This and That...

[Warph]

(Oh yeah....Seeing is believing)

BEIJING | Fri May 24, 2013 8:28am EDT

BEIJING (Reuters) - A North Korean envoy told China's president on Friday that his reclusive country was willing to take "positive actions" to ensure peace and stability on the Korean peninsula, as China steps up diplomatic efforts to bring Pyongyang back to talks.

But Choe Ryong-hae, a special envoy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, made no offer to abandon North Korea's nuclear program. The United States insists North Korea takes meaningful steps on denuclearization before there can be dialogue.

Choe met Chinese officials, including President Xi Jinping, in the highest-ranking visit by an official from Pyongyang in about six months.

Chinese state media said Choe presented a hand-written letter from Kim to Xi at Beijing's Great Hall of the People. Media provided no details of its contents.

"North Korea is willing to make joint efforts with all parties to appropriately resolve related issues through multilateral dialogue and consultations like the six-party talks, and maintain peace and stability on the peninsula," the official Xinhua news service cited Choe as telling Xi.

"To this end, North Korea is willing to take positive actions," Choe added.

Xi told Choe that the denuclearization of the peninsula was an aspiration of all peoples and an inevitable trend, saying problems should be resolved through talks.

"China hopes all sides exercise calm and restraint, push for a lessening of tensions, restart the six-party talks process and make unremitting efforts ... for long-lasting peace and stability," Xi said.

China has repeatedly urged North Korea to return to the so-called six party talks process, aimed at denuclearization.

The United States and its allies believe the North violated a 2005 aid-for-denuclearization deal by conducting a nuclear test in 2006 and pursuing a uranium enrichment program that would give it a second path to a nuclear weapon in addition to its plutonium-based program.

The six-party aid-for-disarmament talks, involving the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and host China, collapsed in 2008 when the North walked away from the deal.

China, North Korea's only real ally, has been pushing for a return to talks after weeks of bellicose words from Pyongyang following new United Nations sanctions after the North's third nuclear test in February.

Russia:...
.... welcomed North Korea's declaration of readiness to return to talks and said it deserved a "a positive assessment", the Interfax news agency quoted Russian Foreign Ministry special envoy Grigory Logvinov as saying.

China has looked on nervously at the ratcheting up of tension, fearful a misstep could plunge the peninsula into war which could envelop northeastern China.

IMPATIENCE:

Fan Chonglong, vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission, expressed that worry in a meeting with Choe.

"In recent years, the state of affairs around the Korean peninsula nuclear issue frequently turns into one escalation of tensions after another," China's Xinhua state news agency quoted Fan as saying.

"The conflicting strategies of all parties have intensified, jeopardizing peace," Fan said.

China has increasingly expressed its impatience with North Korea, signing up for the new U.N. sanctions and curtailing Chinese banks' contacts with their North Korean counterparts.

Choe told Fan that peace could not be assured although North Korea wanted it in order to build the country, and it was willing to work with all sides in solving problems, Xinhua said.

"The situation on the Korean peninsula and in Northeast Asia is complex and extraordinary, and there is no guarantee of peace," Choe was quoted as saying.

Cai Jian, a North Korean expert at Shanghai's Fudan University, said that while such high-level contact between the two countries was important, especially following the chilling of ties, he did not see a quick resumption of six-party talks.

"The U.S. says if North Korea doesn't clearly renounce its nuclear program, it won't return to the six-party talks. But if the international community doesn't hold peace talks with North Korea, then North Korea will use that time to develop its nuclear weapons and missiles," Cai said.

Choe and his entourage spent three days in Beijing in full military regalia, in contrast to the mostly civilian leaders he met, though he changed out of his uniform to meet Xi.

"Sending Choe in military uniforms as an envoy to China means North Korea still wants to stick to their right to have a nuclear arsenal," said Chang Yong-seok, a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace Affairs at Seoul National University.

