Republicans are Responsible for new Terrorist Rights

In a staggering 5 to 3 decision, the Liberal majority on the nation's U.S. Supreme Court conferred Geneva Convention rights to those who are not a party to the Convention. For review sake, the Washington Times encapsulates the entire case:

Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, said a pending military tribunal for Yemeni national Salim Ahmed Hamdan, chauffeur to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, could not proceed because its structure and procedures violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice and four Geneva Conventions signed in 1949.... Justice Scalia, writing the minority opinion, said Congress enacted the Detainee Treatment Act on Dec. 30 that "unambiguously provides" that no court, justice or judge has the jurisdiction to consider a petition on whether Guantanamo detainees were imprisoned lawfully and whether they should be released from custody.

Neither Osama Bin Laden the founder and titular head of Al Qaeda, Mullah Omar renamed the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, nor Abu Musab al-Zarqawi the late leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, ever agreed to the conditions and restrictions of the Geneva Conventions. Neither Al Qaeda nor the Taliban give a rip about the Geneva Conventions, yet the enemy of their enemy stated the following:

U.S. Senator Richard "Dick" Durbin - Democrat of Illinois "The United States Supreme Court handed down a decision reminding the Bush administration that no president is above the law. The court rejected the Bush administration's decision to turn its back on treaties and laws that have served America so well for generations."

U.S. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader - Democrat of California (San Francisco) “Today’s Supreme Court decision reaffirms the American ideal that all are entitled to the basic guarantees of our justice system. This is a triumph for the rule of law. “The rights of due process are among our most cherished liberties, and today’s decision is a rebuke of the Bush Administration’s detainee policies and a reminder of our responsibility to protect both the American people and our Constitutional rights. We cannot allow the values on which our country was founded to become a casualty in the war on terrorism.”

U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy - Democrat of Massachusetts "...a stunning repudiation of the Bush administration's lawless behavior at Guantanamo...As we approach the Fourth of July, it is entirely appropriate that the Supreme Court has reminded the president and Secretary Rumsfeld that there is no excuse for ignoring the rule of law, even when our country is at war." What needs to be recognized in this decision is that the Supreme Court's liberal majority decided to write a legal opinion based on their personal politics - not jurisprudence. In the decision they ignored statutes passed by the congress last year and a previous supreme court decision in 1942 on the same issue. Also, some of these Left-Wing Liberals are...Republican!! It is easy for me to pick apart the legal decision however, I want to focus on the real problem - Republicans longing to get along with the domestic enemy of America - the American Left-Wing Liberal.

Now let's just accept the reality that Left-Wing Liberals (elected, appointed, civil servants, advocates, and all of the others) will rejoice at the fact that this terrorist and his cohorts have gained a significant victory against our nation's war on terror. I revel in fighting Left-Wing Liberals on every issue. However I realize the fact that it is the Repubican Party who enabled this morass of legal problems because we look the other way as our moderates become paramours of Left-Wing Liberals.

Some time ago, I wrote a blog entitled 9 out of 9. I made the point that every current member of the United Stated Supreme Court is currently serving with the explicit blessing of the Republican Party. Conservative Republicans voted in favor of these Left-Wing Liberals, knowing fully what their backgrounds were. It should be no surprise that the Left-Wing Liberal majority on the U.S. Supreme Court would disregard laws and precedents (of that court) in favor of the declared enemy of the United States.

Remember it is this majority who cites foreign constitutions as authority in their opinions - thereby subjecting U.S. Citizens to the Supremacy of those foreign Constitutions. So why would we be so surprised that this same judicial majority is similarly motivated to confer U.S. Constitutional protections to non-citizen who are combatants in foreign countries. The actions of the Left-Wing Liberal majority of the U.S. Supreme Court resemble the new world order and one world government that Left-Wing Liberal conspiracy theorists criticize that President Bush is accommodating.

The nation is currently reaping the harvest of horrible decisions made by Republicans who do not see the destructive power accommodating Left-Wing Liberals.

Homosexuality is no(longer) sin?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Newly elected leader of the U.S. Episcopal Church Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said on Monday she believed homosexuality was no sin and homosexuals were created by God to love people of the same gender.

