DEBUNKING THE MYTH OF A RACIST DEATH PENALTY

According to death penalty abolitionists, white sociologists in academia and black activists, the death penalty is racist. They allege that institutional racism results in fewer whites than blacks being sentenced to death and executed.

Mike Adams, a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, has a clolumn, "Ebony and Irony," in today's Townhall.com which examines the application of capital punishment in the "post-Furman era." Although the article contains a good bit of sarcasm toward liberals, it nevertheless debunks the myth of a racist death penalty. Here are excerpts from his column:

"The role of race in executions first became a hot topic in 1972 when the Supreme Court placed a moratorium on executions because of the way Georgia was allowing race to creep into the punishment process. Georgia was doing a good job of instructing jurors during the guilt/innocence phase. But, then, they allowed jurors – so often twelve white people - unbridled discretion in deciding which convicted murderers were to be executed.

Consequently, for a time, there was an 89% chance that a black man would be sentenced to death (sentenced in Georgia but not actually executed) for killing a white man. During the same time period, the likelihood of a white man being sentenced to death for killing a black man was 0%.

So, in 1972, when data convinced the High Court that the death penalty was unconstitutional – not per se but as applied – the justices made states re-write their death penalty statutes (See Furman v. Georgia, 1972). The Court wanted to make certain that – at least when assigning the ultimate penalty – race took a back seat to legal sentencing factors.
States did re-write their statutes and the Court approved of new capital punishment sentencing procedures in Georgia (and elsewhere) in a case known as Gregg. This ushered in what is now known as the post-Furman era.

Criminologists have been keeping a watchful eye on death penalty demographics throughout the post-Furman era. For example, Robert Bohm – formerly a professor in the UNC system where I teach - published an article on race and the death penalty after the first 120 post-Furman executions. Bohm was forced to admit that a majority of those 120 executions were of whites.

Nonetheless, Bohm tried to argue for the possibility of a racial conspiracy against blacks in the post-Furman era. By breaking the first 120 post-Furman executions into deciles (ten groups of twelve) he was able to detect a possibly racist trend. This view was based on the fact that 75% of the first twelve executions were of whites while just over 50% of the first 120 executions were of whites.

Bohm actually stated that he believed, in the post-Furman era, states were making a concerted effort at first to execute more whites. The idea was that when no one was looking they would revert to their old ways of executing more blacks than whites. He concluded – looking at less than sixty blacks put to death years into the post-Furman era - that the criminal justice system tried to control blacks by extermination or, more importantly, threat of extermination.

It is worth noting that Bohm did not, however, use the term "extermination" in reference to the thousands of blacks killed by other blacks every year. This is largely due to the fact that he did not mention that thousands of blacks are killed by other blacks every year. Criminologists don’t talk about blacks killing other blacks. They just let it happen.

Now, about a decade and a half has passed since Bohm’s unsophisticated little study. And what do we find? It is still the case that most of those executed in the post-Furman era are white. This is a problem – for the liberals, of course - because white people simply do not commit most of the homicides in America.

But beware of a potential sleight of hand by the author of this provocative column. When we are talking about the death penalty, we are talking about a penalty reserved for first degree murders. Statistics indicating that 55% of homicide arrests are of blacks should be qualified, should they not? After all, not all homicides are first degree murders. Not by a long shot.

Here is where the radical death penalty abolitionists have painted themselves in a corner. For years, they have lamented the fact that, for example, the doctor (read: wealthy white man) who loses a patient in an unnecessary surgical procedure has not committed a death eligible offense. He has committed involuntary manslaughter at best or depraved heart murder (a form of second degree murder) at worst. He has not committed first degree murder by any stretch of the imagination and so he escapes the ultimate penalty.

The suggestion here is that the law defines the kinds of killings black people commit as death eligible and the kinds of killings white people commit as death ineligible. Of course, this all goes to show that there is no common sense distinction that is immune to an accusation of institutional racism.

Put simply, there is no evidence to suggest that blacks aren’t committing the majority of homicides in general and first degree murders in particular. Nor is there any evidence to suggest that proponents of affirmative action will demand that we begin to execute more blacks to make up for their present under-representation in American death chambers. And we can safely say they are under-represented by ignoring their representation in the general population (an irrelevant 12%) and looking at their representation among the population of killers (a relevant 55%)."

GEORGE CARLIN'S "THE PLANET IS FINE"

George Carlin, arguably America's best contemporary comedian, passed away recently. He will be sorely missed. His routines on social issues were biting and hard hitting. Here is one of his best ever - his take on environmentalists:

"We're so self-important. So self-important. Everybody's going to save something now. "Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails." And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet, we don't even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven't learned how to care for one another, we're gonna save the fucking planet?

I'm getting tired of that shit. Tired of that shit. I'm tired of fucking Earth Day, I'm tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren't enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world save for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don't give a shit about the planet. They don't care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don't. Not in the abstract they don't. You know what they're interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They're worried that some day in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn't impress me.

Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked. Difference. Difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We've been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we're a threat? That somehow we're gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that's just a-floatin' around the sun?

The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages...And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet...the planet...the planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!

We're going away. Pack your shit, folks. We're going away. And we won't leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet'll be here and we'll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet'll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance.

You wanna know how the planet's doing? Ask those people at Pompeii, who are frozen into position from volcanic ash, how the planet's doing. You wanna know if the planet's all right, ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble, if they feel like a threat to the planet this week. Or how about those people in Kilowaia, Hawaii, who built their homes right next to an active volcano, and then wonder why they have lava in the living room.

The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we're gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, 'cause that's what it does. It's a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it's true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new pardigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn't know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, "Why are we here?" Plastic...asshole.

So, the plastic is here, our job is done, we can be phased out now. And I think that's begun. Don't you think that's already started? I think, to be fair, the planet sees us as a mild threat. Something to be dealt with. And the planet can defend itself in an organized, collective way, the way a beehive or an ant colony can. A collective defense mechanism. The planet will think of something. What would you do if you were the planet? How would you defend yourself against this troublesome, pesky species? Let's see... Viruses. Viruses might be good. They seem vulnerable to viruses. And, uh...viruses are tricky, always mutating and forming new strains whenever a vaccine is developed. Perhaps, this first virus could be one that compromises the immune system of these creatures. Perhaps a human immunodeficiency virus, making them vulnerable to all sorts of other diseases and infections that might come along. And maybe it could be spread sexually, making them a little reluctant to engage in the act of reproduction.

Well, that's a poetic note. And it's a start. And I can dream, can't I? See I don't worry about the little things: bees, trees, whales, snails. I think we're part of a greater wisdom than we will ever understand. A higher order. Call it what you want. Know what I call it? The Big Electron. The Big Electron...whoooa. Whoooa. Whoooa. It doesn't punish, it doesn't reward, it doesn't judge at all. It just is. And so are we. For a little while."

IGNORAMUS IMUS INSULTS INTELLIGENCE

Shock-jock Don Imus must have been hatched under a rock. A year ago, his crass attempt at humor in saying that the Rutgers University women's basketball team looked like a bunch of "nappy-headed hos," gave Al Sharpton something else to scream about and got Imus fired from MSNBC and CBS Radio. Now, his hoof-n-mouth disease has flared up again.

