Category Archives: Law

His Holiness Eric Holder

Constitution, Crime, Federalism, Homeland Security, Law, Terrorism

Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr., was unequivocal today in asserting Executive branch supremacy and his own omniscience in the matter of the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four, 9/11 co-conspirators. (Transcript.) Recall, Holder’s preference was for the federal courts to try the case. “[O]ur justice system,” he stated today, “would have performed with the same distinction that has been its hallmark for over two hundred years.” (Here’s one example of that justice.) Alas, Holder’s all-knowing self—he informed FoxNews’ reporter, and I paraphrase, “Yes, I do know best”—was frustrated:

Unfortunately, since I made that decision, Members of Congress have intervened and imposed restrictions blocking the administration from bringing any Guantanamo detainees to trial in the United States, regardless of the venue. As the President has said, those unwise and unwarranted restrictions undermine our counterterrorism efforts and could harm our national security. Decisions about who, where and how to prosecute have always been – and must remain – the responsibility of the executive branch. Members of Congress simply do not have access to the evidence and other information necessary to make prosecution judgments. Yet they have taken one of the nation’s most tested counterterrorism tools off the table and tied our hands in a way that could have serious ramifications. We will continue to seek to repeal those restrictions.

The Brotherhood’s Steel Magnolia

Democracy, Islam, Israel, Law, Middle East, Religion

“Mubarak’s dictatorial powers were directed, unjustly indubitably, against the Islamic fundamentalists of the Muslim brotherhood,” I wrote here. For the sake of accuracy, let’s remember that Mubarak was not an equal opportunity oppressor; he went after members of the Muslim Brotherhood, mainly.

The BBC concedes as much in an upbeat expose on the Brotherhood’s Egyptian acolytes. “For decades, keeping the Brotherhood and other Islamists from power was the main justification for the authoritarian rule of President Hosni Mubarak.” (Here.)

Here are some of the musings of gentle Doha, a Muslim Brotherhood steel magnolia:

“The first thing to do is to sever all ties with Israel because it is the cause of our ruin. And Mubarak was their agent.” …

“Egypt follows French law, and we do not want that, because when someone steals for example, he spends a month in jail and then he’s released to do the same again. But under Sharia law he gets his hand cut off and that’s better.” …

And the least unreasonable of Doha’s beliefs:

“Sharia doesn’t allow women to participate in government because women are emotional. Women should be responsible for their houses and their jobs, but not government,” she said.

The BBC correspondent says that “some of [Doha’s] views reflect the official Muslim Brotherhood line.”

The BBC would never entertain the notion that where the radicalism of dear Doha doesn’t jibe with that of her “moderate” Brothers—it’s because the latter practice Takiya: lying to advance and protect the faith.

Blood On Their Hands

Crime, IMMIGRATION, Law, Media

“It’s not an illegal alien story; it’s a drunk driving story,” Geraldo Rivera once asserted on “The Factor,” following the slaying of an innocent American in a familiar way. The argument made by open-immigration fundamentalists, left and right—from (Tamar) Jacoby to Geraldo—is that the illegality of the perp is irrelevant to the crime. These advocates would thus dismiss as redundant to the facts of the case the illegal status of “Carlos Martinelly-Montano, 23, whose Aug. 1 collision in Prince William seriously injured two Benedictine nuns and killed a third, Sister Denise Mosier, 66, all of Richmond.” (The Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Promulgators of this tack are serious, although they should not be taken seriously. For this crushingly stupid claim to stick, you would have to demonstrate that had this drunk, illegal alien been stopped at the border or been deported, his victims would have nevertheless suffered the same fate. AGAIN: For this conceit to fly, open-border fetishists would have to show that had Martinelly-Montano (and all the others) been deported or jailed, his victims (and all the others) would have nevertheless suffered the same fate at the hands of another drunk driver (murderer, child molester, etc.)—a deeply silly suggestion.

The Times Dispatch reports that,

Judicial Watch, a public disclosure group, said today that it has a received a copy of the report by the Department of Homeland Security that was kept secret after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano had declared her office would thoroughly investigate the Prince William case and make it public.
The 35-page report deals with the criminal history and legal status of Carlos Martinelly-Montano, 23, whose Aug. 1 collision in Prince William seriously injured two Benedictine nuns and killed a third, Sister Denise Mosier, 66, all of Richmond.
Martinelly-Montano is scheduled to go to trial March 28 on six indictments, including felony murder, maiming resulting from driving under the influence and involuntary manslaughter.
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said the report, which his group sought through a Freedom of Information Act request, shows how this country’s patchwork of policies toward illegal immigrants and deportation can “blow up in our faces.”
He called the report “a clear indictment of Obama’s lawless approach to illegal immigration. An innocent person lost her life because local police officers and immigration officials couldn’t be bothered to enforce and obey the law.”

In case you don’t know, Bob Clark, director of one of the most delightful films ever made, “A Christmas Story,” and his 24-year-old son, would probably be alive today if not for a drunk, unlicensed, illegal alien careening down Pacific Coast Highway (not that you’d know it from this report; which deploys the passive form of the verb, as if to imply that Clark combusted spontaneously, or something)

Assassinations Under US Auspices?

Constitution, Criminal Injustice, Foreign Policy, Intelligence, Iraq, Journalism, Justice, Law, Media, Middle East

I hope the failed assassination attempt on Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s vice president, recently appointed to quell the unrest in that country, is not a harbinger of things to come. I am thinking of the vulgar cellphone images that circulated the Internet, in which a stoic Saddam Hussein, noose about his neck, is heckled by a hooded Shiite executioner. Even more repugnant than the hasty hanging carried out under US auspices were the US-sponsored legal proceedings that preceded it. (All the obligatory denunciations of Hussein obtain here, naturally. Bad man. Bad man. Bad man.) That Tribunal, which was branded “made-in-America,” had more in common with the French Revolutionary Assembly (See “No Due Process For A Despot”).

Similarly, such a barbaric specter in Egypt (conjuring the French, and not the American, Revolution), will have been greatly inspired, like in Iraq, by American media screeches.

I worry because the US is not necessarily averse to hasty hangings, considering that the strongmen we betray may turn around and tell all: You know; the stuff about how they helped the U.S. with its rendition and torture programs.