Choe was dispatched at this time because North Korea is mindful of Xi's talks with U.S. President Barack Obama in early June, Chang said.

Xi is due to hold his first meeting with Obama in the United States and North Korea is expected to be high on the agenda.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye plans to make a state visit to China at the end of June, presidential spokeswoman Kim Haing said on Friday.

"Though China says it can't do everything alone, China still is a country that can exercise considerable influence" over North Korea, Park said during a meeting with U.S. security experts on Thursday.

[Warph]

Obama's FBI Pick No Friend of the Constitution

Sunday, 02 June 2013 15:40
Written by  Jack Kenny

James B. Comey (picture shown above), the man reported to be President Obama's choice to succeed Robert Mueller as director of the FBI, vigorously supported the decision to imprison Jose Padilla indefinitely as an "enemy combatant." Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was arrested at O'Hare International Airport in May 2002 for what then-Attorney General John Ashcroft said was his participation in a plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a major city somewhere in the United States. He was held without charge and without trial in a solitary confinement at a U.S. Navy bring in Charleston, South Carolina, for three and one-half years before being tried in a civilian court in Miami on charges unrelated to the alleged "dirty bomb."

Padilla and two co-defendants were found guilty by a federal jury of conspiracy to murder, kidnap, and maim overseas, and of conspiring to provide and of providing material support for terrorists. Padilla is currently serving a sentence of 17 years and four months in a federal prison in Florence, Colorado. His lawyers claimed he was unable to participate in his own defense at trial after years of solitary confinement in a nine-foot-by-seven-foot cell, where, they said, he was frequently chained in painful "stress positions" and injected with mind-altering drugs.

Comey, a Republican, was a U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York at the time of Padilla's arrest. He "aggressively defended" the designation of Padilla as an enemy combatant designation, according to the New York Times.

Comey also prosecuted attorney Lynne Stewart on charges arising from her representation of Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy and is now serving a life sentence. Stewart ran afoul of the special administrative measures governing public statements about a terror suspect, as well as communications between the suspect and his attorney. Stewart read at a press conference a statement of Rahman's that authorities interpreted as an encouragement to violent insurrection in Egypt. She was convicted in 2003 of obstruction of justice and conspiracy to provide, and providing, material support to terrorism. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Aside from the free speech issues involved in prosecuting an attorney for a public statement made on behalf of her client, some of the evidence used against Stewart was obtained through the use of wiretaps and secret cameras to record her conversations with Rahman. The electronic eavesdropping, authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, makes a mockery of the longstanding legal principle of privileged conversations between attorney and client.

Comey nailed another Stewart, publisher and TV celebrity Martha Stewart, on charges stemming from an investigation into her sale of ImClone stock shortly before the Food and Drug administration announced its decision not to approve ImClone's anti-cancer drug, Erbitux. If her sale were, as alleged, evidence of "insider trading," the insiders were a remarkably large group. ImClone's stock had been steadily falling for at least two weeks before Stewart unloaded her stock, as thousands of others had already done and were doing. No fewer than 7.7 million shares of ImClone stock were sold the same day Stewart sold her 3,298. That was on December 27, 2001, amid widespread and growing anticipation of an imminent negative FDA decision on ImClone's application.

"After all," wrote economist and syndicated columnist Alan Reynolds, "the FDA had only until the end of the year to decide one way or the other. It didn't take a financial genius to figure out that every passing day of delay looked more ominous."

Stewart was eventually convicted of making misleading statements to federal investigators and obstruction of justice, and was sentenced to a five-month jail term, followed by two years of supervised release. The quality of the justice she was convicted of obstructing is itself suspect. The House Energy and Commerce Committee had been investigating Stewart when it sent a letter to Attorney General Ashcroft on September 10, 2002, urging her prosecution because she "repeatedly has refused to be interviewed by committee staff — and her attorneys have stated that she will invoked her Fifth Amendment right." Invoking one's constitutionally guaranteed right is apparently grounds for prosecution in the minds of members of Congress and an ambitious U.S. attorney.