Last Monday, during his new show on WABC-AM, Imus and sportscaster Warner Wolf were discussing former Tennessee Titans and current Dallas Cowboys football player Adam "Pacman" Jones' season-long suspension and legal problems. When Wolf noted Pacman's six arrests, Imus suddenly asked Wolf, "What color is he?" (As if he didn't know.) Wolf replied, "He's African-American." Imus then said, "Well, there you go. Now we know."

Sharpton and others immediately jumped on Imus for injecting race into Pacman's arrests. Imus then defended his remarks by claiming that he had been misunderstood because he was only trying to "make a sarcastic point" about the mistreatment of blacks by a racist criminal justice system. Imus explained, "What people should be outraged about is that they arrest blacks for no reason. I mean, there's no reason to arrest this kid (Pacman) six times. Maybe he did something once, but everyone does something once."

Imus, a sub-species of Ignoramus, is trying to insult our intelligence with that lame-brained explanation. Let's look at how Wikipedia describes that poor kid's legal problems:

On July 13, 2005 Jones was arrested on charges of assault and felony vandalism stemming from a nightclub altercation. On September 5, 2005 Jones was a guest at the annual Nashville Sports Council Kickoff Luncheon. After a loud verbal tantrum when he was told to wait in line for his vehicle later that evening, Jones was counseled by the police. He also refused to pay for any valet services used that evening, because he didn't have money at the time. On October 2005, in a petition filed by the State of West Virginia, it was alleged that Jones had not made regular and sufficient contact with his probation officer and that he did not report his July arrest in Nashville in a timely fashion. The court ordered the probation extended for a period of 90 days, although the state requested it to be extended one year.

Jones also is set to appear in a Fayetteville, Georgia court in 2007 for his February 2006 incident on subpoenas for felony and misdemeanor obstruction of justice charges for an incident outside a home. The charges of marijuana possession in the same state were dismissed.

On August 25, 2006, Jones was arrested in Murfreesboro, Tennessee for disorderly conduct and public intoxication after claiming that a woman stole his wallet. She claimed that she did not steal anything and Jones spat on her. Police officers said they ordered Jones to leave several times, but he refused, continuing to shout profanities at the woman. A judge granted him six months probation on the conditions that he stays out of further trouble and away from the nightclub.

On October 26, 2006. Jones was cited for misdemeanor assault for allegedly spitting in the face of a female student from Tennessee State University during a private party at Club Mystic, a Nashville nightclub. He was suspended by the Titans for one game and was scheduled to be booked on the charge on November 17, 2006.

On the morning of February 19, 2007 during the 2007 NBA All-Star Game weekend in Las Vegas, Jones is alleged to have been involved in an altercation with an exotic dancer at Minxx, a local strip club. Jones and American rap artist Nelly patronized the club on the evening in question. Nelly, along with someone known only as Richard Rich, began to shower the stage with hundreds of one-dollar bills; an act known as "making it rain." Jones then joined Nelly by throwing his own money for "visual effect". Club promoter Chris Mitchell then directed his dancers to collect the money. According to the club's co-owner, Jones became enraged when one of the dancers began taking the money without his permission. He allegedly grabbed her by her hair and slammed her head on the stage. A security guard intervened and scuffled with members of Jones' entourage of half a dozen people. Jones then allegedly threatened the guard's life. During this time Mitchell and a male associate left the club with a garbage bag filled with $81,020 of Jones' money and two Breitling watches, which police later recovered. After club patrons exited following the original confrontation, the club owner says a person in Jones' entourage returned with a gun and fired into a crowd, hitting three people, including the security guard involved in the earlier skirmish. The guard was shot twice, and one of the people hit--former professional wrestler Tommy Urbanski--was paralyzed from the waist down. Jones maintains that he did not know the shooter, although the club's owner insists that Jones did. On March 26, 2007 the Las Vegas Police recommended to the city's district attorney that Jones be charged with one count of felony coercion as well as one misdemeanor count of battery and one misdemeanor count of threat to life.

On May 7, 2007, Jones was stopped at 12:45 a.m. on Interstate 65 heading into downtown after an officer clocked him on radar at 79 mph in a 55 mph zone. Jones was driving his red 2004 Cadillac Escalade XLT he bought at police auction last fall. Police seized the Cadillac last spring in a drug bust. The car was not registered to Jones then, but he told a local TV reporter he had loaned the Cadillac to someone for a music video. Police called the man who had the car the main target of their investigation.

On June 18, 2007 Jones was sought by police for questioning after a shooting at an Atlanta strip club allegedly involved members of his entourage. According to police at the scene, Jones was not present during the shooting, and is not being charged.

On June 20, 2007, the Las Vegas Police and Clark County District Attorney's office announced that Jones would face two felony charges stemming from the strip club melee. But on November 13, 2007, Jones accepted a plea deal; on Dec. 6, Jones pleaded no contest to one charge of conspiracy to commit disorderly conduct, a misdemeanour. He was given a suspended prison sentence of a one-year, probation, and ordered to perform 200 hours of community service.

There's no reason to arrest this kid six times? Maybe he did something once? Does Imus really believe that we are all so stupid as to buy into his malarkey? Imus has besmirched all police officers with his crap about cops arresting "blacks for no reason." Maybe Pacman was in the wrong place at the wrong time during some of the Wikipedia described incidents, but that does not alter the fact that the police had sufficient legal grounds each time they threw his ass into the slammer.

I have no idea where Imus was headed, but I guarantee you it was not his intention to point out that blacks are arrested for no reason when he asked Wolf, "What color is he?" Is Imus a racist? I really don't think so. He's just an ignoramus. While Pacman is obviously a jerk, Imus is an even far bigger jerk. The hoof-n-mouth disease Imus suffers from causes him to put his mouth in motion before he puts his brain (if he has one) in gear. For those who continue to tune in on the Imus show, it would seem that they do not posses an itelligence which can be insulted.

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE ............

How they vote in the United Nations.

Below are the actual voting records of various Arabic/Islamic States which are recorded in both the US State Department and United Nations records:

Kuwait votes against the United States 86% of the time.

Qatar votes against the United States 88% of the time.

Morocco votes against the United States 89% of the time.

United Arab Emirates votes against the United States 88% of the time.

Jordan votes against the United States 88% of the time.

Tunisia votes against the United States 89% of the time.

Saudi Arabia votes against the United States 90% of the time.

Yemen votes against the United States 88% of the time.

Algeria votes against the United States 88% of the time.

Oman votes against the United States 88% of the time.

Sudan votes against the United States 86% of the time.

Pakistan votes against the United States 87% of the time.

Libya votes against the United States 89% of the time.

Egypt votes against the United States 86% of the time.

Lebanon votes against the United States 90% of the time.

Syria votes against the United States 89% of the time.

Mauritania votes against the United States 90% of the time.


US Foreign Aid to states whose people hate us:

Egypt, for example, after voting 86% of the time against the United States, still receives $2 billion annually in US Foreign Aid.

