Friday Flashback: U.S. Constitution and Alexander Hamilton vs. Eric Holder and Susan Bolton

Friday Flashback: Because it's so easy to forget.

The named defendants in the Arizona immigration law case being heard by Judge Susan R. Bolton are "State of Arizona; and Janice K. Brewer, Governor of the State of Arizona, in her Official Capacity." But Publius Huldah over at Canada Free Press remembers this little nugget from the U.S. Constitution, namely, Article III, Sec. 2, clause 2 [emphasis added]:

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction…

“Original” jurisdiction means the power to conduct the “trial” of the case (as opposed to hearing an appeal from the judgment of a lower court). You all know quite well what a “trial” is - you see them all the time on TV shows: Perry Mason, Boston Legal, The Good Wife, etc. Witnesses testify and are cross-examined, etc.

In other words, according to Publius Huldah:

Judge Susan R. Bolton has no more authority to preside over this case than do you (unless you are a US Supreme Court justice).

Publius backs up her statement with Alexander Hamilton's comment in Federalist No. 81 (13th para) "on this exact provision of Art. III, Sec. 2, clause 2":

...Let us now examine in what manner the judicial authority is to be distributed between the supreme and the inferior courts of the Union. The Supreme Court is to be invested with original jurisdiction, only “in cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls, and those in which A STATE shall be a party.” Public ministers of every class are the immediate representatives of their sovereigns. All questions in which they are concerned are so directly connected with the public peace, that, as well for the preservation of this, as out of respect to the sovereignties they represent, it is both expedient and proper that such questions should be submitted in the first instance to the highest judicatory of the nation. Though consuls have not in strictness a diplomatic character, yet as they are the public agents of the nations to which they belong, the same observation is in a great measure applicable to them. In cases in which a State might happen to be a party, it would ill suit its dignity to be turned over to an inferior tribunal….[boldface added, caps in original]

Yet Attorney General Eric Holder filed the case in a court which is specifically stripped of jurisdiction to hear it!

Read the rest.
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"O God Our Help in Ages Past" -- The Choir, King's College, Cambridge

Trashing Conservatives With Their Own Money

Congratulations to Stilton Jarlsberg for the increasing popularity of his perceptive conservative cartoons, like this one:

Sarah Spitz, author of that unfortunately real-life comment, works for KCRW, a public radio station in Santa Monica, California, as a producer and publicist. KCRW is an NPR affiliate that receives taxpayer money. Her show, Left Right & Center, airs across the country on almost 40 NPR affiliates. She also produces a show called The Politics of Culture.

After reading Spitz's comment, it is hard to imagine that her influence as producer of Left Right & Center would support much "Right & Center" content.

At the time that Spitz wrote her comment, she added, "I never knew I had this much hate in me. But he deserves it." 

Now that Spitz's "private comments" have attracted the attention of a wider audience than the 400 plus members of online forum JournoList, where they were first published, KCRW has expressed "regret" to NPR for those comments, and Spitz herself has offered a statement of "apology" for her "poorly considered remarks about Rush Limbaugh to what I believed was a private email discussion group from my personal email account."

As a publicist, I realize more than anyone that is no excuse for irresponsible behavior. I apologize to anyone I may have offended and I regret these comments greatly; they do not reflect the values by which I conduct my life.

That's a pretty lame apology, in my book. Where is the apology to Rush Limbaugh, who, after all might reasonably be assumed to be counted among those "may have been offended"?

I find it interesting that neither KCRW and Sarah Spitz have indicated that Spitz's remarks were so "poorly considered" that they disqualify her from being paid using public funds. Maybe they think that the broader publication of those remarks are pretty good publicity for NPR and KCRW.

As long as Spitz stays on the payroll, it is obvious that Rush Limbaugh haters are welcome in the public-radio fold. Trashing conservatives with their own money is just icing on the cake.

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Friday Flashback: Bush's Brush with 5.6% Unemployment

It's so easy to forget. That's why we need reminders from time to time.

Today's flashback comes from Andrew Klavin:

Arizona Goes to Court Today

Today Obama's Justice Department will be telling U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton why this administration thinks that Arizona's newly passed immigration law--the one that mirrors long-existing federal law--should not be enforced. One reason that this administration thinks is important (get out your violins): enforcing American law will disrupt U.S. relations with Mexico and other countries anxious to put their citizens on the U.S. taxpayer's payroll.

Crank up that violin music a bit more: A social service organization, one of other "civil rights" organizations suing Arizona for initiating the state's new law, will be asking Judge Bolton to throw out the law so that social service funding doesn't have to be diverted from current clients to those affected by enforcement of Arizona's new law, thus causing the current clients "imminent harm."

That's interesting. Doesn't that social service organization think that Arizonans suffer harm when the schools, prisons, and hospitals they pay for provide services to illegals instead of Arizonans?

Arizona will be telling Judge Bolton, a Clinton appointee, that the Justice Department is misreading the Arizona Law and that Arizona can't afford to foot the bill for educating, incarcerating, and providing health care to the illegal immigrants that the feds should not have allowed into the country in the first place.

