, the government now will be able to seize land at a price considerably below the reservation price of the owners. Indeed, as Will Collier explained:

"... the price even a willing seller would be able to get from his property just took a huge hit. All a developer has to do now is make a lowball offer and threaten to involve a bought-and-paid-for politician to take the property away if the owner doesn't acquiesce."

Second, unlike the prototypical eminent domain case, in which the land is seized to build, say, a school or road, in this case the city is using eminent domain to seize property that will then be turned over to a private developer. If this new development increases the value of the property, all of that value will be captured by the new owner, rather than the forced sellers. As a result, the city will have made itself richer (through higher taxes), and the developer richer, while leaving the forced sellers poorer in both subjective and objective senses.

Justice O'Connor's dissent makes the point eloquently:

"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random."

"The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."

After news of Napoleon's victory in the Battle of Austerlitz was conveyed to British Prime Minister William Pitt, Pitt pointed to a map of Europe and said: "Roll up the map; it will not be wanted these ten years." In light of the Supreme Court's decision to side with New London, we might just as well roll up the Takings Clause of the Bill of Rights, because we won't need it any longer.

Indeed, not only have the justices declared that we do not need the Takings Clause any longer, but they have indeed taken it, eviscerated it, and left its carcass to rot in the sun, for we have now seen the principle of eminent domain expanded far beyond the concept of public use and the revitalization of truly blighted and decayed areas to include the destruction of viable middle class communities.

UPDATE -- Great blog with a good proposed constitutional amendment.

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How else can you interpret this conclusion from today’s editorial on the Kelo case?

Connecticut is a rich state with poor cities, which must do everything they can to attract business and industry. New London's development plan may hurt a few small property owners, who will, in any case, be fully compensated. But many more residents are likely to benefit if the city can shore up its tax base and attract badly needed jobs.

In other words, property rights be damned – be happy the government is giving you anything when they throw you out of your home for the benefit of someone else.

UPDATE: I had no idea how right I was when I wrote this -- the NY Times itself has screwed the little guy in an "eminent domain for economic development case" that allowed it to get the land for its new headquarters from an unwilling seller. And they updated the original editorial surreptitiously to include an acknowledgement of this fact in the editorial after it was published. Good going to Lawroark at Protect Homes, Not Flags.

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How else can you interpret this conclusion from todayÂ’s editorial on the Kelo case?

Connecticut is a rich state with poor cities, which must do everything they can to attract business and industry. New London's development plan may hurt a few small property owners, who will, in any case, be fully compensated. But many more residents are likely to benefit if the city can shore up its tax base and attract badly needed jobs.

In other words, property rights be damned – be happy the government is giving you anything when they throw you out of your home for the benefit of someone else.

UPDATE: I had no idea how right I was when I wrote this -- the NY Times itself has screwed the little guy in an "eminent domain for economic development case" that allowed it to get the land for its new headquarters from an unwilling seller. And they updated the original editorial surreptitiously to include an acknowledgement of this fact in the editorial after it was published. Good going to Lawroark at Protect Homes, Not Flags.

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Howard Dean lied about the contents of his party’s report on the Ohio election this past year. Who says so? One of the authors, and the Democrat official in charge of election in one of the counties he cited as proof of intent to suppress minority voter turnout.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean tried to claim that the report nonetheless backed up charges that there was widespread "voter suppression" in Ohio involving long lines at polls due to a misallocation of voting machines and unlawful voter identification requirements.

Mr. Dean also indicated that the report backed up his belief that Republicans actively worked to suppress black voter turnout. "It's been widely reported over the past several years that Republicans do target African-Americans for voter suppression," he told reporters. "It's very clear here while there was no massive vote fraud, and I concur with the conclusion -- it's also clear that there was massive voter suppression."

But Mr. Dean's statement landed him in hot water when a scholar involved in writing the DNC report, Cornell University Professor Walter Mebane Jr., explained to the media that while the report had found numerous irregularities, it could not determine whether there was any partisan intent behind them. He also noted that county election boards in Ohio, which determine the distribution of voting machines, are bipartisan. Mr. Dean then had to return to the microphones to revise his remarks: "While we certainly couldn't draw a proven conclusion that this was willful, it certainly has the appearance of impropriety."

