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Jul 13 2006

Michael Ramirez on Russia’s Vladimir Putin on the Eve of the G-8 Summit

Posted by Flap in General

189151772 8d5e8c0f7f o Michael Ramirez on Russias Vladimir Putin on the Eve of the G 8 Summit

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Jul 13 2006

Day By Day by Chris Muir Watch: Comic Strip Network Adds Day By Day

Posted by Flap in Day By Day

189007665 1cba4eb394 o Day By Day by Chris Muir Watch: Comic Strip Network Adds Day By Day

Comic Strip Network: Comic Strip Network Adds ‘Day by Day’ Cartoons

SmashPhone, a mobile phone comic strip network, July 10 announced it’s bringing Amy DeZeller’s Dating Amy and Chris Muir’s Day by Day comic strips to mobile phones everywhere. Viewers can access the SmashPhone Comic Strip Network through Verizon, Cingular, Sprint, T-Mobile and many other carriers. The comics are served by SmashPhone for free (although phone company data charges may apply).

Chris Muir’s Day by Day comic strip is based on each day’s political events. How’s that for topical? This shoot-from-the-hip toon follows four characters and their reactions to news and thoughts of the day. Day by Day garnered 12,000 loyal daily readers by encouraging websites to embed the daily comic strip freely. “Comic strips have to be on mobile,” says Muir. “It’s adapt or die! All the market growth is on phones, especially with kids and comic strips.” Muir said he chose SmashPhone because they can reach more phones than anyone else (over 1.2B phones).

SmashPhone also launched its website www.ComicStripNetwork.com and released new mobile technology to make comic strips compatible with even more carriers and phones. “Our technology enables us to reach a mass market of billions of mobile phones,” notes SmashPhone founder Robin Rowe.

To view comic strips on your mobile phone enter the mobile WAP address:
http://wap.smashphone.com (URL for mobile phones only) or sign up using your computer at http://www.smashphone.com (URL for computers) to have the WAP link sent to your phone.

Flap says check it out – you will be glad you did.

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Jul 13 2006

CIA Leak Case Watch: Vallerie Plame Sues Vice President Cheney, Scooter Libby and Karl Rove

Posted by Flap in CIA Leak Case

187635156 5bb5cced86 o CIA Leak Case Watch: Vallerie Plame Sues Vice President Cheney, Scooter Libby and Karl Rove

AP: Former CIA officer sues Cheney over leak

The CIA officer whose identity was leaked to reporters sued Vice President Dick Cheney, his former top aide and presidential adviser Karl Rove on Thursday, accusing them and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy her career.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Valerie Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador, accused Cheney, Rove and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby of revealing Plame’s CIA identity in seeking revenge against Wilson for criticizing the Bush administration’s motives in Iraq.

The lawsuit accuses Cheney, Libby, Rove and 10 unnamed administration officials or political operatives of putting the Wilsons and their children’s lives at risk by exposing Plame.

“This lawsuit concerns the intentional and malicious exposure by senior officials of the federal government of … (Plame), whose job it was to gather intelligence to make the nation safer and who risked her life for her country,” the Wilsons’ lawyers said in the lawsuit.

Flap supposes the revenue from the Wilson’s books is not enough. This suit has no merit but the attorneys will make some COIN.

Captain Ed says the lawsuit will be dropped in a New York minute.

For those who think that the Wilsons still have any credibility left, please see my omnibus post on the various efforts by Joe Wilson to obfuscate the truth until put under oath by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Undoubtedly, this lawsuit will founder on the same shoals — and it will give us a splendid opportunity to ask Plame under threat of perjury the following questions:

1. How did Joe Wilson get this assignment?
2. Why didn’t the CIA have him sign the standard agreement to keep his findings confidential?
3. Whjy didn’t the CIA correct the record when Wilson leaked and then wrote himself false information about his findings?