On the U.S. scale of justice, whose laws weigh more? The laws of the federal government and individual states, as passed by legally elected representatives of American voters, or the imaginary laws touted by vocal illegals and their advocates and native countries?

We'll soon find out.
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Four in Ten Voters Would Prefer Any Republican to Obama

Americans are coming to grips with a growing rejection of the notion that Barack Obama is qualified to hold the office of president of the United States. According to a Quinnipiac University poll released today, nearly half of the the voters polled (48%) said that Barack Obama does not deserve reelection in 2012. Voters who are dissatisfied with Obama feel that dissatisfaction strongly. Nearly 4 in ten voters surveyed (39%) reported that, in 2012, they will vote for an unnamed Republican rather than Obama.

More than half of the voters surveyed (58%) disapprove of Obama's handling of illegal immigration, followed by 56% who disapprove of his handling of the economy, 51% of his handling of the Gulf Oil Spill, and 46% of his foreign policy.

Of the almost 2200 voters surveyed, 44% still approve of Obama's performance, although this approval fell 4% in the last two months and 13% in the last year. The 38% of Independents who still approve of Obama are nearly offset by the 37% of Independents who plan to vote for a Republican. Only 12% of voters value Obama's opinion of other Democrats enough to be more likely to vote for someone he supports.

Nevertheless, Obama is still more popular than Congress. Six in ten (59%) disapprove of both Congressional Democrats and Congressional Republicans, but more voters would chose to vote for a Republican for Congress (43%) than a Democrat (38%).

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Geert Wilders to Muslims: Free yourselves. It is up to you.

Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs reposted an enlightening statement by Geert Wilders to a Web site called Muslims Debate and asked the rest of us to pass it around. I am pleased to do so. 

Wilders, a Dutch political leader, is known internationally as an outspoken anti-jihadist. In this statement, Wilders explains his message to Muslims, providing a window into the source of his enormous courage: deeply felt humanity informed by profound understanding.  Some excerpts:

I clearly recall my very first impression of Egypt [at the age of 18]: I was overwhelmed by the kindness, friendliness and helpfulness of its people.

I also remember my second strong impression of Egypt: It struck me how frightened these friendly and kind people were. 

While we were in Sharm el-Sheikh, President Mubarak happened to visit the place. 

I remember the fear which suddenly engulfed the town when it was announced that Mubarak was coming on an unexpected visit; I can still see the cavalcade of black cars on the day of his visit and feel the almost physical awareness of fear, like a cold chill on that very hot day in Summer.

 

It was a weird experience; Mubarak is not considered the worst of the Islamic tyrants and yet, the fear of the ordinary Egyptians for their leader could be felt even by me. I wonder how Saudis feel when their King is in town, how Libyans feel when Gaddafi announces his coming, how Iraqis must have felt when Saddam Hussein was near. A few years later, I read in the Koran how the 7^th century Arabs felt in the presence of Muhammad, who, as several verses describe, “cast terror into their hearts” (suras 8:12, 8:60, 33:26, 59:12).

 

From Sharm el-Sheikh, my friend and I went to Cairo. It was poor and incredibly dirty. My friend and I were amazed that such a poor and filthy place could be a neighbor of Israel, which was so clean. The explanation of the Arabs, with whom we discussed their poverty, was that they were not in any way to blame for this affliction: They said they were the victims of a global conspiracy of “imperialists” and “Zionists”, aimed at keeping Muslims poor and subservient. I found that explanation unconvincing. My instinct told me it had something to do with the different cultures of Israel and Egypt.

[snip]

Once Egypt had been the most advanced civilization on earth. Why had it not progressed along with the rest of the world?

 In the late 1890s, Winston Churchill was a soldier and a war correspondent in British India (contemporary Pakistan) and the Sudan. Churchill was a perceptive young man, whose months in Pakistan and the Sudan allowed him to grasp with amazing clarity what the problem is with Islam and “the curses it lays on its votaries.”

 

 “Besides the fanatical frenzy, …, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy,” he wrote. “The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist where the followers of the Prophet rule or live. … The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to a sole man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. … Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities – but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it.” And Churchill concluded: “No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.”

 There are people who say that I hate Muslims. I do not hate Muslims. It saddens me how Islam has robbed them of their dignity.What Islam does to Muslims is visible in the way they treat their daughters. On March 11, 2002, fifteen Saudi schoolgirls died as they attempted to flee from their school in the holy city of Mecca. A fire had set the building ablaze. The girls ran to the school gates but these were locked. The keys were in the possession of a male guard, who refused to open the gates because the girls were not wearing the correct Islamic dress imposed on women by Saudi law: face veils and overgarments.

 

The “indecently” dressed girls frantically tried to save their young lives. The Saudi police beat them back into the burning building. Officers of the Mutaween, the “Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice,” as the Police are known in Saudi Arabia, also beat passers-by and firemen who tried to help the girls. “It is sinful to approach them,” the policemen warned bystanders. It is not only sinful, it is also a criminal offence.

