Other Political News

[Soldier4Christ]

Mondale backs pre-emptive strike against N. Korea missile

Former Vice President Walter Mondale said today he supports a pre-emptive U.S. strike against a North Korean missile, saying the U.S. should tell North Korea to dismantle the missile or "we are going to take it out."

"I think it would end the nuclear long-range dreams of this dangerous country," said Mondale, who was the 1984 Democratic presidential nominee and a former U.S. ambassador to Japan.

The tensions are over North Korea's apparent preparations to test-fire a Taepodong-2 missile, which is believed to have a range of up to 9,300 miles. That would make it capable of hitting much of the U.S. mainland.

Mondale, 78, said North Korea already has nuclear weapons and its ambition to develop a long-range missile is "one of the most dangerous developments in recent history." It's so dangerous, he said, because of the nation's isolation from the international community and its unpredictable leader, Kim Jong Il.

"Here's this bizarre, hermit kingdom over there with a paranoid leader getting ready to test a missile system that can hit us," Mondale said.

Former President Clinton's defense secretary, William Perry, also advocated a pre-emptive strike in The Washington Post, but National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley brushed aside Perry's suggestion. Mondale spoke about a pre-emptive strike during an appearance on WCCO-AM in Minneapolis.

Mondale and President Jimmy Carter took office in 1976 and were defeated by Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980. Mondale lost as the Democratic presidential nominee in 1984. He was appointed ambassador to Japan in 1993 and is now practicing law in Minneapolis.

[Soldier4Christ]

Arnold hammered for 'gay' fund-raiser
California governor slated to speak for 1st time to homosexual audience

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is getting heat from pro-family activists for his plan to speak for the first time at a homosexual event, a Hollywood fund-raiser this week for the Log Cabin Republicans.

Though Schwarzenegger vetoed a same-sex marriage bill in September, he has otherwise signed every piece of pro-homosexual legislation to reach his desk.

The homosexual Log Cabin Republicans – which publicly parted company with President Bush after he supported a federal marriage-protection measure – have stood by Schwarzenegger, the Associated Press reported.

California-based Campaign for Children and Families yesterday blasted Schwarzenegger over his appearance at the event.

"No Republican governor in California history has promoted transsexuality, bisexuality and homosexuality like Arnold Schwarzenegger has," said the organization's president, Randy Thomasson, in a statement. "In the last three years, Schwarzenegger has delighted homosexual activists by signing most of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) bills that the Democrat-controlled Legislature has placed on his desk. This spring, Schwarzenegger signed an official proclamation celebrating the 'success of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Celebrations.'"

Continued Thomasson: "Now, in an unprecedented act honoring transsexual-bisexual-homosexual 'pride' (which is parading through cities nationwide this month), Schwarzenegger has done the unthinkable: He's agreed to be the top fund-raising speaker for homosexual activists."

Though AP reported the Thursday event costs $250 a plate, Campaign for Children and Families says attendees can get their photo taken with the governor for a $5,000 contribution.

Thomasson asserts the Log Cabin Republicans want to "transform the California Republican Party into the party that supports homosexual 'marriage' and the entire transsexual, bisexual and homosexual legislative agenda."

Last month, Schwarzenegger broke a policy of not commenting on pending bills, indicating through a spokesman he will veto SB 1437, a measure passed by the Senate and pending in the Assembly that would remove "sex-specific" terms such as "mom" and "dad" from textbooks and would require students to learn about the contributions homosexuals have made to society.

SB 1437 passed the Senate May 11 with a 22-15 vote.

"The governor believes that school curriculum should include all important historical figures, regardless of orientation," said Schwarzenegger's director of communications, Adam Mendelsohn, according to the Sacramento Bee. "However, he does not support the Legislature micromanaging curriculum."

Thomasson believes the veto threat was issued out of "fear of pro-family voters" just before this month's primary election. Schwarzenegger faces voters in November's general election.

Meanwhile, a GOP governor on the other side of the country, Gov. Robert Ehrlich of Maryland, has appointed an openly homosexual judge just a week after firing a transportation board member after he stated on a local cable TV show that "sexual deviancy" should not receive "a special place of entitlement."

Robert J. Smith, Ehrlich's appointee to the Washington, D.C.-area Metro transit authority board, was fired by the governor after a homosexual member of the board complained about the comment.

Erlich appointed 47-year-old Christopher Panos as a special master in the city Circuit Court family division to a fill a court vacancy, AP reported, adding that Panos and his "partner" are raising a daughter together.

