Liz Cheney and ‘the DOJ 19′
Ellis Washington
Truth is the best defense.
Liz Cheney, daughter of Dick Cheney, Bush-43’s VP, is an unapologetic conservative and cofounder of the advocacy group “Keep America Safe.” She has created a recent controversy with liberals and RINOs across America who are feigning outrage at an ad Liz Cheney’s organization aired that used the phrase “The al-Qaida 7″ – an unflattering epithet implying that seven of the nine Department of Justice lawyers recently appointed by Attorney General Eric Holder have ties to the defense of known Muslim terrorists.
The central question regarding the al-Qaida 7 is not whether it is permissible or even expedient for DOJ lawyers to represent the obviously guilty, because under our system of laws, criminals are entitled to counsel, but why did they do it? If they were motivated by empathy for the terrorists, then Liz Cheney is right for stating this fact. However, if they are strict constitutionalists and desire protection of our constitutional principles and were motivated by legal principle, then Cheney is wrong.
In response to Liz Cheney’s attacks against the al-Qaida 7 earlier this week, a group of 19 former top officials of the Bush Justice Department signed a declaration defending DOJ policy, including: Larry Thompson (deputy attorney
general, Bush-43), Peter Keisler (acting attorney general, Bush-41), Matthew Waxman, Charles “Cully” Stimson (deputy assistant secretary of defense, Bush-43), Brandford Berenson and Daniel Dell’Orto (White House counsel, Bush-41).
Other DOJ sympathizers included John Bellinger III, a former legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and currently a partner at the law firm of Arnold and Porter, who said regarding Liz Cheney’s criticism of DOJ: “We’ve had a long-standing tradition in our country for lawyers to represent unpopular causes, and they shouldn’t be attacked for doing so.” Ken Starr, current dean of Pepperdine Law School, former solicitor general and special prosecutor during the infamous Clinton-Lewinsky sexual harassment scandal of the 1990s, said: “You do not impute the causes of the client to the lawyer who is called upon to make sure that that client’s rights are being protected.”
Really, Dean Starr? Where is that idea found in the Constitution?
Their GOP credentials notwithstanding, it appears that these lawyers, who I’ll call “the DOJ 19″ all signed that document defending Holder and seem to hold a biased view against America’s original intent of the constitutional framers founded in natural-law jurisprudence. Instead these careerists are zealously defending existential DOJ bureaucracy, centralized big government and the rights of the guilty above the rights of the innocent.
The DOJ 19 defend terrorist-sympathizer Eric Holder and the al-Qaida 7, who have time to do pro bono work for Muslim terrorists – but how much time have they given to defend vilified American heroes like: Michael McCabe, Julio Huertas and Jonathan Keefe who caught Ahmed Hashim Abed, plotter of the murder of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004? The bodies of the four Americans were burned and hanged from a bridge while Iraqis cheered on in jubilation.
The Liz Cheney controversy brings up deeper constitutional issues of natural law, original intent and the personal guarantees the constitutional framers codified in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
For too long society has given self-aggrandizing lawyers and the American Bar Association the moral high ground to represent irredeemable characters of the vilest ilk in the name of the Constitution, but these new traditions, like the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of an attorney, did not include the right for “We the People” to provide an attorney for these unrepentant terrorists at taxpayers expense until 1963.
Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) is a landmark case in United States Supreme Court history. In this case, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that state courts are required under the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution to provide counsel in criminal cases for defendants who are unable to afford their own attorneys. Allowing a defendant an attorney and paying for a defendant to have an attorney are two very different philosophies of jurisprudence.
The Obama administration is seemingly hell-bent on “fundamentally transforming America” as the president has stated on many occasions. One way to achieve his socialist revolution is by deconstructing all of America’s fundamental institutions. Giving constitutional rights to avowed Muslim terrorists is merely a means to Obama’s diabolical ends to purposely destabilize American society, thus setting the pretext to eventually create a one-party oligarchy.
Remember the words of chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel, which were repeated by both Obama and Hillary Clinton: You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.
George Orwell said, “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” Indeed, during the Age of Obama lying and Machiavellian tactics have been elevated to an art form where a scoundrel like Holder, the al-Qaida 7 and Obama can hold positions of great power, are protected, even celebrated by the state-controlled media and defended by the DOJ 19, while those same media hacks vilify two bona fide American patriots like Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz, who are merely telling America the truth about Holder.
Finally, calling Liz Cheney’s commercial about the al-Qaida 7 “McCarthyism” is merely reflexive liberal groupspeak, which conservatives sometimes are beguiled to engage in to curry favor from liberals. For example, conservative author, attorney and Claremont Institute fellow Paul Mirengoff recently said that the ad “could be worse than some of the assertions made by [Sen. Joe] McCarthy.”