 

Girls are not valued highly in Islam; the Koran says that the birth of a daughter makes a father’s “face darken and he is filled with gloom” (sura 43:15). Nevertheless, the incident at the Mecca school drew angry reactions. Islam is inhumane; but Muslims are humans, hence capable of Love – that powerful force which Muhammad despised. Humanity prevailed in the Meccan fathers who were incensed over the deaths of their daughters; it also prevailed in the firemen who confronted the Mutaween when the latter were beating the girls back inside, and in the journalists of the Saudi paper which, for the first time in Saudi history, criticized the much feared and powerful “Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.”

However, Muslim protests against Islamic inhumanity are rare. Most Muslims, even in Western countries, visit mosques and listen to shocking Koranic verses and to repulsive sermons without revolting against them.

[snip]

The biblical concept that God is our father is not found in Islam. There is no personal relationship between man and Allah, either. The purpose of Islam is the total submission of oneself and others to the unknowable Allah, whom we must serve through total obedience to Muhammad as leader of the Islamic state (suras 3:31, 4:80, 24:62, 48:10, 57:28). 

[snip]

Without individual freedom, it is not surprising that the notion of man as a responsible agent is not much developed in Islam. Muslims tend to be very fatalistic. Perhaps – let us certainly hope so – only a few radicals take the Koranic admonition to wage jihad on the unbelievers seriously. Nevertheless, most Muslims never raise their voice against the radicals. This is the “fearful fatalistic apathy” Churchill referred to.

 

The author Aldous Huxley, who lived in North Africa in the 1920s, made the following observation: “About the immediate causes of things – precisely how they happen – they seem to feel not the slightest interest. Indeed, it is not even admitted that there are such things as immediate causes: God is directly responsible for everything. ‘Do you think it will rain?’ you ask pointing to menacing clouds overhead. ‘If God wills,’ is the answer. You pass the native hospital. ‘Are the doctors good?’ ‘In our country,’ the Arab gravely replies, in the tone of Solomon, ‘we say that doctors are of no avail. If Allah wills that a man die, he will die. If not, he will recover.’ All of which is profoundly true, so true, indeed, that is not worth saying. To the Arab, however, it seems the last word in human wisdom. ... They have relapsed – all except those who are educated according to Western methods – into pre-scientific fatalism, with its attendant incuriosity and apathy.”

Islam deprives Muslims of their freedom. That is a shame, because free people are capable of great things, as history has shown.

[snip]

I wholeheartedly support Muslims who love freedom. My message to them is clear: “Fatalism is no option; ‘Inch’ Allah’ ["Allah willing"] is a curse; Submission is a disgrace.

 Free yourselves. It is up to you. 

Geert Wilders

Read the rest. You won't regret it.

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Monday Madness: Guess Their BMI

As is being widely reported in the blogosphere, new Obamacare Stimulus bill regulations (Section 3001, page 116 of 407) will require the government to know how fat or skinny every American is by the year 2014, as calculated using the Body Mass Index, popularly known as the BMI.

I sure hope that the sheepsters who couldn't wait for Obamacare enjoy this one.  Certainly Oprah can't wait to have her BMI on a national register.

You can calculate your BMI using one of the handy formulae shown at the left, or you can drop in at the Mayo Clinic BMI calculator.

If you've got a BMI of under 25, you are not considered overweight by the powers that be, at least not at present. (If there's anything to learn from recent trends, however, expect that today's "normal" will become tomorrow's "fat.")

Feeling a little pudgy? Better whip yourself into shape before your government does it for you in marvelous ways that won't even require Congressional approval. President and Mrs. Obama recommend having a private gym in your home, spending lots of time on the golf course, and going on a couple of luxury vacations a month.

While we're waiting for the Powers That Be to figure out what they are going to do with your fatness measurement, perhaps we can amuse ourselves playing a new parlor game that I call "Guess Their BMI."

Here are a few Democrat "figures" to start with. 

Elena Kagan

Barney Frank

Michelle Obama

Al Gore

Sonia Sotomayor

Charlie Rangel

U.S. Surgeon General

You've got to wonder what kind of special "accomodations" will be made for the Pudgies in Power.

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Obama Deems al Qaeda Racist -- Now We Can Get Mad

I'm still puzzling over Obama's reaction to the outrageous murder of 74 unsuspecting soccer fans and the wounding of 84 others who made the innocent mistake of watching the World Cup final on TV screens in a restaurant and a sports club in Kampala, Uganda, at the same moment that an al Qaeda-linked group of Somali Islamic terrorists chose to make a political statement using a couple of shrapnel-loaded bombs.

The Somalian al-Shabab terrorists, it is known, are trained "by militant veterans of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq" and in the past have "recruited Somali-Americans to carry out suicide bombings in Mogadishu."

Add al-Shabab's spokesman to your list of infamous guys named after the founder of a certain religion. Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage emphasized that "the explosions in Kampala were only a minor message" to Uganda, and he also issued threats to the nation of Burundi. Both Uganda and Burundi have deployed peacekeeping forces to Somalia, and both have majority Christian populations, unlike Somalia, which is almost entirely Sunni Muslim.

According to Ugandan Army Lieutenant Colonel Felix Kulaigye, "Al-Shabab is the reason why we should stay in Somalia. We have to pacify Somalia."

The deaths of and injuries to these victims of Islamic jihad are heartbreaking, and every sane person who hears of these attacks must pause to cope with the shock and sorrow they feel.