[Soldier4Christ]

Federal Judge Kicks Ministry Out Of Iowa Prison


Clinton-appointed federal judge Robert Pratt has issued a 140-page decision kicking Prison Fellowship out of a prison facility in Iowa. The judge has decided that InnerChange ministry, which receives 40% state funding and 60% private funding, is an unconstitutional breach of the alleged separation of church and state.

Pratt spent page after page of his decision defining what Evangelical Christianity is and has decided that this brand of Christianity cannot be allowed in the prison system. InnerChange and Prison Fellowship were sued by the anti-Christian group, Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) in 2003. Pratt accepted AU’s arguments and has ordered InnerChange to leave the prison system in 60 days and repay $1.5 million to the Iowa correctional system. He then issued a stay of his order until the appeals process is exhausted.

TVC’s report, “Federal Judge Boots Ministry From Iowa Prisons,” xxxx has more details on this case and the reaction from Prison Fellowship. An appeal of this decision is to be filed as soon as possible by Prison Fellowship.

Judge Pratt is also the federal judge who ruled that Iowa’s partial birth abortion ban law is unconstitutional.

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Yet he has left all other non-christian ministers still there.

[Soldier4Christ]

Ehrlich Appoints Openly Gay Judge

Governor Robert Ehrlich  (website - news - bio)  has named an openly gay judge to serve on the Baltimore District Court.

Erlich appointed 47-year-old Christopher Panos as a special master in the city Circuit Court family division to a fill a court vacancy.

Panos and his partner of 17 years, Dennis Cashen, are raising a young daughter, Cate.

Panos tells The Baltimore  Sun the appointment is indicative of social progress within the form of a judicial nomination.

The governor's appointment comes a little more than a week after he fired one of his appointees to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, Robert J. Smith, for saying on a cable talk show that homosexuals lived a life of "sexual deviancy."

Ehrlich says his politics are shaped by a libertarian bent. He has tread carefully around gay issues since being elected governor with strong crossover support from Democrats.

[Soldier4Christ]

American presence in Iraq is more dangerous to world peace than nuclear threats from North Korea or Iran, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said to an audience of more than 200 in North Miami Saturday afternoon.
Murtha was the guest speaker at a town hall meeting organized by Rep. Kendrick B. Meek, D-Miami, at Florida International University's Biscayne Bay Campus. Meek's mother, former Rep. Carrie Meek, D-Miami, was also on the panel.

War veterans, local mayors, university students and faculty were in the Mary Ann Wolfe Theatre to listen to the three panelists discuss the war in Iraq for an hour.
A former Marine and a prominent critic of the Bush administration's policies in Iraq, Murtha reiterated his views that the war cannot be won militarily and needs political solutions. He said the more than 100,000 troops in Iraq should be pulled out immediately, and deployed to peripheral countries like Kuwait.
"We do not want permanent bases in Iraq," Murtha told the audience. "We want as many Americans out of there as possible."
Murtha also has publicly said that the shooting of 24 Iraqis in November at Haditha, a city in the Anbar province of western Iraq that has been plagued by insurgents, was wrongfully covered up.
The killings, which sparked an investigation into the deadly encounter and another into whether they were the subject of a cover-up, could undermine U.S. efforts in Iraq more than the prison abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib in 2004, Murtha said.
"(The United States) became the target when Abu Ghraib came along," Murtha said.

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This guy (Murtha) is not only a threat to world peace but also to the security of this nation.

[Soldier4Christ]

Specter: Agreement on Eavesdropping Near

 The White House is nearing an agreement with Congress on legislation that would write President Bush's warrantless surveillance program into law, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman said Sunday.

Bush and senior officials in his administration have said they did not think changes were needed to empower the National Security Agency to eavesdrop _ without court approval _ on communications between people in the U.S. and overseas when terrorism is suspected.

 But Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and other critics contend the program skirted a 1978 law that required the government to get approval from a secretive federal court before Americans could be monitored.

"We're getting close with the discussions with the White House, I think, to having the wiretapping issue submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court," Specter told "Fox New Sunday."

The administration has asserted that a post-Sept. 11, 2001, congressional resolution approving the use of military force covered the surveillance of some domestic communications.

Specter has said that the president "does not have a blank check" and he has sought to have administration ask the special court to review the program.

After the program was disclosed by The New York Times in December, the White House opposed changing the law. Over time, that position has shifted gradually.

When the president's nominee to head the CIA had confirmation hearings in the Senate in May, Michael Hayden told Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., that he would support a congressional debate on modifying the law.