On the plus side, Comey, while serving as deputy attorney general under Ashcroft in 2004, is said to have argued strenuously against renewal of a secret, warrantless eavesdropping operation called the "President's Surveillance Program.'' Several Justice Department officials, including Comey and Mueller, reportedly threatened to resign if the program were continued. They stayed on when it was modified to meet their objections.

On the whole, Comey's record does not inspire confidence that he would be a respecter of the Constitution and rights of the accused if, as expected, he is nominated and confirmed as the next director of the FBI.

When he was named deputy attorney general in late 2003, Christopher Dunn, associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said, "Nothing about Mr. Comey's tenure in New York suggests he will be a friend of the Constitution when he joins John Ashcroft in Washington." Dunn sounded a bit more optimistic on May 31, telling the New York Times that Comey's confirmation hearing "will provide an important opportunity to assure that the F.B.I. fully understands its role in protecting civil liberties."

[Warph]

Al Qaeda in Iraq Caught Plotting Nerve Gas Attack in the United States

(Hmmm... that withdrawal from Iraq worked out well.  Now Al Qaeda is on the path to defeat and can never threaten us again, mission accomplished.  Why??!  Well jeez... Obuma said so.   )

June 2, 2013
By Daniel Greenfield

In the real world, Iraqi authorities busted an Al Qaeda cell plotting to carry out a chemical weapons attack using drones. This is really bad news as it combines WMDs and technological sophistication.


Authorities in Iraq say they have uncovered an al-Qaeda plot to use chemical weapons, as well as to smuggle them to Europe and North America.

Defence ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said five men had been arrested after military intelligence monitored their activities for three months.

Three workshops for manufacturing the chemical agents, including sarin and mustard gas, were uncovered, he added.

Remote-controlled toy planes were also seized at the workshops. Mr Askari said they were to have been used to release the chemical agents over the target from a "safe" distance of 1.5km (1 mile)


Troublingly, Turkey busted an Al-Nusra Front cell (Al Qaeda in Syria) that also had  stockpiles of chemical weapons.

On May 30, the Turkish media reported that 12 individuals from the al Qaeda-linked Al Nusrah Front had been captured in antiterror operations in Adana, along with a total of two kilos (4,5 lb) of sarin gas. Five of the 12 suspects were later released; the interrogation of the other seven is ongoing.

While Adana mayor Hüseyin Avni Cos denied that the suspects were captured with sarin gas and warned against labeling them as part of any terror organization, the Turkish mainstream dailies Sabah and Milliyet are reporting today that the suspects were in fact members of the al Qaeda-linked Al Nusrah Front and were captured with sarin gas.

Turkish authorities are denying the nerve gas part of the story, which they have every reason to do as the Islamist regime is deep in bed with Syrian Sunni terrorists.

The Iraqi claim alone might have been written off as propaganda from a Shiite regime, but the addition of the Turkish story tells us we're dealing with a much bigger problem.

It would appear that Al Qaeda elements in three countries have gotten their hands on chemical weapons out of Syria. The weapons are probably in the pipeline now.

Iraq credited foreign intelligence agencies with alerting them to the problem. That probably means the United States. It's about the only country that could coordinate busts with Iraq and Turkey. Iraq is obviously jumping on the propaganda opportunities. Turkey, just as obviously, is lying about it. But it's hard to believe that busting two cells takes all the WMDs out of Al Qaeda's hands.

We may be headed for a much bigger problem. Yet the eagerness of Al Qaeda in Iraq and Syria to focus on using chemical weapons to kill Shiites may buy us some time.

[Warph]

"Opie Gets Her Comeuppance... How Sad, She's Now One Of Them"

"Oprah gave Boston Mayor Thomas Menino a high five at the ceremonies"

Here's my take on this:

This week, Oprah Gail (Harpo) Winfrey became just the latest celeb to grab an honorary degree from a prestigious university.  Speaking at Harvard, Opie lectured the graduates about immigration and gun control.  She stated, "In our political system and the media, we often see the reflection of a country that is polarized, that is paralyzed, that is self-interested. And yet I know you know the truth. We all know that we are better than the cynicism and the pessimism that is regurgitating throughout Washington and the 24 hour cable news cycle."