But Barack Hussein Obama's reaction to the attack is a real head-scratcher:

What you've seen in some of the statements that have been made by these terrorist organizations is that they do not regard African life as valuable in and of itself. They see it as a potential place where you can carry out ideological battles that kill innocents without regard to long-term consequences for their short-term tactical gains.

What! Since 9/11 alone, when Islamic terrorists murdered 2,993 people on U.S. soil, major Islamic terrorist attacks resulting in more than 100 deaths per attack were perpetrated in Indonesia (202 dead), Russia (475 dead), Iraq (2,762 dead), Uganda (239 dead), the Philippines (118 dead), Spain (191 dead), India (374 dead), Sri Lanka (103 dead), Pakistan (357 dead), and Afghanistan (105 dead). (Thanks to Wm. Robert Johnson for statistics and map below.)

These attacks, and numerous others, have informed most sentient people around the globe that Islamic terrorists are indifferent not only to the value of the lives of Africans, but also the lives of North Americans, Western Europeans, Eastern Europeans, Middle Easterners, South Asians, and Southeast Asians--pretty much everyone on the planet, including other Muslims.

Come to think of it, Islamic terrorists themselves hail from all those regions as well.

So why is it that "man-caused disasters" start to look like racist "terrorism" to Barack Hussein Obama when Ugandans are slain? Based on past experience, one would expect the president and his administration to start warning Ugandans to guard against their own potential racism against Muslims, because, as Obama has pointed out, America "will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world for the better. . . ." And, under Obama, America has done so, even diverting NASA space exploration funding to the effort.

It's hard to figure, not only because the deaths of thousands of American citizens at the hands of Islamic terrorists have barely crawled onto the president's "terrorism" meter, but, until now, neither have the horrendous 1998 truck bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Tanzania which killed and maimed mostly innocent passers-by unconnected with any Embassy business.

Why didn't the deaths of those Africans awaken Obama to the problem of Islamic terrorism? Or, posing a question Americans like myself must ask: Why haven't the deaths of Americans on American soil woken the President of the United States to the threat of Islamic terrorism?

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Colorado Hispanics Want an Immigration Law Like Arizona's

How is Obama's unrelenting push to kill Arizona's immigration bill working out in America's Southwest?

Not as well as expected, it seems, if the results of the first Denver Post/9News poll of the 2010 election campaign are any indication.

According to that poll, six out of ten Hispanic voters registered in Colorado (62%) would like to see their state enact an immigration law similar to Arizona's, and only three out of ten (31%) would be opposed to such a law. That pretty much matches the opinions of Arizonan registered voters who identify themselves as White, among whom six out of ten (61%) would like to see a Colorado version of the Arizona law, and three or four in ten (35%) would not.

Q. Should Colorado pass an immigration law similar to the one recently passed in Arizona? Or not?

It's public opinion like this that motivated Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman to quip,  "I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that almost every state in America next January is going to see a bill similar to Arizona's."

More and more, it looks like Americans aim to protect their country, not only from "unauthorized Democrats" flooding in illegally from other countries, but from their enablers in the White House and Congress.

Cross-posted at Potluck.
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Report on 7/13/10 Ground Zero Mosque Hearing

Fifty-six speakers gave Mayor Bloomberg's appointees on New York's Landmark Preservation Commission an earful today as they expressed their views on whether the proposed site of the Ground Zero mosque, the 150-year-old Burlington Coat Factory building, warrants the protection of landmark status.

Sharif El-Gamal [see image, left], the CEO of the company that owns the site:

asked the commission to "understand the importance of this project to revitalizing New York." And he begged the group not to grant landmark status to the 1857 Italian Renaissance-inspired building. That would make it difficult, if not impossible, to build the mosque because changes to historic buildings are hard to get approved.

Zead Ramadan of the Council on Islamic-American Relations called opposition to the proposed Ground Zero mosque "Islama-phobia pure and simple."

Rafiq Kathwari, who described himself as a moderate Muslim, said the landmark discussion had been hijacked.

Hijacked. That's an interesting word to use. Clearly, Kathwari doesn't approve of being inconvenienced in his desire that Muslims pray in a nice new mosque built on the burial ground that Ground Zero and its immediate environs have become, especially when that inconvenience stems from the mere fact of Islamic terrorists hijacking four airliners and using them to murder thousands of Americans.

After all, "moderate" Muslims have their priorities too.

Mayor Bloomberg seems to have forgotten 9/11, or maybe he's not too interested in having the Ground Zero mosque money trail revealed, or maybe he's getting his orders from higher up in the Democrat party, like Charles Bolden, head of NASA.

To Bloomberg's shame, he has termed calls to investigate the funding of the proposed mosque "un-American."

Some speakers at the hearing accused by the mayor of being "un-American" and by Zead Ramadan of being motivated by "pure Islamophobia," and by Rafiq Kathwari of "hijacking the landmark discussion" were Sally Regenhard, who son Christian was murdered by Islamic terrorists on 9/11 and Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles was murdered by Islamic terrorists as he piloted the airliner that Islamic terrorists crashed into the Pentagon.

