Theodore's World

Obama advisers say bin Laden can appeal to U.S. courts
Barack Obama’s foreign policy advisers said Tuesday that Osama bin Laden, if captured, should be allowed to appeal his case to U.S. civilian courts, a privilege opposed by John McCain.
Responding to questions from The Examiner, Sen. John Kerry and former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke said bin Laden would benefit from last week’s Supreme Court decision giving terrorism suspects habeas corpus, the right to appeal their military detention to civilian courts.

“If he were to be brought back,” Clarke said of bin Laden, “the Supreme Court ruling holds on the right of habeas corpus.”

Kerry, who applauded the Supreme Court ruling, said it will be carried out by whichever candidate wins the presidency.

“The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that they have those rights,” he said. “If John McCain were president, he would have to give them those rights.”

Randy Scheunemann, McCain’s senior foreign policy adviser, said those rights should not be extended to bin Laden or the hundreds of terrorism suspects being held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

“The individuals we hold at Guantanamo are very, very dangerous people,” Scheunemann said. “To give them full access to the federal courts and the criminal justice system is fraught with danger, moving forward, and likely to make America less safe, unlike Senator Obama’s claim of supporting the decision that it made America safer.”

On Monday, Obama applauded the civilian prosecution of terrorists prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001.

“In previous terrorist attacks — for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center — we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial,” he told ABC. “They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated.”

Obama said President Bush has relied too heavily on military prosecution of terrorists, which has “given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, ‘Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims.’”

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Obama wants “to take a step back to the failed policies that treated terrorism solely as a law enforcement matter, rather than a clear and present danger. Barack Obama appears to believe that terrorists should be treated like criminals — a belief that underscores his fundamental lack of judgment regarding our national security.”

The attack sounded familiar to Kerry, who was the Democratic presidential nominee four years ago.

“This is exactly what they tried to say back in 2004, and the record absolutely contradicts it,” Kerry told The Examiner. “Every Democrat voted to go to war and attack the Taliban and al Qaeda, the people who attacked us. That is not a [legalistic] approach.”

Wild Thing’s comment………
If you are an enemy of the United States, you are a friend of the left.
If I were a soldier I would take the decision by the court basically to mean, take no prisoners.
THIS should be on the fornt page of every piece of campaign literature McCain puts out.
Obama looks like the dumbest man who ever ran for President. He and Gore together couldn’t make an I.Q. of 120.
National security ala Obama, Kerry, and Clarke. God help this country.

Source:
Defend Our Marines
A military judge has dismissed charges against a Marine officer accused of failing to investigate the killings of 24 Iraqis.
Col. Steven Folsom dismissed charges Tuesday against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani after defense attorneys raised concerns that a four-star general overseeing the prosecution was improperly influenced by an investigator probing the November 2005 shootings by a Marine squad in Haditha.
The charges were dismissed without prejudice, meaning they can be refiled, but Folsom excluded Marine Forces Central Command from future involvement.
Chessani was the highest-ranking officer implicated in the case.

CAMP PENDLETON
In a stinging rebuke of the government’s handling of a high-profile war crime case, a military judge Tuesday dismissed dereliction of duty charges against the commander of a Marine squad that killed 24 civilians in the Iraqi city of Haditha.
The dismissal of charges against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani came after a finding that then-Lt. Gen. James Mattis was unlawfully influenced by a Marine attorney who participated in an investigation of the killings and then became the general’s top legal adviser.
The ruling by Col. Steven Folsom, the judge presiding over Chessani’s case, was a major blow to the government, which has seen charges against seven of the eight men accused with criminal wrongdoing in the 2005 killings dismissed or withdrawn. Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich is for now the lone Haditha defendant.
Folsom ruled the participation of Col. John Ewers as an investigator and report writer in the Haditha killings and his later appointment as Mattis’ top legal aide constituted unlawful command influence.
Ewers’ depth of involvement, he said, “tainted” the charges against Chessani beyond repair.
“Unlawful command influence is the mortal enemy of military justice,” Folsom said. “The appearance of unlawful command influence is as devastating as actual manipulation of a trial.”
A dismissal, he said, was necessary to maintain public confidence in the military justice system.
Prosecutors were given three days to appeal. If they choose not to but want to continue the prosecution, Folsom said, a new investigation must be conducted. Approval of any new charges must come from a senior Marine officer who has had no association with the case, Folsom said.
Chessani, who remained stoic throughout the hearings, showed no reaction when the decision was announced at the end of an hour-long session inside a small base courtroom.
The highest-ranking man charged in the Haditha killings had been scheduled to go on trial by court-martial on July 16.
After Tuesday’s hearing, Chessani and his wife, Alissa, the parents of six young children, declined comment.
“We’re cautiously optimistic the government won’t refile the charges,” said one of his attorneys, Brian Rooney. “We hope that it’s over. It should be over. We believe it never should have got this far.”
Chessani commanded Camp Pendleton’s 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment at Haditha.