"We're having a lot of conversations about that," Specter said Sunday. He added that he and Vice President Dick Cheney have exchanged letters and that Cheney has indicated that he was serious about discussing the issue.

"I've talked to ranking officials in the White House, and we're close," Specter said. "I'm not making any predictions until we have it all nailed down, but I think there is an inclination to have it submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and that would be a big step forward for the protection of constitutional rights and civil liberties."

[Soldier4Christ]

Sen. Calls for Direct Talks With N. Korea

 Leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Sunday the Bush administration should talk directly with North Korea as concerns grow over a possible test launch of a missile that could reach the U.S.

Senators also rejected the idea by a former defense secretary that the U.S. make a pre-emptive strike against a North Korean missile.

 "We are not anywhere close to talking about attacking North Korea, and we should shut up and stop it," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.

"We need to talk directly with North Korea. The sooner we do that, the sooner we're going to get this resolved," Hagel, the second-ranking Republican on the committee, told CNN's "Late Edition."

The committee's chairman, Sen. Richard Lugar, also spoke out against attacking the missile while it was on the ground.

"It would be advisable to bring about a much greater intensification of diplomacy, and this may involve direct talks between the United States and North Korea," said Lugar, R-Ind.

North Korea long has wanted direct meetings with the U.S. Washington, however, has refused, insisting it will only meet the North Koreans in the context of six-nation international talks aimed at ridding the communist country of its nuclear weapons program.

Lugar said he respected those talks, which are stalled now, but "nevertheless, with regard to a missile that might have a range of the United States, that becomes a very specific United States-North Korean issue."

"We're going to have to come to a point where we find at least an agenda to talk with North Korea about, and I think we are moving toward that," Lugar told CBS' "Face the Nation."

Intelligence reports say fuel tanks have been seen around a missile at North Korea's launch site on the northeastern coast. But officials say it is difficult to determine from satellite photos if the rocket is actually being fueled.

The potential test is believed to be of a Taepodong-2 missile, which the U.S. government estimates has a range of between 5,000 miles and 7,500 miles.

Sen. John Warner, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Sunday that he had been speaking with the White House, "and, frankly, we don't know exactly what the status is, whether it's been fully refueled or what the problem is.

"The weather is closing in now, which would not make it an optimal time to try and test it," Warner, R-Va., told "Fox News Sunday."

Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware urged close U.S. contact with South Korea and Japan as events unfold.

"If we were to strike a missile and that resulted in an artillery retaliation, killing thousands of people in South Korea, it would be a very big deal," said Biden, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee.

Direct talks with North Korea may not work, he said, but would be "a better way of approaching this and finding what the bottom line is than this brinksmanship."

[Soldier4Christ]

Senate could vote on flag burning this week

 The first time the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on flag desecration, the subject was beer.

The court said states could outlaw flags on bottles of Stars and Stripes brew because such marketing would degrade and cheapen the flag.

That was 1907. Eighty-two years later, in 1989, the court concluded that the Constitution's right of free speech permitted the flag to be desecrated, even by burning it.

Majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives have been trying to turn back the clock ever since.

Senate Republican leader Bill Frist of Tennessee plans a vote this week on a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would give Congress the right to outlaw flag desecration.

Debate could begin as early as today.

The House routinely has approved the flag amendment by broad majorities, but twice the Senate has fallen short of the necessary two-thirds vote needed to send the question to the states for ratification.

"This is the place to stop it," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who believes it would harmfully limit the right to free speech.

Dousing flags with kerosene and setting them on fire was an eye-catching way of protesting the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s; it happens infrequently today.

Still, the idea rubs emotions raw. All 50 states have adopted resolutions in recent years advocating a flag-protection amendment, and some polls show backing in conservative states as high as 70%.

[Soldier4Christ]

Alito Breaks Tie, Kan. Death Penalty Stays

New Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito broke a tie Monday to rule that Kansas' death penalty law is constitutional.

By a 5-to-4 vote, the justices said the Kansas Supreme Court incorrectly interpreted the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment to strike down the state's death penalty statute.

The dissenters, the four liberal members of the high court, bitterly complained about the decision.

The Kansas court said the state's death penalty law improperly forced jurors to impose a capital sentence even if they believed that the prosecution and defense evidence were equal in weight.

But the justices disagreed. Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas disputed the claim by critics that the law created "a general presumption in favor of the death penalty in the state of Kansas."

The ruling affirms the court's long-held position that states should determine how juries weigh factors presented by the prosecution and defense in capital cases.