But William Anthony, a Democrat who is chairman of the Franklin County Democratic Party in Ohio's capital of Columbus, rejects any suggestion of voter suppression. "Most of the precincts that stayed open late because of long lines were in the suburbs," he told the Columbus Dispatch last November. Mr. Anthony, who is also chair of the Franklin County elections board, acknowledged that the high turnout and a ballot that involved more than 100 choices for some voters did create lines, but added that he was offended by allegations from "a band of conspiracy theorists" that voter suppression had occurred. "I am a black man. Why would I sit there and disenfranchise voters in my own community?" That, in turn, raises the question: Why do Democrats like Mr. Dean persist in inciting racial tensions with wildly exaggerated claims that black voters are being disenfranchised?

Howard Dean – do you not realize that every time you and your fellow Democrats lie about voter fraud and vote suppression, you undermine the public’s confidence in the electoral system of this country? Do you not realize that doing so will serve to further alienate voters from the process? And do you not realize that, in the end, your partisan falsehoods will undermine support for the government of our country? I will ask the question, sir – why do you hate America?

Posted by: Greg at 12:29 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Howard Dean lied about the contents of his partyÂ’s report on the Ohio election this past year. Who says so? One of the authors, and the Democrat official in charge of election in one of the counties he cited as proof of intent to suppress minority voter turnout.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean tried to claim that the report nonetheless backed up charges that there was widespread "voter suppression" in Ohio involving long lines at polls due to a misallocation of voting machines and unlawful voter identification requirements.

Mr. Dean also indicated that the report backed up his belief that Republicans actively worked to suppress black voter turnout. "It's been widely reported over the past several years that Republicans do target African-Americans for voter suppression," he told reporters. "It's very clear here while there was no massive vote fraud, and I concur with the conclusion -- it's also clear that there was massive voter suppression."

But Mr. Dean's statement landed him in hot water when a scholar involved in writing the DNC report, Cornell University Professor Walter Mebane Jr., explained to the media that while the report had found numerous irregularities, it could not determine whether there was any partisan intent behind them. He also noted that county election boards in Ohio, which determine the distribution of voting machines, are bipartisan. Mr. Dean then had to return to the microphones to revise his remarks: "While we certainly couldn't draw a proven conclusion that this was willful, it certainly has the appearance of impropriety."

But William Anthony, a Democrat who is chairman of the Franklin County Democratic Party in Ohio's capital of Columbus, rejects any suggestion of voter suppression. "Most of the precincts that stayed open late because of long lines were in the suburbs," he told the Columbus Dispatch last November. Mr. Anthony, who is also chair of the Franklin County elections board, acknowledged that the high turnout and a ballot that involved more than 100 choices for some voters did create lines, but added that he was offended by allegations from "a band of conspiracy theorists" that voter suppression had occurred. "I am a black man. Why would I sit there and disenfranchise voters in my own community?" That, in turn, raises the question: Why do Democrats like Mr. Dean persist in inciting racial tensions with wildly exaggerated claims that black voters are being disenfranchised?

Howard Dean – do you not realize that every time you and your fellow Democrats lie about voter fraud and vote suppression, you undermine the public’s confidence in the electoral system of this country? Do you not realize that doing so will serve to further alienate voters from the process? And do you not realize that, in the end, your partisan falsehoods will undermine support for the government of our country? I will ask the question, sir – why do you hate America?

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Well, that isn’t precisely what they said. A more accurate summary would be “Your property is not your own if the government wants it for any reason – including to give it to someone else.”

A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth often is at war with individual property rights.

The 5-4 ruling - assailed by dissenting Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as handing "disproportionate influence and power" to the well-heeled in America - was a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They had argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.

As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue.

Imagine that – these poor dumb citizens believed that they had the right to decide when and if they would sell their homes and property to private developers, and at what price.

more...

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Karl Rove nailed the difference between liberals and conservatives in the speech he gave at a fundraiser last night.

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," Mr. Rove, the senior political adviser to President Bush, said at a fund-raiser in Midtown for the Conservative Party of New York State.
Citing calls by progressive groups to respond carefully to the attacks, Mr. Rove said to the applause of several hundred audience members, "I don't know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt when I watched the twin towers crumble to the ground, a side of the Pentagon destroyed, and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble."

The liberals, of course, are angry and demanding an apology.

Told of Mr. Rove's remarks, Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, replied: "In New York, where everyone unified after 9/11, the last thing we need is somebody who seeks to divide us for political purposes."