Wild Thing’s comment…….
Thank you Lord!! What a grave injustice the PC idiots imposed on this man, and all the other Haditha warriors!
Only Sgt. Wuterich left to be exonerated.
Please God, it would really be justice if Murtha was punished for what he did to these men.

The Wall Street Journal …for complete article

Behold, a miracle: Public anger over $4 gas is forcing at least some of our political class to confront their energy contradictions. Last week, Republicans Jim Walsh of New York and Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland — two longstanding opponents of offshore drilling — asked for a mulligan. We can now add John McCain to the roll: In a speech in Houston yesterday, the Senator finally came out in favor of increasing domestic energy supplies.
This is progress, even if it did come dressed in some of Mr. McCain’s familiar policy confusions. In the past, the Republican has been a chief opponent of opening up the vast U.S. offshore regions and other federal lands where oil-and-gas exploration and production are prohibited, especially the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The candidate now says we must drill for more domestic oil “as a matter of fairness to the American people.” He did not back off from his sentimentality about ANWR — leaving off-limits nearly half of the proven reserves of the entire U.S. at 10.4 billion barrels. But he did propose to open most of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to development, so long as the nearby states were in favor.

And there is this:
Bush will call on US lawmakers Wednesday to pass legislation lifting the ban on offshore oil drilling, the White House said.

“With gasoline now over four dollars a gallon, tomorrow he will explicitly call on Congress to also pass legislation lifting the congressional ban on safe, environmentally-friendly offshore oil drilling,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said in a statement late Tuesday.

The announcement came just hours after Republican presidential candidate John McCain called for the federal government to scrap its 27-year-old moratorium on offshore oil drilling.

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Wild Thing’s comment…….
I don’t care if he flip flops, as long as his last flop is to the right.
Obama calling McCain a flip flopper. Hello Hussien flip flop is ok when headed in a positive direction. Stupid Obama, Norway and Britain have enormous offshore drilling plays that have been operating for decades without problems. Ditto for Canada, although on a smaller scale so far. Do those three countries sound like eco-criminals to you Obama? NO! Right answer Hussein now go to your room. heh heh
Obama is being squeezed and he doesn’t even know it. Will the Democrats back Obama’s no-drill stance in the face of a screaming populace as gasoline reaches $5/gal?
Barack is another poverty pimp socialist jerk and we just can’t afford to let him be calling any shots. If we could turn his ears into windmills and capture the hot air from his mouth we might produce a few watts of power but it wouldn’t be much.
The is a step in the right and conservative direction.
This is so funny. I know it didn’t make any difference and I am no one important, but I wrote to McCain the other day after I posted the link to sending him a message. LOL Keep in mind he must have been receiving tons of emails. hahaha I wrote this and sent it to him:

McCain, the GOP has lost their mind having you as a candidate. Your ignoring the conservative base is only going to hurt in the long run. You know very well that it is the conservatives that defended you when you
(including all our military) when you were in Vietnam We were are ARE proud of our Veterans and our Military. NOT the left.
You know full well it has been the conservatives that have not drained our government of funds begging to be taken care of like some mindless lazy good for nothing user living on America soil. You want to be a humanitarian fine, but it is OUR hard earned money that is paying for your bleeding heart causes.
I am thinking that you just might want to change your mind about drilling for oil. God gave it to us and you say you believe in God. Then prove it, I am calling you on it. The oil is there, the world knows it. we know it and not to drill is telling the American citizens you could care less about the biggest thing effecting our lives each day. Since we make up what this country is in the end you are also saying you do NOT love America because we ARE America.
IF you are worried about being labeled a flip flopper, then it is up to you to decide if your ego is bigger then this Nation. Because to be called a flip flopper will be a gimmie from the left and we know it . Just expect it, hold you chin up and put that screw you look you give US ( conservatives) and give it to them for a change. Tell them so what, you care more about America then you do about being called a few names for awhile.
Your not stupid, just a rino and that is curable. Why not take a step toward America John, to the American way of taking care of ourselves and putting our country first instead of enviro special interest groups that have caused more damage then good to this awesome land of the red, white and blue.