Jordan votes 88% against the United States and receives $192,814,000 annually in US Foreign Aid.

Pakistan votes 87% against the United States and receives $300,000,000 annually in US Foreign Aid.

And you've been led to believe that Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt and Pakistan are our friends. Disgusting isn't it? Of course, there are always those who believe that the people in those states will come to love us if we would just end our support of Israel.

In fairness, it must also be noted that among our closest allies, Australia voted against us 44% of the time, Canada 51% of the time and the United Kingdom 40% of the time.

Stats according to Snopes.com: http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/outrage/unvote.asp

THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT EVENTS IN ALL OF HISTORY

A good friend, who is like a surrogate son to me, sent me this tongue-in-cheek history lesson. It's too good not to pass on.


For those of you who slept through World History 101 here is a condensed version.

Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter.

The two most important events in all of history were:

1. The invention of beer, and

2. The invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer, and the beer to the man.

These facts formed the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:

1. Liberals

2. Conservatives.

Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to BBQ at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement.

Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly BBQ's and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement.

Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as girlie-men.

Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy and group hugs, the evolution of the Hollywood actor, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide all the meat and beer that conservatives provided.

Over the years, Conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass.

Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare. Another interesting evolutionary side note: most liberal women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals.

Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, firemen, lumberjacks, construction workers, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, golfers, and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.

Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America . They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.

Here ends today's lesson in world history.

DEBUNKING THE MYTH OF A RACIST CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

"Our criminal justice system is racist." That's what white sociologists in academia, black activists and liberal politicians like Barack Obama have been saying for years. They cite the disproportionate number of blacks serving time in prison. They claim that the laws against crack cocaine, as opposed to those against powder cocaine, were specifically designed to target and incarcerate young black men. And they are convinced that the police stop blacks simply for DWB - "Driving While Black."

Two recent articles have debunked all that crap about a racist criminal justice system. One article, "American Murder Mystery" by Hanna Rosin, appeared in the July/August 2008 Atlantic Monthly with the subheading of "Why is crime rising in so many American cities? The answer implicates one of the most celebrated antipoverty programs of recent decades." The other article, "A Surprising Story on Crime" by George Will, appeared in Townhall.com on June 22, 2008.

Rosin's article dealt with the aftermath of the mid-nineties nationwide eperiment "to free the poor from the destructive effects of concentrated poverty." As part of the federal antipoverty program, the government provided funds to demolish high-rise public-housing projects like Chicago's infamous Cabrini-Green project, and to scatter the displaced project residents throughout other neighborhoods. The overwhelming majority of public-housing residents have been poor African-Americans.

Richard Janikowski, a criminology professor with the University of Memphis, and his wife Phyllis Betts, a housing expert at the university, studied the aftermath of relocating residents displaced by the demolition of Memphis' public-housing projects. The former project residents were given federal "Section 8" rent-subsidy vouchers and were encouraged to use the subsidies to rent housing in new and better neighborhoods.

Janikowski and Betts' studies disclosed that, in many instances, the crimes committed by young blacks in the Memphis projects accompanied the displaced residents to their new neighborhoods. Other studies showed the same results with residents who had left Cabrini-Green in Chicago and who had left public-housing projects in other cities as well. While the relocations flattened out crime in the central cities, crime increased in outlying neighborhoods.

George Will's article really debunks the myth that our criminal justice system is racist. Here are some eye-opening excerpts from his column:

Last July, Obama said "more young black men languish in prison than attend colleges and universities." Actually, more than twice as many black men 18-24 are in college as there are in jail. Last September he said, "We have a system that locks away too many young, first-time, nonviolent offenders for the better part of their lives." But Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute, writing in the institute's City Journal, notes that from 1999 to 2004, violent offenders accounted for all of the increase in the prison population. Furthermore, Mac Donald cites data indicating that:

"In the overwhelming majority of cases, prison remains a lifetime achievement award for persistence in criminal offending. Absent recidivism or a violent crime, the criminal-justice system will do everything it can to keep you out of the state or federal slammer."

Obama sees racism in the incarceration rate: "We have certain sentences that are based less on the kind of crime you commit than on what you look like and where you come from." Indeed, in 2006, blacks, who are less than 13 percent of the population, were 37.5 percent of all state and federal prisoners. About one in 33 black men was in prison, compared with one in 79 Hispanic men and one in 205 white men.

But Mac Donald cites studies of charging and sentencing that demonstrate that the reason more blacks are disproportionately in prison, and for longer terms, is not racism but racial differences in patterns of criminal offenses: "In 2005 the black homicide rate was over seven times higher than that of whites and Hispanics combined. ... From 1976 to 2005, blacks committed over 52 percent of all murders." Do police excessively arrest blacks? "The race of criminals reported by crime victims matches arrest data."

As for the charge that the incarceration rate of blacks is substantially explained by more severe federal sentences for crack as opposed to powder-cocaine defendants (only 13 states distinguish between the two substances, and these states have small sentence differentials), Mac Donald says:

"It's going to take a lot more than 5,000 or so (federal) crack defendants a year to account for the 562,000 black prisoners in state and federal facilities at the end of 2006 -- or the 858,000 black prisoners in custody overall, if one includes the population of county and city jails."


There is no doubt in my mind that prior to the civil rights era, the criminal justice system, especially in the South, was discriminatory against blacks. And I am sure that during these enlightened times there will still be occasional instances in which there may be a tinge of racism in the administration of justice. But to charge that our criminal justice system is racist is pure bunk!

A racist criminal justice system? No! A system that is discriminatory against the poor? Yes! When crime accompnies displaced public-housing residents into new and better neighborhoods, what does that tell us? It tells us that crime is a socio-economic problem. And with those young black men who were relocated to new neighborhoods, crime seems to be a cultural probem as well.

The reason there are a disproportionate number of blacks locked up in our prisons and jails is not because ours is a racist criminal justice system - the reason is that blacks commit a disproportiante number of crimes.

BATTLEFIELD ATROCITIES

The Haditha killings, in which U.S. Marines retaliated against unarmed Iraqi civilians for the death of a comrade, has been in the news on and off for the past couple of years. This has led me to look at battlefield atrocities as they relate to different types of wars. To begin with however, it must be said that there has never been a war in which soldiers have not committed atrocities of one sort or another.

As I see it, there are three types of wars. There are those with the defined battlefield lines of WWI, WWII and the Korean War, in which each side had identifiable standing armies. Then there are those with ill-defined battlefield lines, like in the Vietnam War, where one side may be difficult to identify because it tends to blend in and out of the civilian population at will. Finally, there are those without defined battlefield lines, like in Iraq, in which an insurgent force can pop up here and there, and is hard to distinguish from the civilian population. Each type lends itself to the commission of atrocities.

The Japanese were guilty of the most atrocious atrocities in modern history. There was the "Rape of Nanking" in 1937 and the atrocities committed in the Philippines (Bataan), Indochina and Burma during WWII. Right up there with the Japanese were the atrocities committed by the Nazi armies in WWII against Russian prisoners of war on the eastern front and against allied POWs in the west. Likewise, the Russians killed countless German POWs during WWII. In Vietnam and in Iraq, American troops have also committed atrocities, although on a much lower scale than those committed by the Japanese and Nazis.