Let’s put Plame on the stand and really get to the heart of what she hoped to accomplish by promoting her husband for this task. I’d bet the lawsuit gets dropped in a New York minute — and if not, the record of Wilson’s prevarications should easily sink it.

roveleakweb0fl CIA Leak Case Watch: Vallerie Plame Sues Vice President Cheney, Scooter Libby and Karl Rove

Stay tuned……

Previous:

CIA Leak Case Watch: Robert Novak – “My Leak Case Testimony”

The CIA Leak Case Files

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Jul 13 2006

Stop The ACLU Watch: American Criminal Liberties Union

Posted by Flap in ACLU

Stop The ACLU Watch: American Criminal Liberties Union
Update: Right on cue, the ACLU are sueing for prisoners’ “right” to have access to porn.
I am going to assume that most people can agree that America’s population is found across a vast political spectrum. From libertarians and liberals to moderates and conservatives we find each other across a broad field on ideas and issues. Many times we can all agree that certain things are problems within society yet be on the opposite extremes on how to solve that problem. One of the problems of society that most people can agree on is that of crime. The solution to reducing this problem most likely is found somewhere in the middle and not the extremes.

One of the purposes of the Constitution is to ensure domestic tranquility. Due process, the Fifth Amendment right, is a procedural right, one that defines the methods that can properly be used to ensure domestic tranquility. Without both, there can be no liberty. Domestic tranquility can easily be achieved without respect for due process, as dictatorships throughout history have shown. It is also quite possible to have a society where due process is respected-even considered sacrosanct-and still lack for domestic tranquility. The latter predicament more closely resembles the situation in the United States today.Source

The ACLU in its extreme ideals of society unravels due process from the reasons it was created to serve. The ACLU maintains that it is their purpose to ensure due process and the police to tend to domestic tranquility. I agree that the roles should be separate. I think the opposite would be an invitation to disaster. The ACLU’s sincerity in their statement might be more believable if, as we shall show, they were not so often in opposition of law enforcement. It is generally accepted that domestic tranquility is absolutely necessary to the process of liberty. What is often less understood is how the exclusive concern for due process can also be damaging to liberty.

I think we can all agree on how important domestic tranquility is to maintaining liberty. What good are all of our freedoms if we are afraid to practice them? The only liberties worth having are ones that we can enjoy without fear. This simply can’t be done if a society is filled with crime and violence.

The ACLU do not share these moderate views on society. They have a much more extreme viewpoint.

“According to the ACLU,” writes Jeffrey Leeds, “there is no right to live in a quiet or pleasant society, but there is a right to speak, to seek to persuade, to have unpopular or even stupid views. Moreover, there is no right even to live in a safe society. The ACLU will work to vindicate a convicted criminal’s rights to due process, even if it means setting a killer free.”Source

Leeds isn’t exaggerating. One ACLU official Dorothy Ehrlich can be quoted as saying, “the citizens’ need to be ‘free from criminal activity’….is not, in the legal sense, a ‘right’ at all (and thus is nowhere mentioned in the Bill of Rights) but, rather, an essential social good, like fire prevention, or adequate medical care, or the prevention of famine.” Source

Funny that an official from the ACLU is stating that if a right isn’t mentioned in the Constitution then it isn’t a right at all. After all, this is the organization that defends abortion on demand, and the sale of child porn. These are not mentioned in the Constitution either.

The ACLU’s skewed views toward crime can also be seen in its approach toward crime victims. The ACLU has shown very little interest in the rights of crime victims. When it comes down to it, the rights of criminals seem to always override the rights of the victims. For example, the ACLU opposes the use of a crime victim impact statement in capital sentencing because it “unconstitutionally requires consideration of factors which have no bearing on the defendant’s responsibility or guilt.” Of course the courts have ruled otherwise.