What They’re Saying About Michael at the 2008 Republican State Convention
“Those of you outside of Texas who don’t know about Michael Williams should get to know him.”
His website
His website is great too. Lots to read and see there as well.
One of the pages at his site that tells a lot about how he thinks about our country, oil and other things.
http://www.williamsfortexas.com/posts/

Wild Thing’s comment……..
I love Texas!
And when he speaks of Obama he is so funny. Good personality as he zaps Obama . heh heh
He also gets serious and makes wonderful points in his speech. A great speaker that I sat here proud to hear.
This speech made me want to sing God bless America when he was done! I would LOVE for the GOP to have this man speak at the Presidential convention this fall. It would put all the rino’s to shame. giggle
*** video had to be removed due to tech problems. Thank you.

ABC’s Jake Tapper, got Obama to talk about how we need to treat terrorism as a law-enforcement matter.

Obama said, “It is my firm belief that we can track terrorists, we can crack down on threats against the United States, but we can do so within the constraints of our Constitution. And there has been no evidence on their part that we can’t.

“And, you know, let’s take the example of Guantanamo. What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks — for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated.”

“And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world, and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, ‘Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims.’ So that, I think, is an example of something that was unnecessary. We could have done the exact same thing, but done it in a way that was consistent with our laws…”

Obama has adopted the “Winnie The Pooh” doctrine
“Winnie the Pooh should shape US foreign policy”
telegraph.co.uk

Richard Danzig, who served as Navy Secretary under President Clinton and is tipped to become National Security Adviser in an Obama White House, told a major foreign policy conference in Washington that the future of US strategy in the war on terrorism should follow a lesson from the pages of Winnie the Pooh, which can be shortened to: if it is causing you too much pain, try something else.
Mr Danzig told the Centre for New American Security: “Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security.”
He spelt out how American troops, spies and anti-terrorist officials could learn key lessons by understanding the desire of terrorists to emulate superheroes like Luke Skywalker, and the lust for violence of violent football fans.
Mr Danzig spelt out the need to change by reading a paragraph from chapter one of the children’s classic, which says: “Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump on the back of his head behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming down stairs. But sometimes he thinks there really is another way if only he could stop bumping a minute and think about it.”

Wild Thing’s comment……..
Sure B. Hussein Obama that’s the spirit! After Americans die we will investigate!! sheesh!
And to Richard Danzig the twit and Obama, you are NO Winnie the Pooh! Leave him alone! I rather take this personally since I collect Teddy bears and Pooh is one of my favorites. So OH Bother and Bug Off Danzig and Hussein! Bears are all Republicans in case you didn’t know it. LOL
On a serious note though….. can you imagine General Petraeus making a presentation on how the war is going and using Winnie the Pooh as a referrence?
YIKES!

Wild Thing’s comment…….
Liberals as we see not only don’t love America but they use their children to preach their hate for our military as seen in this ad.
What a stupid ad!

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Today at 5PM EST
Rush Limbaugh will be a guest on Laura Ingraham’s new Fox News Channel Show, “Just In.”
I am so glad to see this. I want all our conservative talk show hosts to be supportive of each other. So this is
good news and the more they stick together the less chance the left will have trying to get rid of them.

McCain Proposes La Raza Town Hall
Townhall
GOP presidential candidate John McCain is inviting his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, to participate in a joint town hall meeting at an open-borders advocacy group’s upcoming meeting in California.

“There is a meeting in California of La Raza,” McCain told reporters at an Arlington press conference Monday. “Both of us have accepted invitations. I say that we have a town hall meeting together in front of La Raza. I think that the people will be far more informed and in some ways, entertained if we had that format.”