Japanese atrocities can be attributed to Japan's long history as a warrior nation with a strategy of terrorizing both enemy soldiers and civilians. German atrocities were motivated by events on the ground. When Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler's highest ranking SS leader, died in 1942 after being wounded in Prague during an assassination attempt, retribution was swift and brutal. About 13,000 Czechs were arrested, deported, imprisoned or killed. To teach the Czechs a lesson, all males over the age of 16 in the villages of Lidice and Lezaky were murdered and both towns were torched and plowed under.

To discourage escapes from Allied prisoner of war camps, the Germans would execute recaptured escapees. In one instance, they not only killed the escapees, but they also executed an additional 50 POWs at the camp from which their comrades had escaped. During the Battle of the Bulge, Waffen SS Panzer troops killed 362 Allied soldiers after they were captured. Near the Belgian town of Malmedy, the Germans lined up 113 American soldiers right after they had surrenderd and shot them down in cold blood. It is thought the Panzer strike force had neither the time or personnel to guard and take care of POWs, nor did they have any place to hold them.

In the Vietnam War, American forces faced two different armies: The North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF), more commonly known to Americans as the Viet Cong (VC). The NVA was the regular standing army of North Vietnam which, while using some unconventional tactics, usually fought behind conventional battle lines.

The VC was an insurgent force fighting a guerilla war. Because the VC had a lot of support among South Vietnamese villagers, it could attamck American troops, then quickly dissapear into the civilian population. When guerilla fighters blend into the civilian population at will it is difficult to distinguish friend from foe, leading some soldiers on the other side to commit atrocities.

While the NVA and the VC were guilty of numerous war crimes, American troops committed their share of atrocities. The My Lai Massacre of 1968, in which up to 504 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians were deliberately brutalized and killed by the U.S. Army, was the worst atrocity committed by the Americans during the Viet Nam War. The residents of the hamlets My Lai and My Khe of Son My village were murdered because they were suspected of harboring VC fighters who had killed five U.S. soldiers and wounded many more. The anti-war movement in the U.S. gained a big boost beecause most of those killed in the My Lai Massacre were women, children and the elderly.

On November 19, 2005, in Haditha, Iraq, a U.S. Marine was killed and a couple of others wounded when a roadside bomb exploded as their convoy passed by. The Marines retaliated by stopping a taxi and gunning its five innocent civilian occupants down in the street. They followed up those killings by attacking three nearby houses, shooting dead 19 more unarmed civilians, including women and children.

No matter what led up to the My Lai Massacre or the Haditha killings, there can be no justification for such atrocities. But, I undetrstand why they occurred. As a former cop, I have experienced the strong bond that exists among the brotherhood of police officers. An attack on one is seen as an attack on all and the loss of a fellow officer is the same as the loss of a beloved family member. It makes you want to rip apart any cop killer.

Having served in the Pacific during WWII, I also know how strong that bond is among the brotherhood of soldiers in combat. Despite racial, ethnic or religious differences, and inspite of any personal animosities, those engaged in combat consider themselves family, look out for each other, and on occasion give their lives to save the lives of their comrades. The camaraderie among soldiers is the strongest bond there is and cries out for revenge when one of their own is killed. Those who have never served in combat will not understand this. That would be 99.99 percent of all Americans.

QADHAFI ON OBAMA

Following are excerpts from a public address delivered by Libyan Leader Mu'ammar Al-Qadhafi marking the anniversary of the U.S. air raid on Libya. The address aired on Al-Jazeera TV on June 11, 2008:

It has been proven that there is no democracy in [the U.S.]. Rather, it is a dictatorship no different than the dictatorships of Hitler, Napoleon, Mussolini, Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, and the rest of the tyrants. In the days of crazy Reagan, the American president issued a presidential order to launch a war against Libya, for example, a presidential order to besiege Libya, a presidential order to boycott Libya, and so on. Is this a democracy or a dictatorship?

There are elections in America now. Along came a black citizen of Kenyan African origins, a Muslim, who had studied in an Islamic school in Indonesia. His name is Obama. All the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa applauded this man. They welcomed him and prayed for him and for his success, and they may have even been involved in legitimate contribution campaigns to enable him to win the American presidency. But we were taken by surprise when our African Kenyan brother, who is an American national, made statements that shocked all his supporters in the Arab world, in Africa, and in the Islamic world. We hope that this is merely an elections "clearance sale," as they say in Egypt – in other words, merely an elections lie. As you know, this is the farce of elections – a person lies and lies to people, just so that they will vote for him, and afterwards, when they say to him: :"You promised this and that," he says: "No, this was just elections propaganda." This is the farce of democracy for you. He says: "This was propaganda, and you thought I was being serious. I was fooling you to get your votes."

Allah willing, it will turn out that this was merely elections propaganda. Obama said he would turn Jerusalem into the eternal capital of the Israelis. This indicates that our brother Obama is ignorant of international politics, and is not familiar with the Middle East conflict.

We thought he would say: "I have decided that if I win, I will monitor the Dimona nuclear plant, and the other WMDs in Israeli's possession." We expected him to make such a decision. He undoubtedly had this in mind. When he talked about Iran and its nuclear program, he undoubtedly had Dimona in mind. But when he was thinking about Dimona, he undoubtedly had the fate of former president Kennedy on his mind as well. Kennedy decided to monitor the Dimona nuclear plant. He insisted on doing so, in order to determine whether or not it produces nuclear weapons. The Israelis refused, but he insisted. This crisis was resolved with the resignation of Ben-Gurion. He resigned so he would not have to agree to the monitoring of the Dimona plant, and he gave the green light for the killing of Kennedy. Kennedy was killed because he insisted on the monitoring of the Dimona plant. This image was undoubtedly on Obama's mind. He undoubtedly wanted to talk about this, but decided not to.

We expected him to say: "If I win, I will implement the one-state solution – the 'Isratine' which appears in Qadhafi's White Book." This idea constitutes the final, deep-rooted, and historic solution. It is impossible to establish two midget-states in this area. What kind of country is only 15 km deep? The so-called Israel is only 15 km deep. What kind of a country is this?

There are five million Palestinians there. We expected Obama to say: "I've decided to return millions of Palestinian refugees to the land of Palestine, from which they were expelled in 1948 and 1967." This is the "change" that the peoples applaud, the change that the American people – and the black people in America – want.

We expected him to say: "I will strive for the independence and unity of the Kurdish nation. This nation must take its place under the sun in the Middle East." The Kurdish nation is torn apart, tormented, and persecuted, and is colonized by everyone. He should have supported it, instead of supporting the collaborators, while sacrificing the future of the Kurdish nation. This is "change."

The thing we fear most is that the black man suffers from an inferiority complex. This is dangerous. If our brother Obama feels that because he is black he doesn't have the right to rule America, this would be a disaster, because such a feeling would make him behave whiter than the white, and go to an extreme in his persecution and degradation of the blacks.