While the ACLU says they have our liberty as its mission, its policies in the area of criminal justice have only aggravated and accelerated the already terrible problems of maintaining domestic tranquility. Their opposition to the death penalty doesn’t bother me by itself. It is the ACLU general attitude toward criminal justice as a whole that I deem dangerous. Throughout its history it has fought many court battles to:

Eliminate all prison sentencing from criminal judicial procedure except in a few “extreme” cases of utter incorrigibility-and only then as the penalty of last resort.Source

Let me briefly interrupt my list for a little perspective on this particular policy.

In conjunction with their opposition to the death penalty in all cases this particular policy is quite disturbing to me. It would seem that the ACLU wants rehabilitation and probation to be the primary means of preventing crime in all but the most extreme cases.

“Deprivation of an individual’s physical freedom is one of the most severe interferences with liberty that the state can impose. Moreover, imprisonment is harsh, frequently counterproductive, and costly.” This explains why the ACLU holds that “a suspended sentence with probation should be the preferred sentence, to be chosen generally unless the circumstances plainly call for greater severity.” The Union favors alternative sentencing and lists the reintegration of the offender into the community as “the most appropriate correctional approach.” Here’s the clincher: “probation should be authorized by the legislature in every case and exceptions to the principle are not favored.” Prior to 1991, when this policy was revised, the Union said that only such serious crimes as “murder or treason” should qualify as exceptions. The explicit referencing of those two crimes was deleted because of the public embarrassment it caused the organization.Source

Let us continue with the list:

Disallow capital punishment in any and all situations as a violation of the constitution’s “cruel and unusual punishment” clause;

Discredit deterrence as a basis for incarceration;

Oppose rehabilitative confinement;

Block all sentencing guidelines that seek restitution to the victims of criminal behavior;

Mandate suspended sentences with probation as the primary form of “treatment” for criminal offenders;

Restrict all court sentencing discretion through the legislative process or direct judicial intervention in trial proceedings-thus severely crippling the principle of trial by jury;

Eliminate all mandatory sentencing laws;

Facilitate mandatory early parole and release programs;

And, oppose new construction or expansion of jails, prisons, and detention centers. Source

In addition the ACLU is also involved in limiting the power of law enforcement to maintain domestic tranquility:

Severely restrict search and arrest procedures even when evidence of guilt is available;

Hinder protective or corrective police action at crime scenes;

Invalidate airport bomb detectors, drunk driving checkpoints, periodic or random drug screening, and other preventative security measures;

Prohibit the free exchange of criminal records between law enforcement agencies;

Limit even the most sound and non-prejudicial police interrogation and investigation techniques;

Institute national or regional bureaucratic control over law enforcement agencies-thus effectively, removing local accountability;

Severely restrict riot control, swat team, and antiterrorist activities and efforts;

Make most surveillance operations, stakeout procedures, and community crackdowns illegal;

Prohibit the eviction of drug dealers and other incorrigibles from public housing projects;

Deregulate and decriminalize all “victimless crimes”-such as prostitution, drug use and abuse, gambling, sodomy, or the production , exhibition, and sale of vile and obscene materials-despite the proven link between such vices and serious crime.Source

There is one recommendation that the ACLU makes on how to stem crime: strong gun control legislation. It adopted its first gun-control policy in the late sixties which was actually pretty reasonable. For the sake of brevity on such a broad topic I will not quote it. Suffice it to say that most of today’s liberals would not agree with it.

However…

In 1971 the Union took the position that the ownership of guns, any guns, aside from guns owned by the militia, was not constitutionally protected.Source

The ACLU’s policy towards the second amendment is:

“The ACLU agrees with the Supreme Court’s long-standing interpretation of the Second Amendment [as set forth in the 1939 case, U.S. v. Miller] that the individual’s right to bear arms applies only to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia. Except for lawful police and military purposes, the possession of weapons by individuals is not constitutionally protected. Therefore, there is no constitutional impediment to the regulation of firearms.”

It is strange for the ACLU to use such a dated ruling as precedent, when many more recent cases have ruled otherwise.