The Democrats are demanding a retraction, and are calling on the President to repudiate the comments. Strange, coming from the party that wonÂ’t repudiate Dick Durbin for comparing American soldiers to the agents of the most murderous regimes of the twentieth century. But given the continuous assaults on the President and his policies towards the forces of terrorism, I donÂ’t see RoveÂ’s comments as terribly inaccurate, despite what I will admit was a commendable and uncharacteristic pro-American stance in the short-term after 9/11.

And donÂ’t forget who the dividers have been in recent American politics, as collected by the RNC in a new commercial.
more...

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The Washington Post recently expressed surprise that the white-sheeted history of Robert Byrd didnÂ’t hinder his political career and public image. Could it simply be that it has been ignored for years by the mainstream press?

Sunday’s article, based in part on the senator’s new autobiography, details how in the early 1940s Byrd started a chapter of the Klan in Crab Orchard, W.Va., recruited members, appealed to the KKK’s national leadership and became the local “exalted cyclops.”

The story details how Byrd remained active in the Klan for longer than he has ever acknowledged and how, in 1945, he wrote a letter saying that he would rather die than see the United States “degraded by race mongrels.”

It was strong stuff. But surely nothing new, right? Surely the Post has covered that territory many times before, right? After all, Byrd has been in the Senate since 1959.

Well, actually, not. A review of the paper’s coverage of Byrd reveals that, on the whole, the Post has been extraordinarily reluctant to investigate — or even criticize — the Democratic leader’s Klan history.

According to a search of the Nexis database, since 1977, 32 stories in the Post used Byrd’s name and the words “Klan” or “KKK.”

Three of them were letters to the editor. One was a book review. A few were stories in which Byrd’s name and “Klan” or “KKK” appeared but were not related.

Such a lack of coverage by the capitalÂ’s paper of record could certainly be the explanation.

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You can be a communist, devoted to the overthrow of the US Constitution, and the ACLU will embrace you. You can be a Nazi, and the ACLU will leap to your aid. You can be a card-carrying al-Qaeda terrorists, and the ACLU will defend your rights. But if you support increased border security and the suppression of border-jumping, and the ACLU will throw you out of the organization.

The board of a section of New Mexico's American Civil Liberties Union has been suspended because a member was involved with an alleged vigilante program.

The ACLU's New Mexico leader suspended the board of the state's southern chapter pending a new election, the Albuquerque Journal reported.

The move came after board member Clifford Alford was asked to resign because he was involved with a group that planned a civilian patrol of the U.S.-Mexican border. Alford refused to step down.

Since there's no way to remove just one board member the entire panel was suspended.

Alford claimed the ACLU did not talk with him about the civilian program. He said a group established along the lines of the Minutemen would respect the civil rights of any immigrant found.

ACLU New Mexico Board President Gary Mitchell told the Journal: "We're not going to tolerate anyone depriving anyone of liberty without due process of law, not going to tolerate vigilante groups on the border without speaking out against them, and without monitoring."

But wait – the Minutemen are not a vigilante group. They patrol the border and report border-jumpers to the appropriate immigration authroities. Their methods are those of your local Neighborhood Watch group. There is no violation of due process rights – unless one also believes that calling the police on someone breaking into a home is a denial of due process.

What has clearly happened here is that the ACLU doesnÂ’t like having its people stray from the bounds of knee-jerk liberalism. And while the organization has every right to determine its membership and officers, it certainly seem to be acting in contradiction of its alleged principle of defending political speech and activities which are protected by the Constitution.

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Robert Byrd has tried to bleach his involvement in the KKK as white as freshly washed sheets. But letÂ’s consider the simple truths about that involvement.

After decades of trying to dodge, deflect and denigrate questions about his KKK past, Byrd has now had to bring it up himself. Because he has written an autobiography — "Robert C. Byrd: Child of the Appalachian Coalfields," published this week by the University of West Virginia Press. But new and excellent reporting by Washington Post correspondent Eric Pianin revealed this week that Byrd's 770-page book still minimizes the duration and depth of his role in the Klan and his pursuit of the bigotry for which it stands.