We say to him: Brother, the whites and blacks in America are equal. They are all immigrants. America belongs neither to the whites nor to the blacks. America belongs to its original inhabitants, the Indians. Both the whites and the blacks immigrated to America, and so they are equal, and Obama has the right to hold his head high, and say: "I am a partner in America. This is my land as much as it is yours. If it is not my land, it is not yours either. It is the land of the Indians. You are immigrants, and so are we."

We still hope that this black man will take pride in his African and Islamic identity, and in his faith, and that [he will know] that he has rights in America, and that he will change America from evil to good, and that America will establish relations that will serve it well with other peoples, especially the Arabs.

ATTACK OF THE KILLER THONGS

"Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" comes to my mind following a news report earlier this week. No, I am not talking about the current salmonella outbreak. I am referring to the 1978 movie in which a mad scientist mutates tomatoes that come to life and revolt against humanity. Time marches on. Now we have the attack of the killer thongs.

Macrida Patteerson, 52, filed a lawsuit claiming that she was injured by a defective thong she purchased from Victoria's Secret. Patterson, a Los Angeles traffic control officer, says that while changing into her "Sexy Little Thing" low-rise v-string after work, a heart-shaped pendant attached to the fabric with a metal fastener snapped, creating a "slingshot effect" which caused either the pendant or the fastener to strike her in the eye.

Patterson claims that, after the incident, she drove home but "barely made it" because of her eye injury. Her attorney says she suffered a scratched cornea and had to miss two weeks of work. It is noteworthy that Dr. Thomas Kuhns, a prominent New York ophthalmologist who has not examined Patterson, says that "a cornea abrasion usually clears up in a day or two." Looks like what we have here is a frivolous lawsuit.

The attack of the killer thongs brings to mind the attack of the killer coffee. In 1994, a 79-year-old woman ordered a 49-cent cup of coffee from the drive-thru of a McDonald's in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The "victim" was sitting in the passenger seat of her car. She placed the cup between her knees and pulled the far side of the lid toward her to remove it so she could add some cream and sugar. As a result, she spilled the entire cup of coffee in her lap.

A hospital examinaton determined that the victim suffered third-degree burns on six percent of her skin and lesser burns over sixteen percent. She sued McDonald's claiming that the coffee was "defective" because it was hotter and more likely to cause serious injury than coffee served elsewhere. The jury's award of $2.86 million to the victim was reduced to $640,000 by the trial judge. McDonald's settled for an undisclosed amount in order to avoid a lengthy appeal. Another frivolous lawsuit, but a lucrative one.

Patterson's attorney claims that the killer thongs lawsuit against Victoria's Secret is about holding "retailers accountable for (defective) products they sell," and not about money. Yeah, right! And by the way, what iin the hell is a 52-year-old woman thinking wearing thongs? Paris Hilton she's not and never will be!

HOW "ELITES" VIEW AMERICA

The web site for Pajamas Media, an alternative to mainstream media, contained an article by Bridget Johnson, "Why the World Hates America" (6-14-08). A reader identifying herself as "Sandra M" made some thought provoking comments in response to Johnson's article.

Having come to America as a refugee from Nazi Germany at the age of 10, one of M's passages is especially signigicant and describes my feelings exactly: "Immigrants who remember or have been told by their parents or grandparents how bad things were in the old country are those who frequently love and appreciate America most."

Here is everything Sandra M had to say:

86 percent of "Latin American elites" rating U.S. relations negatively.

Probably true. Do you know why? Because Latin American elites have always sent their sons and daughters to be educated in the United States. And what do they learn in American universities? Marxism, anti-americanism, a glorification of the loathesome Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. How many Europeans, Arabs, Iranians, Asians et al have come here , absorbed this poison and taken it home and for how many generations?

My grandmothers both sent their sons to be educated here. That was in the 1910’s. I know because 3 sons fought for the American Army in World War I.

In my convent boarding school in 1950 my dorm mates were Cuban (sugar) Venezuelan (oil) Colombian( land) Puerto Rican (law) Ecuadorian, etc. Their mothers had attended our high school a generation before.

We EXPORT ANTI-AMERICANISM. And still everyone in the world wants to move here and live the good life.

Guilt-ridden American elites were taken in by communists. Immigrants who remember or have been told by their parents or grandparents how bad things were in the old country are those who frequently love and appreciate America most.

Thank God for the Irish. Tim Russert is being eulogized today and he quotes his father’s line: "what a country!" Indeed.

Ayn Rand was once talking to a group of union men during the Wilkie for President campaign. One heckler, noting her thick Russian accent, shouted down: "Who are you to tell us who to vote for? You weren’t even born here." Rand shouted back: "I CHOSE to be an American, what did you ever do?" and the crowd roared in approval.

John Kerry was going to solve the problem of anti-Americanism so obvious among the Europeans. Oops. Europeans voted out the anti-American Chirac and Schroeder and replaced them with pro-American leaders. So did Italy, and England just voted out London’s Red Mayor.

I once read that the Soviets allowed only one American TV series to be shown in Russia: Brett Butler’s GRACE UNDER about a single mother, oil refinery worker. This poor American working woman had a car (a clunker but still, only the elites in Russia had any kind of car). She lived in a house with her 3 children (in a nation where large families share small apartments) She had an old refrigerator, but a refrigerator nonetheless. Not exactly a propaganda coup for the left, but the best they could do.

Maria Shriver and two other journalists went looking for poverty in Appalachia. They found a black man living in a trailer without running water, but there in the background I could see a color TV.

When communist sympathizers Simone Signoret and Yves Montand came here, they wanted to see the downtrodden Black poor in Los Angeles. What they saw were television antennas everywhere, not their idea of poverty.

We have poverty in America, but we don’t have the kind of starvation there is in Africa, Asia, et al. And may I give the guilt-ridden, elite environmentalists something to really feel guilty about?

We are creating real hunger and starvation in Africa, Asia and Central and South America and sky high food prices for Americans (our livestock are fed corn) with our soybean and corn subsidies for ethanol. Feel guilty about that, you damned watermelons (Russian word for environmentalists: green on the outside, red on the inside).

APOLOGY TO GEORGE BISHARAT

Concerning my blog "Ignorant or Intentional" (6-16-08), George Bisharat notified me that he is not a member of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) or the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).

Accordingly, I apologize to Professor Bisharat for including incorrect information about him in my blog.

I have always tried to be correct and truthful in my blogs. I certainly did not intend to include any false information about Bisharat. I have revised the blog by deleting the sections on the NLG and the ISM and changed the title to "Editors Fail To Expose Op-Ed Writers With An Axe To Grind."

While I have strong differences with Bisharat's take on the Israeli-Palestininan conflict, I am, nevertheless, obligated to ensure that any information about him in my blog is factually correct.

EDITORS FAIL TO EXPOSE OP-ED WRITERS WITH AN AXE TO GRIND

The news media has often been accused of slanting the news. Articles are often published which are strongly biased in one direction or another. Newspaper editors can give biased writers more credibility than they deserve by failing to identify them as authors with an axe to grind. A glaring example can be seen in an op-ed piece published in the Outlook section of the Houston Chronicle on June 13, 2008 and entitled, "Where's Healthy Debate On U.S. Policy Toward Israel?"