Also among those who want to know just whose money is behind the mosque is Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio. Earlier this month, Lazio had some important questions for New York's Democrat Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo: 

"Where did the $5 million come from that were used to purchase the land?," he asked. "Where will the $95 million in addition come from to build the mosque? Who is behind these investments? What is there purpose? What is their goal? What is their intent?"

Lazio also pointed out that:

"New Yorkers have a right to feel safe and be safe," Lazio told reporters in lower Manhattan. "There are serious security questions about the appropriateness of this mosque.

At the Landmark Commission hearing, Lazio testified on behalf of landmark status for the five-story Italian Renaissance-inspired palazzo. On September 11, 2001, one of the hijacked plane's landing gear fell through the building's roof and plummeted to its basement, making the building, Lazio said, "a place of deep historical significance and a reminder of just what happened on New York's darkest day." 

To deprive this building of landmark status is to allow for a citadel of Islamic supremacy to be erected in its place," said Andrea Quinn, a freelance audio technician from Queens who said she had worked with people at the World Trade Center.

The Landmark Commission say they will vote on the status of the Burlington Coat Factory building later this summer.
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Related Posts:

• Today: Ground Zero Mosque Landmark Meeting (ALERT: LOCATION CHANGED!!!)
  
• El Marco's "Prayer Time at the Ground Zero Mosque"
  
• Ground Zero Mosque Imam Sponsors Gaza Blockade Run...
• Tolerance is Easy When It's at Other People's Expense
• Scary Stuff: What Ground Zero Imam Says on Arabic Websites
• NYC Community Board Okays Ground Zero Mosque Plans...
• About that Imam from the Ground Zero Mosque . . .
• Petition to Stop the Ground Zero Mega-Mosque: Sign...

Double Whammy: Two Libs Get Slammed by Sane People

It's all in the following video clip. First, California Congressman Brad Sherman tells constituents he never heard of Black Panther voter intimidation. Second, why I turn off Fox News every time Kirsten Powers opens her mouth.

An interview with Bartle Bull, the cracker renowned Civil Rights lawyer who was an eyewitness to the Black Panther intimidation, is here.

It's getting harder and harder to pull the wool over America's eyes. I think the Sleeping Giant is finally awake.

Hat tip: Drew M. via Ace of Spades HQ via Nice Deb.

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Related post:

• ACORN's Part in the Philadelphia Black Panther Voter Intimidation Scandal

Today: Ground Zero Mosque Landmark Meeting (ALERT: LOCATION CHANGED!!!)

I am just returning from a couple of weeks of business travel (hence light blogging, sorry) to find that today, July 13, there will be a public hearing before the New York City Landmarks Committee concerning the proposed Ground Zero Mosque. The planned location of the mosque, which will overlook Ground Zero, is within the 9/11 killing zone. The proposed site has been occupied for the last 152 years by the Burlington Coat Factory building, which was itself damaged on 9/11 when a piece of the fuselage [see image below] of one of the aircraft that flew into the World Trade Center fell into it.

Opponents of the Ground Zero mosque would like the Burlington Coat Factory building to be designated as a historic landmark. They argue that this old building is part of historic New York and that it is a war memorial. Designation of the Coat Factory Building as a historic landmark would prevent its being replaced by a Ground Zero mega-mosque that is 15 stories high and from which worshippers would be able to look down on the former site of the World Trade Center as they pray.

At the hearing a member of the Research Department makes a brief presentation about the property under consideration. The Chairman then asks whether the owner or a representative of the owner would like to speak. All other interested parties are then encouraged to present their opinions on the proposed designation. Interested parties can also submit written statements about the proposed designation at the hearing or after the hearing, up to the time that the Commission votes on the proposed designation. 

[snip]

While a historic district is under consideration by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the Research Department writes a detailed report, describing the architectural, historical, and/or cultural significance of the historic district and a detailed description of each building within the proposed district. Building owners are mailed a draft copy of their building’s description for review and comment. The Commissioners also review the draft report and use this report, along with public testimony, as the basis for their decision-making. 

[snip] 

The Commission then votes on the designation at a public meeting. Six votes are needed to approve or deny a designation. By law, landmark designation is effective upon the Commission's vote, and all rules and regulations of the Landmarks Law are applicable. Within ten days, the LPC files copies of the final designation report with the City Council, the City Planning Commission, and other city agencies. The LPC also sends a Notice of Designation to the property owner and registers the Notice at the City Register's or County Clerk's Office.

If you are able to make it to this hearing, please attend! The hearing will be held at 45 Park Place 681 Park Avenue, Hunter College Assembly Hall, Borough of Manhattan (The entrance is on East 69th Street, between Park Avenue and Lexington Avenue).

Please bring a picture ID for entrance into the building. 

The hearing will start at 2:00p.m. - end at 5:00p.m.

Note: The location for this very controversial hearing has been has been changed several times, this time at the last minute, to cause confusion and lower public participation.

Pamela Geller has suggested that someone wait at the 45 Park Place location to let people know about the change of location to 681 Park Avenue.

Hat tip: Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs and Free Republic.