The truth is McCarthyism is no longer McCarthyism. History has vindicated Sen. Joe McCarthy’s singular yeoman efforts to expose communists, communist sympathizers, Hollywood socialists and American spies in the early 1950s based on the recently declassified Venona cables, decrypted World War II Soviet messages, yet lesser men of all ideological stripes continue to vilify Sen. Joe McCarthy, one of the greatest American heroes of the 20th century.
Indeed, the al-Qaida 7 had the right to represent Muslim terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, and We the People have the right to know why they did it – truth is the best defense.
Give ‘em hell, Liz Cheney! For the real conservatives out here realize that you are defending the ideals of the Founding Fathers, our liberties and America, the country we all love.
If Pres. Obama is such an uberintellectual, why is he outsourcing his agenda? The history of political campaigning with Dennis W. Johnson
If President Obama is the uberintellectual the state-controlled media want us to believe he is, why is he outsourcing the development of his agenda to congressional Democrats? After all, his first two major agenda items–health care and immigration reform–are being crafted by Congress.
The Chinese communist (and really, I can’t emphasize that enough, though I certainly tried) government vows not to turn their U.S. debt holdings into a political football. Should they be trusted? Or are they just following the philosophy of the great Chinese war strategist Sun Tzu who wrote that all warfare, including economic, is based on deception:
All warfare is based on deception.
Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.
In other words, are the Chinese trying to deceive us? I say yes.
George Washington University Professor Dennis Johnson gives a brief history of the evolution of political consultants/strategists and campaign management.
If Pres. Obama is such an uberintellectual, why is he outsourcing his agenda? The history of political campaigning with Dennis W. Johnson: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadChief Justice Roberts calls President Obama’s, Congressional Dems’ behavior at State of the Union “very troubling”
Remember this?
Justice Samuel Alito wasn’t the only Supreme Court member to take umbrage with President Obama’s dsplat of willful and utter disregard for decorum at this year’s State of the Union (SOTU). Chief Justice John Roberts is calling out President Obama’s and congressional Democrats’ unprofessional behavior at SOTU:
Responding to a University of Alabama law student’s question, Roberts said anyone was free to criticize the court, and some have an obligation to do so because of their positions.
“So I have no problems with that,” he said. “On the other hand, there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum.
“The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court — according the requirements of protocol — has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling.”
Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. This is outstanding. Apparently Chief Justice Roberts has more political backbone than Republican congressional leadership.
Chief Justice Roberts went on to make a larger, more important point stating that the SOTU has degenerated to a political pep rally.
He is exactly right. Both Republicans and Democrats are guilty of turning the SOTU into a political pep rally. That’s not what the Founders inteded the SOTU to be.
Let me direct your attention to Article II, Section 3 of The Constitution of the United States:
He [the President] shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; (My emphasis)
The State of the Union is supposed to be informative and advisory, not serve as a forum for political bullying.
When are we going to get back to serious debate in this country? Or are we destined to remain in a political climate of punchlines and soundbites?
Schumer-Graham immigration proposal would punish legal American residents; Charlie Crist is toast in Florida
Right on cue: Immigration reform is back. Senators Chuck Schumer (D) and Lindsey Graham (R) are crafting legislation that would punish legal American workers for illegal immigration by requiring all legal residents to obtain a national biometric ID in order to gain employment. And guess what? The Schumer-Graham making bad jokes about Marco Rubio’s haircuts. But that’s what happens when you’re getting destroyed by 32% in your campaign. You would think this would inspire Sen. John Cornyn and the rest of the National Republican Senatorial Committee to revoke their endorsement of Crist, but no. Not going to happen. But the GOP apologists are trying to convince us that Republicans have learned their lesson and have returned to their conservative roots. Kind of hard to believe that when you won’t even support a conservative candidate leading by 32 points against a liberal Republican.
Schumer-Graham immigration proposal would punish legal American residents; Charlie Crist is toast in Florida: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadEric Massa: Rahm Emanuel would “sell his own mother” for a vote; The Report from Washington with Ellis Washington
Rep. Eric Massa shines the light on President Obama’s/Rahm Emanuel’s gangster-like approach to politics. We must be careful not to differentiate Barack Obama from Rahm Emanuel. They are one in the same. Obama shares Emanuel’s approach to politics, Emanuel is just doing the dirty work.
On this week’s edition of The Report from Washington, Ellis Washington discusses his latest column, When killer whales kill: A Biblical view, and the public’s growing disapproval of President Obama’s health care plan.