Pianin reported that Byrd not only wrote Grand Wizard Samuel Green of Atlanta in 1941 to say he wanted to join the KKK, but he signed up 150 recruits to form a KKK chapter in Byrd's hometown of Crab Orchard, W.Va. Byrd has said he joined "because it offered excitement and because it was strongly opposed to communism." Byrd wrote that he was "caught up with the idea of being part of an organization to which 'leading persons' belonged." Byrd's book does not mention his1946 letter to the Grand Wizard, urging the growth of the Klan in West Virginia — written as a 29-year-old who'd begun his own political career in the state legislature.

Nor does the autobiography mention a Dec. 11, 1945, letter that Byrd wrote to Sen. Theodore Bilbo, D-Miss., Washington's most noxious segregationist, to complain about President Harry Truman's efforts to integrate the military. Byrd told Bilbo that he would never fight in the military "with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours be degraded by race mongrels."

It is a cadence and eloquence — but hardly a sentiment — that rings familiar today to liberals who now cheer the anti-Iraq War flourishes of the snow-haired old man whom they hail as a hero and proclaim to be "The Conscience of the Senate."

Democrats keep insisting that Byrd has apologized, repented, and made amends. But given his failure to acknowledge his full involvement with the Klan and the time period after his (acknowledged) membership during which he praised and promoted the organization, I question the sincerity of the apology.

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Dick Durbin made truly reprehensible comments about the military last week, and his apologies appear neither sincere nor complete. On the other hand, he, along with Senator Obama, is correct in this situation, trying to help the widow of a civilian contractor killed in Iraq stay in the United States.

Because the couple had not been married for at least two years, and because Todd Engstrom was working as a civilian contractor in Iraq, Diana Engstrom does not have the rights given to widows of active-duty soldiers.

"It just shows you that when you have these laws drawn so strictly, you forget the human element," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. "Who would have thought when they wrote this law, that you'd have a situation where someone's married less than two years, dies protecting people from our country, but not in the armed services? The laws didn't consider those options, and that happens so many times when you're dealing with immigration questions."

Durbin and his Illinois colleague, Sen. Barack Obama, have co-sponsored a bill to grant Diana Engstrom permanent residency. Their legislation suspends the deportation process while the two senators round up votes.

In recent years, Congress has been reluctant to pass bills designed to benefit a single individual, and mostly they deal with immigration issues. Of the 132 so-called "private relief" bills introduced in the last Congress, only six became law.

"Generally, it's a bad idea to identify a single individual and do a piece of legislation for them," said Obama, "but this is such a heartbreaking story and it speaks to a lot of civilians who are essentially working on behalf of the war effort in Iraq."

Obama added that Engstrom case falls into "a gray area," since Todd Engstrom was a civilian acting as a U.S. military operative.

"We are going to be taking a look to see if we should be passing some more general laws to close this very narrow loophole," Obama added.

"In this new modern world where they're depending more on contractors, it seems that the intent of the law should include those that are in the war on the front lines doing the job," Ron Engstrom said.

"In my mind it is not a special consideration," he added. "To me it is a consideration that should be broadened to include everybody that serves in the war."

In this case I stand with Senators Durbin and Obama. They are right, and Diana Engstrom deserves to be permitted to stay in this country and raise her late husbandÂ’s son, just as he asked.

Oh, and for those of you on the Left, notice the source on the article -- Fox News. Just a little more proof for you that they are really fair and balanced.

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California voters passed a law banning the recognition of homosexual marriage as a matter of constitutional law in 2000. This spring, a bill to recognize homosexual marriage was defeated in the state assembly. But the bill has been resurrected by a coterie of homosexual legislators, who aim to attach it to another piece of legislation and thereby overthrow the vote of the people.

Assemblyman Mark Leno, one of six openly gay members of the Legislature, said he has decided to employ a legislative maneuver known as "gut and amend" to resurrect the bill that on June 2 fell four votes shy of gaining the simple majority it needed to pass the 80-member house.

"My hope is that we will have a bill amended by the end of this week or the beginning of next," said Leno, declining to offer specifics on which legislation he plans to rewrite. "We intend to do this."

Leno's bill would have changed the California family code to define marriage between "two persons" instead of between a man and a woman. To bring it back to life, he can substitute his measure's language into a bill that successfully passed from the Assembly to the Senate.

If it passes Senate committees and makes it off the Senate floor, it would be the first time a legislative chamber in the nation had voted to give same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual spouses. The measure would have to return to the Assembly for another round of voting before it could be sent to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

So what we have here is a legislative body preparing to tell the people of the state to go screw themselves, because the political elite knows better. Who cares about votes and the voice of the people – the agenda of the left must be imposed by any means necessary.