Although a La Raza town hall would surely cause outcry among those border hawks the Hispanic demographic is expected to be a coveted voting block in the general election– a group McCain has courted, with some success, through his support of comprehensive immigration reform. In 2005, McCain co-sponsored a bill, which La Raza endorsed, critics said would award amnesty to illegal aliens with Democratic Sen. Teddy Kennedy (Mass.). The bill did not pass and McCain’s work to push it cause irreparable damage with many members of his GOP base.
McCain’s call for a La Raza town hall is the latest in a drumbeat of invitations he’s given to Obama in hopes of holding a series of 10 joint town hall meetings, where the McCain camp believes their candidate would give a strong performance.
So far Obama has only offered to hold one town hall on July 4, almost ensuring the event would be overlooked by most voters enjoying the Independence Day holiday.
La Raza will be holding their annual meeting in San Diego July 12-15. Both McCain and Obama are scheduled to address the more than 20,000 expected attendees.

Wild Thing’s comemnt……..
What a choice we have haha good grief.
McCain takes the liberal position; Obama takes the marxist position.
McCain is already scheduled to speak before La Raza as is Obama. If Obama agrees to turning it into a Townhall debate it will just turn out with the two of them trying to outpander one another.
McCain is a La Raza favorite and recipient of their awards. His buddy, Lindsey Graham, spoke before them a year ago and said that the “bigots should shut up,” i.e., those who opposed the amnesty bill.
Something from the past with McCain and LaRaza:
February 15, 1999
LaRaza news release
Washington, D.C. – The National Council of La Raza (NCLR) – the nation’s largest constituency-based Hispanic organization – will honor two members of Congress for their staunch support of the Hispanic community at its tenth annual Capital Awards, formerly known as the Congressional Awards, on Tuesday, March 2, 1999. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO) will be recognized for their work on civil rights, immigration, education, and other issue areas affecting Latinos, at a gala event to take place at the National Building Museum, 401 F Street, N.W., beginning at 7:00 p.m.
“It is a great pleasure and honor for NCLR to recognize Senator John McCain, a longtime friend of the Hispanic community. Throughout his tenure in both the House and
Senate, John McCain has been a strong voice for compassion, fairness, and inclusion in his party,” noted Raul Yzaguirre, National Council of La Raza (NCLR) President.

Activists Preparing Against Use of ‘Brown Note’ at Dem Convention
Fox News
Political activists planning protest rallies at the upcoming Democratic Convention in Denver have their stomachs in knots over a rumor about a crowd control weapon – known as the “crap cannon” – that might be unleashed against them.
Also called “Brown Note,” it is believed to be an infrasound frequency that debilitates a person by making them defecate involuntarily.
Mark Cohen, co-founder of Re-create 68, an alliance of local activists working for the protection of first amendment rights, said he believes this could be deployed at the convention in August to subdue crowds.
“We know this weapon and weapons like it have been used at other large protests before,” he said.
Cohen, who described Brown Note as a “sonic weapon used to disrupt people’s equilibrium,” cited eyewitness accounts of its use during free-trade agreement protests in Miami in 2003.
“I think these weapons were mostly intended for military use and so their use for dealing with innocent protesters seems highly inappropriate,” he said. “The idea that they might be field testing them on people who are doing nothing more than exercising their first amendment rights is disturbing.”
His group is preparing against a possible attack by Brown Note and other crowd-control measures by dispatching street medics at the convention trained in treating injuries in demonstration situations.
“It’s all we can do,” Cohen said.
“Mark Cohen, co-founder of Re-create 68, an alliance of local activists working for the protection of first amendment rights, said he believes this could be deployed at the convention in August to subdue crowds.
We know this weapon and weapons like it have been used at other large protests before.
I think these weapons were mostly intended for military use and so their use for dealing with innocent protesters seems highly inappropriate,” he said. “The idea that they might be field testing them on people who are doing nothing more than exercising their first amendment rights is disturbing.”
But there’s another weapon the protesters fear more than Brown Note, if you can believe that. This from Glenn Spagnuolo, also with Re-create 68:
“More troubling to Spagnuolo is the “Active Denial System” or “ADS,” a ray gun used to send high levels of microwave frequencies that cause a burning sensation the skin.”
Complete article here in case some are bothered by the subject

Wild Thing’s comment……
Yikes, I never heard of this before. OMG! It sounds like they are really expecting a lot of protests at the DNC Convention.
With this crowd, how will they know if it worked or not?

I wonder what would happen if the Constitution of the United States was read at the Republican Convention? Just read it. No commentary. No apologies.