Jefferts Schori, bishop of the Diocese of Nevada, was elected on Sunday as the first woman leader of the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church. the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion. She will formally take office later this year.

Interviewed on CNN, Jefferts Schori was asked if it was a sin to be homosexual. "I don't believe so. I believe that God creates us with different gifts. Each one of us comes into this world with a different collection of things that challenge us and things that give us joy and allow us to bless the world around us," she said.How is this woman able to say that!! How was she able to simply disregard what the Bible says about Homosexuality? It is simple, U.S. Episcopal Church is not governed by God, it is fonded and governed by the British Monarchy – Man!

Why did she say this…This woman is no dummy. She is now pion. In the same article, Reuters reports:

Jefferts Schori, who was raised a Roman Catholic and graduated in marine biology with a doctorate specialization in squids and oysters, supported the consecration of Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay bishop in more than 450 years of Anglican history. The 52-year-old bishop is married to Richard Schori, a retired theoretical mathematician. They have one daughter, Katharine Johanna, 24, a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force and a pilot like her mother.

So why did Bishop Schori say that? Does she really believe what she said? Reuters again reports how she rationalizes her position:

The Bible was written in a very different historical context by people asking different questions. "The Bible has a great deal to teach us about how to live as human beings. The Bible does not have so much to teach us about what sorts of food to eat, what sorts of clothes to wear -- there are rules in the Bible about those that we don't observe today," she said. "The Bible tells us about how to treat other human beings, and that's certainly the great message of Jesus - to include the unincluded."

Now before we begin to lose our senses in seething rage, let’s look at what she knows very well – the structure how her church. The U.S. Episcopal Church is a member of the Worldwide Anglican Communion. The head organization (aka mother Church) of the Worldwide Anglican Communion is the Church of England.

The Church of England is headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury (aka Primate of All England - chief religious figure in the Church of England). The office of Archbishop of Canterbury is filled by an appointment by the Prime Minister of England (the head of the national Government) and consent by Supreme Governor of the Church (the British Monarchy). So essentially the civil government is empowered to select the “pastor” and determine the ultimate direction of the entire 76 million member organization.

The current Archbishop is the Most Reverend and Right Honorable Dr Rowan Douglas Williams. Archbishop Douglass was appointed in 2003 by the current Prime Minister, Tony Blair and ratified by the current British Monarchy headed by the current Queen of England, Queen Elizabeth II (who consulted heavily with the morally upright Prince Charles).

Another note. The current governing party in England is socialist. Socialism, like Communism, Fascism, and Despotism all share the same view that they, not the Bible, decides what is or is not a sin (Genesis 3:22).

So when Bishop Schori stated that Homosexuality is not a sin, she was merely exorcising her authority in her new role in the Worldwide Anglican Communion to overturn both church doctrine and Scripture.

I could not have said this better myself...

Murky Jack Murtha
By David Holman
Published 2/2/2006 12:09:11 AM


In the last year, ever since Tom DeLay became embroiled in the Jack Abramoff scandal, the Washington Post alone has published 168 articles mentioning Abramoff and DeLay. The Post's dogged Abramoff investigator, Susan Schmidt, has written 39 articles on Jack Abramoff in the last two years. Almost half of those made page A1 of the Post, and most were over 1,000 words in length. The Post has written enough about this scandal to fill a book -- literally -- and they probably will.

Since Rep. John Murtha made his splash in November with his call for an American troop withdrawal from Iraq, there have been no stories about Robert C. "Kit" Murtha in the Post. In fact, the Post has never mentioned Kit Murtha. A quick Lexis Nexis search turns up only a dozen or so mentions of "Kit" Murtha, Robert C. Murtha, or Robert Murtha in the last 15 years. Who is "Kit" Murtha?

He's John Murtha's brother -- a Washington lobbyist whose firm reeled in more than $20 million for its defense contractor clients in the 2004 Defense appropriations bill. And the Pennsylvania congressman is the ranking Democrat on the Defense appropriations subcommittee, which he also chaired for six years before Democrats lost the House in 1994.

