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Patriot Act Watch: Playing Politics But Extended for Six Months
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, left, and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff speak about the Patriot Act at a joint news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, Wednesday, December 21, 2005.The ASSociated Press has Senate Passes Patriot Act Extension
The Senate passed a six-month extension of the USA Patriot Act late Wednesday night, hoping to avoid the expiration of law enforcement powers deemed vital in the war on terror.
Approval came on a voice vote, and cleared the way for a final vote in the House.
Several provisions in the current law expire Dec. 31, and President Bush has called repeatedly for new legislation.
The House was scheduled to reconvene Thursday, but senior Republicans there have opposed any temporary extension of the current law, insisting that most of the expiring provisions should be renewed permanently.
The Senate vote Wednesday night capped several days of backroom negotiation conducted against the backdrop of presidential attacks on critics of the legislation.
The extension gives critics — who successfully filibustered a House-Senate compromise that would have made most of the law permanent — more time to seek civil liberty safeguards in the law. Democrats and their allies had originally asked for a three-month extension, and the Senate’s Republican majority had offered a one-year extension. The final deal split the difference.
Now perhaps the Democrats and some Republicans can dream up their objections to the Patriot Act.
“For a lot of reasons, it made the most sense, given that there are significant differences that remain,” said GOP Sen. John Sununu ) of New Hampshire, one of a small group of Republicans who joined with Senate Democrats to filibuster a House-Senate compromise.
“I think this is a reasonable conclusion,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Republicans who had pushed for legislation that would make most of the expiring provisions permanent said the agreement only postpones the ongoing arguments over the Patriot Act for six months. “We’ll be right back where we are right now,” said a clearly frustrated Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, added, “Our intelligence and law enforcement officials should not be left wondering, yet again, whether the Congress will manage to agree to reauthorize the tools that protect our nation.”
The bill’s critics gained momentum Wednesday when they released a letter crafted by Sununu and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., showing they had 52 senators agreeing to support a three-month extension.
“This is the right thing to do for the country,” Schumer said after the deal had been announced. “To let the Patriot Act lapse would have been a dereliction of duty.”
As if Senator Schumer will vote for any extension of the Patriot Act in six months.
This compromise is “milking” this issue and forestalls its inevitable passage in six months. But, this delay will allow Sununu et al to have their ten minutes of fame on the Sunday talk shows.
This was a pitiful display of politics at the public’s expense.
Senators, from left, Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., John Sununu, R-N.H. and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. talk on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2005 prior to a news conference to discuss the Patriot Act. -
Global War on Terror Watch: WMD Used in Chechnya
The Scotsman has Nerve-gas fears after 45 fall sick
AT LEAST 45 people, most of them children, have been hospitalised in the Russian region of Chechnya with an illness that doctors say might be nerve-gas poisoning.
Pupils, teachers and workers began reporting breathing trouble and headaches on Friday at a school in the town of Starogladovskaya, emergency workers said.
As of yesterday, 38 children and seven teachers had been hospitalised, said Oleg Ugnivenko, a spokesman for emergency situations ministry. Preliminary investigation points to an unspecified kind of nerve gas, said emergency workers and Chechen government officials.
Captain Ed over at Captain’s Quarters has been on the story, Have Islamists Begun Using Chemical Weapons?
This preliminary report, if confirmed, will certainly cause many people to wonder where the rebels/Islamists got their WMD. One likely source, of course, would be from the Russians themselves, or at least from stocks left over from Cold War production. Another possibility could be Syria or Iran, but that also leaves open the possibility that the weapons themselves originated in Iraq first.
Separatist rebels, who have been fighting Russian forces in Chechnya for most of the past decade, have committed a series of terrorist attacks in Chechnya and other parts of Russia, including the seizure of hostages in a school in Beslan in 2004.
The Chechen prosecutor general, Valery Kuznetsov, was reported yesterday as saying that “to speak about a terrorist act is premature” but “all possibilities are being considered”.
Flap’s bet is that these chemical agents are from the old Russian stockpiles.
Nasty terrible chemicals and to use them against children…….. sounds like Saddam Hussein against the Kurds……
Stay tuned……
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Hillary Clinton Watch: Pirro Quits U.S. Senate Race
The ASSociated Press has Pirro Abandons Challenge to Sen. Clinton
After weeks of pressure from her own party to drop out, Republican Jeanine Pirro abandoned her struggling campaign to unseat Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and announced Wednesday that she will run for New York attorney general instead. “I have decided that my law enforcement background better qualifies me for a race for New York State attorney general than a race for the United States Senate,” Pirro, the Westchester County district attorney, said in a statement.
Indeed.
Clinton is unbeatable in this race.
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NSA Surveillance Watch: President Had Legal Authority to OK Taps
John Schmidt who served under President Clinton from 1994 to 1997 as the Associate Attorney General of the United States writes President had legal authority to OK taps.
President Bush’s post- Sept. 11, 2001, authorization to the National Security Agency to carry out electronic surveillance into private phone calls and e-mails is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents.
The president authorized the NSA program in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America. An identifiable group, Al Qaeda, was responsible and believed to be planning future attacks in the United States. Electronic surveillance of communications to or from those who might plausibly be members of or in contact with Al Qaeda was probably the only means of obtaining information about what its members were planning next. No one except the president and the few officials with access to the NSA program can know how valuable such surveillance has been in protecting the nation.
