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News/Politics 4-9-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

Here’s a few I noticed. 

1. While I don’t really buy the “almost cost us Iraq” part of the story, it’s a good read anyway.

From FoxNews  “People who wonder why the war in Iraq went so wrong for so long, will need to read Judith Miller’s new book “The Story: A Reporter’s Journey.”  Miller details how special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald rigged the 2007 perjury trial of Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby in the Valerie Plame case, and in the process wrecked an early opportunity to reverse course in that strife-torn country. It may be one of the most disastrous cases of prosecutorial misconduct in history.

There’s a longstanding media myth that CIA employee Valerie Plame and her diplomat husband Joe Wilson were targets of a conspiracy led by Dick Cheney and Libby to blow Plame’s CIA covert identity as payback for an op-ed Wilson wrote for the New York Times in July 2003 saying the Bush administration lied about Saddam Hussein trying to get yellowcake uranium in Niger in order to build an atomic bomb.”

“We’ve known for some time that Wilson lied about Saddam’s search for yellowcake; that his op-ed was contradicted by his own report for the CIA; that Cheney had sent Scooter Libby out to talk to reporters like Judith Miller in order to refute Wilson’s lies, not to “out” anyone’s CIA employment; and that the man who actually did pass on Plame’s identity to columnist Robert Novak that fateful July was Undersecretary of State Dick Armitage—and that special prosecutor Fitzgerald knew that even before he began his three-year investigation into the so-called leak. Miller now reveals this was because Fitzgerald’s real quarry was Vice President Dick Cheney.

Fitzgerald obsessively pursued Libby for supposed misstatements to FBI and a grand jury in hopes that the vice president’s chief of staff would roll and say his boss sent him out to leak Plame’s CIA identity.  Twice, Miller says, Fitzgerald told Libby’s lawyers he would drop the charges if Libby would lie and rat out Cheney; each time they said no.

So instead Fitzgerald constructed a web of lies out of Miller’s testimony in the Libby trial in order to get a conviction, by withholding exculpatory evidence from her and from Libby’s lawyers.   Fitzgerald convinced her that four words in her notes from a conversation with Libby–“Wife worked at Bureau?”—had to refer to Plame working at the CIA, even though no one ever calls the CIA the Bureau. “

Read the rest. It’s no wonder Bush pardoned Scooter Libby.

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2. Obama’s attempt to restart his amnesty program has hit another bump.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “President Obama’s new deportation amnesty will remain halted, a federal judge in Texas ruled Tuesday night in an order that also delivered a judicial spanking to the president’s lawyers for misleading the court.

Judge Andrew S. Hanen, who first halted the amnesty in February, just two days before it was to take effect, said he’s even more convinced of his decision now, particularly after Mr. Obama earlier this year said he intends for his policies to supersede federal laws.

Judge Hanen pointed to Mr. Obama’s comments at a February town hall when the president warned immigration agents to adhere to his policies or else face “consequences.”

“In summary, the chief executive has ordered that the laws requiring removal of illegal immigrants that conflict with the 2014 DHS directive are not to be enforced, and that anyone who attempts to do so will be punished,” Judge Hanen wrote.

“This is not merely ineffective enforcement. This is total non-enforcement,” the judge continued, saying that Mr. Obama’s own descriptions of how he is carrying out his policies have hurt his case.”

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3. That’s gonna be a problem, because the next wave is already on the way.

Also from TheWashingtonTimes  “The second wave of unaccompanied illegal immigrant children has begun, with more than 3,000 of them surging across the Mexican border into the U.S. last month — the highest rate since the peak of last summer’s crisis and a warning that another rough season could be ahead.

Immigration officials warned that they expected another surge as the weather improved. Although the numbers are down some 40 percent compared with last year’s frenetic pace that sparked a political crisis for the Obama administration, fiscal year 2015 is shaping up to mark the second-biggest surge on record.

Authorities report having captured 15,647 children traveling without parents who tried to jump the border in the first six months of the fiscal year. Through this point in 2014, they had apprehended 28,579.

Just as worrisome is the rate of whole families — usually mothers with young children — who are crossing. So far this fiscal year, authorities have captured 13,911 “family units,” down 30 percent from last year.”

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4. Is Carly Fiorina the new Sarah Palin?

Well of course she is, because the media is already treating her the same way. Any republican woman can expect the same treatment. As this story shows, that will be the liberal line on Carly too.

From NewRepublic  “In 2008, Sarah Palin was an appealing running mate to John McCain because she offered a potential antidote to the GOP’s insufferable white-maleness. On paper she looked promising, and on television she looked great, but problems started when she opened her mouth. In The New Yorker’s October 27 issue that year, Jane Meyer chronicled Palin’s rise to fame within the party—and then nationally, of course—concluding that it had a lot to do with her gender and little to do with her track record. (At that point, she had been governor for less than two years.) In 2010, writing in her New York Times opinion column, Maureen Dowd called Sarah Palin the GOP “Queen Bee,” a reference to her status among other women in the GOP.

Five years later, it seems the GOP has finally found a new Queen: Carly Fiorina. In 1999, Fiorina became a household name—at least in a certain kind of household—when she was named CEO of Hewlett-Packard, making her the first female head of a Fortune 20 company. (She was fired in 2005 after a series of scandalous leaks.) In 2008, Fiorina was one of McCain’s chief economic advisors, and Palin and Fiorina supported one another over the years: Fiorina defended Palin against “sexist attacks” in 2008; later, in 2010, Palin endorsed Fiorina’s campaign for Barbara Boxer’s California Senate seat.