Eric Massa: Rahm Emanuel would "sell his own mother" for a vote; The Report from Washington with Ellis Washington: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadAmerican-born al-Qaeda member Adam Gadahn captured by Pakistanis
This is breaking news so there aren’t a lot of details publicly available yet.
The American-born spokesman for al-Qaida has been arrested by Pakistani intelligence officers in the southern city of Karachi, two officers and a government official said Sunday as video emerged of him urging U.S. Muslims to attack their own country.
He was arrested in the sprawling southern metropolis of Karachi in recent days, two officers who took part in the operation said. A senior government official also confirmed the arrest, but said it happened Sunday. The discrepancy could not immediately be resolved.
The intelligence officials said Gadahn was being interrogated by Pakistani officials. Pakistani agents and those from the CIA work closely on some operations in Pakistan, but it was not clear if any Americans were involved in the operation or questioning.
It’s unclear to me how significant Gadahn’s capture is from an operational standpoint, considering he was essentially nothing more than a propagandist for al-Qaeda. But from a symbolic standpoint this might be an important capture. Only time will tell. It certainly demonstrates an apparent increase in Pakistani cooperation–finally.
UPDATE: So, Gadahn might not have been captured after all. There are now conflicting reports about whether he has been captured. The Pakistanis are saying that he has been captured but American officials say they haven’t seen any evidence validate the capture claim.
I should have known better than to blindly trust a claim by the Pakistanis. I’ll continue to watch how this plays out.
Memo to freeloaders: Solicit money near organic foods supermarkets
Earlier today I was leaving a shopping center where one the most popular organic foods supermarkets is located and there was an individual, relatively clean, holding a sign soliciting money. I have seen this individual the last several times I have been to this particular shopping center (note: I, of course, wasn’t shopping at the organic foods store).
This leads me to believe that it must be a lucrative location for such activity, but why? Think about it: Who shops at organic food supermarkets? Answer: Liberals. OK, so some conservatives shop there, which is fine. I’m not knocking the idea of organic food here. The point is that it’s mostly liberals who shop at those types of supermarkets. And what are liberals? Guilt-ridden.
So no wonder this freeloading individual stakes out that particular area. It’s a prime location to rake in a significant amount of money from the guilt-ridden liberals. But remember, most liberals don’t feel guilty out of some desire desire to help the downtrodden. They give money to freeloaders to help themselves feel better. That’s wrong. It’s selfish. But what do the freeloaders care, they’re reaping the benefits of liberals’ acts of selfishness.
So take note, freeloaders: Find the nearest location of an organic foods supermarket and start tapping into the endless selfishness of do-gooder liberals.
When killer whales kill: A Biblical view
Ellis Washington
In the long run we are all dead.–John Maynard Keynes, progressive economist
It has been a little over a week since the tragic death of Dawn Brancheau, a veteran trainer at SeaWorld in Florida who was killed by a serial killer whale named, “Tilikum.”
Eyewitnesses said that Dawn did not accidentally fall into the tank of the animal as officials from SeaWorld originally claimed, but that while the trainer wasn’t looking the killer whale grabbed her hair and mercilessly mauled her in the water. SeaWorld quickly revised their storyline of the tragic accident:
SeaWorld acknowledged two hours later that Tilikum had grabbed Brancheau by her ponytail and yanked her into the water. The park then made its head animal trainer available to the media to explain and defend its methods of training and maintaining its whales.
These unscrupulous acts on SeaWorld’s part are beyond the pale. The park must be held accountable, and Tilikum the killer whale should be immediately destroyed.
This euthanasia policy isn’t without precedent. I remember reading about a mountain lion that had killed a jogger in California. Officials tracked the offending animal down and immediately killed it so that the public could be put at ease when out enjoying the wilderness.
Other stories of killer sharks, bears, lions, tigers, bulls, etc., that had to be hunted down and destroyed because these wild beasts killed people are not uncommon in America and around the world. Where did people get the idea that animals which kill people must immediately be destroyed? Well, the same place we got the ideas found in natural law, the common law, the Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights – it all came from the Bible.
Perhaps surprising to most people is the fact that God has explicit commandments on how to deal with animals that kill humans. Early Catholic theologians like St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas and others followed a natural-law philosophy of the universe that animals should be hunted and eaten by others. This was reflected in their theology.
Christian thinking downgraded animals for three main reasons:
- God had created animals for the use of human beings, and human beings were therefore entitled to use them in any way they want;
- Animals were distinctively inferior to human beings and were worth little if any moral consideration, because:
- humans have souls and animals don’t; and
- humans have reason and animals don’t;
- Christian thought was heavily humano-centric and only considered animals in relation to human beings, and not on their own terms.