John Hinderaker over at Powerline Blog has It’s Legal
And asks the New York Times reporters, Eric Lichtblau and Adam Liptak…..
In your reporting in the Times you appear to have tried to create the impression that the NSA’s overseas intercept program is, or may be, illegal. I believe that position is foreclosed by all applicable federal court precedents. I assume, for example, that you are aware of the November 2002 decision of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, in Sealed Case No. 02-001, where the court said:
“The Truong court [United States v. Truong Dinh Hung, 4th Cir. 1980], as did all the other courts to have decided the issue, held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information. *** We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President’s constitutional power.”
In view of the controlling federal court precedents, I do not see how an argument can be made in good faith that there is any doubt about the NSA program’s legality. Therefore, I wonder whether you are somehow unaware of the relevant case law. If you know of some authority to support your implication that the intercepts are or may be illegal, I would be interested to know what that authority is. If you are aware of no such authority, I think that a correction is in order.
Thank you.
John Hinderaker
I will post any response I receive.
Flap bets he never receives a response.
This whole episode is an invention of the Left and the MSM to despotize President George Bush.
Now let the Congressional Hearings commence…….if the Democrats have the intestinal fortitude.
Flap continues to handicap NO public congressional hearings.
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Stanley “Tookie†Williams Executed: Views from the Memorial Service/Funeral Part III
Williams’ son, Travon, raises his arms in front of his father’s casket as rapper Snoop Dogg reads a poem about “Tookie” during the memorial service.The Los Angeles Times has Funeral Service Celebrates Williams’ Conversion From Violence to Peace
About 2,000 mourners hear celebrities and friends call the Crips’ co-founder’s execution a waste and praise his advocacy for children.Stanley Tookie Williams was remembered Tuesday as a man who transformed himself after an early life of violence into a redeemed peacemaker and advocate for children.
More than 2,000 people waited in line outside the Bethel AME Church in South Los Angeles to attend his funeral service, which included tributes from friends and dignitaries, messages from Williams recorded shortly before his execution and a passionate call for peace from his son. Those who could not fit in the 1,500-seat sanctuary, including dozens of Crips gang members in blue bandanas, watched the service on a large screen set up in the parking lot.
Williams, 51, who was convicted in 1979 of killing four people, was executed Dec. 13 after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected his plea for clemency.
Inside the sunny church in the neighborhood where the 17-year-old Williams helped found the Crips, his white casket lay with a spray of roses and carnations on top and a row of poinsettias behind it.
Bianca Jagger speaks at Williams’ funeral.The Video of the 4 hour long Memorial Service will be posted here.
During the four-hour ceremony, Williams was lauded by those who were certain of his redemption and considered his death a waste.
“Tookie is dead,” said the Rev. Jesse Jackson. “We’re not safer; we’re not more secure. We’re not more humane. We must kill the idea of killing to stop killing.”
How about stopping the idea of indiscriminate murder of innocent victims, Reverend?
Barbara BecnelBarbara Becnel, Williams’ friend and editor of 13 years who worked with him on his children’s books decrying gang violence, said he expressed his last wishes as a hope that he provided a legacy of unity and that he “died a man of peace.”
Oh Please!
Tookie died an unrepentant murderer. He showed NO remorse for killing his innocent victims.
Celebrities who knew Williams, including hip-hop star Snoop Dogg and motivational speaker Tony Robbins, spoke of his impact on their lives.
Speakers who choked up were encouraged with shouts of “Take your time,” and “It’s all right now.”
“I wanted to start some ruckus when the governor made his decision,” Snoop Dogg said. “If you’re black like me you’re guilty until you’re innocent and furthermore, I don’t believe Stan did it.”
Snoop Dog has been smoking the CRACK again if he does not believe what the trial jury, countless judges and 24 years of legal appeals have said – GUILTY!
Rev. Jesse Jackson, left, and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan hug during Williams’ memorial service.Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, who delivered the eulogy, pointed to Williams’ casket and told his mother not to grieve for a “warrior” who had been freed first by redemption and then by death.
“That man was touched by a special power and any of us who were ever in his presence, we know it,” Farrakhan said. “Stan was a sincere and committed and a redeemed soul.”
Redeemed – hardly.
Tookie Williams never showed REMORSE for his victims nor accepted responsibility for their deaths.
Tookie was NOT redeemed.
Travon Williams, Williams’ son, brought the church to its feet when he promised to teach Schwarzenegger the meaning of redemption since he could not see it alive in his father.
“I feel it’s my duty to go on a worldwide campaign to show that redemption is real,” he said.
Williams asked that his remains be cremated and scattered in South Africa.
Onto South Africa and the scattering of Tookie’s ashes. He will be right at home with his friend, the murderer, Winnie Mandela.
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Stanley “Tookie†Williams Executed: Views from the Memorial Service/Funeral Part II
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Executed: Views from the Memorial Service/FuneralStanley “Tookie†Williams Executed: The Austrian Retribution – The Response
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Executed: Goodbye to a “Homeboyâ€
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Executed: The Austrian Retribution
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Executed: The Funeral
The Execution of Stanley Tookie Williams: Tookie Saves Lives?
Technorati Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Stanley Tookie Williams, Crips
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Michael Ramirez on NSA Surveillance
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Day By Day by Chris Muir
