Morris & McGann, Vote.com

 

President Obama is attacking a red herring when he defends his decision to send the worst terrorists at Guantanamo to United States prisons by saying the likelihood of escape from secure federal facilities is very low.

 

Of course it is. No rope ladder or prison laundry truck is likely to do the trick.

 

But when it comes to federal judges, we can't be so sure.

 

The reason we sent the terrorists to Guantanamo in the first place, rather than bring them onto US soil, was never really connected to worries that they might escape. The Bush administration feared, quite correctly, that if the inmates were in federal prisons on US territory, federal judges would take their pleas for constitutional rights more seriously.

 

That argument is still true, and bringing the terrorists to the United States puts us at risk that they could be freed by court order.

 

Some detainees will be tried in US courts on US soil. The first will be tried in New York.

 

This raises two problems: First, if he is acquitted, where will he be released? Likely, he'll just be invited to walk out the door and onto the streets of New York. Second, is there a danger of terrorist retaliation or attempts to interdict the trial with violence?

 

Trying a terrorist in the Big Apple serves to paint a bull's-eye on the courthouse. The recently foiled plan to attack New York City synagogues demonstrates that terrorists have the city in their sights, as they have since the 1993 World Trade Center attack. Could Obama find a worse place to conduct a trial? Read article.

 

Joel J. Sprayregen, American Thinker.com

 

The remnant of the Axis of Evil delights in torturing our President . Not just with words -- but with carefully timed "3 a.m." nuclear detonations and launches of inter-continental missiles capable of delivering WMDs.    The North Koreans did so on Memorial Day, as well as in April as their riposte to Obama's Apology Trip to Europe. Tehran launched its own provocation last week.      

 

Listen to the official North Korean news agency:

 

"The Democratic People's Republic of Korea successfully conduced one or more underground nuclear tests on May 25 as part of the measures to bolster up its nuclear deterrent for self-defense in every way as requested by its scientists and technicians," adding that "the test was safely conducted on a new higher level in terms of its explosive power and technology control."

 

President Obama responded with robust words: "North Korea is directly and recklessly challenging the international community." Other world leaders spoke similarly, especially neighboring South Korea and Japan. The U.N. Security Council is rushing into emergency session.

 

The trouble is that we have heard this feckless song before, as described in our April 17 American Thinker article (Obama Flunks the 3 A.M. Test). While Obama was urging nuclear disarmament in Prague, Pyongyang launched an inter-continental multi-stage rocket in defiance of an explicit Security council resolution. Obama's April words also sounded like John Wayne: "Violations must be punished. Words must mean something." 

 

What did Obama's words lead to? The Security Council issued a non-binding statement of condemnation. North Korea responded by withdrawing from the interminable futile Six-Party talks, expelling IAEA inspectors, and restarting nuclear facilitates it had previously agreed to disable in return for substantial, already delivered concessions. Read article.

E. Thomas McClanahan, JWR.com

 

My question was simple: "Can we win in Afghanistan?" But that only prompted another question: "How do you define victory?"

 

With that, any sense of clarity was a lost hope.

 

The question was directed at a roomful of mid-career military officers, all clad in gray-green camo. Most were Army, attending the School of Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth. The school, known as SAMS, trains officers for high-level staff work.

 

I was one of a group of visitors last week that included another Kansas City Star editorial writer, several of The Star's Midwest Voices columnists and two members of the paper's Readers Advisory Panel. Maj. Grant Martin, a SAMS student and Midwest Voices writer himself, arranged the discussion at the school.

 

We sat in a room with a mottled blue carpet and light gray walls. Several gray metal desks had been pushed together in the center of the room. What struck me was that the SAMS officers didn't seem to know much more than we did about the Obama administration's Afghanistan strategy. One officer asked, What is the goal? Is it simply to keep al-Qaeda out?

 

Well, that's the way President Barack Obama framed it. The mission, as he put it in March, isn't to create a European-style democracy, but merely to ensure that Afghanistan "is not a safe haven for terrorists."

