Imam: Pope Must Say ‘Islam is Peaceful’ to Renew Ties With Islam http://www.jewishpress.com/news/imam-pope-must-say-islam-is-peaceful-to-renew-ties-with-islam/2013/06/12/ The Muslim leader of al-Azhar offered to renew ties with the Vatican, but strongly suggested Pope Francis start off by proclaiming that Islam is a peaceful religion. A Coptic organization has suggested that Muslim leaders are the only ones who can make […]
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/350799/rand-pauls-heres-crime-act-andrew-c-mccarthy
The notorious “civil rights” lawyer William Kunstler, in addition to his work on “political” cases (i.e., anti-American radical-leftist and terrorist cases), gladly made himself available to mobsters, too — after all, someone had to pay the bills. Invited to a dinner once after a job well done for a mafia don, he hoisted a glass to the assembled capos and button men, toasting them, “Here’s to crime!”
Gleeful crooks across the country could be giving the same toast if Senator Rand Paul gets his way. The self-styled libertarian Republican from Kentucky, firmly in his father’s tradition of overreaction to imagined constitutional violations (or, perhaps I should say, violations of an imaginary Constitution) is outraged by reports that the Defense Department’s National Security Agency (NSA) is collecting “metadata” on phone calls of millions of Americans. He has responded by introducing an absurd piece of legislation he calls the “Fourth Amendment Restoration Act of 2013.”
Naturally, the bill is unacquainted with the Fourth Amendment — either the one given to us by the Framers or even the one enlarged over time by Supreme Court jurisprudence. I use the word “naturally” advisedly. Senator Paul’s proposed law asserts: “The collection of citizen’s [ACM: I take it he means citizens’] phone records is a violation of the natural rights of every man and woman in the United States.” A citizen’s “natural right” to telephone-usage records that are actually the property of third-party service providers? I wonder what St. Augustine would have made of that.
Not content to contort natural law, Paul then works his magic on positive law. He alleges that collection of records of telephone activity (but not the content of phone conversations) is somehow “a clear violation of the explicit language of the highest law of the land.”
By “highest law of the land,” Paul is referring to the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment. The senator apparently did not read the Fourth Amendment before cutting and pasting it into his bill. It requires (in relevant part) that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, shall not be violated.” Perhaps Senator Paul will edify us on how it is “clear” that a phone record, owned and possessed by a telephone service provider (not the customer), qualifies as the person, house, paper, or effect of the customer, such that the government’s acquisition of it violates the Fourth Amendment. The federal courts have consistently, emphatically rejected this implausible suggestion, holding that government’s collection of phone records does not even implicate the Fourth Amendment, much less violate it.
Maybe Senator Paul would tell us that this is just the muck those crazy left-wing judges have made of the Constitution. But what Paul is advocating is a Constitution even more warped than the “organic” one progressive jurists have contrived. His proposal bears no resemblance to the Constitution of the Framers.
Mr. Walpin is the author of the recently published The Supreme Court vs. The Constitution (Significance press 2013)
The Supreme Court has long recognized that “the primary function of government … is to render security to its subjects, [with] any mischief menacing that security demand[ing] a remedy.” In simple language, that means that our government has the responsibility to imprison those who have committed crimes endangering people, such as murder or rape. Taking them off the streets saves many innocent persons from being the victim of such crimes because, even as Attorney-General Holder vouched, “[m]ost crimes in America are committed by people who have committed crimes before.”It is logical and human nature that someone who has already committed a rape is more likely to commit another one, particularly after having gotten away without prosecution, than one who has never done so.
Thus it was not surprising that the Supreme Court, on June 3, 2013, sustained a jury verdict finding the defendant Alonzo King guilty of rape on incontrovertible evidence: The defendant’s DNA had matched the perpetrator’s DNA found in the rape victim.
What is surprising, and not boding well for future rulings on clearly guilty criminals who should be taken out of circulation, is that the Court vote was only 5-4,
and thus but one vote away from ordering this rapist released back to society to commit another rape on an innocent victim.