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California voters passed a law banning the recognition of homosexual marriage as a matter of constitutional law in 2000. This spring, a bill to recognize homosexual marriage was defeated in the state assembly. But the bill has been resurrected by a coterie of homosexual legislators, who aim to attach it to another piece of legislation and thereby overthrow the vote of the people.

Assemblyman Mark Leno, one of six openly gay members of the Legislature, said he has decided to employ a legislative maneuver known as "gut and amend" to resurrect the bill that on June 2 fell four votes shy of gaining the simple majority it needed to pass the 80-member house.

"My hope is that we will have a bill amended by the end of this week or the beginning of next," said Leno, declining to offer specifics on which legislation he plans to rewrite. "We intend to do this."

Leno's bill would have changed the California family code to define marriage between "two persons" instead of between a man and a woman. To bring it back to life, he can substitute his measure's language into a bill that successfully passed from the Assembly to the Senate.

If it passes Senate committees and makes it off the Senate floor, it would be the first time a legislative chamber in the nation had voted to give same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual spouses. The measure would have to return to the Assembly for another round of voting before it could be sent to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

So what we have here is a legislative body preparing to tell the people of the state to go screw themselves, because the political elite knows better. Who cares about votes and the voice of the people – the agenda of the left must be imposed by any means necessary.

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Yeah, John Kerry did fulfill his pledge to sign and submit a DD-180 – but limited the release of information to just three reporters. That means that the rest of us will never get to see for ourselves if what was released was complete and correct.

Senator Kerry of Massachusetts recently granted three reporters broad access to his Navy service records, according to documents obtained by The New York Sun.

The privacy waivers signed by Mr. Kerry authorized the release of "a single, one time copy of the complete military service record and medical record of John F. Kerry" to Glen Johnson of the Associated Press, Michael Kranish of the Boston Globe, and Stephen Braun of the Los Angeles Times.

The waivers, executed on a National Archives form known as Standard Form 180, also permitted release of "an undeleted report" of any discharges ever granted to Mr. Kerry. The undeleted reports would include the "character" of any discharge, the form indicates.

Last year, when Mr. Kerry was the Democratic nominee for president, some of the senator's critics speculated that a six-year gap in his service record indicated that he was disciplined or discharged less than honorably after leading antiwar protests in the 1970s. A spokesman for Mr. Kerry, David Wade, adamantly denied that the senator was ever punished by the military or discharged less than honorably.

The journalists who reviewed the records the Navy released said there was no indication of any discharge beyond the honorable one Mr. Kerry received in 1978.

One of Mr. Kerry's most steadfast critics, Houston attorney John O'Neill, said yesterday that the latest information from the Navy did not address the issue of whether Mr. Kerry's record might have been purged. "The real question was, was other material in there and was anything expunged?" Mr. O'Neill said.
The Navy provided the copies of the privacy waivers to the Sun in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

Mr. Kerry first promised to make public his full Navy record more than a year ago. Mr. Kerry signed the waivers for the wire service and the Globe on May 20. The form for the Times was signed June 6.

A spokesman for Mr. Kerry rebuffed a request from the Sun for access to the service and medical files released to the other three news organizations.

Would the release of the presidentÂ’s service records to three reporters known to be friendly to the Bush be reckoned as full disclosure by the Democrats? I didnÂ’t think so. So why should a similar release by Kerry be seen as one?

Posted by: Greg at 01:03 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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So much was made of Tom DeLay’s travels and who paid for them how. It was alleged that Jack Abramoff’s use of a credit card (later reimbursed by his client) to pay for some expenses was a violation of House rules. But guess what – it appears that Abramoff and his firm were told by the House Ethics Committee staff that such arrangements were permitted!

Internal memorandums and e-mail messages from the Seattle firm, Preston Gates & Ellis, say that the firm contacted two lawyers on the House ethics committee in 1996, when it began organizing large numbers of trips, and was told House rules probably allowed lobbyists to pay for a lawmaker's travel, as long as a client reimbursed the firm.

The memorandums and e-mail messages report that the ethics committee specifically addressed trips that the firm's chief lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, arranged for Mr. DeLay and other lawmakers to the Northern Mariana Islands, an American commonwealth in the Pacific that was among Mr. Abramoff's clients.
In 1997, a year after the firm's contact with the ethics committee, Mr. Abramoff arranged trips for Mr. DeLay to the Marianas and to Russia.