It's a cozy relationship the likes of which are garnering heavy attention these days in Washington. Roy Blunt's family connections to K Street have received extensive coverage, as have Harry Reid's. Yet despite a front page story in the Los Angeles Times last June exposing Kit Murtha's firm's enormous success in steering defense contracts to its clients, other newspapers have been mostly silent: the Times has yet to follow up, and Murtha's lobbying ties have earned coverage by Roll Call and only single mentions in the Village Voice, Investor's Business Daily, and the Boston Globe just this week.

If Murtha were a powerful Republican legislator, the media would probably be all over this story. A former aide from John Murtha's office, Carmen V. Scialabba, is a top official at KSA Consulting, where Kit Murtha is a senior partner. KSA has directly lobbied Murtha's office on behalf of defense clients that directly benefited from the 2004 Defense bill. Murtha's subcommittee staff helps write Defense appropriations bills and oversees the lucrative earmark requests forwarded by Democrats. The contracts for KSA clients in the bill were entirely earmarks, the L.A. Times found. The Times also reported that most of KSA's defense clients hired the firm only after Kit Murtha became a senior partner in 2002.

The Hill reported in October that John Murtha is the top House recipient of campaign contributions from the defense industry for the past three years. As of the October 31, 2005 Federal Election Commission report, Murtha had received over $200,000 from defense firms in the 2006 election cycle, surpassing the next highest recipient by over $60,000.

Kit Murtha has been lobbying for defense firms since at least 1986, when he became Westinghouse's chief lobbyist in Harrisburg. In 1994, National Journal reported, Westinghouse made Kit Murtha its director of state and local government affairs, in which role he would also lobby the Pennsylvania congressional delegation in Washington. At that time, John Murtha chaired the defense appropriations subcommittee.

And what's more, Murtha's no stranger to congressional corruption scandals. Though eventually cleared by the House ethics committee (which means nothing legally), John Murtha was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Abscam scandal. (Abscam was an FBI sting operation of members of Congress from 1978 to 1980 in which one senator and five representatives were convicted of bribery and conspiracy.) As the Cybercast News Service recently detailed, Murtha was videotaped telling an undercover FBI agent, "I'm not interested. I'm sorry... at this point." When the House ethics committee cleared Murtha in 1981, CNS reported, the committee's lead counsel, E. Barrett Prettyman Jr., quickly resigned. When asked by Roll Call if he had resigned because of the committee's Murtha vote, he said that would be "a logical conclusion." Prettyman has otherwise declined to comment on the Murtha case.

An ethically suspect member of Congress, with close, personal connections to lobbyists whose clients are benefited by his committee? What more could the Washington Post need to begin sniffing around? And now that John Murtha's a nationally prominent politician, he should naturally attract closer scrutiny.

Perhaps that national prominence is steering the major press away. When Cybercast News Service asked Murtha about his Abscam past, he answered, "Questions about my record are clearly an attempt to distract attention from the real issue, which is that our brave men and women in uniform are dying and being injured every day in the middle of a civil war that can be resolved only by the Iraqis themselves." Rep. Murtha's office said he was giving interviews all day yesterday and would be unavailable for comment.

John Murtha is apparently using a controversy he created in November to shield himself from his ethical past. His comments about the war in Iraq make for convenient cover in an increasingly critical ethical atmosphere. The major media's silence is deafening.


David Holman is a reporter for The American Spectator.

Who is Really Gouging Us?

Take a look at the chart below. This is a detailed listing of the costs and profit in one gallon of gasoline. This information comes from the Energy Information Administration:

Average Gas Price in Sacramento County, California 04/28/06
Price - $3.172 % of Avg Gas Price - 100.00%

Federal Excise Tax
$0.184

Oil Spill Response, Prevention, and Administration Fee
$0.025

Underground Storage Tank (UST) Fee
$0.014

State Excise Tax
$0.180

State Sales Tax (7.750%)
$0.246

County Tax (1.25%)
$0.040

Distribution and Marketing (4%)
$0.127

Refining (19%)
$0.603

Crude Costs (52.5%)
$1.665

Total in Local, State and Federal Taxes
Amount - $0.688 • Percent of Avg Gas Price - 21.70%

Total Business Costs
Amount - $2.395 • Percent of Avg Gas Price - 75.50%

Total Gas Costs and Taxes
Amount - $3.083 • Percent of Avg Gas Price - 97.20%

Total Gros Profit to Oil companies
Amount - $0.089 • Percent of Avg Gas Price - 2.80%

The California Governor flexes his political muscle

Governor Schwarzenegger FINALLY flexed his political muscle in aggression against an elected official. However in true "moderate" Republican fashion he flexed them at a Conservative Republican - President Bush. The President has come to California for a series of events and according to published reports, "Gov. Schwarzenegger and President Bush Spoke briefly about federal funding for the California's ailing Levee system and immigration.