 

Obama deserves credit for taking this stand and ordering a surge of 21,000 troops to boost existing totals.

 

But to me, keeping al-Qaeda out implies more than this simple mission statement suggests. Success will require a certain amount of "nation building." Afghanistan must be able, on its own, to exert control over its own territory.

 

The Afghan challenge may prove more daunting than Iraq. Read article.

 

Jennifer Rubin, Pajamas Media.com

 

Attorney General Eric Holder is running into a buzz saw of inquiries from Republicans on Capitol Hill. They may not have the votes to derail most of the administration’s agenda items or block its nominees (although a surprising amount of the former is occurring with regard to national security), but that has not stopped them from putting Holder on the hot seat. And their queries may have the effect of rallying public opinion and/or giving the Obama Department of Justice second thoughts about its approach to the war on terror.

 

On Monday, May 18, following a recent Senate hearing, Sen. Richard Shelby sent a letter to Holder. The questions asked are clearly aimed at drilling down on the Obama administration’s efforts to investigate and potentially punish Bush administration lawyers Jay Bybee and John Yoo, who drafted the now released memos on CIA enhanced interrogation methods. Shelby’s first question goes directly at Holder personally, inquiring:

 

During your tenure as the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, 1997 to 2001, did you know that President Clinton approved of and actively engaged in the practice known as rendition? Did you or anyone in the Department of Justice express a legal opinion on, participate in, or approve any rendition? What actions did you take to ensure any such rendition complied with United States or international law? What actions did you take to ensure that any interrogations of any such individuals rendered by the United States were conducted by the receiving country in a manner consistent with United States or international law? Did you or anyone on your behalf ever determine whether any useful intelligence was obtained from any such individuals rendered by or on behalf of the United States? Did you or anyone on your behalf ever attempt to determine how that information was obtained and whether any such individuals rendered by or on behalf the United States was subjected to any treatment that would violate United States or international laws?

 

What’s that got to do with the Bybee-Yoo inquiry? Well, this is the “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander” line of attack. Really, what is to stop some future administration from pursuing prosecution of Holder as well as other Clinton or Obama administration lawyers for their role in questionable practices? After all, if we are going to investigate the involvement of lawyers in “torture” no one should be exempt. Read article.

 

David R. Stokes, Townhall.com

 

When Harry Truman was whistle-stopping his way into political history en route to his upset of Thomas Dewey in the 1948 presidential election, he used many set pieces again and again from the back of his train. And they always worked. One example was to accuse the Republicans of misleading the American people. Harry said that the GOP lived by the philosophy, “If you can’t convince them; confuse them.”

 

I wonder what Truman would make of his distant Democratic successor in the White House. Would the man known for his plain talking sign off on President Obama’s brand new method of communication – one that would impress even George Orwell?

 

It might be best called transcendent-speak – the art of talking above-it-all. Read article.

 

Anne Wortham, NewZeal.Blogspot.com

 

Anne Wortham is Associate Professor of Sociology at Illinois State University and continuing Visiting Scholar at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. She is a member of the American Sociological Association and the American Philosophical Association.

Recently, she has published articles on the significance of multiculturalism and Afrocentricism in education, the politics of victimization and the social and political impact of political correctness.

 

Here is her evaluation of Obama and the movement that elected him.

 

Fellow Americans,

 

Please know: I am Black; I grew up in the segregated South. I did not vote for Barack Obama; I wrote in Ron Paul's name as my choice for president. Most importantly, I am not race conscious. I do not require a Black president to know that I am a person of worth, and that life is worth living. I do not require a Black president to love the ideal of America.

 

I cannot join you in your celebration. I feel no elation. There is no smile on my face. I am not jumping with joy. There are no tears of triumph in my eyes. For such emotions and behavior to come from me, I would have to deny all that I know about the requirements of human flourishing and survival - all that I know about the history of the United States of America , all that I know about American race relations, and all that I know about Barack Obama as a politician. I would have to deny the nature of the "change" that Obama asserts has come to America. Read article.

