Man, I wish I could take full credit for this post. But I can’t. The credit and Hat Tip belongs to Ed Morrissey.

The One’s puppets in his Organizing for America group put out a statement that was reported in The Hill:

President Obama’s political operation took a shot at Sarah Palin today, accusing her of lying on her media blitz.

“It’s dangerous,” Organizing for America Director Mitch Stewart said of Palin’s book tour.

As mentioned the other day, leftists have been trying to pin a tag of cowardice on conservatives opposed to the dangerous and stupid decision by The One and his AG to prosecute some terrorists in civilian court while prosecuting others in the military tribunals (all without any legal reasoning explaining why). Holder went so far as to show how “brave” (think “Brave Sir Robin”) he was by saying he was “not scared of KSM”. Naturally, the lefties followed suit. So, Morrissey asks this very pertinent question [emphasis from original]:

Even on that basis, we’re now to believe that giving al-Qaeda terrorists a global media platform for propaganda and recruitment isn’t at all dangerous … but a book tour should have people running for cover?

You can’t make this stuff up. Beta-males like this Mitch Stewart of OFA have become a mass of cowardice when it comes to Sarah Palin. Considering all the bits, bytes, pixels, and ink that have been spilled about Palin by her critics in just a little over a year, especially the master of all things gynecological, Andrew Sullivan, the fear these cowards put on display is simply something that to treasure. Especially with popcorn.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) is up for re-election next year. She passes herself off as a moderate, someone who is on the fence about supporting the health “reform” fiasco that Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), so he says, is trying to force through this Saturday with a procedural vote to start debate. Looking at her voting record for this session of Congress, Lincoln hasn’t shown herself to be anything less than a Democratic follower having voted to confirm Tim Geithner, Eric Holder, Sonia Sotomayor, and David Hamilton, and vote for Porkulus and the S-CHIP expansion.

Contact Sen. Lincoln at 202-224-3121 right now, and email her through her contact page. Let her know you aren’t impressed with her record this session. Indicate that one way to help this situation is for her to drop any support for any health “reform” bill, saying that you would be happy to add her name to the list of the unemployed in 2010 if she shows any inkling to support it.

While your at it, contact the other U.S. Senator from Arkansas, Mark Pryor. Burn up the phone lines and internet to get this stopped!!!

Attorney General Eric Holder testified before Congress yesterday regarding this whole trying Al Qaeda war criminals in a civilian court. There are plenty of posts blogging Holder’s tussle with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), so go to the link if you want to view them (or view them again if you’ve already seen them). Also go see Scott Johnson’s and Andy McCarthy’s smackdown of a document Holder is relying on for determining where the terrorists will be prosecuted called “Determination of Guantanamo Cases Referred for Prosecution.” Looking at it, I think the following pretty much sums up how Holder is going to make these determinations (think of Holder as Bullwinkle and Defense Secretary Robert Gates as Rocky):

Bullwinkle: Hey, Rocky - Watch Me Pull A Rabbit Out Of My Hat
Rocky: Again?
Bullwinkle: Presto!
Lion: ROAR!!!
Bullwinkle: Oops, wrong hat.

Just as the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel provides the legal reasoning for the President and the other departments and agencies of the Executive Branch, somebody at the OLC had to have given the go-ahead for this trainwreck.

Back in February, Attorney General Eric Holder had the nerve to call Americans cowards when it came to race. Today, as reported by Bill Kristol, Holder said the following:

In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, Eric Holder will say, according to the Associated Press, that “I have every confidence the nation and the world will see him for the coward he is….I’m not scared of what (Mohammed) will have to say at trial and no one else needs to be either.” And, “we need not cower in the face of this enemy. Our institutions are strong, our infrastructure is sturdy, our resolve is firm, and our people are ready.”

Holder is channeling his inner Glenn Greenwald. See this past Saturday, Greenwald believes conservatives are cowards for opposing having KSM and the four other Al Qaeda vermin tried in the civilian courts. This was just after the sock puppet whined about Holder having the U.S.S. Cole terrorists tried by military tribunal (Patterico agreed with Greenwald’s basic premise in that post, about there not being a legal standard for determining who gets tried where, but Patterico points out that the sock puppet gets all the conclusions wrong).

Granted Holder did call KSM a coward, but then decided to add that those who oppose these civilian trials are exhibiting cowardice. Gee, I wonder where Holder got that from?

Naturally, lefties like Sen. Pat Leahy and the despicable Markos Moulitsas picked up on that to spew their own venom, as noted by Sister Toldjah. She adds:

8 years after 9/11, these morons still apparently don’t get it. This has nothing to do with ‘cowering’ in the face of KSM. How dare the Attorney General of the US insinuate that the opposition to holding KSM’s trial in a civilian court has anything to do with being “cowardly”? The issue at hand is what sensitive information will be revealed in a US court of law, since KSM is being tried as a murderer in a civilian court, rather than as a suspected terrorist in a military court.

Not just a suspected terrorist, but an illegal combatant who committed an illegal act of war.

Well, Holder’s false “bravado” was also caught by Andy McCarthy [emphasis from original]:

6. In a civilian trial, America will see KSM for the coward that he is — Holder: “I am not scared of KSM.” Submitting a war criminal to a military commission is not an exercise in fear; it is an exercise in justice. We already know all about what kind of animal KSM is, thanks to the exrtraordinary information that has come out in the military proceedings and the CIA interrogations. You could fill a book a book with it, which the 9/11 Commission did. We don’t need to bear the risks of a civilian trial either to learn more about KSM or so Mr. Holder can show how brave he is.