(Wow, Opie... I wonder who pinned that little ditty for you?  Could it have been your buddy, Barry??  And that 24 hour cable news cycle... I'm sure you mean MS/NBC, CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN.  Do you think those News Og's are going to appreciate that )

There's a reason this rhetoric sounds familiar.  It's straight from Barack Obuma's playbook.  But that's what's so astonishing about today's politics: if you took the quote out of context, you wouldn't know whether it came from the Queen of Daytime Television or the POS President of the United States.

And Oprah's politics are the same as Obuma's, too. "The vast majority of people in this country believe in stronger background checks," she said, "because they realize that we can uphold the Second Amendment and also reduce that violence that is robbing us of our children."

(You mean those gun-carrying gang kids, Opie?)

She then went on to immigration, where again POS President Obuma's teleprompter clearly spoke through her: "it's possible to both enforce our laws and, at the same time, embrace the words on the Statue of Liberty that have welcomed generations of huddled masses to our shores."[/i]

Our "shores?"  Do you mean swimming the Rio Grand where they come into the U.S. illegally, Opie?)

Finally, she ended with welfare.  "People from both parties and no party," she said, "believe that indigent mothers and families should have access to healthy food and a roof over the heads and a strong public education. Because here in the richest nation on earth, we can afford a basic level of security and opportunity."

(Okay... then, why don't you spread some of that wealth of yours around for them, Opie.  I'm tired of giving them my hard-earn tax money to them.  Oh, and don't give it to Obuma, he'll just flitter it away on some distant middle eastern country!)

Why does Opie sound so similar to Obuma?  And is she cribbing from him, or vice versa?

In all likelihood, Obuma's America got its start in Opie's audience.  Opie described her mission on television this way to the Harvard audience: to show Americans "that what unites us is ultimately far more redeeming and compelling than anything that separates [us]." That's just the sort of bromidic nonsense that Obuma speaks, before pretending that a false consensus for liberalism exists.  This phraseology means nothing.  What unites Americans and al-Qaeda terrorists.... our biology as homo sapiens.... is larger than what divides us.  But that doesn't mean that there are philosophical battles worth fighting and values worth defending.

But Opie's entire mission in life is to enfeeble those values.  Her entire show was geared for years toward driving sympathy for poor decision making.  Emotion was the name of the game.  A typical hour of Opie often included a weepy sob story from someone... either deserving or undeserving... followed by a giveaway to her audience.

Opie Harpo Winfrey, for all her charitable work, has pushed the feelings-first America that drives us to immediate band-aids for long-term problems.  While American values bleed out, both Opie and Obuma tell us to take a nice, comfortable anesthetic without correcting the underlying problem.

She deserves her Harvard degree just as much as Barack Obuma deserves his (*cough*) honorary (*cough*cough*) Harvard Law degree.  After all, her master class in feelings has helped bring us the Harvard value system that now dominates the White House.

....Warph

For the real story, read: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2333524/Oprah-gets-teary-receives-honorary-degree-Harvard.html#ixzz2V8sq7YID

[Warph]

(What exactly is an "Islamic Economy?"....
and what's with the little pinkie, Moomoud, you screwball? )

Following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian cleric Mahmoud Shaaban, which aired on Tahrir TV on May 14, 2013:

http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/3852.htm

Mahmoud Shaaban: My dear sir, the entire world has its eyes set upon Islam. We resemble a bad salesman, who has the best merchandise but does not know how to market it. America has its eyes set upon Islam, and so does Italy.