 

Jacob Laksin, Frontpagemag.com

 

President Obama could not have picked a worse week to take a stand in defense of his pledge to close Guantanamo Bay prison.

 

On Wednesday, Senate Democrats led the way in overwhelmingly rejecting, by a vote of 90 to 6, the administration’s request for $80 million to relocate the Guantanamo detainees, a decision that replicates an earlier rebuff by the House last week and makes it increasingly unlikely that Guantanamo will be closed by Obama’s much-hyped January 2010 deadline.

 

Later that afternoon, FBI director Robert Mueller threw another spammer in the works when he warned that transporting Gitmo’s denizens to U.S. prisons could enable them to radicalize America’s prison population, as well as plot and carry out terrorist attacks.

 

Then, on Thursday, news broke of a still-unreleased Pentagon report finding that of the 534 detainees originally held at Gitmo, one in seven returned to terrorism upon their release.

 

In short, it was an unpropitious time to make the case that Guantanamo Bay was endangering American security; that it was undermining the U.S.-led war against Islamic terrorism; and that its closure was of the utmost importance.

 

Yet that is precisely what Obama did. Read article.

 

Morris & McGann, Vote.com

 

The widely heralded credit card reform legislation making its way through Congress is a sellout to the credit card companies. Obama has proposed and Congress has passed a series of minor reforms that deal with the fringes of the problem - late billings, retroactive interest rate hikes, misapplication of payments and such - but fail to reform the most basic offense of the companies: their usury.

 

Congress explicitly rejected any limitation on the interest rate credit card companies can charge. It remains perfectly legal for them to charge rates that would make a loan shark blush.

 

In our book Fleeced, we explain how, until 1979, credit card interest was subject to usury limits of the various states. But the Supreme Court emasculated these limits by ruling that the state of the lender, not of the borrower, had the sole power to legislate interest rate limits. South Dakota swiftly jumped into the void the Court created, eliminating any usury limits. All the credit card companies moved there and took advantage of the regulatory vacuum to hike up their rates to unconscionable levels.

 

Competition can do nothing to force down rates since 90% of the credit cards are issued by a handful of companies. And states are paralyzed when it comes to regulating rates.

 

It is up to Congress to act. Yet the credit card companies' massive campaign donations succeeded in buying off enough Democrats and virtually all the Republicans to kill any limits on interest rates. So companies can continue to charge basic rates of 18 percent and then up to 30 percent as punishment for minor offenses like being a few days late in making payments. Read article.

 

Julian Krasta. Novus Ordo Seclorum

 

Barack Hussein Obama has seized the wheel of power in the United States. With it he is course-plotting our nation, and our nation’s friends, to ruin.

 

The second paragraph of Section 2 of the Constitution begins: “He shall have power, by and with Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur; …”

 

There’s only one glaring problem the political Left here did not anticipate would result from their hedonism. They spent no time researching just how deep their insidious blade would penetrate, because what they’ve done is strike straight into America’s heart, and the heart of America is The People. And Obama continues to stick it to us every time he reads from his teleprompter.

 

Absolutism is not provided in the Constitution to the chief executive. Yet, in less than four months, Barack Hussein Obama, the poster boy for “Implementation Without Rules” and “The Far Left’s Rules of Misconduct,” has been permitted to take an axe to the roots of our tree of liberty.

 

Unless he and the others in his administration, as well as their dutiful constituents, make a comprehensive return to common sense and democracy, and soon, all that will remain of America after Obama is finished will be a lifeless stump. Read article.

 

Collin Levy, Online WSJ.com

 

The vice president can't complain if Republicans object to Obama's Supreme Court nominee.

