THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Updates To Previous Posts
† The Keystone Kops Are Enforcing U.S. Immigration Laws: More than 3,500 Harris County (TX) inmates who are in this country illegally – some of whom are convicted child molesters or rapists, or who had been ordered deported decades ago – were released from jail, and roughly one in 10 received probation instead of being deported, reports the Houston Chronicle. According to the paper’s investigation – prompted by Mexican illegal Juan Quintero killing Houston police officer Rodney Johnson after being sentenced to probation on a charge of “indecency with a 12-year-old girl in 1999” - there aren’t enough Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents assigned to screening inmates at the county's jails; the local D.A.’s office has no policy on offering probation to illegals; and probation officers lack the means and manpower to verify probationers' immigration status so they can catch someone who should have been deported. ICE says that 300,000 to 450,000 inmates are eligible for deportation each year, and that it screens inmates in only about 10 percent of the nation's jails.
† Protected Class Warfare: Los Angeles Times columnist Gregory Rodriguez wonders whether blacks would have been “the target of left-wing opprobrium “ because they overwhelmingly voted in favor of CA’s Proposition 8 had John McCain “pulled out a squeaker”:
Would California's black voters still have been singled out as turncoat oppressors? Probably not. …
It wasn't too long ago that condescending liberals routinely stripped minorities of any moral accountability, as if they were children. More than a few campus race warriors argued with straight faces that African Americans could not be racist; it was impossible. Difference plus power, they insisted, equaled racism. Those with no power, therefore, could not be racist, and by extension, they were unlikely to be bigoted in other ways as well. …
Paradoxically, even as critics are trying to make black voters morally accountable for their votes, they continue to lock African Americans into their traditional racial roles. Implicit in the criticism of black support for Proposition 8 is the idea that, as historically oppressed people, African Americans should have greater empathy for gays. The assumption here is that they cast their ballots as a liberal or even progressive bloc of "black voters."
But the reason blacks supported Proposition 8 is most likely a matter of religion, not race.
† Turks Tried For Converting To Christianity: Two years ago, Turkish Christians Turan Topal and Hakan Tastan were charged with “insulting Turkishness” under Article 301 of the constitution, reviling Islam (Article 216) and compiling information files on private citizens (Article 135). In May, the Turkish government slightly amended the highly controversial Article 301 so that the Justice Ministry had to give permission to file such cases and redefined the vague offense of “insulting Turkishness” to “insulting the Turkish nation,” reports Compass Direct News. A ruling on whether Topal and Tastan could be tried under the "new and improved" Article 301 had been expected November 4th; the trial is now delayed until February 24, 2009. Meanwhile, the prosecution is having trouble getting its witnesses to show up - and the two who did appear in court testified that they did not know and had never seen Topal and Tastan before. The defendants’ attorney, Haydar Polat, complains that in the absence of evidence against his clients the prosecution was dragging out the case.
† Pay The Ho: ABC News’ Diane Sawyer has finished taping the first media interview granted by Ashley Alexandra Dupre, the ho who serviced Fmr. NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D). For anyone who cares to watch (The Stiletto doesn’t), the interview is planned to air on “20/20” this Friday at 10 p.p. ET as part of an ongoing series on prostitution in America, reports Gawker. “Dupre reveals how an ‘upper middle-class, girl next door got into the profession and the psychological journey she continues to experience,’” reports The Associated Press. A tipster told Gawker that the network “paid a large ‘consulting fee’ and for ‘archival footage’ - the standard way interview subjects are paid by the networks.” That way, Sawyer can claim neither she nor her network engage in “checkbook journalism.”
† Updates To Previous Posts (second item, Is Obama’s Birth Certificate Fake?): Alan Keyes, who unsuccessfully ran against Barack Hussein Obama* (second item) to represent IL in the U.S. Senate in 2004 filed suit in CA Superior Court in Sacramento to stop the state from giving its electoral votes to the president-elect “until documentary evidence is provided” proving Obama is a natural born citizen of the U.S.A., reports WAGT-TV (Channel 26-Augusta, GA). Two courts have thrown out similar cases challenging Obama's citizenship, and the state of Hawaii has confirmed that his birth certificate is legit.
* It’s OK to use his middle name now; The New York Times says so.
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