Fiorina has sought to distance herself from Palin and from other Tea Party conservatives of late, though, including during her California Senate run. As 2016 looms, the GOP, too, has begun to shift: In their quest to find more politically viable candidates to put forward, it’s no wonder Fiorina has recently become a household name. (Again, in a certain kind of household.)

At first glance, Fiorina can be seen as an upgraded Palin, and she occupies a similar position in the party: Fiorina is a charismatic woman with enough success and outsider-status to plausibly appeal to conservative voters—and to possibly even attract new ones. In fact, in 2008 there was even speculation that Fiorina might run with McCain.”

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5 thoughts on “News/Politics 4-9-15”

  1. An interesting column in this week’s Washington Times by Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of CIA and NSA. In it he says:
    “…At the end of the 30 Years War then, Europe broadly decided to separate the sacred from the secular in its political culture. I know that is an over simplification, bit it is instructive, and it led to a growth in religious tolerance that has characterized the best of Western life since. It remains to be seen whether or not Islam will follow the same arc or if religion will remain the business of the state or –in extreme form – replace the state”.

    We all know that for centuries, the Pope was the central figure of political life in Europe. But the Reformation and resulting wars changed that.
    Islam could change, but it will be difficult. One of the basic tenants of Islam is the Caliphate and Sharia. It will take a traumatic event such as the reformation and 30 Years War to change that.
    I am not a student of the Koran, I’ve read it only once, but I don’t think Sharia and the Caliphate are a product of its teaching. Yet, a lot of blood will be shed before that is settled.
    Two problems exists in Islam (other than a false theology). The Shiites and Sunni have the same attitude toward each other that Catholics and Protestants had in the 1600’s. Also, they both can’t tolerate co-existence with infidels (that’s you and me). That part is in the Koran. And the Koran, to them, is the very word of God. –Not God inspired as we believe the Bible. It is the word of God as given to Mohammed by the angel.

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  3. Westphalia established the concept of state soveriegnty and non-interference in domestic affairs.

    To avoid rulers claiming a right to interfere to protect their fellow adherents, they agreed to religious tolerance for Calvinist, Lutherans and Catholics. However, rulers were still free to establish a state supported church. This practice continues today whereby church taxes are collected to support the state Lutheran church or the Roman Catholic church depending on the country. At the same time other religious groups are accorded freedom of worship. It is however at the discretion of the ruler which religions are acceptable — Jews, Baptists, etc were not including in the Westphalia agreements, Even today, Scientology and other cults can be and often are banned by European countries.

    The Westphalian principle has generally been limited to Europe — imperialism and colonialism were the antithesis of non-interference. To spread Westphanlian principles, Europeans and their successor countries (e.g. US) need to apply the principle themselves.

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  4. More on the next wave, and some of the problems that come with it.

    http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/report-more-unaccompanied-minors-on-the-way-into-u-s-1.10218313

    “The second wave of immigrants, as some are calling it, is expected even as localities and school systems struggle to absorb about 53,500 children who arrived in the last fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, 2014. Those minors continue to move through a multistep immigration court process to decide whether they can stay or are to be deported.”

    “Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) said Wednesday that he and Rep. Steve Israel (D-Huntington) will reintroduce a proposal to send emergency funding to school districts that are receiving the young immigrants. The two co-sponsored a bill that stalled last year.

    “Because of a failed federal policy, financial responsibility must fall on the federal government and not the Long Island taxpayer,” King said in a statement.”

    “Roger Tilles, Long Island’s member of the state Board of Regents, which sets education policy, said this week he is “very concerned” about districts that have received the bulk of the immigrant children.

    “It’s a bind not just for the schools, but it’s a bind for the kids that are already in the schools,” Tilles said, “because with a limit to what a school can raise on property tax caps and increased students . . . there is no place to go, except take away from existing programs.””

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  5. Why walk when you can fly in?

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/416545/previously-deported-immigrants-can-now-enter-us-taxpayers-dime-ryan-lovelace

    “In 2014, unaccompanied alien children from Central America walked across America’s southern border in droves. This year, the U.S. government will pay for unaccompanied alien children to be flown into the country, even if they were convicted of a felony, and furnish them with federal benefits to boot.

    It sounds outlandish, so how is it happening? It’s called the In-Country Refugee/Parole Program for Central American Minors, and the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security introduced it on November 14, 2014. They promised it would not become “a pathway for undocumented parents to bring their children to the United States,” but it appears that’s not the case. The program not only creates a pathway for Central American children to reunite with their newly amnestied parents, it also pays their travel costs and ensures them federal benefits. The program is open to any unmarried child under age 21 in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, provided they have a parent lawfully present in the U.S. If the children fail to qualify as refugees, they may be admitted as parolees, which will be determined on a case-by-case basis.

    The Department of Homeland Security acknowledged on an invitation-only conference call last week that it was willing to accept people into the program who have previously been deported. “They are able to apply for a waiver for the inadmissibility,” a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services official said on the call. “It’s the I-602 process,” the official said, referring to waivers filed by refugees previously determined to be inadmissible to the United States. The official added that “the waiver authority for the refugee program is quite broad.”

    Of course it is…….

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