The op-ed piece was written by George Bisharat. This is how the Chronicle editors described the author at the end of his column: "Bisharat is a professor of law at Hastings College of Law in San Francisco, and writes frequently on law and politics in the Middle East." Bisharat must have submitted it that way because other publishers have used exactly the same description. That description covers up the intent of the writer. It should have read, ".........and writes frequently on behalf of Palestinian causes." Or, "..........and writes frequently on behalf of the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel."

In the op-ed piece, Bisharat condemns America's political leaders for their support of Israel. And, in his column he out-and-out demonizes the Jewish state. Here is what he had to say about Israel:

"Yet long before the birth of Hamas in 1987, Israel had expelled Palestinians, confiscated their property and demolished their homes. It had tortured, assassinated, banished or imprisoned Palestinians without trial. Israel's violations of Palestinians' human rights have been extensively documented by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, B'Tselem (an Israeli human rights organization) and other respected institutions."

"Today, Israel is swallowing up the land base for a Palestinian state in violation of President Bush's Roadmap for Peace. More than 480,000 Israeli settlers live in segregated communities built on confiscated Palestinian lands in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, driving well-lit and paved roads from which Palestinians are barred. Prominent observers have likened this to apartheit." (The "prominent observes" Bisharat was referring to is ex-President Jimmy Carter.)

I am not going to dignify Bisharat's demonizing remarks with a response. Instead, I am going to give you some information that will let you know where he is coming from.

(1) Bisharat is an American of Palestinian descent. He has claimed that Israelis "stole" his "ancestral" home in Jerusalem.

(2) Bisharat is a strong advocate for the Palestinian "right of return." He knows full well that if the displaced Palestinians and their offspring, now numbering in the millions, were to return to Israel, the Jewish state would be destroyed. He is also an advocate of a "one-state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a solution which would, of course, also destroy the Jewish state and which Lybia's Mu'ammar Al-Qadhafi calls "Isratine."

(3) Bisharat is a leading advocate of boycotting Israel, declaring that a boycott "has become both necessary and justified." He has been joined in his call for a boycott of Israel by left-wing college and university professors, both here in America and in Europe.

So, you can see that Bisharat is hardly the benign law professor who writes on politics in the Mideast, pleading for an even handed American policy. From his many writings, he comes across as a hard-core activist on behalf of Palestinian causes.

Were the Chronicle editors, and editors of other publications, ignorant of Bisharat's activism or did they intentionally fool their readers with a misleading description of this anti-Israel activist? I do not believe the editors were ignorant of his pro-Palestinian positions in numerous writings and public appearances - I'm sure they browse the internet just like I do.

Had the Chronicle exposed Bisharat as an advocate for Palestinian causes, its readers might have figured out that his intent was far from a simple call for changing U.S. policy - Bisharat's real intent was to get Americans to buy into policies that would lead to the eventual destruction of the State of Israel.

My problem is not with Bisharat. He is entitled to his beliefs and has every right to express them. He also has the right to be an activist for the Palestinians. And, if he chooses to do so, he even has the right to shade the truth or offer misleading accounts about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But shame on the Chronicle editors and all editors who fail to expose certain op-ed writers as authors with an axe to grind.


EDITOR'S NOTE (6-18-08): Professor Bisharat wrote to me that "no newspaper introduces writers by identifying their ethnicity and attempting to characterize their perspective." I agree, nor should they.

However, with respect to Bisharat, numerous writings of his have been published and he has made many public appearances on behalf of the Palestinians. Accordingly, it is rather misleading to describe him merely as writing "frequently on law and politics in the Middle East."

Since he is such a frequent and prominent spokesperson for Palestininan causes, it would be quite appropriate and should be incumbent for newspapers to describe Bisharat as "a professor of law at Hastings College of Law in San Francisco, and writes frequently on behalf of Palestinan causes." Or, as "a professor of law at Hastings College of Law in San Francisco, and writes frequently on behalf of the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel."

GOOD OLD SHERIFF JOE

My daughter-in-law forwarded me the following piece about Joe Arpaio, the much maligned (by liberals) sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona. She added, "Can we get some people like this in office - PLEASE?? I really like his style!" Well, God bless her, I too like his style! I do not know who wrote the piece or when it was written, but nevertheless, I am reproducing it in this blog.


You all remember Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona , who painted the jail cells pink and made the inmates wear pink prison garb. Well......... SHERIFF JOE IS AT IT AGAIN.

Oh, there's MUCH more to know about Sheriff Joe!

Maricopa County was spending approx. $18 million dollars a year on stray animals, like cats and dogs. Sheriff Joe offered to take the department over, and the County Supervisors said okay. The animal shelters are now all staffed and operated by prisoners. They feed and care for the strays. Every animal in his care is taken out and walked twice daily. He now has prisoners who are experts in animal nutrition and behavior. They give great classes for anyone who'd like to adopt an animal. He has literally taken stray dogs off the street, given them to the care of prisoners, and had them place in dog shows.

The best part? His budget for the entire department is now under $3 million. Teresa and I adopted a Weimaraner from a Maricopa County shelter two years ago. He was neutered, and current on all shots, in great health, and even had a microchip inserted the day we got him. Cost us $78. The prisoners get the benefit of about $0.28 an hour for working, but most would work for free, just to be out of their cells for the day. Most of his budget is for utilities, building maintenance, etc. He pays the prisoners out of the fees collected for adopted animals.

I have long wondered when the rest of the country would take a look at the way he runs the jail system, and copy some of his ideas. He has a huge farm, donated to the county years ago, where inmates can work, and they grow most of their own fresh vegetables and food, doing all the work and harvesting by hand. He has a pretty good sized hog farm, which provides meat and fertilizer. It fertilizes the Christmas tree nursery, where prisoners work, and you can buy a living Christmas tree for $6 - $8 for the Holidays and plant it later. We have six trees in our yard from the prison.

Yup, he was reelected last year with 83% of the vote. Now he's in trouble with the ACLU again. He painted all his buses and vehicles with a mural that has a special hotline phone number painted on it. You can call and report suspected illegal aliens. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement wasn't doing enough in his eyes, so he had 40 deputies trained specifically for enforcing immigration laws, started up his hotline, and bought 4 new buses just for hauling folks back to the border. He's kind of a 'Git-R Dun' kind of Sheriff.

Some of you may not be familiar with Joe Arpaio. He is the Maricopa, Arizona country sheriff. He keeps getting elected over and over again. Here are some reasons why:

He created the ' Tent City Jail'. He has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the inmates for them. He stopped smoking and porno magazines in the jails. Took away their weights, cut off all but 'G' movies. He started chain gangs so the male inmates could do free work on county and city projects. Then, he started chain gangs for women so he wouldn't get sued for discrimination!

He took away cable TV until he learned there was a federal court order that required cable TV for all jails, so he hooked it back up again. BUT he only allows Disney Channel and the Weather Channel. When asked why the Weather Channel, he replied, "So they will know how hot it's gonna be while they are working on my chain gangs!"