Holder, and by extension The One, along with all the other lefties like Greenwald and Moulitsas, are the real cowards. After all, it was Holder who said he was the one who decided who gets tried in the civilian courts and who gets tried in the military tribunals, yet never provides a legal justification for any of this either in his original statement last week, his opening statement today before Congress, and I doubt during his testimony. Holder, and especially Greenwald (along with the other leftists), are the real cowards because they are afraid that trying foreign enemy combatants as war criminals for committing illegal acts of war before a military tribunal is somehow a violation of what they call the rule of law and a risk to the civil liberties of the American people, despite the fact that the Supreme Court has upheld the use of the tribunals established by the 2006 Military Commissions Act; only the subsection on habeas corpus was thrown out in Boumediene (invalidly, in my opinion; but that’s for another time). For years, these phony “civil libertarians” have used all kinds of fear-mongering about these tribunals saying they are the death knell of democracy and blah, blah, blah…ignoring the fact that tribunals have been used throughout this nation’s history, and the freedom the American people enjoy is still here (which they also conveeeeniently neglect to mention). They continue with their fear-mongering, putting their own cowardice brightly on display. It is amazing that a lawyer and a prosecutor can’t even lay out his legal reasoning, relying completely on his political ideology and cowardly fear-mongering to make this decision. All Holder and Obama are doing is showing the world how kangaroo courts operate in the United States, not so much for KSM et al., but how they very well could operate for the rest of us. As I’ve said before, Holder might as well have Democrat Mike Nifong prosecute KSM and the terrorist vermin.

Holder also decided to play the victim card with another example of his “blame Bush” routine:

For eight years, justice has been delayed for the victims of the 9/11 attacks. It has been delayed even further for the victims of the attack on the USS Cole. No longer. No more delays.

Naturally, Holder neglects to mention that it was his comrades in the ACLU, amongst the phony “civil libertarians”, the federal judiciary (especially the Supreme Court), the law firm Holder used to be a partner at before becoming AG, and The One’s own stoppage of military tribunals earlier this year were the main reason none of the terrorist vermin have been tried yet in any setting. Because that would wreck his own dishonest rhetoric.

So not only is Eric Holder a coward, he’s a liar.

You heard that right, folks, statists don’t get that they’re the problem when it comes to sexism and racism. Oh they like to say they stand up against those things; but even when they appear to do so, it usually falls so short as to appear farcical.

Case in point, Salon harridan Joan Walsh tries to take Newsweek to task for the sexist cover with the picture of Sarah Palin on it:

Hell freezes over: I agree with Sarah Palin. Newsweek’s out of context short-shorts cover was sexist

I mentioned it in passing yesterday, but Newsweek’s Jon Meacham gets America’s Top Clueless Male award for taking a photo Sarah Palin shot for Runner’s World, and using it on a serious news story about her role in the GOP. Palin denounced the photo selection as “sexist and degrading” on her Facebook page, and she’s right.

She goes on:

…Meacham told Politico: “We chose the most interesting image available to us to illustrate the theme of the cover, which is what we always try to do. We apply the same test to photographs of any public figure, male or female: does the image convey what we are saying? That is a gender-neutral standard.”

Really, Jon Meacham? Did you really want to say that? OK, then, let’s deconstruct the cover entirely. The photo of the lovely, bare-legged Palin is paired with the headline: “How do you solve a problem like Sarah?” For those too young to recognize the reference, it’s from a “Sound of Music” song, “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?” about a young novice who is too cute and flighty to be a nun (”she’s a flibbertyjibbit, a will o’ the wisp, a clown!”). That’s a great way to describe our first GOP vice-presidential nominee. Not sexist at all…Oh yes, Jon Meacham, your answer is proof-positive that there was no sexism to your imagery. Fail.

It sounds like Walsh is pretty ticked, right? Fuhgeddaboudit. Reading the whole piece, Walsh isn’t really willing to point out a few things. Oh sure, Walsh is upset up to a point; just not all that upset. Because the left is always ready, willing, and able to defend and be what they say they hate, sexists and racists, if it advances their agenda. Look how the statists defended, and still defend, one of the ultimate misogynists of recent memory, Bill Clinton. Destroying Sarah Palin is part of that, even if done in the dishonorable method the left has been using since Palin hit the national scene. Even as Walsh chastises Meacham for his ridiculous explanation, she never once characterizes Meacham or others (especially noted OB-GYN specialist Andrew Sullivan) for being the misogynists they are. Neither Walsh, nor others she cites in the piece, call for Meacham’s removal as editor of Newsweek, or even a boycott of the struggling magazine, because Meacham is one of their own, one of them.

It does look like Walsh was not a happy camper, and I have no doubt she was angry; but, she’ll get over it. The left will accept Meacham back into the fold, without an apology or an admission that what he or Newsweek did was wrong; he or some other editor of one of the leftist rags will do something similar, and this whole dance will be played out again. Remember, it is many, if not most, of these same statists who still believe Dan Rather got the short end of the deal for trying to influence the 2004 Presidential election, believing Rather instead of the evidence.

Ticked? Yes. Outraged? No. It’s just the typical faux outrage of the left.

(Hat tip: Lucianne.com)

President Barack Obama’s and Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try any of the terrorists in the civilian courts is utterly ridiculous. Even if the terrorists are tried in the federal courts for committing an illegal act of war, which should be on top of the list of charges brought, a question I asked here begs for further study:

Here’s something else: are there 12 people out there who could be found to make up a jury?

Another question is the one that is the title of the post: what kind of justice does The One think he’s showing the world? Here’s another: does the U.S. really have anything to prove to anyone, especially in the Muslim world? After all, it was the U.S. that was attacked on 9/11 and for the several years prior to that; the U.S. is the aggrieved party here, not the Muslim world.