The ACLU’s approach to crime, its prevention, and punishment clearly are not in the mainstream opinion of most Americans. The organization has consistently been an adversary of law enforcement. The Union’s perspective is almost entirely focused on the criminal which makes many people conclude that rather being a defender of civil liberties, the ACLU is actually the champion of criminal liberties.

Roger Baldwin once actually admitted that he could not in good conscience serve on a jury because he simply “would never take part in convicting anyone.” When asked how society could possibly continue to exist without some sort of penal justice system, eh tersely snapped, “That’s your problem.”Source

The ACLU’s pandering to criminals, lack of interest in true victims, and opposition to law enforcement are not solutions to society’s burden with crime. I advise everyone to use common sense, and not to follow the extreme positions of the ACLU when it comes to preventing and punishing crime.

This was a production of Stop The ACLU Blogburst. If you would like to join us, please email Jay or Gribbit. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll. Over 200 blogs already on-board.

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Jul 13 2006

Illegal Immigration Watch: House GOP Scheduling More Immigration Hearings

Posted by Flap in Illegal Immigration

188935843 dbb870c34a o Illegal Immigration Watch: House GOP Scheduling More Immigration Hearings

U.S. Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., chairman of the House International Relations subcommittee on international terrorism, left, and U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, shake hands with pannel members as they take part in a border hearing in Laredo, Texas, Friday, July 7, 2006. The House subcommittee held the hearings about illegal immigration, asking local law enforcement officials to explain the challenges they face along the U.S.-Mexico border.

AP: House GOP to push immigration enforcement

House Republican leaders are scheduling a new round of immigration hearings, saying three already held have strengthened their case for enforcement-heavy legislation.

Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Wednesday the hearings have made clear that a Senate bill that opens an avenue toward citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants would undermine border security.

He contended that members of both parties are moving toward the House position that the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants should be offered no guarantees against being deported.

“I think the hearings have been an absolute success, and they’ve put us in a stronger position to craft a responsible bill that secures our borders and strictly enforces our immigration laws,” Boehner said.

In Boehner’s dream……..

The Senate will never approve a stronger border enforcement bill.

Looks like NO BILL this sesson – which is good since the GOP will be fare better election-wise running away from President Bush’s position on immigration reform.

Stay tuned….

150484698 d4368db200 o Illegal Immigration Watch: House GOP Scheduling More Immigration Hearings

Previous:

Illegal Immigration Watch: Immigration Reform This Year?

Illegal Immigration Watch: House Hearings on Border Security Begin Today

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Jul 13 2006

Missile Defense Watch: White Sands THAAD Test – ” This Is Phenomenal”

Posted by Flap in Missile Defense

188882945 b95282e389 o Missile Defense Watch: White Sands THAAD Test This Is Phenomenal

This time-exposure photo made available by the U.S. Department of Defense shows a test of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD), held in White Sands, NM, Wednesday, July 12, 2006. THAAD is designed to intercept and destroy short- to intermediate-range ballistic missiles high within the Earth’s atmosphere or just above the atmosphere in the final moments before it strikes its target.

Las Cruces Sun-News: White Sands missile test phenomenal’

It was a picture-perfect pre-dawn Wednesday and a picture-perfect launch at White Sands Missile Range.

Hundreds of miles above southern New Mexico, it was a picture-perfect impact between two missiles.

The morning sky above the Tularosa Basin was painted in every color of the rainbow — hues ranging from iridescent purples to emerald greens and pastel blues, pinks and electric whites against the darkness of space.

The pre-dawn art show was the result of the third of five tests planned at White Sands Missile Range to determine the effectiveness of THAAD — Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile. And military officials said the test went better than they could have hoped.

“This was phenomenal,” said U.S. Army Col. Charles Driessnack, the project manager for the Missile Defense Agency’s THAAD program. “It performed as expected.”

With all of the military and missile activity in the Middle East and Asia the THAAD system deployment will happen none too soon.