He doesn't allow inmates to have coffee anymore since it has zero nutritional value. When the inmates complained, he told them, "This isn't the Ritz/Carlton....if you don't like it, don't come back!"

He bought Newt Gingrich's lecture series on videotape that he pipes into the jails. When asked by a reporter if he had any lecture series by a Democrat, he replied, "A Democratic lecture series might explain why a lot of the inmates were in his jails in the first place!"

More On The Arizona Sheriff:

With temperatures being even hotter than usual in Phoenix (116 degrees just set a new record), the Associated Press reports: About 2,000 inmates living in a barbed wire- surrounded tent encampment at the Maricopa County Jail have been given permission to strip down to their govt-issue pink boxer shorts. On Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing boxers were either curled up on their bunk beds or chatted inside the tents, in which temperatures reached 138 degrees the week before. Many were also swathed in wet, pink towels as sweat collected on their chests and dripped down to their pink socks.

"It feels like we are in a furnace.", said James Zanzot, an inmate who has lived in the tents for a year. "It's inhumane." The tough-guy sheriff, who created the tent city and long ago began making his prisoners wear pink and eat bologna sandwiches, is not one bit sympathetic. He told inmates on Wednesday: "It's 120 degrees in Iraq and our soldiers are living in tents, too. And they have to wear full combat gear, but they didn't commit any crimes, so shut your mouths!"

Way to go, Sheriff! Maybe if all prisons were like this one, there would be a lot less crime and/or repeat offenders. Criminals should be punished for their crimes - not live in luxury until it's time for their parole, only to go out and commit another crime so they can get back in to live on taxpayers' money and enjoy things taxpayers can't afford to have for themselves.

Sheriff Joe was just reelected Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona.

EDITOR'S NOTE: On April 4, 2008, Mayor Phil Gordon of Phoenix asked the U.S. Justice Department's civil rights division to investigate the "discriminatory harassment and improper stops, searches and arrests" by Sheriff Araipo's deputies in his crackdown on illegal immigrants. Gordon, alongside civil rights and immigrant-rights activists, must be upset that the Sheriff does not recognize Phoenix as a sanctuary city.

KING FOOTBALL TRUMPS JUSTICE

It has forever been said that football is king in Texas. That is especially true of the small cities and towns of Texas where Friday night is high school football time and everything else comes to a screeching halt. Texas football fever inspired H. G. "Buzz" Bissinger to write his best selling book, Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream. The book was made into a Universal Pictures film starring Billy Bob Thornton and led to an NBC Television series.

The importance of King Football can be illustrated by how the Mesquite Independent School District handled the theft of its property by the head football coach of Mesquite High School. During his 13 years as coach, Steve Halpin took Mesquite to the state playoffs eight times, winning the Class 5A championship in 2001. Alas, Coach Halpin is not only a championship coach with an annual salary of $92,631, but he is also a big-time thief.

Mesquite is located just east of Dallas. Mesquite Police Department investigators checking out pawn shops for stolen property found cameras and a projector valued at $2,075 which had been reported missing from the high school last month. The missing items had been pawned by Halpin. The police investigators also found that Halpin had pawned 270 items of school property, including laptops, dating to last year. All pawned items were eventually redeemed by the coach and returned to the school.

When the police reported their findings to the school district, school administrators asked them to drop their case against Halpin. School officials said they would conduct their own internal investigation. They did not report Halpin's conduct to the Texas Education Agency as required by law until a month later, and then only after someone had leaked the story of Halpin's thefts to the press. School officials indicated they took no action against the coach because all the "missing" (that should read stolen) items had been accounted for.

Halpin, 52, announced his retirement last month, with June 13 being his last day on the job. You can bet that the thefts would have remained covered up had it not been for the leak to the press. Halpin also resigned last week as president of the Texas High School Coaches Association. It remains to be seen whether or not criminal charges will be filed against him. Thus far, King Football has trumped justice.

How do you think the Mesquite school administration would have handled this case had the thief been a loosing coach? How would they have handled it had the thief been an English or social studies teacher? Or a school janitor? You can bet the miscreant would have been suspended or fired forthwith. The school district would have immediately reported the matter to the Texas Education Agency and would have pursued criminal charges against the thief. But Halpin is no ordinary coach, teacher or school janitor. He is the personification of King Football in Texas.

OBAMA'S PHONY SEDUCTION OF AMERICAN JEWS

Even though Barack Obama had appeared before several Jewish groups to assure them of his unwvering support for Israel, Gallup polls showed that John McCain was being supported by 35% of American Jews, a high percentage for a group that traditionally supports Democratic candidates. So, the morning after he secured the Democratic nomination, Senator Obama appeared before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and proclaimed that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided."

Obama's astonishingly strong statement about the future of Jerusalem was met with thundering applause. Instead of applauding him, the AIPAC members should have shouted "Hoiyah, Hoiyah, Hoiyah, Hoiyah." (For a definition of Hoiyah, read my blog of 2-24-08 by the same title.) Why? As soon as Obama's proclamation became public, the Arabs unleashed a howling storm of protests, with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declaring, "We will not accept a Palestinian state without having Jerusalem as its capital."

Within hours, Obama waffled and backpedalled on his "undivided" Jerusalem proclamation. Instead of being steadfast, he followed up his AIPAC speech by saying, "Well, obviously it’s going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues." Then he told CNN that, while he still supported an indivisible Israeli Jerusalem, "My belief is that, as a practical matter, it would be very difficult to execute." So much for Jerusaalem "must remain undivided."

When are American Jews going to wake up and recognize Obama's seductive rhetoric as nothing more than a phony deceptive ploy to gain their support? As I've written a number of times before, all one needs to do is to look at Obama's team of foreign policy advisers. Zbigniew Brzezinski (President Carter's former National Security Adviser), Anthony Lake, Robert O'Malley, Susan Rice and Samantha Power have all expressed strong pro-Palestinian positions and have taken positions that are clearly hostile to Israel's security needs.

John McCain, on the other hand, will be a much more reliable friend of Israel. Reacting to Obama's speech before AIPAC, McCain said, "We should move our embassy to Jerusalem before anything else happens." That statement was a veiled reference to the shameful policies of the U.S. and most other countries in kowtowing to Arab pressure by keeping their embassies in Tel Aviv rather than moving them to Jerusalem, Israel's capital since its birth.

Unfortunately, Israelis are themselves divided over the eventual status of Jerusalem. While the Jewish state's right wing insists on an undivided Israeli Jerusalem, the left wing, most notably the Peace (At Any Price) Now movement, wants to give Arab east Jerusalem to the Palestinians for the sake of peace. (The Lefties also want to give up the Golan Heights and parts of the West Bank that are vital to Israel's security.) Peace at any price would bankrupt Israel's security assets. A Palestinian capital in Arab east Jerusalem would be a dagger thrust in the heart of tiny Israel.

Michael Medved, a conservative columnist who has a brother living in Israel, responded to Obama's waffling on Jerusalem by writing that "it’s worth noting that the United States almost always tries to influence Israel toward weaker positions, not stronger ones -- urging endless and painful unilateral concessions, with only meaningless Palestinian promises in return." Medved describes Obama's "rhetorical habits" as "slippery and deceptive."