Mr. Abramoff also paid expenses for at least one other overseas trip for Mr. DeLay, a $70,000 visit in May 2000 to England and Scotland by Mr. DeLay, a Texas Republican, his wife and aides that may have been in violation of House rules. A House ethics manual issued a month earlier explicitly barred lobbyists from covering the travel costs of lawmakers, even if they were reimbursed.
Mr. DeLay, the House majority leader, has faced a flurry of ethics accusations involving foreign travel and his ties to Mr. Abramoff. Mr. DeLay's spokesman had no immediate comment on the Preston Gates documents.

The lawmaker has said he was unaware of the logistics of payment for the trips, including Mr. Abramoff's use of his personal credit card for airfare and other expenses, but always believed that his travels conformed to House rules. His staff has said that it understood the Northern Marianas trip was paid for by the islands' government, while other trips were paid for by a conservative research group associated with Mr. Abramoff.

Now yes, there was a change shortly before the 2000 trip, but in the context of the earlier advice it reduces the violation to one of negligible importance, on the level of an oversight, not corruption.

I guess this mud won’t stick, either.

Posted by: Greg at 01:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So much was made of Tom DeLay’s travels and who paid for them how. It was alleged that Jack Abramoff’s use of a credit card (later reimbursed by his client) to pay for some expenses was a violation of House rules. But guess what – it appears that Abramoff and his firm were told by the House Ethics Committee staff that such arrangements were permitted!

Internal memorandums and e-mail messages from the Seattle firm, Preston Gates & Ellis, say that the firm contacted two lawyers on the House ethics committee in 1996, when it began organizing large numbers of trips, and was told House rules probably allowed lobbyists to pay for a lawmaker's travel, as long as a client reimbursed the firm.

The memorandums and e-mail messages report that the ethics committee specifically addressed trips that the firm's chief lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, arranged for Mr. DeLay and other lawmakers to the Northern Mariana Islands, an American commonwealth in the Pacific that was among Mr. Abramoff's clients.
In 1997, a year after the firm's contact with the ethics committee, Mr. Abramoff arranged trips for Mr. DeLay to the Marianas and to Russia.

Mr. Abramoff also paid expenses for at least one other overseas trip for Mr. DeLay, a $70,000 visit in May 2000 to England and Scotland by Mr. DeLay, a Texas Republican, his wife and aides that may have been in violation of House rules. A House ethics manual issued a month earlier explicitly barred lobbyists from covering the travel costs of lawmakers, even if they were reimbursed.
Mr. DeLay, the House majority leader, has faced a flurry of ethics accusations involving foreign travel and his ties to Mr. Abramoff. Mr. DeLay's spokesman had no immediate comment on the Preston Gates documents.

The lawmaker has said he was unaware of the logistics of payment for the trips, including Mr. Abramoff's use of his personal credit card for airfare and other expenses, but always believed that his travels conformed to House rules. His staff has said that it understood the Northern Marianas trip was paid for by the islands' government, while other trips were paid for by a conservative research group associated with Mr. Abramoff.

Now yes, there was a change shortly before the 2000 trip, but in the context of the earlier advice it reduces the violation to one of negligible importance, on the level of an oversight, not corruption.

I guess this mud wonÂ’t stick, either.

Posted by: Greg at 01:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I guess that Dick Durbin is not the only member of the Illinois congressional delegation to be totally out of touch with reality. Lane Evans has shown a similar lack of coherant reasoning.

Noting that Durbin was working with him to protect the shifting of 1,200 jobs from Rock Island Arsenal under this year's round of base closings, Evans blamed the Bush administration for "putting our nation at risk" by realigning the arsenal and other bases in Illinois "at a time when we are fighting the war on terrorism."

"That is why I condemn the rhetoric of those intent on destroying the character of Dick Durbin, a public servant who has given so much to our military and to our veterans," said Evans, the senior Democrat on the House Veterans Affairs Committee whose district includes the arsenal.

"This attempt by the right wing to shift responsibility and blame from the Bush administration to Sen. Durbin is pathetic and will backfire with the American people."

Would someone please connect the dots between the base closing and Gitmo? I don't get it.