Let me give you some quick examples. During the Wall Street protests of October 1, 2011 over the financial crisis, banners were raised demanding an Islamic economy. At first, we thought these were Muslims who had infiltrated the demonstrations, but it turned out that they were Jews and Christians, who had conducted research and found that the economic solution lies with Islam.

Interviewer: Where was that? In Italy?

Mahmoud Shaaban: The Wall Street protests in the U.S. They raised banners in all languages, saying "We want the Islamic economy."

Interviewer: The Americans did that?

Mahmoud Shaaban: Yes. They weren't even Muslims. Check it out on the Internet. They researched the subject and found that the solution lies with Islam. The solution lies in having Islamic interest-free loans.

Brother, Europe would not have made progress if not for Islam. Anything good that emerged from Europe can be traced back to Islam. The good aspects of European democracy were also taken from Islam.

[Warph]

Major Democratic donors flock to RINO Chris Christie

"George Soros Donates To Christie's Re-Election Campaign"

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/06/major_democratic_donors_flock.html

[Warph]

(Hands down the dumbest man on cable news)

Via WFB: http://freebeacon.com/sharpton-no-evidence-at-all-connecting-holder-to-any-scandals/

Rev. Al Sharpton brazenly stated on the Monday edition of PoliticsNation that there was "no evidence at all" connecting embattled Attorney General Eric Holder to any scandals while complaining that Republicans were trying to "bully" him out of office.

"The precedent that it would set for them to just bully an Attorney General out of office when there is no evidence at all that would lead to connecting him to any of these so-called scandals, I think that would take a long time for the American public to be able to overcome if we could just start bullying the top law enforcement person out of office when he's not connected to any of these things," Sharpton said.

Holder's fingerprints on the Justice Department's naming of Fox News correspondent James Rosen as a criminal co-conspirator in a leaks case strongly belies Sharpton's claim.


[...]

Number of times Sharpton has apologized for his past actions: Zero!

Via Politico: http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/06/stu-stevens-vs-al-sharpton-165242.html

MSNBC Publicly Shamed For Employing Al Sharpton With His "Outrageous History Of Hate"Republican political strategist
Stuart Stevens is seeking to publicly shame the executives at NBC Universal for employing and promoting the Rev. Al Sharpton — a man who has an "outrageous history of hate," according to Stevens.

Stevens, the chief strategist on Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, writes in a new column for The Daily Beast that Sharpton "has gone from manipulating the news with vile accusations to delivering the news for NBC."

The evidence: A new documentary short from The New York Times and Retroreport.org about the 1987 Tawna Brawley hoax, during which Sharpton was found guilty of defaming a local prosecutor who he accused of attacking and raping the 15-year-old Brawley. As the documentary shows, there had been no rape; Brawley had defaced herself. Stevens also accuses Sharpton of using the Brawley case to inflame racial tensions and promote his own career.

Stevens also describes Sharpton "a key player inflaming the 1991 Crown Heights riots," during which he called Jews "diamond merchants" responsible for "the blood of innocent babies" because an African American had been hit by a car driven by a Hassidic Jew.

NBC executives "have made the ethical and news judgment that Al Sharpton should be a credible news source for Americans. They have the right to make that decision, but what about the reason?" Stevens asks in today's column.

[Ross]

Egypt Slaps 16 Americans With Jail Terms

All but one convicted in absentia, including son of transportation chief Ray LaHood
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 4, 2013 11:42 AM CDT

Newser)  – If Egypt had its way, the son of one of President Obama's Cabinet members would spend the next five years in prison. Sam LaHood, son of transportation chief Ray LaHood, was among 16 Americans convicted today in an Egyptian court, accused by the government there of trying to foment unrest in their roles with non-governmental organizations, reports Reuters. LaHood and 15 others are back in the US and were convicted in absentia. They all received five-year sentences.