But let’s return to the question of what kind of justice does this administration think they are going to show. Obama has already stated that he is going to continue to hold those terrorists, in some foreign prison camp (probably Bagram, Afghanistan after the Gitmo prison is possibly shut down), the administration deems too dangerous to release, even of said terrorists that aren’t tried in any court, civilian or military. The lefties are all up in arms over this already, which may be one of the reasons why Obama and Holder are going down this road to try the 9/11 terrorists in New York. However, wouldn’t a Khalid Sheikh Mohammed be one of those too dangerous to release, even if acquitted? Both Allahpundit and John Hinderaker ask the then obvious question, what is the point of having a trial? I agree, but only in regards to a trial in the federal civilian courts. Tom Maguire adds the why:

And what are these trials going to look like? As the Times and WaPo explain, a lot of the evidence may not be admissible under normal Federal rules.

This wouldn’t be nearly as much of an issue under the military tribunals; plus, a trial there would recognize that KSM et al. are still under the jurisdiction of the military, which could then still hold the terrorists even if there is an acquittal since the terrorists would still be considered at war with the U.S.

What is being shown by this administration is a hypocrisy of justice. Once in the hands of the civilians, the military would probably not have any sway, meaning that any terrorists who are acquitted would almost assuredly have to be freed, something that would kill The One’s chances at re-election (provided the trial takes place prior to 2012; there’s no guarantee of that either), if bringing KSM to the U.S. for prosecution in the civilian courts doesn’t do that already. Even if The One and Holder are doing this to embarrass the Bush administration, there still has to be a conviction of these terrorists. That, in and of itself, opens the Obama administration to loud and fully-throated criticism on both the left and the right to charges of politicizing justice and complete judicial hypocrisy. Everyone knows this, and Obama did nothing to assuage that when, while in Japan on his Asia tour, he more or less preempted Holder on Friday after Jennifer Loven asked about this:

MR. GIBBS: Jennifer Loven with AP — questions fewer in number. (Laughter.)

Q Thank you, Mr. President, Mr. Prime Minister. President Obama, how can you assure the American people that a trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, now that your administration has now decided will take place in a civilian court in New York, will be safe and secure, but also not result in an innocent verdict for him?

[snip]

PRESIDENT OBAMA: With respect to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, I believe that the Attorney General is going to be making an announcement this morning in the United States, this evening here. I don’t want to preempt his news conference. This is a prosecutorial decision as well as a national security decision.

Here’s the thing that I will say. I am absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice. The American people will insist on it and my administration will insist on it. And I’m sure we’ll have additional things to say after the Attorney General’s press conference.

My take on what The One said, along with AG Holder, is they, and the rest of the administration, expect a guilty verdict and refuse, utterly refuse, to acknowledge the possibility that an alternative outcome may be reached. The One and Holder might as well have fellow Democrat Mike Nifong lead the prosecution.

The only thing The One is showing the world is that this political decision by the administration is a travesty of justice. They want to show the world that the 9/11 terrorists can be tried in the civilian court system, under all the rules contained therein, yet have already said that some terrorists can’t be released anyway because the U.S. knows these terrorists are at war with the U.S. In order to punish KSM and the others brought to New York for trial is a guaranteed guilty verdict, which goes against everything in the U.S. Constitution.

The One is better off having someone put two bullets in the back of the heads of each of these terrorists as it would be more befitting the Chicago Way. It would be less hypocritical.

There aren’t enough curse words I’ve thought up to describe the Obama administration’s decision to bring KSM and his “Merry Band” of cutthroat terrorists to U.S. soil to stand trial in civilian courts. It is just rotten to the core. Being the cynical jerk that I am, I am in total agreement with Andy McCarthy’s take on why The One and Holder are trying these scum here in America in opposition to the laws enacted by Congress to prosecute the terrorists in military tribunals; even as the government seeks formal convictions and potential executions of the terrorists, these two, Obama and Holder, are going to let the regular court system try the Bush administration for a whole host of imaginary crimes that have been dreamed up by their leftist ilk, something they are too cowardly to do themselves.

Holder had his press conference, and The One made a few utterances about the prosecution. Holder said he would make sure the terrorists were candidates for capital punishment. He also mentioned how successful the Justice Department had been in prosecuting terrorists. With perfect synchronicity, the phony-baloney “civil libertarian” leftists who worship Obama chimed in with the same thing, accusing those who believe in the military tribunal setup of fear-mongering (and other things not repeatable here). But you know what I didn’t hear? None of the past prosecution of terrorists ever included charges of these terrorists committing an illegal act of war. So the question is, will Holder and the DoJ charge any these terrorists with committing an illegal act of war against the United States? Will The One allow such a charge to be brought forth?

You see, that is the problem. The phony-baloney “civil libertarian” leftists barely acknowledge there is a war on, that the authorization for conducting the war is even in effect. As Obama’s administration has dragged on, The One has consistently lowered the tone of fighting the terrorists with the military to the failed policies of the past to deal with terrorism in the courts. Unless I’m wrong, and I don’t think I am, I don’t see Holder changing how the Justice Department has dealt with terrorists in the past. If The One and Holder want to be serious about really going after terrorists, even in the courts, Holder has to charge them with committing an illegal act of war under 18 U.S.C. § 2441, specifically subsection (c).