Posted by: Greg at 01:57 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Gordon Quan, a popular Houston City Councilman, has bowed out of the 2006 race for the Democrat nomination for Congress so as not to jeopardize the chances of former Congressman Nick Lampson in next year's election for the 22nd Congreesional District seat held by Tom DeLay.

But as I read the article, I become more and more shocked about the nature of the Democrat Party, and the clear racial bias that exists there.

Quan, who had formed an exploratory committee for the 22nd Congressional District in April, said he wanted to avoid a "costly, divisive and lengthy" Democratic primary.

He said he conducted polling that showed DeLay has lost support among constituents and that he and Lampson had nearly equal support.

The district, which includes parts of Brazoria, Fort Bend, Galveston and Harris counties, is solidly Republican and has elected DeLay 11 times.

Quan must leave the council in six months because of city term limits.

Quan, who is of Chinese ancestry, made the announcement at Kim Son restaurant in Stafford, and said he plans to help bring out the Asian vote for Lampson. Asians make up about 10 percent of the district.

Now let me get this straight. Nick Lampson doesn't live in the 22nd District -- but his grandparents did. He does not own a home there -- his residence is in the Beaumont area, at least 90 miles from the Fort Bend County communities that make up the heart of the 22nd District. He used to represent a few Harris County precincts that are now in the 22nd District, but they were never a strong part of his base of support -- but his grandparents used to live in Stafford. The powers that be in the Texas Democrat Party have recruited him and anointed him as the candidate -- and did we mention he used to visit his grandparents in Fort Bend County when he was a kid?

Quan, on the other hand, is a well-known and popular Democrat who has shown the ability to win elections in the area. A Chinese-American, he is part of a community that makes up 10% of the district. He does not need to establish residency to run in the 22nd District -- he lives there. And he is running even with Lampson in everything but fundraising -- because the Democrat power elite put the word out that Lampson is the candidate they want.

So why dump the popular Asian-American local officeholder in favor of a former congressman who does not even live in the district?

And what would be said if this were the GOP dumping a minority candidate in favor of a white carpetbagger candidate selected by the powers that be?

Posted by: Greg at 01:55 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This would be really humorous if it were not so frightening.

Broke and without enough money in the bank to pay its bills after the end of the month, the Florida Democratic Party has now been slapped with a lien by the Internal Revenue Service for failing to pay payroll and Social Security taxes in 2003.
The state party's budget and finance committee voted Tuesday to ask for a new audit to account for more than $900,000 it believes somehow disappeared from the books during the 2003-2004 calendar years when the party was led by Scott Maddox, who is now seeking its nomination for governor.

Maddox and successor Karen Thurman, who became the party's new chairwoman just last month, did not immediately return phone messages asking for comment on the findings.

"We're going to be on top of this a lot more than we were previously, not only in Scott's term of office, but Bob Poe's term in office," state party vice-chair Diane Glasser of Fort Lauderdale said Tuesday. "We weren't getting all the information we should have been getting." Maddox replaced Poe.

While the party owes roughly $200,000 in delinquent payroll and Social Security taxes, the lien was against the remaining $98,000 in their account on Friday, longtime Leon County committeeman Jon Ausman said. Ausman said it cost about $250,000 a month to pay salaries and overhead for the party operation in Tallahassee and that it had been spending more so far this year than it has raised.

So what we see here is that the Florida Dems have floated a $200,000 from the taxpauyers by failing to turn over to the government money held out of employee salaries for taxes. Seems to me that there is a serious issue of financial mismanagement and fraud here. Who is going to be the first locked up?

But it gets even worse, as the responsible officials in the party look to pass the blame elsewhere.

more...

Posted by: Greg at 01:43 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Just a quick reminder about the Holocaust, that historical evil you minimized and denied last week with your comments on Gitmo, as well as the other government-sponsored mass murders you belittled.

Aushwitz. Bergen-Belsen. Birkenau. Buchenwald. Dachau. Majdanek. Mauthausen. Sobibor. Treblinka.

Ring any bells?

Those were true concentration camps - places where death crossed all human boundaries and people died simply because of who they were.

If you were a Gypsy, you died. If you were mentally handicapped, you died. If you were a homosexual, you died. If you were a dissident, you died. If you were a Jew, you moved to the head of the line and died as part of a program aimed at the extermination of an entire race.