Gov. Schwarzenegger seems to be finding ways to maintain a healthy political distance from president in order to please his politicaly violent domestic partner - the California Left-Wing Liberal.

They have convinced him of global warming, the need for raising the minimum wage and anmesty, and he is even screeching that the federal government has not "learned its lesson on Katrina."

The California budget is large enough to solve both the levee problems and illegal immigration. Gov. Schwarzenegger's problem lies with his timidity to flex on Democrats, not Republicans. When the Governor decides to be aggressive with Democrats and "join Republicans", he will finally make the advances to solve this nation's problems.

I hope to someday be able to write SOMETHING about Gov. Schwarzenegger being a team player and fighting "with" republicans as opposed to this constantly "joining Left-Wing Liberals" in their fight against Republicans.

Great Economic News!!

The Jobless rate is 4.7%

That is lower than the jobless rates of all any modern Democrat President in the 20th Century (That includes the Clinton Administration).

Please do not look for this good
Republican News
in your local News Paper!!

Mexico's Glass House

How the Mexican constitution treats foreign residents, workers and naturalized citizens

by J. Michael Waller

Introduction

Every country has the right to restrict the quality and quantity of foreign immigrants entering or living within its borders. If American policymakers are looking for legal models on which to base new laws restricting immigration and expelling foreign lawbreakers, they have a handy guide: the Mexican Constitution (English, Spanish)

Adopted in 1917, the constitution of the United Mexican States borrows heavily from American constitutional and legal principles. It combines those principles with a strong sense nationalism, cultural self-identity, paternalism, and state power. Mexico's constitution contains many provisions to protect the country from foreigners, including foreigners legally resident in the country and even foreign-born people who have become naturalized Mexican citizens. The Mexican constitution segregates immigrants and naturalized citizens from native-born citizens by denying immigrants basic human rights that Mexican immigrants enjoy in the United States.

By making increasing demands that the U.S. not enforce its immigration laws and, indeed, that it liberalize them, Mexico is throwing stones within its own glass house. This paper, the first of a short series on Mexican immigration double standards, examines the Mexican constitution's protections against immigrants, and concludes with some questions about U.S. policy.

Summary
In brief, the Mexican Constitution (English, Spanish) states that:
- Immigrants and foreign visitors are banned from public political discourse.
- Immigrants and foreigners are denied certain basic property rights.
- Immigrants are denied equal employment rights.
- Immigrants and naturalized citizens will never be treated as real Mexican citizens.
- Immigrants and naturalized citizens are not to be trusted in public service.
- Immigrants and naturalized citizens may never become members of the clergy.
- Private citizens may make citizens arrests of lawbreakers (i.e., illegal immigrants) and hand them to the authorities.
- Immigrants may be expelled from Mexico for any reason and without due process.

The Mexican constitution (English, Spanish): Unfriendly to immigrants
The Mexican constitution expressly forbids non-citizens to participate in the country's political life. Non-citizens are forbidden to participate in demonstrations or express opinions in public about domestic politics. Article 9 states, "only citizens of the Republic may do so to take part in the political affairs of the country." Article 33 is unambiguous: "Foreigners may not in any way participate in the political affairs of the country."