The 16th, Robert Becker, stayed behind in solidarity with Egyptians caught up in last year's crackdown on NGOs, and he received a two-year sentence, reports the AP. Becker plans to appeal, and it's not clear whether he will remain free in the interim. In addition to the Americans, the court convicted 27 others of various nationalities. The Americans convicted belonged to both Republican and Democrat groups. "The government of President Mohammed Morsi basically accused them of trying to undermine that regime by encouraging unrest," writes Mark Memmott at NPR.
http://www.newser.com/story/168979/egypt-slaps-16-americans-with-jail-terms.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=united&utm_campaign=rss_top


Will anymore NGO's please volunteer to go to Egypt?

[Warph]

Supremes give police access to your DNA

(Hmmmm.... is this a promising crime-fighting tool or a grave challenge to civil liberties?)

June 4, 2013   

It takes a warrant for the police to search your house or tap your phone.  But not to record and keep track of your DNA.  So ruled the Supreme Court yesterday.  The Constitution's protections against "unreasonable search and seizure" do not apply to your genetic code.

From the Associated Press:A sharply divided Supreme Court on Monday said police can routinely take DNA from people they arrest, equating a DNA cheek swab to other common jailhouse procedures like fingerprinting.

"Taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court's five-justice majority.

But the four dissenting justices said that the court was allowing a major change in police powers.

"Make no mistake about it: because of today's decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason," conservative Justice Antonin Scalia said in a sharp dissent which he read aloud in the courtroom.

At least 28 states and the federal government now take DNA swabs after arrests. But a Maryland court was one of the first to say that it was illegal for that state to take Alonzo King's DNA without approval from a judge, saying King had "a sufficiently weighty and reasonable expectation of privacy against warrantless, suspicionless searches."

But the high court's decision reverses that ruling and reinstates King's rape conviction, which came after police took his DNA during an unrelated arrest. Kennedy wrote the decision, and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer. Scalia was joined in his dissent by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Getting DNA swabs from criminals is common. All 50 states and the federal government take cheek swabs from convicted criminals to check against federal and state databanks, with the court's blessing. The fight at the Supreme Court was over whether that DNA collection could come before conviction and without a judge issuing a warrant.

[Warph]

Mooch Gets Testy With Heckler: "Listen To Me Or I'm Leaving"
– Update: White House Scrubs Portion Where She Threatened To Leave

(Nobody interrupts Queen Mooch!)

Via Politico:
http://www.politico.com/politico44/2013/06/flotus-to-heckler-you-can-take-the-mic-but-im-leaving-165410.html#.Ua56mm-BHeE.twitter


First lady Michelle Obama was interrupted by a heckler about 10 minutes into a speech at a campaign fundraiser in D.C. on Tuesday.

A woman started shouting and calling for the president to sign an executive order on gay rights, according to a pool report.

"One of the things I don't do well is this," the first lady said, before leaving the lectern and moving over toward the woman.

Obama said you can "listen to me or you can take the mic, but I'm leaving. You all decide. You have one choice."

The crowd started shouting that they wanted Obama to stay and one woman near the heckler said "You need to go!"

As she was escorted out, the heckler shouted: "...lesbian looking for federal equality before I die."


UPDATE: This how it went over the air-waves after the White House intervention:
MRS. OBAMA: So here's the thing — we cannot wait for the next presidential election to get fired up and ready to go. We cannot wait. Right now, today, we have an obligation to stand up for those kids. And I don't care what you believe in, we don't –

AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

MRS. OBAMA: Wait, wait, wait. One of the things –

AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

MRS. OBAMA: One of the things that I don't do well is this. (Applause.) Do you understand? (Applause.) One of the things — now –

(Inaudible audience interruption.)

MRS. OBAMA: So let me make the point that I was making before: We are here for our kids. (Applause.) So we must recapture that passion, that same urgency and energy that we felt back in 2008 and 2012. Understand this. This is what I want you all to understand, this is not about us — no one back here. It's not about you or you, or your issue or your thing. This is about our children. (Applause.)

Also, check:

http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/04/michelle-obama-heckled-at-dnc-event-threatens-to-leave/