When fully operational, the THAAD system will provide quickly-deployable protection from missile attacks in any region needed, including homeland territory, Driessnack said.

He said the test indicates THAAD could be ready for emergency deployment “as soon as a year from now.”

Flap’s guess is that the manufacturers at Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne will be working overtime for an emergency deployment fleet of missiles and launchers.

Stay tuned…….

188438822 cd0b91a124 o Missile Defense Watch: White Sands THAAD Test This Is Phenomenal

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Missile Defense Watch: THAAD Successfully Intercepts Live Target

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Jul 13 2006

North Korea Watch: Japan Demands Vote on United Nations Resolution

Posted by Flap in North Korea

northkoreajuly13aweb9oa North Korea Watch: Japan Demands Vote on United Nations Resolution

A South Korean protester holds anti-North Korean banners during an anti-North Korea rally in front of Foreign Ministry in Seoul, Thursday, July 13, 2006. North Korea blamed South Korea for the collapse Thursday of high-level talks held in the wake of the communist nation’s internationally condemned missile launches, claiming Seoul will pay for the meeting’s failure. The Korean read ‘ Punish the North Korea’s missiles.’
AP: Japan seeks vote on N.Korea resolution

The U.S. nuclear envoy said Thursday that Washington was likely to give Chinese diplomatic efforts over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs only a few more days before pushing for a tough U.N. resolution.

“My sense is we’re down to a number of days,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters in Beijing.

His comments came as Japan pressed for a vote on its resolution threatening sanctions for the North’s missiles tests last week, while China and Russia introduced a rival proposal, intensifying jockeying over a unified response.

And does anyone (except the New York Times) expect China to be an “Honest Broker”?

Backers of the Japanese-sponsored resolution had agreed to postpone a vote to give Beijing time to lobby Pyongyang to return to six-party nuclear disarmament talks and declare a moratorium on missile tests. But North Korea appears to have rejected diplomatic overtures by a Chinese delegation, including nuclear negotiator Wu Dawei, that is visiting Pyongyang.

“So far they don’t seem to be interested in listening, much less doing anything to address the situation,” Hill said at a separate briefing.

China’s U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya, said the delegation, which will return Friday, delivered a message from China’s leaders expressing concern over the tests “and also what we considered the North Koreans should do to make diplomacy succeed.”

But Wang said they had not received any feedback.

China has until Friday PM to announce some “break through”. Otherwise, Japan’s Chapter 7 resolution should be scheduled for a vote on Monday morning. Yesterday’s substitute resolution by China and Russia is too weak.

Japan demanded a prompt U.N. vote on its proposal for sanctions and possible military action.

“There is no change to our view that the resolution incorporating sanctions should be voted on promptly,” Chief Cabinet Shinzo Abe said in Tokyo, without giving a deadline. “We cannot be pushed around by intentions to diminish or delay” action against North Korea.

Japan will NOT accept delay and obfuscation like the P-5-Plus-1 Iran nucelar talks.

If China wishes to VETO the resolution then so be it. If they can work out a “last minute” face saving deal with Kim Jong-Il that is acceptable to the United States and Japan then fine but no more delays.

Tick Tick Tick

China and North Korea have until Friday.

185554378 e379c60b7b o North Korea Watch: Japan Demands Vote on United Nations Resolution

Stay tuned……

Previous:

North Korea Watch: China and Russia Introduce Rival “Weakened” North Korea Resolution

North Korea Watch: Iran Military Representatives Attended North Korea’s July 4 Taepodong-2 Missile Launch

North Korea Watch: North Korea Failing to Respond to China’s Diplomatic Efforts

North Korea Watch: North Korea States Conditions for Return to Talks

North Korea Watch: United Nations Security Council Vote on North Korea Postponed

North Korea Watch: China Asks Japan to Postpone United Nations Resolution

North Korea Watch: Japan Considers Pre-emptive Strike Against North Korea

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