But there are problems here. Since the statute was passed in 1996, nobody, as far as I can tell, has ever been indicted for its violation, especially in the regular civilian courts, and definitely not terrorists. Taking a look at the indictment of Osama bin Laden and others after the African embassy bombings of 1998 (there are four PDF files at the link), Clinton-appointed U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White didn’t bother to include a violation of that statute in the list of charges, despite the fact that bin Laden’s and Al Qaeda’s declaration of war against the United States is mentioned there. Even the Bush administration didn’t charge Zacarias Moussaoui with committing or attempting to commit an illegal act of war, as shown in the indictment. To me, this is the crux of the matter; if the United States is at war, and the U.S. government wants to charge several of its enemies in custody of war crimes due to that war, then it makes sense that the U.S. would want to prosecute these terrorist vermin of violating the laws of war.

But as I had mentioned earlier, I don’t believe Holder has the stones to charge KSM and the others to be tried in New York with war crimes. As we already know, Holder has a penchant for giving preferences to terrorists, having had a major hand in getting Clinton to pardon FALN terrorists; plus there is that whole conflict-of-interest thing, as noted by Michelle Malkin, in that the firm Holder was a partner at before becoming Attorney General representing a slew of Gitmo terrorists. Like Andy McCarthy, I believe The One is trying to embarrass the Bush administration in a bunch of worthless and unnecessary show trials for a war started illegally by Al Qaeda at least three years before 9/11.

The America-hating ACLU and their comrades masquerading as “civil libertarians” are licking their drooling chops at a chance at sticking to the Bush administration. They have no interest in justice for America. You want to know how bad it is? These same jerks are actively trying to charge Bush administration officials with war crimes under 18 U.S.C. § 2441. But not the terrorists.

UPDATE: What else is stunning is the decision to prosecute KSM et al. in the civilian courts was made on a Friday, and made while The One is out galavanting around the globe. Simply amazing.

This is just coming out:

Self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to New York to face trial in a civilian federal court, an Obama administration official said Friday.

The others are Waleed bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, and Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali. The AP piece explains what the other terrorists are accused of doing.

Debra Burlingame also announced this on Mark Levin’s radio show last night.

Read More →

As is already known, President Obama has thrown out all the plans to implement the strategy he says he wants for Afghanistan. Since Gen. Stanley McChrystal let out that he wants around 40,000 additional troops in order for the plan to succeed, Obama has been accused of dithering and falling far short of anything resembling someone who supposed to be the Commander in Chief of the U.S. military. I wholeheartedly agree.

I imagine there will be some who worship The One who will say it took President Bush over two years to adjust his strategy on Iraq after seeing it wasn’t working. It’s an apples-and-oranges comparison. First, nobody, not Bush, his generals, nor Congress, actually knew the strategy wasn’t working; people were guessing (rightly as it turns out) that it wasn’t. But once Bush did realize the strategy in Iraq wasn’t working, he got on about putting in a new strategy. Once his generals (mostly Gen. Petraeus) determined what was needed for it to succeed, Bush took action, pretty much like every other action he took. With Obama, all that we seem to see is that he has a strategy but he doesn’t want to pay a political price from his base in order to implement it. This vacillation is a morale killer for those doing the fighting, but that doesn’t seem to worry the C-in-C.

Via Jim Hoft, an Instapundit reader had this to say:

Just something that occurred to me today while trying to cross Fifth Ave in Manhattan during the Veteran’s Day Parade:

The towers fell in New York on 9/11/01, Kabul fell to American led forces on 11/14/01. That’s 65 days.

President Obama’s hand-picked replacement commander in Afghanistan, GEN McChrystal, delivered his Afghanistan war plans to President Obama on 8/30/09, and President Obama hasn’t acted on his General’s recommendations as of today, 11/11/09. That’s 73 days, and waiting.

It actually took less time to take Kabul since it invariably took a few days to figure out the strategy for invading Afghanistan and kicking out the Taliban.

Another related item. Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee is regarded as one of the best strategist, if not the best, America ever produced (which is why Lincoln wanted him). But Lee wasn’t always the best at issuing direct orders. Though who worked with him enough understood what Lee was ordering them to do without all the necessary specifics, especially Lee’s 2nd Corps commander, Lt. Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. The Lee-Jackson team led to some huge victories for the Confederates, and left many a Union general (and Lincoln) frustrated. But after Jackson was killed at Chancellorsville in May, 1863, Lee’s “right arm” was gone. Succeeding Jackson as commander of the 2nd Corps was Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell, a competent if unimaginative general. Not having worked with Lee directly before, Ewell was unable to understand the nuance of Lee’s orders. This came out at Gettysburg when on the first day Lee had told Ewell to move 2nd Corps to take the high ground on Culp’s Hill “if practicable.” Ewell misinterpreted this as a suggestion instead of an order and left the ground to Union troops; it’s a good bet Jackson wouldn’t have made this mistake. As a result, the Union was in a nearly impregnable defensive position with which to repel any direct assault. While probably not the decisive factor in causing the Confederates to lose at Gettysburg, it was a huge mistake that was compounded by other mistakes made by the Confederates during that battle.

I would never confuse the military acumen of President Obama with that of Gen. Lee. But Obama lives too much by nuance, seemingly unable to understand that a little too much nuance can fail even a military genius like Lee.

Today is Veterans Day. It was all of the battles they’ve fought, and all of the sacrifices they had to make, that allows America to be the land for freedom for all people, the example that other nations can follow if they want their people to be as free; the land of the free. And for the veterans, we acknowledge that this is their home, the home of the brave, the home of our brave warriors.

We thank you and salute you.

And a belated 234-year old birthday shout-out to the United States Marine Corps!!!

(My apologies for being late.)

Open thread.

One of the arguments that is made by those who support the statists’ version of health care “reform” is that the government needs to have more and more control of it as a benefit to the general welfare of the American people. Those like President Obama and those who worship him will say they have plans ready to go, plans that have been in development for years, plans that will make this succeed. It’s a crock, especially seeing how the House threw together the garbage they passed the other night. Worse yet, the House bill has a provision to steal private property, our money, if we don’t follow its dictate to buy a policy that meets the changing standards of the federal government. Unfortunately, any legal challenges to throw out an expansion of government’s control of health care, if and when it passes and is signed into law, and including the penalty provisions within, would probably be itself thrown out by this Supreme Court.