Mothers and children were killed. Fathers and sons were killed. The sick and the old were killed. Babies were bashed against walls. Children were thrown into fires. People were packed into "bath houses" and killed by the score, after which the bodies were packed into ovens and burnt to ash.

The death toll in such camps has been estimated to be as high as 11 million people.

The Soviet gulags got started earlier, but their "best" years were between 1930 and 1950. Again, millions (estimates range from 20 million to 50 million) perished. One of the worst of these camps was a little patch of sunshine called Kolyma. Those fond of making comparisons might want to read up on it.

Minor aside: Given such numbers, one wonders why the term "Communists" isn't used more frequently since the Nazis were, obviously, a second-string operation when it came to slaughtering innocent people.

As regards Pol Pot and his merry band of killers, here's a bit of information provided by the Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Organization:

"The Khmer Rouge turned Cambodia to year zero. They banned all institutions, including stores, banks, hospitals, schools, religion, and the family. Everyone was forced to work 12-14 hours a day, every day. Children were separated from their parents to work in mobile groups or as soldiers. People were fed one watery bowl of soup with a few grains of rice thrown in. Babies, children, adults and the elderly were killed everywhere. The Khmer Rouge killed people if they didn't like them, if they didn't work hard enough, if they were educated, if they came from different ethnic groups, or if they showed sympathy when their family members were taken away to be killed. All were killed without reason. Everyone had to pledge total allegiance to Angka, the Khmer Rouge government. It was a campaign based on instilling constant fear and keeping their victims off balance."
The death toll was 2.5 million.

When will you resign, sir?

Posted by: Greg at 10:04 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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William Kristol makes an excellent point in The Daily Standard. It is not the responsibility of the Republicans to act against Dick Durbin for his reprehensible statements against the US military. Rather, it is the responsibility of the Democrats.

Why not put the burden on the Democrats? When Sen. Trent Lott made a far less damaging, but still deplorable, statement two and a half years ago, his fellow Republicans insisted he step down as their leader. Shouldn't Democrats insist that Sen. Durbin step down as their whip, the number two man in their leadership? Shouldn't conservatives (and liberals) legitimately ask Democrats to hold their leader to account, especially given the precedent of Lott?

Yes, what is the Democrat Party's response to Durbin's outrageous words and his clear lack of repentance over them -- as evidenced by his non-apology which indicates he believes the comparison to the Nazis was appropriate but misunderstood? Do the Democrats penalize such Holocaust denial (for that is what his comments constitute)? We know that the Democrats still refuse to come to grips with the true nature of Communism and the murderous barbarism of that system. Yet one would have hopes that the genocide of six-million innocent Jews and the liquidation of six-million other innocents would still be seen as quantitatively and qualitatively different from the use of extreme interrogation techniques against a few hundred terrorists who took up arms against the US in a manner that violates international law and places them outside its protection. Will the Democrats in the Senate (and elsewhere) act to repudiate Durbin's minimization of industrialized murder?

Senator Durbin is scheduled to join Democratic chairman Howard Dean at a big fundraiser at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., this Tuesday. I assume he will withdraw from that appearance. But if he cannot appear with his party chairman, one can ask how he can lead his party in the Senate? And if he does appear with Dean Tuesday night, and stays in his party's Senate leadership, doesn't that tell us everything we need to know about today's Democratic party?

The GOP sacrificed Trent Lott for the crime of saying kind but stupid words to an old man on the occasion of his reaching 100-years of age. Should we not expect the Democrats to do at least as much against a senior member of leadership whose words clearly defame our troops, implicitly deny the magnitude of the Holocaust, and arguably give aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States during time of war?

Posted by: Greg at 11:51 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Does Joe Biden really believe he would stand a chance, given his 1988 scandal and his later health concerns -- not to mention Hillary?

Democratic U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden said on Sunday he intends to run for president in 2008, two decades after he dropped out of the race amid charges he plagiarized a British politician's speech.

"My intention now is to seek the nomination," Biden, of Delaware, said on CBS television's "Face the Nation." He said he would explore his support and decide by the end of this year -- a sign the race may get off to an early and competitive start.

"If in fact I think I have a clear shot at winning the nomination, by this November or December, then I'm going to seek the nomination," he said.

Biden is the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a frequent critic of President Bush's Iraq policy.

Still, if he did get the nomination I think he would be an easy-to-beat candidate for the eventual GOP nominee.

Posted by: Greg at 09:35 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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