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 Related Posts:

• El Marco's "Prayer Time at the Ground Zero Mosque"
• Ground Zero Mosque Imam Sponsors Gaza Blockade Run...
• Tolerance is Easy When It's at Other People's Expense
• Scary Stuff: What Ground Zero Imam Says on Arabic Websites
• NYC Community Board Okays Ground Zero Mosque Plans...
• About that Imam from the Ground Zero Mosque . . .
• Petition to Stop the Ground Zero Mega-Mosque: Sign...

Cajun Hymn: Au Ciel, performed by L'Angelus

Lyrics:

J'irai la voir un jour
Au ciel dans la patrie
Oui j'irai voir Marie
Ma joie et mon amour

Au ciel, au ciel, au ciel
J'irai la voir un jour

J'irai la voir un jour
J'irai mourir aux anges
Pour chanter ses louanges
Et pour former sa cour

J'irai la voir un jour
Cette vierge si belle
Bientôt j'irai près d'elle
Lui dire mon amour

Au ciel, au ciel, au ciel
J'irai la voir un jour

J'irai la voir un jour
J'irai près de sa tombe
Recevoir la colombe
Dans l'éternel séjour

J'irai la voir un jour
J'irai loin de la terre
Sur le coeur de ma mère
Me poser sans retour

Au ciel, au ciel, au ciel
J'irai la voir un jour

J'irai la voir un jour.


In English
I'll see her one day
In the Sky, in the Garden
Yes I will see Mary
My joy and my love

In the Sky, in the Sky, in the Sky
I'll see her one day

I'll see her one day
I'll join the angels
To sing her praises
And form her court

I'll see her one day
This so beautiful Virgin
Soon I'll be near her
To say my love

In the Sky, in the Sky, in the Sky
I'll see her one day

I'll see her one day
I'll go near her tomb
To welcome the dove
For the eternal stay

I'll see her one day
I'll go away from earth
To the heart of my mother
To rest with no return

In the Sky, in the Sky, in the Sky
I'll see her one day

I'll see her one day

I am America

Pass it on.
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ACORN's Part in the Philadelphia Black Panther Voter Intimidation Scandal

When the Philadelphia Black Panthers intimidated voters in November of 2008, one eye witness to the intimidation was renowned Civil Rights attorney, Bartle Bull, who worked in Mississippi in the 1960s to support voting rights for Blacks. The current federal administration, Bull says, is challenging Americans' right to vote in support of what he describes as "political opportunities in the next election," that is, to "maximize" votes for Democrats by protecting hundreds of thousands of illegal ACORN votes from the attention of poll watchers.

This interview of Mr. Bull by Megyn Kelly of Fox News is an eye opener. To cut to the chase, you might want to start at 1:30. (Thanks to Teresa of teresamerica, who has published much more valuable information on this topic.)



Some quotes from the interview.

The power of the administration of the United States was working against the Voting Rights Act. They were protecting the people who were abusing the law.

[snip]

And the fundamental point to me is that Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy did not die to have uniformed thugs blocking the doors of the polling places with weapons. And for the first time in our lifetime the national administration is protecting the abusers instead of the voters.

(Why?)

Because they want to maximize the vote. The New York Times reported one week before the election on Oct 27, 2008, the New York Times reported that ACORN had registered 1,300,000 voters of which the Times said 35% were fraudulent--that's over 400,000 ACORN voters. And this was an effort to protect those illegal voters, and you do that by intimidating the poll watchers who were challenging them, and that's what happened.

[snip]

The President of the United States, Mr. Obama, has violated his oath of office to enforce the laws of the United States because he is not enforcing the Voting Rights Act, which he swore to do.

[snip]

It's a staggering outrage, and it's exactly not the cause that people like Martin Luther King died for. He died to help people to vote. I was in Mississippi working in elections where people risked their lives to vote. And here the administration is challenging that system.

[snip]

It leaves us in a terrible situation where the government is deciding what laws to enforce based on its political opportunities in the next election. And I think this next election will be very dangerous because all those illegal ACORN voters are still on the roles all over the country and now we are going to be intimidated from challenging their false votes.

[snip]

I testified about two months ago in Washington before the Civil Rights Commission, and there, for example, seven of these uniformed Black Panthers came and sat immediately behind me during my testimony, and when I was called on to identify them I had to stand up and point to King Shamir Shabazz, the man with the billy club, and he took my photograph, attempting to intimidate me, inside the hearing room, and that's an incredible outrage.

(What can be done?)

I think publicity is very important because the light of day does not encourage this kind of behavior. But the real problem is that we now have hundreds of thousands of illegal voters who are registered--and probably more are being registered right now--and they're intimidating the challenges to those votes in the future.

Why are elected officials unafraid of American voters?

Bartle Bull is doing his best to tell us one of the answers.

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More on NASA's "Foremost" Charge: Muslim Self-Esteem

NASA chief Charles Bolden told al Jazeera that Obama "wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and engineering -- science, math and engineering."

Okay, I'm game. Here's some of that good old-fashioned Muslim contribution to "science and engineering."

That's the kind of thing that really ought to "re-inspire children to want to get into science and math...."

July, August, September, October . . . November!