If Obama becomes President and relies on his foreign policy advisers, as he most surely will, Israel will find itself pressured even harder to make suicidal concessions to the Palestinians who have sworn to eradicate the Jewish state. AMERICA'S JEWS BEWARE: Obama's seductive declarations of support for Israel are nothing more than pure political phony baloney!

INDIGENTS IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

Even though I am a hard-liner, I have always been bothered by the inequality of our criminal justice system. In jurisdictions that do not have a public defender's office, equal justice is a joke and defendants without the means to hire competent attorneys are often simply flushed down the toilet.

What got my dander up this time is a newspaper account concerning a state district court judge in Houston who ordered the arrest of one defendant for not hiring a lawyer and threatened to jail another defendant for not being able to afford legal counsel. What in the world was this pompous asshole thinking?

Most people are not aware of or give any thought to the problems indigent defendants face in our courts of jusitce. To begin with, what is an indigent? The American Heritage Dictionary defines indigent as "(1) lacking the means of subsistence; impoverished. (2) a destitute or needy person." That definition allows judges some leeway in determining whether or not a defendant is truly indigent. There is a difference between being impoverished and being a needy person.

Most defendants are part-time criminals as opposed to career criminals who make a full-time living from burglarizing people's homes and businesses. Many hold down jobs and try to support a family, often with three or four children. Since most criminals are undereducated, it stands to reason that they do not command a good income in the job market and, if they have a bunch of kids, find it hard to provide food, clothing and shelter for their families.

The standard for indigence varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In California, a state which has a very good public defender system, the courts take a reasonable approach in determining the idigence of a defendant. If the defendant can show that by hiring an attorney he will no longer be able to adequately provide for his family, the courts will provide him a public defender. The same holds true in the federal court system.

In other jurisdictions, like Houston, where indigents are provided bottom feeder court appointed attorneys, the courts hold that if a defendant has a job, no matter how little it pays or how many children he has, he is not indigent - tough shit, case closed! And in those jurisdictions, you will find assholes like Woody Densen, the pompous judge who ordered the arrest of a defendant for not hiring a lawyer and threatened to arrest another because he could not afford one. To add insult to injury, the Texas Commission on Judical Conduct dismissed a complaint filed against Denson by a group of lawyers for his reprehensible conduct in those cases.

When the courts rule that a defendant who has a job must hire his own lawyer, they cause the defendant to shift his income from providing for his family to paying for an attorney. That in effect is punishing the criminal's family, which could victimize them even more than the person(s) the defendant stole from. And guess what? Over the long haul, we will probably end up paying much more by prividing welfare funds to the defendant's family than what it would have cost to provide him with an attorney.

In states where judges are elected on a partisan ballot, the inequity problem will be more pronounced than in states where the election of judges is non-partisan. Judges who ran for office on a tough law and order Republican ticket and got elected, are more fiscally conservative and are likely to be harder on criminals than their Democratic counterparts.

Thus Republican judges, as compared to Democratic judges, are less likely to declare defendants indigent. That is one reason I have long advocated that elected officials responsible for the administration of justice - judges, sheriffs and prosecutors - should be required to run for office only in strictly non-partisan elections.

The inequity of the justice system can also be found in the nation's traffic courts. Most traffic violations carry with them a standard fine. For instance, suppose the fine for running a red light, a serious traffic offense, is $150. If you plead or are found guilty of running the light, most judges will make you pay the full amount, although some will alow you to pay it off in installments. Where does the inequality come in?

A person who can afford a luxury car will have no trouble paying a $150 fine. However, to a single mother of two or more children holding down a minimum wage job, $150 can be the difference between puttin food on the table or going without, even if she is given the chance to pay off the fine in several installments. To that mother, $15 would hurt as much if not more than a well off person's $150 fine.

The trouble with traffic fines is that they are the cash cow that, aside from taxes, funds city governments. Accordingly, traffic judges are pressured into handing out the full standard fines, regardless of the offenders financial condition. They are discouraged from suspending any part of those fines.

Whatever happened to tempering justice with mercy? It would seem reasonable that, in the interest of equal justice, a traffic judge would fine that single mother $150 and suspend all but $15 dollars of that fine. In that way she is still being punished and her punishment would actually be no less severe than the $150 the driver of a Lexus or Mercedes Benz would have had to pay.

Over the years, I've seen a bunch of poor slobs get the short end of the stick simply because they could not afford competent counsel. I've seen them lose their jobs simply because they could not raise bail. I do not want to imply they were innocent because, in fact, they were guilty. But their fate would have been far different had they been represented by good lawyers, and that could have made the difference between a sentence of life or death.

Despite compelling evidence of his guilt, O. J. Simpson got away with double murder because he could afford a dream team of lawyers. Johnnie Cochran, Robert Shapiro, F. Lee Bailey, Barry Scheck and Alan Dershowitz overwhelmed prosecutors Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden and the state's witnesses. Instead of being behind bars where he belongs, Simpson continues to enjoy the good life on the golf course and in night clubs. As long as money is the engine that drives the administration of justice there will be no equal justice for all.

CANADA'S LATEST ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION PROBLEM

Some friends in California sent me this parody on illegal immigration. I could not resist the urge to include it in this blog.

From the Manitoba Herald, Canada (a very underground paper)

The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to stop the illegal immigration. The actions of President Bush are prompting the exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear they'll soon be required to hunt, pray, and agree with Bill O'Reilly.

Canadian border farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal- rights activists and Unitarians crossing their fields at night. "I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota. The producer was cold, exhausted and hungry. "He asked me if I could spare a latte and some free-range chicken." When I said I didn't have any, he left. Didn't even get a chance to show him my screenplay, eh?

In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Greenfield erected higher fences, but the liberals scaled them. So he tried installing speakers that blare Rush Limbaugh across the fields. "Not real effective," he said. "The liberals still got through, and Rush annoyed the cows so much they wouldn't give milk."

Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet liberals near the Canadian border, pack them into Volvo station wagons, drive them across the border and leave them to fend for themselves. "A lot of these people are not prepared for rugged conditions," an Ontario border patrolman said. "I found one carload without a drop of drinking water. "They did have a nice little Napa Valley Cabernet, though."

When liberals are caught, they're sent back across the border, often wailing loudly that they fear retribution from conservatives. Rumors have been circulating about the Bush administration establishing re-education camps in which liberals will be forced to drink domestic beer and watch NASCAR races.

In recent days, liberals have turned to sometimes-ingenious ways of crossing the border. Some have taken to posing as senior citizens on bus trips to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a half-dozen young vegans disguised in powdered wigs, Canadian immigration authorities began stopping buses and quizzing the supposed senior-citizen passengers on Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney hits to prove they were alive in the '50s. "If they can't identify the accordion player on The Lawrence Welk Show, we get suspicious about their age," an official said.

Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage and renting all the good Susan Sarandon movies. "I feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said. "How many arts, social science and humanities majors does one country need?"