A recent Supreme Court ruling highlights both the fallacy of government planning and the Court’s unconstitutional expansion of the Takings Clause of the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment. I’m talking about the Court’s infamous Kelo v. New London ruling which allowed the city government of New London to take property away from a private party (after being “justly” compensated, whatever that means) to give it (sell it) to another private party, justifying the action as well within the meaning of “public use”. Again, it’s a crock. The Pfizer corporation, the second private party that was to be the recipient of the land New London won in Kelo has abandoned the site. Now New London has “Weeds, glass, bricks, pieces of pipe and shingle splinters” in place instead of taxpaying homeowners or tax revenues from Pfizer.

Both Justice Stevens in his majority opinion (joined by Justices Kennedy, Breyer, Souter, and Ginsburg) and Justice Kennedy in his concurring opinion mention the “careful” planning that was put in place by New London and its development agency as part of the justification for what is basically grand larceny. Here’s some of what Stevens has to say:

Those who govern the City were not confronted with the need to remove blight in the Fort Trumbull area, but their determination that the area was sufficiently distressed to justify a program of economic rejuvenation is entitled to our deference. The City has carefully formulated an economic development plan that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including–but by no means limited to–new jobs and increased tax revenue. As with other exercises in urban planning and development, the City is endeavoring to coordinate a variety of commercial, residential, and recreational uses of land, with the hope that they will form a whole greater than the sum of its parts. To effectuate this plan, the City has invoked a state statute that specifically authorizes the use of eminent domain to promote economic development. Given the comprehensive character of the plan, the thorough deliberation that preceded its adoption, and the limited scope of our review, it is appropriate for us, as it was in Berman, to resolve the challenges of the individual owners, not on a piecemeal basis, but rather in light of the entire plan. Because that plan unquestionably serves a public purpose, the takings challenged here satisfy the public use requirement of the Fifth Amendment.

According to the opinion, plaintiffs made the argument that New London and Pfizer also needed to show a certainty that the public benefits would actually happen. Stevens said nah, they don’t have to:

Alternatively, petitioners maintain that for takings of this kind we should require a “reasonable certainty” that the expected public benefits will actually accrue. Such a rule, however, would represent an even greater departure from our precedent. “When the legislature’s purpose is legitimate and its means are not irrational, our cases make clear that empirical debates over the wisdom of takings–no less than debates over the wisdom of other kinds of socioeconomic legislation–are not to be carried out in the federal courts.” Midkiff, 467 U.S., at 242.

What Stevens says is even more egregious; the government can take privately owned land even if nothing comes of it.

Kennedy’s opinion is no better:

This taking occurred in the context of a comprehensive development plan meant to address a serious city-wide depression, and the projected economic benefits of the project cannot be characterized as de minimus.

Now, those projected economic benefits of the taking are not only de minimus (a trifling matter), they are non-existent. What seems to be de minimus for Kennedy (and Stevens) are the rights of individuals to keep private property, even against the law of unintended consequences.

The statists on the Supreme Court who ruled in the majority in Kelo, along with being accessories to grand theft, have no standards; they will say they have evolving standards, but that’s another way of saying they have no standards, since a standard is supposed to mean something as a set way of doing things. The Constitution clearly upholds the right of individuals to own private property that is not to be taken by an overreaching government on a whim. But to these clowns on the Supreme Court, private property and the Constitution have no meaning.

As mentioned earlier, all that planning done by New London has left the city with acres of weeds. All the planning the statists have done and are doing with health care will end up being nothing more than what New London has ended up with, weeds.

God help us.

(Hat tip: Memeorandum)

Via Hot Air, previously ousted Honduran President and Chavez-wannabe Manuel Zelaya will return to power as President for the remainder of his term after an agreement between Zelaya and the Honduran government was accepted. There are some caveats (emphasis from Ed Morrissey):

Mr Micheletti said that Mr Zelaya could return to office after a vote in Congress that would be authorised by the country’s Supreme Court. He said that the deal would require both sides to recognise the result of a presidential election due to take place on November 29 and would transfer control of the army to the top electoral court.

Effectively, Zelaya would be the ultimate lame-duck President until power was turned over to the President elected after the November 29th election. Micheletti will also not be allowed to run as well.

Fausta has a great round-up of this as well, including a translation from Honduras’ El Heraldo:

El Heraldo (in Spanish) makes it clear that US State Dept. envoy for Latin America Thomas Shannon went to Honduras to twist arms: his position was that the November 29 elections would not be recognized unless Zelaya was returned to power. I guess nothing ensures democracy like restoring to power the guy who did his outmost to undermine democracy, at least in Shannon’s eyes.

American leftists have long whined about American intervention in Latin America, but only when that intervention is supposedly done by Republican Presidents. As of this post, no leftist blogger has said a thing over at Memeorandum (this could change as the day goes on). Yet in discussions I’ve had with leftists, they are pretty ambivalent about the Obama administration’s actions against the Micheletti government, taking the State Department’s word that it was an illegal military coup d’etat. I am pretty sure they will say this is just another example of the administration’s “smart” (that is, dumb) power, ignoring the implications that Obama just engaged in another case of intervention by the American gringos.

As a side note, the Law Library of Congress had recently issued a report that said Zelaya’s removal from office was perfectly legal under the Honduran Constitution and law, although they do mention that Zelaya’s exile by the military did seem to violate the Constitution, which is under investigation by the Honduran government. The now-senior U.S. Senator from Massachusetts John Kerry had wanted the report retracted. Per Morrissey in an update:

Law Library of Congress to John Kerry: Pound sand.

