THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Updates To Previous Posts
† CA Libs Worried “Too Many” Blacks Will Vote (second item): Opponents of a state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage feared that high black turnout would torpedo their chances of stopping the electorate from overturning a ruling by the CA Supreme Court in May allowing same-sex couples to wed – and with good cause, it turns out. Proposition 8 passed with 52 percent of the vote – with 70 percent of blacks voting for the ban vs. 47 percent of whites, reports The Associated Press. Similar propositions – which define marriage as being between one man and one woman – also passed in AZ and FL.
† As The Armenian Vote Goes, So Goes The Nation?: As The Stiletto predicted, Barack Obama won FL, one of the key states he needed to get to the White House. In capturing the state – partly by wooing and winning traditionally Republican voters that were disaffected by President Bush’s policies. It remains to be seen whether FL will stay blue.
† It’s A Topsy-Turvy Campaign: Barack Obama did succeed in redrawing the electoral map. In addition to FL, he won these states the Repubs had taken in 2004: CO, IN, IA, NV, NM, NC, OH and VA. [Editorial Note: To read other posts in this series, click here, here (second item), here, here (second item) and here.]
† Why We Need Gitmo (second item): A military panel convicted Guantánamo Bay detainee Ali Hamza al Bahlul – an Al Qaeda propagandist and one of Usama bin Laden’s closest aides - of conspiracy, solicitation to commit murder, providing material support for terrorism and other and sentenced him to life in prison, reports The New York Times. Prosecutors charged that Bahlul made the jihadi recruiting film, “The Destruction of the American Destroyer U.S.S. Cole.” As he did not accept the authority of the tribunal, he offered no defense, and his lawyer did not say a single word during the week-long trial. This is the second Gitmo detainee to be convicted in a war-crimes trial. The first, Salim Hamdan, bin Laden’s driver, is four months into a five-month sentence.
Meanwhile, The Times also reports that president-elect Barack Obama will have to deal with a group of Gitmo detainees captured in Afghanistan known as “the Dirty 30,” who served as bin Laden’s bodyguards and are believed to have been trained in assassination and the use of poisons and disguises:
As the Bush administration enters its final months with no apparent plan to close the Guantánamo Bay camp, an extensive review of the government’s military tribunal files suggests that dozens of the roughly 255 prisoners remaining in detention are said by military and intelligence agencies to have been captured with important terrorism suspects, to have connections to top leaders of Al Qaeda or to have other serious terrorism credentials.
Senators John McCain and Barack Obama have said they would close the detention camp, but the review of the government’s public files underscores the challenges of fulfilling that promise. The next president will have to contend with sobering intelligence claims against many of the remaining detainees.
“It would be very difficult for a new president to come in and say, ‘I don’t believe what the C.I.A. is saying about these guys,’ ” said Daniel Marcus, a Democrat who was general counsel of the 9/11 Commission and held senior positions in the Carter and Clinton administrations. …
While candidate Obama pledged to close Gitmo, he was fuzzy on the specifics of how the remaining detainees would be handled, and it would appear that after years of agitating for Gitmo to be shuttered during the Bush administration The Times is now pulling an Emily Litella, signaling that it will back off if president Obama chooses to keep the detention facility open. Wait for The Times to change its mind about the military tribunals as well.
† Employers Hiring Forged Documented Aliens Are Lawbreakers In Other Ways, Too: Claiming that IA kosher meatpacker Agriprocessors defaulted on a $35 million loan, the St. Louis-based First Bank has filed a lawsuit seeking to seize and auction all of the company’s assets on the grounds that “Agriprocessors overstated how much money it has available and that the company is either unable or unwilling to meet its loan payments,” reports The Associated Press:
The suit names Agriprocessors owner Aaron Rubashkin, his son and former CEO Sholom Rubashkin and slaughterhouses in Postville, Iowa, and Gordon, Neb. In addition to livestock and plant equipment, the suit includes the Rubashkins' personal property as collateral.
"(Agriprocessors) have repeatedly made misrepresentations to First Bank by providing inaccurate and misleading Notices of Borrowing and other documents that misstated the value of the Collateral," the lawsuit states.
† Updates To Previous Posts (second item, Obama’s Family Values: Part V): The Obama campaign complained of “dirty tricks” when it became known that his aunt was a fugitive alien absconder living at taxpayer expense in a subsidized housing project in Boston just a couple of days before Election Day. But it turns out this bombshell wasn’t dropped by the McCain campaign – which apparently made it a point to hire incompetent oppo researchers – but was discovered by journalists at The Times of London doing their jobs. And, it seems, the clues to her whereabouts were right under everyone’s noses all along:
The trail that led to “Aunt Zeituni”, the relative of Barack Obama who was traced by The Times last week, started with Mr Obama’s memoir, one of the most widely read political autobiographies of all time. …
Yet the US media appears to have overlooked the passage indicating that at least one relative of Mr Obama’s had moved to America and might still be there.
Two thirds of the way through the book Mr Obama’s half-sister talked about Africans who had emigrated to the West and were never heard of again, “like our Uncle Omar, in Boston … They’ve been lost, you see.” …
In the course of searching for Uncle Omar The Times found a Zeituni Onyango, who also played a prominent part in Mr Obama’s book. …
[N]eighbours confirmed that she was indeed the “Auntie Zeituni” in Mr Obama’s book – as she eventually confirmed herself.
Uncle Omar has still not been found.
The Times protests that there is “nothing suspicious about the story or its timing,” adding that “[t]he only mystery, perhaps, is how so many people read Mr Obama’s book in the US without wondering what might have happened to the mysterious relative, lost in America.” In the case of the American MSM, The Stiletto can clear up the mystery: They were in the tank for Obama from the beginning, and did little to delve into his unusual background and problematic associations.
† Updates To Previous Posts (second item, “Sub-Par Solution For Sub-Prime Loans: Part II”): CA Rep. Laura Richardson (D), whose house temporarily went into foreclosure says she is now up-to-date on the delinquent home loans, reports The Associated Press. She and her lender agreed to modified loan terms, and she is planning to sell or rent the home next month.
Comments