Live Breathe and Die

Archive for January, 2006

In Al Gores speech before the extreme left-wing organization Move-on, he used the inflammatory word “wiretap” to describe the Presidents use of NSA data gathering efforts in intercepting terrorist calls overseas.  Most informed persons now know that the President never authorized ‘wiretaps’, which are illegal without a warrant, and only authorized mass data collection searching for specific threats.  Mr. Gore should know the difference, since he and President Clinton authorized real warrant less wiretaps during their years in the Whitehouse. His misleading speech and hypocrisy still played well among the crowd of uniformed extremists that populate the Move-on organization.  They answered his propaganda with thunderous applause.  The expression ‘the blind leading the blind’ never described a moment so precisely as this. 

“What we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the president of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and insistently,”  -Al Gore

Is this the same Al Gore, who in 1996 attended a fund-raiser at the Hsi Lai Buddhist Temple in California, raising $100,000 later found to be illegal.   Was this the same Al Gore, who later said, “no controlling legal authority” indicates his actions were illegal, referring to the growing campaign corruption scandal?   

Interesting how the DNC latches onto another catch phrase or talking point almost weekly.  Their zeal to defame the President, and turn public opinion against him is the sole driving force behind the party.  Without a vision for the country, without a substantive alternative plan, they are like attack dogs hungry for more steak.  The outcome is generally the same for those with a seething hatred for another.  They loose sight of all that is rational, implode and then loose credibility.  The only danger here is that a large number of Americans are prone to take this kind of misinformation as gospel truth, and find their way to polling places uninformed and brainwashed.  That this occurs is something that the democratic leadership depends upon. 

As if Al Gore had not managed to reach the lowest rung on the ethical ladder, we have comments by Hillary Clinton, who keeps reaching new lows.    In a speech before the congregation and guests at the Canaan Baptist Church in Harlem, Ms. Clinton said this:

“When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I’m talking about” and “It has been run in a way so that nobody with a contrary view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument, to be heard.”  She also said: “We have a culture of corruption, we have cronyism, we have incompetence.”  “I predict to you that this administration will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country.”     
A few observations about Ms. Clinton’s remarks.

In 1978, Ms. Clinton made a series of commodities trades, while a partner with the Rose Law Firm, which earned her a profit of almost $100,000.  She did not reveal this until years later.  As a matter of fact, she never really ‘revealed’ it herself, but was exposed by none other than the NY Times.  Sixteen years after the fact.  This is the same Hillary Clinton, who called the sex scandal during her husband’s administration a “vast right-wing conspiracy.” This, despite 37 visits between Mr. Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.  This is the same Hillary Clinton, who in 1993, had her chief of staff Maggie Williams scoop up armfuls of files from Vince Fostor’s office directly after he ‘commited suicide.’ Many of the files were later found out to be relating to the Whitewater investigation.

The following year, The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons filed suit against Mrs. Clinton’s health reform task force for violating the Federal Advisory Committee Act by holding secret meetings.  This is only a small slice of what Ms. Clinton was involved with only a decade ago.  How soon we all forget.  Does hypocrisy get any worse? 

Ms. Clinton also invoked the word ‘plantation,’ and followed that with the remark, “you know what I’m talking about,” presumably a reference to the fact that she and the audience have something in common.  To compound the insult that Ms. Clinton invoked, is to remember that there were no rights whatsoever for the slaves on the plantation, and that she was insinuating this was the case today in the House of Representatives.  To understand Ms. Clinton’s argument, you have to believe that the Republican’s have taken away all civil rights from the remaining members of the house.  To those who understand the perverseness of her allegations, it is more evidence of her misinformation campaign.  To her audiences, it is reason for more standing ovations.  More about Ms Clinton in the days ahead.   

Conservative talk show hosts have recently been critical of Edward Kennedy’s role on the Senate Judiciary Committee.  If you are reading this, and are a democrat, a liberal or a supporter of Senator Kennedy, you may feel he is doing a fine job with the questions he asked Judge Alito the past few days.  You may feel that the questions are justified, since the Judges appointment to the Supreme Court is a lifetime appointment.  Okay…. I can give you that.  There is in many though, a feeling of repulsion when they listen to some of the questions the Senator asks and his mannerism while delivering the question. As a matter of fact, the very notion of moral superiority and platitudes coming from this person are simply revolting to many who were adults in the sixties and seventies.  Those of us who never knew armies of lawyers as personal friends, or had a family name that would open doors and guarantee the best seat in the house in posh restaurants, are a little irritated with Mr. Kennedy.   The word ‘pompous’ often comes to mind, but never ‘honorable’.