At least Zelaya, provided he keeps his word, will be gone from office, although he could still cause trouble down the road. But the hypocrisy of the administration of The One and those who worship him is stunning. They have put into practice the idea of the “Ugly American”; but based on my own observation of the left, those that revere The One will be completely dishonest and not put it that way. If I’m wrong, I’ll retract that.

UPDATE: These same leftists who will probably say nothing about this have hypocritically praised The One’s non-intervention of the Iranian election, even while the corrupt thugs of the Iranian mullahcracy brutally tortured and murdered its own citizens in order to make them legitimate. The One, to them, can do no wrong.

I sometimes wonder where President Obama is on this whole national security thing. I mean, the oath he took on January 20th of this year states:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

I would think Obama can’t very well defend the Constitution of the United States if there is no United States. Kind of logical, don’t you think?

Others have pointed out many of what look like national security fiascos that the administration has saddled the country with recently, and even through his nine-month term in office, so I won’t reiterate them here.

Drew M. at AoSHQ and Dafydd ab Hugh each list out further items that look like a return to the bad old national insecurity days of the Clinton administration. Even worse, the Democratic Congressional leadership seemingly wants to help the administration out.

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From Drudge, “Interracial couple denied marriage license in La.“:

A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have.

Ah. It’s for…the children.

Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.

In their piece, the AP said Bardwell never returned any of their phone calls. But they note that he recently talked to the Daily Star of Hammond, La.:

Bardwell said he has discussed the topic with blacks and whites, along with witnessing some interracial marriages. He came to the conclusion that most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society, he said.

“I don’t do interracial marriages because I don’t want to put children in a situation they didn’t bring on themselves,” Bardwell said. “In my heart, I feel the children will later suffer.”

And this has what to do with the law?

That’s right, the law. Since Loving v. Virginia, an act like the one perpetrated by Mr. Bardwell is illegal. Period. End of story. This isn’t something new; Chief Justice Earl Warren made the definitive legal statement on this 42 years ago in his opinion in Loving:

The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State.

With Loving, the Supreme Court threw out every remaining state laws still in existence that made interracial marriage illegal. That’s what makes Bardwell’s actions so egregious; the Supreme Court in Loving overturned prior court opinions that were based on a statute, while there was no such statute Bardwell could draw from. The AP article points out the requirements to apply for a marriage license; needless to say, interracial marriages aren’t treated any differently than intra-racial marriages. If what Bardwell did isn’t judicial activism, even for a justice of the peace, I don’t know what is.

Two things about this that don’t show up in the article are very interesting. First, there’s no mention as to whether Bardwell is white, black, or something else. I mention it because it’s bound to be brought up. It’s also immaterial since this would be racism regardless of Bardwell’s skin color. Second, the AP plays “guess the party” by not mentioning which party Bardwell is affiliated with. It turns out he’s a Republican. But based on this information from the website of the Louisiana Secretary of State, Bardwell, a justice of the peace since 1990, was a Democrat up until this year. It sure seems, based on what the AP says Bardwell told the local newspaper, that Bardwell has been doing this long before he became a Republican.

Also mentioned by the AP, the ACLU is looking to get the Louisiana Supreme Court, who has jurisdiction over Louisiana’s justices of the peace, to remove Bardwell from office. This is one time when I’m in agreement with them.

I think Mark Levin, on his radio show last night, asked the right question: is Al Sharpton running the NFL? The last I checked, he didn’t. But Sharpton sure seemed like he did when he announced, loudly, that Rush Limbaugh shouldn’t be a part-owner in an NFL team. Using the racist fear-mongering and outright race-baiting lies that are the hallmark of leftists, Limbaugh was dropped from consideration in a group’s bid to buy the St. Louis Rams franchise.

As we’ve seen already, racist race-baiters like Sharpton interject themselves into as much as they can get away with, and are usually given plenty of latitude by media morons who are either in agreement with racists like Sharpton or too cowardly to call these racists racists.

You want to see real racism? Click below the fold.

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I don’t know about you, but I never saw this coming. I guess this is a consolation prize for not getting Chicago the 2016 Olympic Games. Simply unbelievable:

President Barack Obama made history again Friday, winning the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

Riiiiight. Sure he did. You know what Obama’s done? Made speeches. That’s it. Made speeches. Long ones. They are usually boring (at least to me; I’m not as “enthralled” as others over Obama’s speechmaking skills).

Here is one of the supposedly principle reasons why Obama won:

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” the committee said.

snip

[ed. note:Chairman of the Nobel Committee Thorbjorn] Jagland said he hoped the prize would help Obama resolve the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So, Obama won not for doing anything, but because he exudes “hope”. That and the weak-kneed woosies at the Nobel committee want Obama to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; apparently, they hope the prize gives Obama impetus to do so. It’s actually quite ironic; Teddy Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for actually helping to end the Russo-Japanese War over a century ago, while Obama wins for doing…nothing. Usually, a prize is given to someone after they’ve been perceived as having tried to do something. Now the Nobel people want to put “the cart before the horse”. They even admit to doing so:

The committee wanted to be “far more daring” than in recent times and make an impact on global politics, said Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of the International Peace Research Institute.

This is rich:

And Wangari Muta Maathai, the Kenyan environmentalist who won the 2004 Peace Prize, said the win for Obama, whose father was Kenyan, would help Africa move forward.

President George W. Bush did more to help Africans than any other President. On his last trip to Africa as President of the United States, Bush was mobbed by grateful people who recognized his efforts. Of course, you would never hear that from an African eco-moonbat. We don’t even hear it from our current President, the guy who hasn’t done anything.