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Related posts:

• And to Think Neil Armstrong Walked on the Moon to Reach Out to Muslims
• Obama Tells NASA: Space Programs for Muslims

And to Think Neil Armstrong Walked on the Moon to Reach Out to Muslims . . .

Another genius-level insight from Barack Hussein Obama.

Can we move November up a few months, say to August? Please.
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Attention Obama Fans: Your Future in Black and Red

Forbes.com recently published an interactive map showing where Americans are moving to and where they are moving from. In this scheme, black lines show people moving into a county; red lines show people leaving the county. If you click on "Chicago," the beneficiary of so much political "genius" and convincing "oratory," this is what you will see:

It doesn't look like the people of Chicago are having a great time there. From Michelle Malkin:

How fitting that the state that produced the profligate corruptocrat-in-chief is now collapsing under the weight of its own fiscal irresponsibility. The same union-coddling, welfare state-expanding, pay-for-play politics that wrought the current misery in Illinois are wreaking havoc for us all.

At present, the State of Illinois owes $5.01 billion in unpaid bills "to schools, rehabilitation centers, child care, the state university." According to the state's comptroller, Daniel W. Hynes, “This is not some esoteric budget issue; we are not paying bills for absolutely essential services. That is obscene.” 

The state is defaulting on payments to pharmacies for drugs and on payments to funeral homes for burying the indigent. The University of Illinois is limping along on 55% of what it was promised. Schools are firing teachers and closing kindergartens, and government agencies are shedding employees.

One such agency, the Community Counseling Centers of Chicago, normally would operate on an annual $16 million provided by the state. Not lately, though. From the New York Times (hat tip, Michelle Malkin):

On any given Monday morning, the agency’s chief administrative officer, John J. Troy, 61, has no idea how he is going to keep its doors open until Friday. He said the state had not come through with an expected $2.2 million, which is about six months of arrears. He has laid off and recalled employees three times in the last two years. 

“Two weeks ago, I had days to meet my $420,000 payroll and all I was looking at was a $200,000 line of credit from a bank,” recalled Mr. Troy. “I drove down to Springfield and said, ‘Hey, you owe us $3 million.’ They said: ‘Oh, that’s nothing. We owe another agency $10 million.’ ” 

“The fact of the matter is,” he added, “I don’t sleep much these days.”

He's not the only one losing sleep. Illinois admits to $62.4 billion in unfunded pension liabilities alone, but that debt could be much higher.

What is Illinois going to do about its mess? Not much. Lawmakers will keep passing deficit budgets and continue to ignore the state's balanced budget laws.

That sets an excellent example for the House of Representatives, where, on July 2, Democrats “deemed as passed” a non-existent $1.12 trillion budget just before setting off for their Independence Day barbecues. Now Democrats can "start spending money for Fiscal Year 2011 without the pesky constraints of a budget."

You heard that right. Although you've never heard it before, because it's a first. A non-existent budget has been "deemed as passed" by the House of Representatives.

From House Budget Committee Ranking Member, Republican Paul Ryan, comes this explanation (Via Human Events via Nice Deb) :

Facing a record deficit and a tidal wave of debt, House Democrats decided it was politically inconvenient to put forward a budget and account for their fiscal recklessness.  With no priorities and no restraints, the spending, taxing, and borrowing will continue unchecked for the coming fiscal year.

It's like a game of musical chairs, isn't it? When the music stops, somebody is going to be left holding the bag. By that time, I wouldn't be surprised if most powerful Democrats have fled the country, taking their war chests with them. A good number of them have already bailed out of Chicago.
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Mexican Cartel Threatens to Blow Up Texas Dam; Generates "Plenty of Concern"

There are plenty of events that you might think would make big news but don't because they contradict utterances made by Barack Obama or one of his high-ranking Obamatons. A case in point is the reported plan by a Mexican drug cartel, the Zeta cartel, to blow up Falcon Dam on the Rio Grande, southwest of San Antonio, Texas, as an act of vengeance against a rival cartel, the Gulf cartel,  "which controls smuggling routes from the reservoir to the Gulf of Mexico."

It seems that members of the Zeta cartel had been circulating handbills and driving around with bullhorns to warn the population "on the Mexican side of the river near the dam to get out of the area." The cartel, of course, is known to have explosives and ex-military members "trained in special forces tactics, including demolition." If these drug thugs had succeeded in seriously compromising the dam, they would have released 534 billion gallons of water stored behind the dam in Falcon Lake. Addendum: That would flood the Gulf cartel's smuggling routes from Falcon Lake to the Gulf, along with "massive amounts of agricultural land . . .  as well as significant parts of a region where about 4 million people live along both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border."

Contrast the Zeta cartel's threat in May of this year with a remark made by Obama during his "immigration reform" speech of June 1:

So the bottom line is this: The southern border is more secure today than at any time in the past 20 years. 

Falcon Lake is considered "one of the best bass-fishing lakes in the country"--provided that you aren't being attacked by Mexican Zeta cartel pirates armed with machine guns, like this fisherman:

The threatened attack on the dam was met with secret actions by the "American police, federal agents and disaster officials" including the "U.S. Border Patrol, the Texas Department of Public Safety and even game wardens," according to officials. A "stepped-up presence by the Mexican military" may also have played a role.

