Go participate in Patrick Ruffini’s straw poll for Republican candidates. Be interesting to see who you guys all choose.
Kelo Decision Here To Stay
SCOTUS has refused to revisit the recent Kelo decision:
The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday refused to reconsider one of its most controversial rulings of the 2004-05 term: a 5-4 decision upholding a Connecticut city’s use of eminent domain to acquire private property for a redevelopment plan anchored by a private business.
The order denying a rehearing did not come as a surprise because the court seldom reconsiders one of its decisions. But few rulings have provoked such public outrage as the court’s June 23 decision in Kelo v. New London.
In that case, the court held that New London, which had been designated a distressed municipality, could acquire the property of Susette Kelo and eight other residents of the city’s Fort Trumbull neighborhood and use the land for an elaborate development surrounding a $300 million Pfizer pharmaceutical company research facility.
In other Kelo news, the folks at Q and O are about as thrilled with the recent antics of New London city leaders as I was last week.
Able Danger Story Unverifiablel, Yet Verified
For now, at least, the Pentagon refuses to verify the Atta story:
The Pentagon has been unable to validate claims that a secret intelligence unit identified Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta as a terrorist more than a year before the attacks, a Defense Department spokesman said Monday.
Larry Di Rita said that some research into the matter continues, but thus far there has been no evidence that the intelligence unit, called “Able Danger,” came up with information as specific as an officer associated with the program has asserted.
“What we found are mostly general references to terrorist cells,” Di Rita said, without providing detail.
That officer, Army Reserve Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, said Able Danger identified as terrorists Atta and three other future Sept. 11 hijackers in 2000. But, Shaffer said, military lawyers stopped the unit from sharing the information with the FBI out of concerns about the legality of gathering and sharing information on people in the United States.
However, it appears a second officer has come forward to verify the claims:
An active-duty Navy captain has become the second military officer to come forward publicly to say that a secret defense intelligence program tagged the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks as a possible terrorist more than a year before the attacks.
The officer, Scott J. Phillpott, said in a statement today that he could not discuss details of the military program, which was called Able Danger, but confirmed that its analysts had identified the Sept. 11 ringleader, Mohamed Atta, by name by early 2000. “My story is consistent,” said Captain Phillpott, who managed the program for the Pentagon’s Special Operations Command. “Atta was identified by Able Danger by January-February of 2000.”
His comments came on the same day that the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, told reporters that the Defense Department had been unable to validate the assertions made by an Army intelligence veteran, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, and now backed up by Captain Phillpott, about the early identification of Mr. Atta.
This will be entertaining to watch, and Tom Maguire has wall to wall Able Danger coverage.
Able Danger Story Unverifiablel, Yet VerifiedPost + Comments (8)
Next From the ‘No Shit!’ Department
It appears the Bush administration has noticed that one of many ‘Abstinence Only’ programs may have a strong religious component. The clues:
Teenage graduates of the program sign a covenant “before God Almighty” to remain virgins and earn a silver ring inscribed with a Bible passage reminding them to “keep clear of sexual sin.” Many of its events are held at churches.
In filings with the Internal Revenue Service, the organization describes its mission as “evangelistic ministry” with an emphasis on “evangelistic crusade planning.”
Representatives of the Pennsylvania-based nonprofit describe Silver Ring Thing as a “faith-based” group but dispute charges it has commingled its public funds with religious activities.
60 Minutes did a piece on this group several months ago, and the idea that this is anything other than religion dressed up as sex-ed is clear to anyone with a pulse.
The Looming Oil Crisis
If you read nothing else today, make it this piece by Peter Maas in the NY Times Magazine about the impending oil crisis titled “The Breaking Point.”
A combination of greed, increased demand, political inaction and an unwillingness to conserve, and rejection of science has helped to create what will truly be the biggest crisis of the next century:
As Aref al-Ali, my escort from Saudi Aramco, the giant state-owned oil company, pointed out, ”One mistake at Ras Tanura today, and the price of oil will go up.” This has turned the port into a fortress; its entrances have an array of gates and bomb barriers to prevent terrorists from cutting off the black oxygen that the modern world depends on. Yet the problem is far greater than the brief havoc that could be wrought by a speeding zealot with 50 pounds of TNT in the trunk of his car. Concerns are being voiced by some oil experts that Saudi Arabia and other producers may, in the near future, be unable to meet rising world demand. The producers are not running out of oil, not yet, but their decades-old reservoirs are not as full and geologically spry as they used to be, and they may be incapable of producing, on a daily basis, the increasing volumes of oil that the world requires. ”One thing is clear,” warns Chevron, the second-largest American oil company, in a series of new advertisements, ”the era of easy oil is over.”
Read it all.
This is tangentially related.
Buchanan’s Mind
Someone passed along this piece about Supreme Court nominations by Pat Buchanan, in which he seems to realize that he hates the left more than he hates the Republican party- even the warsome, meddlesome, jew-loving neocons included:
The Left gets it, but many Bush Republicans still don’t. They don’t like moral issues, and they don’t enlist in culture wars. But as the Left has turned the Supreme Court into a judicial tyranny more powerful than the president or Congress in deciding social and moral questions, Republicans have two choices: they can fight the Judges War, or they can lose the war.
Neutrality—a Bush choice of a non-controversial justice—will be, and will be seen by the president’s friends and enemies alike as a stacking of arms, a surrender, a cowardly retreat in the Culture War.
The Judges War is about Bush’s legacy and America’s future. No issue is more crucial. Whether America is kept safe for Christianity is more important than whether Iraq is made safe for democracy.
“Making America safe for Chrstianity, one justice at a time!” It has a ring to it, Pat! Nutty bastard.
Only One James Bond
More Judge Roberts memos released, including him (almost obsessively) ripping into Michael Jackson, and this statement:
“I am . . . somewhat troubled by the absence of a consistent policy governing our willingness to permit the President to participate in these private, commercial tributes. . . . I think we are seeing evidence of what we often say will happen when we deny requests for Presidential endorsements of charitable efforts: once you do one it becomes impossible to turn down countless others. I know there’s only one John Wayne — but there’s only one Bob Hope, James Bond, Bing Crosby, etc. etc. etc.”
Clearly he was talking abuot Sean Connery, and not those other posers.