Here’s the money part of the piece [emphasis mine]:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee recognized Obama’s efforts to solve complex global problems, including working toward a world free of nuclear weapons.

That’s a stitch. Iran is about to have it’s own nuclear bombs, and Obama is doing everything but providing those bombs to Iran as a handout. I’ll bet you can’t guess who agrees with this (OK, you probably could, but I had to lead with something):

Mohamed ElBaradei, who won the 2005 peace prize for his efforts to prevent nuclear energy being used for military means, said Obama deserved to win for his efforts to bring Iran to the table for direct nuclear talks with the United States.

President Bush spent several years trying to bring Iran to the table, using real international cooperation and direct talks (albeit with preconditions, unlike Obama), and that clown El Baradei says Obama is deserving of this award. What has Obama done to bring Iran to the table? Overlooked Iran’s brutal crackdown after that country’s sham Presidential election. Oh, sure; that’s really a great reason to give Obama this “Peace” Prize.

I’ll bet President Ego already has trouble getting through doorways with that big head of his. With this, those doorways will have to be expanded. I’m sure there’s Porkulus money available to make it happen.

Drudge has this at the top. There is also a roundup at Memeorandum.

UPDATE: Apparently, Obama was nominated two weeks after the inauguration, some time in February. If anything, it just highlights the complete hypocrisy of the award and how meaningless it is.

UPDATE II: Patterico has the exit question:

P.P.S. What is it, two months before we get to go through this again? You know, when TIME inevitably makes Obama “Man of the Year”?

I imagine the answer is “yes”.

UPDATE III: This post at Tigerhawk says something quite interesting near the end:

So, basically, the Nobel Committee has transparently and intentionally put itself in the business of endorsing political campaigns. Bear that in mind.

The end of the CNN piece I linked to earlier ends with this:

The Nobel recipient receives a prize of about $1.4 million.

New exit question: is this a campaign contribution by the Nobel Committee? Bonus question: is it legal?

UPDATE IV: This is about as “humble” as President Ego can get:

“To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures” who won in the past, Obama said at the White House.

So does it mean he’ll not accept the award? Uh…no:

“I will accept this award as a call to action, a call to all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st Century.”

Like I said, Porkulus money has probably been earmarked to expand any doorways The One’s expanding head has to go through.

And my previous question remains: isn’t the $1.4 million award considered a campaign contribution, and is it legal?

UPDATE: Erick Erickson links to a piece by Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) in Human Events. As they say, read the whole thing. It’s just another example of how Obama is continuing the “revolution”, doing everything he can to destroy the previous administration.

Original post:

I realize that there are a lot more pressing items to discuss, but this has been floating around in my head for awhile and it’s time I get it out of there.

Barack Obama is a leftist. For most of us who call ourselves conservatives, the response to this is, “Duh!!! Tell me something I don’t know!”; yes, it’s an understatement. But many conservatives still talk about how Obama is in campaign mode despite the fact that he has already been elected President. Well, saying Obama is still in campaign mode is one way to put it. However, conservatives accusing him of this are quite a bit off the mark. It’s not that Obama is still campaigning, it’s a revolution, and it’s one he’s been on for quite awhile. It’s also a revolution that, for him, has no end. Why? Because of my first sentence in this paragraph, Barack Obama is a leftist. For leftist leaders, the revolution can never end. If it does, the people will realize they’ve been hoodwinked.

First, a little background.

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Just when you thought the left couldn’t sink any lower, they can surprise even me.

I moved to NW Arkansas 6 months ago. For over 45 years, I lived in the Chicago suburbs. I knew Chicago Mayor Richard M. “Shortshanks” Daley* had been making a push to bring the 2016 Summer Olympics to Chicago for quite awhile. Like so many of those that still live there, I was against it. One of the reasons had to do with the additional disruption that would be caused by all the construction for the Games (on top of the usual construction disruption that goes on all the time), not to mention the disruption to those who live in the area once the events started. I have a cousin who lived in Barcelona, Spain during the 1992 Games there, and she and her husband left for the two weeks the Olympics were taking place. The other reason has to do with the financial windfall the thoroughly corrupt Chicago and Illinois politicians would most assuredly amass on the project.

Then President Obama got involved. My question remains, what for? Unlike those people who dote on The One, the rest of the world doesn’t worship the President like the American left does. Chicago didn’t need the Olympic Games, and the President didn’t need to throw his hat into this ring. It seems Obama makes it a point to either involve himself in the stupidest things, like the Gates’ fiasco; Obama’s gi-normous ego must compel him to do these things. Needless to say, I wasn’t at all unhappy when I heard Chicago was tossed from getting the 2016 Games during the first round of voting. Not so unexpectedly, Obama’s worshiping enablers are doing everything they can to blame what happened on conservatives.

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About a year or so ago, Secretary of Goldman Sachs the Treasury Henry Paulson warned the country about the nature of toxic assets, those securities, valued in the trillions of dollars, that were so dragging the entire financial industry into the toilet and the country towards another economic depression, forcing the government to bail out several banks, bail out insurance giant AIG, and bail out and fully nationalize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (Fannie was re-nationalized). Paulson said he would initially need Congress to create an appropriations bill to spend $700 billion of money the U.S. government didn’t have to buy these toxic assets from the bank to unfreeze the frozen credit market, with the intent to sell the good assets back to the banks at a profit to the government. Remember that? Congress and President Bush passed TARP, with approving votes from Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama, to require Paulson to do this in two $350 billion chunks. It turns out to have been a massive case of obfuscation since Paulson didn’t just use the TARP money to buy the small amount of toxic assets that were purchased, but to further bail out banks; eventually, two of the three American automakers. President Obama and tax cheat Treasury Secretary Geithner made further bailouts, and eventually took over GM and Chrysler.