The four dissenters never disputed that King was clearly shown to have performed this 2003 rape after breaking into the woman’s home, armed with a gun, with his face concealed, thus carefully hiding his identity from the victim. It was unlikely that he would ever have been apprehended and connected to this rape, except that, in 2009, six years later, King was arrested for assault with a shotgun. As part of the regular Maryland booking procedure for serious offense, along with fingerprinting and photo, his DNA sample was taken by applying a cotton swab to the inside of his cheek. That DNA was found to match the DNA taken from the 2009 rape victim.
The 4-Justice dissent would have reversed the rape conviction, and allowed King to go free, because they claimed that swabbing King’s cheek to get a DNA sample was an illegal search, with any evidence learned as a result of that swabbing to be excluded. Obviously, excluding the DNA evidence meant that King would not be connected to the rape that he committed.
http://unitedpatriotsworldwide.com/vinienco/2013/06/11/needed-denouncement-muslim-anti-christian-violence/ ‘Racism’ or Extinction, by Dan Calic ‘Racism’ or Extinction, by Dan Calic: Once again we hear voices crying out that Israel is a “racist” state. Should we be surprised? Not really. Why is it that every other group of people can have at least one national homeland where they are the clear majority? Yet, if […]
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/55791 John Forbes Kerry was sworn in as the 68th Secretary of State of the United States on February 1, 2013. Kerry now is set, since assuming office, to embark on his fifth visit to Israel and to the so-called Palestinian Authority to push for a Two-State-Solution. But this is yet another appalling euphemism which […]
http://nsroundtable.org/as-we-see-it/intra-terrorist-competition/
The nature of weapons flow into Gaza has changed in recent months, with an apparent dip in quantity and rise in quality, according to a senior officer in the IDF (see below).
With ties to Iran in shambles (Hamas publicly broke away from Iran, which for years had funneled arms through Sudan north to the Sinai Peninsula and into Gaza), Hamas in Gaza has been quiet ABOVE ground. Beneath it, however, smuggling of higher-quality weaponry is in full swing. [Quite the industrious bunch, aren’t they?]
Meanwhile, the lack of military aid (from Iran) and the shift away from the radical Hezbollah-Damascus-Iran axis “has rankled the more militant members of [Hamas],” who wrote a letter to Hamas “political leader” Khaled Mashaal, calling for “a rehabilitation of ties with Hezbollah and Iran” and starkly criticizing Hamas’s ties to Qatar and the Gulf State’s recent $400-million gift to Gaza.
Ya gotta love this intra-terrorist competition. Not to mention the piety of the tunnel diggers pictured below…
http://nsroundtable.org/as-we-see-it/islamist-turned-zionist/ Quite an amazing story of how a British Muslim went from being an anti-Semitic, anti-Israel activist to a proud Muslim Zionist (see below). How I went from hating to loving Israel and the Jewish people I am a Zionist, a proud Muslim Zionist, and I love Israel, but this was not always the case. In fact, […]
On the issue of the NSA and Snowden I am a chameleon…persuaded by the last column by people I trust and admire. So, on the same day I find myself in agreement with Diana West as well as Andrew McCarthy as well as Victor Davis Hanson as well as Roger Kimball as well as Arnold Ahlert.
On the one hand, I am pleased by any scandal that rocks the Obamanation….but Benghazi and the IRS and AP scandals are more cut and dry.
Is it big brother snooping or keeping us safer? What are necessary secrets and measures?
Only the shadow knows.
What I know for sure is that this is the most anti-Israel administration in history.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/shielding-the-enemy?f=puball One year ago, in June 2012, the “National Security Five” — five members of Congress led by Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) — called attention to U.S. government infiltration by Muslim Brotherhood (MB) operatives. Based on disturbing information from court evidence and documents, correspondence, media reports, congressional briefings, and public statements, they found that individuals with […]
http://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2013/06/10/a-little-wisdom-from-benjamin-franklin/?print=1 I am contemplating the train wreck revolving around the revelations about our National Security Agency’s appetite for spying on U.S. citizens, along with the train wreck that swirls around the revelations about the deployment of the IRS for partisan vengeance, along with the train wreck that is the fiscal, administrative, and, ultimately, medical catastrophe […]