As I wrote yesterday, it was in July of 1969, that a much younger Edward Kennedy was present at a small party on the island of Chappaquiddick just off the more famous Martha’s Vineyard, with a few other married male friends and several unmarried females.

They had just participated in an annual regatta held off the shore of Martha’s Vineyard.  Two of the Kennedy boats were entered.  Besides Teddy Kennedy, were three of his lawyer buddies, his chauffer and a Kennedy campaign worker.  The six females all worked on Bobby Kennedy’s campaign staff including one Mary Jo Kopechne. 

While Kennedy hosted this intimate gathering on Chappaquiddick Island, his pregnant wife was at home.  Kennedy’s actions that night would lead any reasonable person to conclude that his plans for Mary Jo were not what a moral married man would contemplate.  And, according to the book Senatorial Privilege, the Senators drinking had been excessive since the tragic, untimely death of his brother.  The Senator also had a driving record that was rife with examples of careless driving and speeding.  Kennedy had apparently consumed too many rum and cokes that fateful evening, and with reckless abandon, and adultery in mind, took Mary Jo Kopechne on the car ride that would result in her death.  Kennedy never sought help for Mary Jo that ill-fated night.  He also never served time for criminal manslaughter as anyone else responsible for the same outcome would have.  He was, at the time, very connected.  People who are part of elite royalty always skate.  That was 1969, and this was Edward Kennedy on Tuesday, January 10, 2006, grilling Judge Alito, as if he had the moral high ground:
 
Why did you feel that, under these circumstances — under these circumstances — that that affidavit should be included, the result of which we have the strip-searching of a 10-year-old — a 10-year-old that will bear the scars of that kind of activity probably for the rest of her life?
The Fourth Amendment is clear. We want to protect the innocents. We want to have a search warrant that is precise, so that the police understand it and the person that it’s being served to understands it.
KENNEDY: That was all spelled out in the judgment.
But you went further than that. You said, “Well, in this case, we’re going to include the affidavit.” And as a result of your judgment in this case and the inclusion of the Affidavit, we have the kind of conduct against this 10-year-old which she will never forget.
Why, Judge Alito?
ALITO: Senator, I wasn’t happy that a 10-year-old was searched.
Now, there wasn’t any claim in this case that the search was carried out in any sort of an abusive fashion. It was carried out by a female officer. And that wasn’t the issue in the case.
And I don’t think there should be a Fourth Amendment rule — but, of course, it’s not up to me to decide — that minors can never be searched. Because if we had a rule like that, then where would drug dealers hide their drugs? That would lead to greater abuse of minors.
The technical issue in the case was really not whether a warrant can incorporate an affidavit. There’s no dispute that a judge or a magistrate issuing a warrant can say that the affidavit is incorporated. And that was done here.
The issue was whether — and it was a very technical issue — was it incorporated only on the issue of probable cause, or was it also incorporated on the issue of who would be searched?
If the magistrate had said in the warrant, “This warrant is incorporated as to the people who may be searched” and then in the affidavit it said — and it did say this very clearly — “We want authorization to search anybody who’s on the premises,” then there’d be no problem whatsoever.
ALITO: The warrant said it was incorporated on the issue of probable cause. And I thought that reading it in a common-sense fashion, which is what we’re supposed to do, that necessarily meant that the magistrate said, “There was probable cause to search anybody who’s found on the premises, and that’s what I’m authorizing you to do.”

 

By Rick Bowmer, AP

Judge Alito has a stellar history; one that does not include any womanizing, drunkenness or reckless driving.  Judge Alito does not come from a powerful family, who can at a moments notice, get a family member out of any kind of trouble.  Judge Alito has proven that he has taken the moral highroad in his judicial decisions and in the answers to questions posed by lesser men.  We can only hope that most Americans understand that Edward Kennedy has been the recipient of all that comes with power and privilege.  He has never known the honorable route to any outcome, and in 2006, as in 1969, he is allowed to walk away again and again.