Credit remained frozen (and still does to this day) and those toxic assets, still valued in the trillions, are still out there. Congress and President Obama passed the pork-laden unstimulating stimulus referred to as Porkulus, which will be paid for by money the government still doesn’t have and which will cost taxpayers well over about $1.2 trillion dollars after interest is added on to the original $787 billion price. That’s on top of the $700 billion (that’s before interest on the borrowed money is factored in) for TARP. What we’re seeing is nearly a replay of the “lost decade” that Japan went through during the 1990s.

Now the government is getting around to doing something with those toxic assets. Unfortunately, the amount of money Treasury is talking about spending to do this begs the question, “Who are they kidding?!?” $40 billion. That’s it. $40 billion. As far as I’m concerned, all that’s happening is that the government is continuing America’s slide into its own “lost decade”. Despite TARP, 95 banks have closed this year which is now threatening the finances of the FDIC, the government’s bank insurer; the FDIC is talking about having banks pay three years worth of premiums in order for the agency to cover the costs of all these bank closures.

The Washington Post piece I linked to also mentions that the Treasury is talking about pumping another $35 billion into state programs to expand home ownership to more people who can’t afford it, which is just another way of saying that the government is trying to refire the subprime lending business (can anyone say ACORN?). This comes at a time when the FHA is running into the same problems that befell Fannie and Freddie last year.

I’m not an economist, but it doesn’t take a genius to see that this is nuts. Toxic assets aren’t being removed from the system quickly enough, and the government doesn’t seem to have a problem with that. The banks that are too big to fail are getting bigger as smaller banks are falling by the wayside.

As far as I’m concerned, those banks that were too big to fail, along with AIG, GM, and Chrysler, should have failed. Would it have been harsh? Absolutely. Very harsh. But the garbage would have been written out of the system by now. So what’s worse? What we’re getting now is the slow bleed of a jobless non-recovery because the root cause, what to do with toxic assets, hasn’t been taken care of. And the government is doing $40 billion worth of next to nothing to clean this out, along with restarting the industry that created these toxic assets in the first place. And that’s on top of the $2 trillion (with interest) price tag for TARP and Porkulus.

I don’t know if our “lost decade” is going to last a decade. But I don’t see America being “found” again until after the majority of Congress gets voted out of office in 2010, followed by President Obama two years later.

(Hat tip: Lucianne.com)

The tea parties, town hall protests, and the huge September 12th gathering in Washington D.C. were remarkable not only because of the numbers of people involved, but because they were peaceful. Even leftist SEIU thuggery didn’t incite the violence that Obama-worshiping hacks keep complaining about. As a comparison, the usual suspects of anti-capitalist leftist nuts attempted to protest beyond where their permits allowed and a riot ensued, with protesters busting up local businesses as police were breaking it up.

Glenn Garvin of the Miami Herald encapsulates some galling statements made by a couple of “prominent” (I should say, infamous) statists, Nancy Pelosi and Chris Matthews. These two, to be generous, seem to be mentally challenged in their remembrance of history, although it is probably more accurate to say that they are revising it.

In a recent speech, Pelosi teared-up having reminded those who were unfortunate enough to listen to her that she had seen highly charged political rhetoric like what she is seeing now back in the 1970s in San Francisco. Garvin points out what Pelosi was talking about:

Shortly after she quelled her theatrical sniffles, her spinmasters clarified that she was referring only to the 1978 murders of liberal politicians George Moscone and Harvey Milk by a conservative rival, Dan White, dramatized in last year’s film Milk.

Democrat Dan White wasn’t out to make a “right wing” political statement by killing fellow Democrats Moscone and Milk; he was upset that Moscone, with Milk’s help, wouldn’t reinstate White to the San Francisco supervisor job White had quit not too many weeks earlier. Using the type of legal trickery (the “Twinkie defense“) that is the hallmark of leftist defense lawyers, White ended up only being convicted of manslaughter instead of murder, serving five years in prison; he committed suicide not long after being released. Those killings had nothing to do with anyone being part of the right or left wings, political partisanship, or even that Milk was gay. But neither Pelosi or her spin doctors would mention this aspect of those killings because it would completely undermine the point she was making. And she is Speaker of the House.

Garvin also touches upon an exchange between Matthews and the New York Times’ Frank Rich recently:

Rich compared the anti-Obama tea-party rallies to “the walk-up to the Kennedy assassination, [when] there was all this hate talk about Kennedy.” Matthews chimed in that “the mood we’re in right now” reminded of him of when “Jack Kennedy was killed in an open car in Dallas.”

When JFK was President, many conservatives and John Bircher-types were speaking out loudly against him, sometimes quite vociferously. Yet, who actually killed Kennedy? The stupid, lazy, wife-beating leftist Lee Harvey Oswald, the same guy who had attempted a few months earlier to murder John Birch Society member and former U.S. Major General Edwin Walker. As shown, that detail is somehow left out.

More recently, there came out a terrible story about a man found dead on September 12th hanging from a tree in rural Kentucky (reports say the body was badly decomposed, indicating it had been there awhile). It’s now coming out that the original AP story saying the man had possibly been lynched and that the word “fed” was scrawled on the body may have been premature; Allahpundit has a good round-up of the reaction among the right and the left, and you should read the whole thing.

As the title of the post suggests, where is the “right wing violence”? I suspect it’s in the same type of place where Maureen Dowd found the word “boy” in Rep. Joe Wilson’s (R-SC) “You lie” remark, in the warped brains of the leftists.