Fifteen states filed friend-of-the-court briefs, predicting that a ruling in convicted murderer Michael Lee Marsh's favor would have required states with capital punishment to set up systems for juries to weigh evidence at sentencing.

But Justice David H. Souter, writing one of two dissents, said that "in the face of evidence of the hazards of capital prosecution," maintaining a system like the one in Kansas "is obtuse by any moral or social measure."

Marsh was convicted in the June 1996 killings of Marry Pusch and her 19-month-old daughter, M.P. Marsh confessed that he had been waiting in Pusch's house when she and her child came home. Pusch was shot, stabbed and her throat was slit. Her body was set on fire. M.P. died several days later from severe burns.

The Kansas court used Marsh's case to find the state's death penalty statute unconstitutional because it could force juries to impose death sentences if aggravating evidence of a crime's brutality and mitigating factors explaining a defendant's actions are equal in weight.

The case is Kansas v. Marsh, 04-1170.

[Soldier4Christ]

White House Plays Down Iraq Withdrawal Talk


The White House on Monday played down reports that the United States is planning sharp troop withdrawals from Iraq, beginning with the pullout of two combat brigades in September.

"I would caution very strongly against everybody thinking, 'Well, they're going to pull two brigades out,'" White House press secretary Tony Snow said.

"Maybe they will, maybe they won't," he said. "It really does depend upon a whole series of things that we cannot at this juncture predict. I would characterize this more in terms of scenario building and we'll see how it proceeds."

Snow confirmed that Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top military commander in Iraq, met with President Bush on Friday.

Snow refused to disclose what Casey told Bush but said the general has "a number of scenarios in mind for differing situations on the ground." He said planning would change based on conditions on the ground.

"But I'm certainly not going to announce in advance anything that he may have in mind for the president or that he may be recommending," Snow said. "Just don't do that in a time of war."

The New York Times reported that U.S. has drafted a plan that projects sharp reductions in Iraq with the number of American combat brigades projected to decrease to five or six from the current level of 14 by the end of 2007.

The first reductions would involve two combat brigades that would rotate out of Iraq in September without being replaced, according to the plan. Combat brigades, which generally have about 3,500 troops, do not make up the bulk of the 127,000-member American force in Iraq.

[Soldier4Christ]

Court to hear arguments in taped call case

A federal appeals court has agreed to hear new arguments in a case involving an illegally taped telephone call leaked to reporters by Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash.

In an announcement late Monday, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said all nine judges will hear McDermott's appeal of the taped call case, which dates back nearly a decade. Arguments will be heard in September, the court said.

A three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled in March that McDermott violated federal law by turning over the tape recording of a 1996 call involving then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.

The 2-1 opinion upheld a lower court ruling that McDermott violated the rights of Rep. John Boehner (news, bio, voting record), R-Ohio, who was heard on the 1996 call. Boehner was then a Gingrich lieutenant and is now House majority leader.

The appeals court upheld a lower court ruling ordering McDermott to pay Boehner about $700,000 for leaking the taped conversation. The figure includes $60,000 in damages and more than $600,000 in legal costs.

In granting McDermott's request for a new hearing, the appeals court vacated the earlier judgment.

In a statement Monday, McDermott said he was elated at the latest twist in the long-running case.

"We look forward to presenting a vigorous defense of the First Amendment issues at stake in this case, and we believe there is precedent all the way to the
U.S. Supreme Court to support our position," McDermott said.

An attorney for Boehner could not be reached for comment Monday night.

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With all these leaks we have become our own worst enemies.

[Shammu]

With all these leaks we have become our own worst enemies.

AMEN!!

All those who are doing it, need to see the inside of a court room.

[Soldier4Christ]

AMEN!!

All those who are doing it, need to see the inside of a court room solitary confinement.

Lock em up, throw the key away or use the firing squad. after all the firing squad is still on the law books and is the punishment for treason during time of war.

[Shammu]

Lock em up, throw the key away or use the firing squad. after all the firing squad is still on the law books and is the punishment for treason during time of war.

Believe it or not, but in Arizona hanging is in the books still brother.

But yes, I agree brother, they need time to cool their heals in jail. And no, they don't get a get out of jail card.

[Soldier4Christ]

Believe it or not, but in Arizona hanging is in the books still brother.

But yes, I agree brother, they need time to cool their heals in jail. And no, they don't get a get out of jail card.

That may be for state law but this is a Federal offense and therefore Federal Laws pertain. The minimum they could get on a conviction of this sort is life in prison.