The Mexican constitution denies fundamental property rights to foreigners. If foreigners wish to have certain property rights, they must renounce the protection of their own governments or risk confiscation. Foreigners are forbidden to own land in Mexico within 100 kilometers of land borders or within 50 kilometers of the coast. Article 27 states,

"Only Mexicans by birth or naturalization and Mexican companies have the right to acquire ownership of lands, waters, and their appurtenances, or to obtain concessions for the exploitation of mines or of waters. The State may grant the same right to foreigners, provided they agree before the Ministry of Foreign Relations to consider themselves as nationals in respect to such property, and bind themselves not to invoke the protection of their governments in matters relating thereunto; under penalty, in case of noncompliance with this agreement, of forfeiture of the property acquired to the Nation. Under no circumstances may foreigners acquire direct ownership of lands or waters within a zone of one hundred kilometers along the frontiers and of fifty kilometers along the shores of the country." (Emphasis added)

The Mexican constitution denies equal employment rights to immigrants, even legal ones, in the public sector. Article 32: "Mexicans shall have priority over foreigners under equality of circumstances for all classes of concessions and for all employment, positions, or commissions of the Government in which the status of citizenship is not indispensable. In time of peace no foreigner can serve in the Army nor in the police or public security forces."

The Mexican constitution guarantees that immigrants will never be treated as real Mexican citizens, even if they are legally naturalized. Article 32 bans foreigners, immigrants, and even naturalized citizens of Mexico from serving as military officers, Mexican-flagged ship and airline crew, and chiefs of seaports and airports:

"In order to belong to the National Navy or the Air Force, and to discharge any office or commission, it is required to be a Mexican by birth. This same status is indispensable for captains, pilots, masters, engineers, mechanics, and in general, for all personnel of the crew of any vessel or airship protected by the Mexican merchant flag or insignia. It is also necessary to be Mexican by birth to discharge the position of captain of the port and all services of practique and airport commandant, as well as all functions of customs agent in the Republic."

An immigrant who becomes a naturalized Mexican citizen can be stripped of his Mexican citizenship if he lives again in the country of his origin for more than five years, under Article 37. Mexican-born citizens risk no such loss.

Foreign-born, naturalized Mexican citizens may not become federal lawmakers (Article 55), cabinet secretaries (Article 91) or supreme court justices (Article 95).

The president of Mexico, like the president of the United States, constitutionally must be a citizen by birth, but Article 82 of the Mexican constitution mandates that the president's parents also be

Mexican-born citizens, thus according secondary status to Mexican-born citizens born of immigrants.

The Mexican constitution forbids immigrants and naturalized citizens to become members of the clergy. Article 130 says, "To practice the ministry of any denomination in the United Mexican States it is necessary to be a Mexican by birth."

The Mexican constitution singles out "undesirable aliens." Article 11 guarantees federal protection against "undesirable aliens resident in the country."

The Mexican constitution provides the right of private individuals to make citizen's arrests. Article 16 states, "in cases of flagrante delicto, any person may arrest the offender and his accomplices, turning them over without delay to the nearest authorities." Therefore, the Mexican constitution appears to grant Mexican citizens the right to arrest illegal aliens and hand them over to police for prosecution.

The Mexican constitution (English, Spanish) states that foreigners may be expelled for any reason and without due process. According to Article 33, "the Federal Executive shall have the exclusive power to compel any foreigner whose remaining he may deem inexpedient to abandon the national territory immediately and without the necessity of previous legal action."

Notional policy options
Mexico and the United States have much to learn from one another's laws and practices on immigration and naturalization. A study of the immigration and citizenship portions of the Mexican constitution leads to a search for new policy options to find a fair and equitable solution to the immigration problem in the United States.

Two contrary options would require reciprocity, while doing the utmost to harmonize U.S.-Mexican relations:

1. Mexico should amend its constitution to guarantee immigrants to Mexico the same rights it demands the United States give to immigrants from Mexico; or
2. The United States should impose the same restrictions on Mexican immigrants that Mexico imposes on American immigrants.

These options are only notional, of course. They are intended only to help push the immigration debate in a more sensible direction. They simply illustrate the hypocrisy of the Mexican government's current immigration demands on the United States - as well as the emptiness of most Democrat and Republican proposals for immigration reform.

Mexico certainly has every right to control who enters its borders, and to expel foreigners who break its laws. The Mexican constitution is designed to give the strongest protections possible to the country's national security. Mexico's internal immigration policy is Mexico's business.

However, since Mexican political leaders from the ruling party and the opposition have been demanding that the United States ignore, alter or abolish its own immigration laws, they have opened their own internal affairs to American scrutiny. The time has come to examine Mexico's own glass house.