 

Vice President Joe Biden is widely praised for the expertise he brings in helping Barack Obama choose a replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Having served for three decades on the Senate Judiciary Committee, he is considered an asset both for his relationships with committee members and his familiarity with the nuts and bolts of judicial nominations. So let's have a look at how the confirmation process actually fared under Mr. Biden's leadership.

 

As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Biden was present for the nomination and confirmation of every currently sitting Supreme Court justice except for John Paul Stevens. In 1986, the year before Mr. Biden took over as committee chairman, Antonin Scalia was approved by the Senate in a vote of 98-0. Then came Robert Bork and a presidential election.

 

Before Judge Bork's nomination, Mr. Biden had said he would support him. And why not? He was widely considered a dazzling legal mind and had even received (during his confirmation to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals) a rating of "exceptionally well-qualified" from the liberal-leaning American Bar Association. "Say the administration sends up Bork," Mr. Biden told the Philadelphia Inquirer in November 1986, "and, after our investigations, he looks a lot like Scalia. I'd have to vote for him, and if the [special-interest] groups tear me apart, that's the medicine I'll have to take."

 

Just one year after the conservative Mr. Scalia's unanimous confirmation the winds had changed dramatically. The Senate had hitherto proceeded on the principle that it owed the president deference on his judicial selections. No longer.

 

"The framers clearly intended the Senate to serve as a check on the president and guarantee the independence of the judiciary," Mr. Biden said in August 1987 in defense of his newfound opposition to Judge Bork. "The Senate has an undisputed right to consider judicial philosophy." With that marker placed, the ultimate winner of the seat vacated by Justice Lewis Franklin Powell Jr. was a nominee nearly devoid of political philosophy -- Anthony Kennedy. Read article.

 

Jonathan Martin, Politico.com

 

In another sign that he’s eying a second run for the presidency, Mitt Romney is planning a series of stops in Virginia next week to help Republican candidates running in the commonwealth’s off-year election.

 

Virginia is one of a handful of states with competitive races this year, and one where Republican officials feel best about their prospects for victory.

 

The former Massachusetts governor is the featured guest at the high-dollar gala next Friday prior to the Virginia GOP’s state convention in Richmond — one of the party’s chief fundraising events.

 

That same day, Romney will also headline fundraisers for Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling — a breakfast in Newport News and a lunch in Virginia Beach. Bolling served as Romney’s campaign chairman in Virginia during the 2008 primary, even though the former Massachusetts governor withdrew from the race before the contest reached the commonwealth.

 

On Thursday night, Romney is the special guest at a Bolling fundraiser being held at the McLean home of uber-fundraiser Fred Malek, which will follow a Romney appearance at an Arlington business forum on the potential impact of the Employee Free Choice Act on Virginia businesses and workers. Read article.

 

Burt Prelutsky, Townhall.com

 

Feeling as I do about Barack Obama, it’s only natural that I would look for people to blame for putting him in the Oval Office. I mean, aside from the 63 million oafs who actually voted for the guy. The first villains who come to mind are members of the media who are still, in the words of Bernard Goldberg, slobbering over him. But I have come up with another group of troublemakers. They’re the folks who came up with the cockamamie primary system.

 

When you realize how much emphasis is placed on early results, both in terms of momentum and fund-raising, you can readily see how goofy it is that a tiny New England state and a handful of Midwesterners wield so much influence. I have nothing against the voters of New Hampshire or the folks who vote in the Iowa caucus, but it’s absurd that they should have so much power. The solution is quite simple. On the very same day, the Republicans and the Democrats would hold their primaries in all 50 states. The two winners would then square off in November. Not only would my plan streamline the entire process, but there would be far fewer interruptions of regularly scheduled TV programs. So, what’s not to like?

The solution is quite simple. On the very same day, the Republicans and the Democrats would hold their primaries in all 50 states. The two winners would then square off in November. Not only would my plan streamline the entire process, but there would be far fewer interruptions of regularly scheduled TV programs. So, what’s not to like? Read article.

 

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