Turning to the Bible, in Exodus 21:28-29 Moses gives God’s law concerning personal injury or what we call today “torts”:
If a bull gores a man or a woman to death, the bull must be stoned to death, and its meat must not be eaten. But the owner of the bull will not be held responsible. If, however, the bull has had the habit of goring and the owner has been warned but has not kept it penned up and it kills a man or woman, the bull must be stoned and the owner also must be put to death.
For centuries, Western civilization has prided itself in being founded on the Judeo-Christian traditions of intellectual thought. But then came the advent of a Darwinian worldview in the 1860s, which removed mankind from his lofty perch of special creation by God and placed humanity equal to (or beneath) animals, and the ascendancy of theprogressive movement in the 1890s that intellectualized and codified Darwinian thinking into public policy, culture, medicine, education, law, politics and economics.
Humanists and social egalitarians of today contend that people are no higher or better than animals.
Now, because of perverse ideas of egalitarianism, modern society is reluctant to kill Tilikum, the killer whale who willfully killed three people on three different occasions, but instead we rationalize that it wasn’t the whale’s fault. SeaWorld, therefore, felt embolden to conducted a big press conference with a back drop of the offending killer whale swimming carefree in his tank, while the body of the murdered Dawn Brancheau lies six feet underground in a cold, dark grave in Chicago, Ill.
America, is this justice? Have we not lost our way, our humanity and our moral virtue when a serial-murderer killer whale acting according to its name and nature can frolic in his holding tank in front of millions of people all over the world and not be killed for his multiple murderous acts? This makes no sense to me on any level.
That Dawn’s family attended the press conference in apparent solidarity with SeaWorld only adds insult to injury and shows how ubiquitous the self-delusion of the animal-rights movement is in modern society. We have thus made God’s word null and void by our own traditions, our foolish notions of egalitarianism and radical policies concerning “animal rights.” No law or opinion should be able to rise above God’s Holy Word; otherwise, we have sown the seeds of society’s own destruction.
The anti-Christian view rooted in the ideas of the progressive movement is controlling today. Progressivism is a diabolical philosophy that since the 1890s has propagated such perverse public policies as: the welfare state, eugenics, forced sterilization, abortion, Marxism, radical environmentalism, pragmatism, utilitarianism, feminism, socialism, naturalism, animal rights – all within the paradigm of social Darwinism.
The sacred worth of humans has been deconstructed into a cold cost-benefit analysis of progressive economists.
British economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), has been revered by European socialists and American progressives including U.S. presidents Woodrow Wilson, FDR, LBJ, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. Keynes is perhaps both the most famous (and infamous) economist of the 20th century. In answer to perceptions about his spend-your-way-out-of-bankruptcy theories causing a precipitous rise in deficit spending and financial instability among world economies, Keynes was unrepentant, asking, in effect, who cares about deficits? As Keynes said: In the long run we are all dead.
Rest in peace, Dawn Brancheau.
John McCain: Nominee for best conservative actor
J.D. Hayworth’s campaign has created a fantastic ad highlighting Sen. John McCain’s pseudo-conservatism. The, pictured below, paints McCain as a character from James Cameron’s mega hit “Avatar.” (Please forgive me for not knowing the character’s name. This movie does nothing for me, so my knowledge of it is even less than rudimentary, and I’d like to keep it that way.)
Of course the McCain campaign is infuriated by this ad, particularly the first version of it. The initial ad only had blue stripes on McCain’s face–it wasn’t completely covered in blue. The McCain campaign decided that that was offensive to Native Americans:
“Ex-Congressman J.D. Hayworth should immediately apologize and and take down his latest online ad, which is an outrageous offense to John McCain’s lifetime of honorable service to our state and nation, and insulting to Native Americans here in Arizona and across America,”
Here is the original ad.
How is that offensive in any way? I don’t see how that’s offensive to Native Americans and the only reason McCain’s campaign is taking offense is because the truth hurts.
My only objection to the ad would be that it’s somewhat charitable to McCain. After all, at times McCain doesn’t so much as even act like he’s a conservative.
President Obama believes he is “the decider” on health care reform; Sarah Palin wants reality show; Another former GITMO detainee returns to the battlefield
President Obama health care speech yesterday was very reminiscent of George W. Bush’s “I’m the decider” speech. President Obama is igoring the will of the People because he believes he’s “the decider” on health care.
Sarah Palin wants a reality show to follow her and family around in Alaska. Still think Sarah Palin is the savior of the Republican Party? Still think she’s cut out for executive leadership?
Yet another ex-GITMO detainee rejoins the battlefield upon release. Let me state it again: Terrorists can’t be rehabilitated!
President Obama believes he is "the decider" on health care reform; Sarah Palin wants reality show; Another former GITMO detainee returns to the battlefield: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
