Under the Radar: Look Over Here

(9 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Here’s some of the other news that gets missed or relegated to the inner pages by our ratings fixated media and what some of the loonies have been “plotting”.

  • Apparently somebody at the Justice Department told the White House that defending war criminals, even in a civil law suit, just might be problematic.

    The Justice Department under President Barack Obama has quietly dropped its legal representation of more than a dozen Bush-era Pentagon and administration officials – including former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and aide Paul Wolfowitz – in a lawsuit by Al Qaeda operative Jose Padilla, who spent years behind bars without charges in conditions his lawyers compare to torture.

    Charles Miller, a Justice Department spokesman, confirmed Tuesday that the government has agreed to retain private lawyers for the officials, at a cost of up to $200 per hour. Miller said “conflicts concerns” prompted the decision. He did not elaborate.

    (emphasis mine)

  • Is New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller on the White House payroll? Sure sounds like it. Again Keller, at the request of the White House withheld information from a news story. On January 27, Raymond Davis, who works at the US Embassy, killed two Pakistani men alleging they were threatening him. The White House has claimed that Davis is a diplomat and Pakistan cannot hold him. What was known but not released by the NYT, at the Obama administrations request, was that Davis, a former special forces soldier, was actually working for the CIA and, in fact, worked for Xe, aka Blackwater.

    This is not the first time that the NYT has done the bidding of the administration in power. Keller even boasted in a BBC interview that the NYT had earned the praise of the U.S. Government for withholding materials which the Obama administration wanted withheld.

    The NYT is now Pravda and Izvestia all in one.

  • Arizona may be overboard on a few issues like guns, immigration and denial of transplants under Medicare but the criminal justice system got it right in two cases.

    Jury Convicts Iraqi Immigrant in ‘Honor Killing’ of Daughter

    Faleh Hassan Almaleki, 50, also was convicted of aggravated assault for injuries suffered by the mother of his daughter’s boyfriend during the October 2009 incident in a suburban Phoenix parking lot, and two counts of leaving the scene of an accident.

    Prosecutors told jurors during the trial that he mowed down 20-year-old Noor Almaleki with his Jeep Cherokee because she had brought the family dishonor by becoming too Westernized. He wanted Noor Almaleki to act like a traditional Iraq woman, but she refused an arranged marriage, went to college and had a boyfriend.

    Border Activist Sentenced to Death for Fatal Home Invasion

    Forde was convicted Feb. 14 of first-degree murder in the May 30, 2009, deaths of Raul “Junior” Flores, 29, and his daughter, Brisenia Flores, 9. She was also found guilty of attempted murder in the shooting of Gina Gonzalez, Flores’ wife and Brisenia’s mother.

    Prosecutors said Forde decided to target the house in Arivaca, Ariz., because she believed Flores was a drug smuggler and would have cash in the house. She wanted money to fund her border protection group, Minutemen American Defense, prosecutors said.

  • What do you end up with when you close half the public schools because you don’t want to tax the wealthy? Masses of uneducated, not fit to hold down anything but low paying menial jobs, more homeless, more crime but hey, lalalalalala, they have beans in their ears.

    Detroit Ordered to Close Half Its Public Schools Amid Budget Crisis

    The Detroit public school system has been ordered to close half its schools to make up for a $327 million deficit. The schools will be shuttered over the next four years, causing class sizes to bulge to 60.

    The plan, mandated by state education officials, will reduce the number of schools in the district from 142 to 72. . . . . .

    Census figures on Detroit show a bleak reality. Incomes in the city are half the national average, and one third of the population is in poverty. Michigan’s unemployment rate is 12 percent, and from 2000 to 2010, it was the only state in the country where population decreased.

    Data released today shows that only 10 percent of the state’s high school graduates this year are ready for college.

  • In Montana, Global Warming is good and humans will adapt. Uhhuh

    State of Montana, Representative Read submitted Montana House Bill 549 entitled “An Act Stating Montana’s Position on Global Warming.”

    This bill does three very simple things. If passed and signed into law, Montana’s legislature repeals the laws of nature and the realities of science by simply declaring that (1) carbon dioxide does not cause global warming; (2) oh, well, maybe there is global warming but it is entirely natural; and (3) anyway, it’s going to be good for the welfare and “business climate” of Montana — all findings that are self-contradictory, false, or simply out of the control of the Montana legislature, no matter what reality they might prefer.

    The Laws of Physics are just hard work to understand, so just repeal them.

  • The Tea Party in New Hampshire is worried about being invaded so they have introduced a bill to allocate a half million dollars to establish a state militia:

    The purpose of the state guard shall be the defense of the state: to coordinate the resources of the state and interface between the state and the national guard in time of emergency or natural disaster and to defend the state against invasion.

    (emphasis mine)

    Will out of staters need passports? You never know about those damned skiers, hikers and campers.

  • If you thought that South Dakota was off the wall when they proposed legislation that would permit the legal assassination of abortion providers and let a woman bleed to death rather than provide an abortion, well they have now reach new depths of stupid with a bill that would require every 21 year old to buy a gun for self defense.
  • Back to the loonies in Montana who want to repeal or defy anything the Federal government passes and proposed a series of seven bills to do it. Goll Darn It!
  • On to Georgia where state Rep. Bobby Franklin, a Republican, has introduced the “Constitutional Tender Act” to require the exclusive use of gold or silver for payment of state debts. It would also require banks that take state money to accept and offer gold. But not just any gold. The bill specifies that “pre-1965 silver coins, silver eagles, and gold eagles” be used.

    South Carolina, not to be  out done, wants to introduce its own currency

  • The Iowa House in response to the legalization of same-sex marriage in the state, has introduced a bill that make it “legal for an Iowa business owner who cites religious beliefs to refuse to provide jobs, housing, goods or services to people involved in a marriage that violates his or her religious convictions, according to a bill an Iowa House subcommittee will consider on Wednesday.”

    Bigotry in the guise of religious beliefs. Twist that First Amendment, just don’t expect to have health insurance to cover the back injury sustained while doing it.

  • Connecticut and 10 other states want to see your birth certificate before you can run for President of the United States.

    Proof of life anyone?

  • I really hate to be the one to tell the Arizona legislators that they can’t repeal the 14th Amendment this way. They are considering bills :

    House Bill 2561 and Senate Bill 1309 would define children as citizens of Arizona and the U.S. if at least one of their parents was either a U.S. citizen or a legal permanent U.S. resident and therefore subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.

    House Bill 2562 and Senate Bill 1308 would seek permission from Congress to set up a system so states can create separate birth certificates for children who meet the new definition of a citizen and those who do not.

  • Imaginative aren’t they? Too bad they are doing anything to solve out economic problems and create jobs.

     

    7 comments

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      • TMC on February 24, 2011 at 02:18
        Author
    1. Has much blood on his hands.

      • RUKind on February 24, 2011 at 21:55

      Or the US on a globe. What exactly do they teach in school these days? NCLB seems to have left a generation behind – including their parents.

      Are boomers the last generally well-educated generation? Or is it the MTV/Foxing of America that we’re seeing? I think the latter.

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