Said Gene Falcon, director of emergency preparedness for Starr County where Falcon Dam is sited, "It would have been a hell of a disaster. There was plenty of concern."

I'll bet.

But will that concern ever reach the White House?
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Happy 4th of July

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

November!
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Kagan's Harvard Connections

This week I spent some time trying to wrap my head around the Harvard contribution to the mess this country is in. The Harvard connections in government are never-ending, and, with a Harvard guy sitting in the president's seat, the Harvard connections of his latest Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan, deserve some extra scrutiny. The more you look at them, though, the more disturbing the picture becomes.

This apparent Obama nominee is unusual. She's never been a prosecutor or attorney general, or defense attorney or Legal Aid litigator or sitting judge. In fact, she's never been a lawyer in a trial....never.

What has she been, then?

For one thing, she was a Harvard professor when Larry Summers, an Obama economic advisor who was Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretary, "arrived from his work at Treasury . . . to deregulate banks and derivatives to get the gambling moving. . . ."

Oh, that.

It was the deregulation of financial derivatives that brought the banking system to its knees. The leading cause of the credit crisis was widespread uncertainty over insurance giant AIG’s losses speculating in credit default swaps (CDS), a kind of derivative bet that particular issuers won’t default on their bond obligations. Because AIG was part of an enormous and poorly-understood web of CDS bets and counter-bets among the world’s largest banks, investment funds, and insurance companies, when AIG collapsed, many of these firms worried they too might soon be bankrupt. Only a massive $180 billion government-funded bailout of AIG prevented the system from imploding.

This could have been avoided if we had not deregulated financial derivatives.

Summers was quite a pal to Kagan. When he served as Harvard president from 2001 to 2006, Kagan "was made a full professor, then Summers tapped her to be the Dean of Harvard Law."

Her pet peeve there was to keep the American military and ROTC off campus because she disputes the "don't ask, don't tell" provisions put in place by Clinton. In 2008, Kagan got money as an advisor to Goldman Sachs global investment house. Meanwhile, she made Cass Sunstein, who is now an advisor to Obama too, a full professor at Harvard. He has suggested the concept of marriage be discontinued. He also has argued that dogs and cats should have "standing" to sue in court.

Oh, him.

Sunstein may love animals, but babies are another story. According to Sunstein, "A restriction on access to abortion turns women's reproductive capacities into something to be used by fetuses." Sunstein also argued that cloning humans is no problem "because human embryos, which develop into a baby, are 'only a handful of cells.'"

An unborn child relying on its mother for nuturance may be a horrifying proposition to Sunstein, but for Kagan, that unborn child is more likely to be a pawn in a political power struggle, or perhaps a stepping stone in a political career. Addressing the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kagan admitted that:

as a Clinton lawyer in 1997, she fraudulently revised an official medical opinion by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. The medical society was going to publicly reveal that "its panel of experts found no circumstances in which the (partial birth abortion) procedure was the only option for saving the life of the woman."

In a secret internal memo, she wrote that "This, of course, would be a disaster[.]"

Kagan therefore secretly revised the language so the final statement in 1997 claimed that the partial-birth abortion "may be the best and most appropriate procedure in particular circumstances to save the life or preserve the health of the woman."

That was a pernicious lie. The medical panel originally said that was false. Kagan substituted her own judgment for a medical consensus.

Kagan defended herself. "What I did," she said, was to advance the policy of the president [Clinton]." The "ACOG couldn't identify any circumstances in which the procedure was the only one that could be used in a given case but [it] could find situations in which it was least riskiest [sic] procedure for women."

Kagan's advancement of Clinton's "presidential policy" accomplished something else, too. As pointed out by Pundette:

Thanks in great part to Kagan’s apparent fabrication, all state laws banning partial birth abortions were struck down in 2000. No one knows how many children might be alive now if it weren’t for Kagan’s alleged falsification. Accurate data on partial birth abortions is hard to come by; there are many reasons why a doctor might not want to own up to performing this diabolical “procedure.” But low estimates put the number of victims at somewhere between 650 and 2200 babies terminated annually before the ban. I don’t know how many were killed in states that had a ban in place before the 2000 decision. But would it be going too far to say, if these charges are true, Kagan lied, babies died?

There's more, much more. But this post is getting too long.

Bottom line: We cannot afford to have this woman in the Supreme Court.
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Related posts:

• Govt Care For All Means a Shorter Life for You
• Cass Sunstein: You Have No Constitutional Right to Your Own Body Parts
• Birds and Bees Get to Sue Obama? Green Energy's Fifth Column

I'm Tired of This -- How About You?

A few seconds of this town meeting of the atrociously condescending and utterly stupid Congressman Pete Stark (CA-13) have been broadcast on some conservative talk shows and Fox News. Stark is more honest than many of his colleagues in the House, though. His remedy to the problem that illegal immigrants have transformed Phoenix into a world kidnapping capital, second only to Mexico City, is that Phoenix residents "shouldn't walk home."

The comments of Stark's constituents haven't gotten air play, but you might be interested. I was:



November.

Hat tip: Nickie Goomba.
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