THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Updates To Previous Posts
† Is Armenian Genocide Denial Good For The Jews?: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stormed off the stage after exchanging words with Israeli president, Shimon Peres, during a panel discussion on Gaza at the World Economic Forum in Davos, reports The New York Times:
Mr. Erdogan apparently became incensed after he was prevented by the moderator from responding to remarks by Mr. Peres on the recent Israeli attack. The panel was running late and Mr. Peres was to have had the last word, participants said.
Panel discussions at Davos are strictly restricted to one hour, but Mr. Erdogan insisted on responding to Mr. Peres. Red faced, and with one hand grasping the arm of the moderator, David Ignatius of the Washington Post, Mr. Erdogan turned to the Israeli president.
“Mr. Peres, you are older than me,” he said. “Your voice comes out in a very high tone. And the high tone of your voice has to do with a guilty conscience. My voice, however, will not come out in the same tone.”
Resisting efforts by Mr. Ignatius to end the session, Mr. Erdogan continued, saying to Mr. Peres, “When it comes to killing, you know well how to kill.”
But no one knows better than the Turks how to kill, as the Ottomans taught Hitler how to commit murder on a genocidal scale.
† Naughty Monkey Double Dare or Apepazza Musa?: You Decide (third item): Those red Naughty Monkey Double Dare peep-toe pumps that Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) wore when she was introduced as Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) running mate were put on sale on eBay by her niece and fetched $2,025, reports The Washington Post. Palin had purchased the shoes in Juneau with her own money, and had given them to her niece.
† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, Why We Need Gitmo): Army Col. James Pohl, chief judge at the military tribunals at the U.S. Navy base in Guantánamo Bay refused to comply with President Barack Obama’s order to suspend all trials for 120 days, ruling that to protect “the public interest in a speedy trial” the case against USS Cole bombing suspect Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri must proceed, reports The Associated Press:
Mr. Obama has ordered the detention center in Cuba to be closed within a year. The administration asked last week for a 120-day suspension in proceedings against some 20 detainees as it considers whether to continue trying alleged terrorists in the military commissions, revamp them or try suspects in other courts. …
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Stephen Reyes, the Pentagon-appointed attorney for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, said the decision gives the Obama administration few options.
"The next step, if the government wants to halt the proceedings, is to withdraw the charges," Cmdr. Reyes said. "Now it's in the government's hands," he said.
Obama is playing high stakes poker with Gitmo, and Judge Pohl just upped the ante.
As Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, points out in The Wall Street Journal, “[b]y ordering the closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison and taking the fate its detainees out of his own hands … Obama is gambling that none of them will come back to haunt him in the 2012 election”:
There are several potential scenarios that could create political problems … but one stands out: a Guantanamo detainee finds his way to freedom and takes part in a terrorist attack, especially one that kills Americans. Think of the impact of Willie Horton—multiplied.
There is also the possibility that moving these men to U.S. prisons might allow them to use some kind of legal loophole to win release once they are covered by the dictates of the Constitution. Or, the possibility that other terrorists decide to try to free them by attacking a prison on American soil. …
But what to do with the men now held there remains a thorny, unanswered question. Most importantly, the possibility that this change will lead to freedom for suspected terrorists is not hypothetical.
Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon denied Ghaleb Nassar Al Bihani's petition to be released from Gitmo, on the grounds that one can be an enemy combatant without firing a shot at U.S. or coalition forces. Al Bihani claimed he was "only a cook" for Taliban fighters, but Leon noted Napoleon’s adage that “an army marches on its stomach” in his ruling.
† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, What’s Next For Spitzer): Cecil Suwal, who ran day-to-day operations at Emperors Club VIP escort service was sentenced to six months in prison after pleading guilty to charges involving money laundering and promoting prostitution, reports The Associated Press. Former Gov. Eliot “Client 9” Spitzer (D), who frequented Emperors Club VIP, received no jail time.
† Updates To Previous Posts (fourth item, Employers Hiring Forged Documented Aliens Are Lawbreakers In Other Ways, Too): Sholom Rubashkin, former CEO of kosher slaughterhouse Agriprocessors in Postville, IA, has been released on $500,000 bail and is required to wear an electronic monitoring device, reports The Associated Press. He had been held in the Dubuque County jail since his November 2008 arrest on numerous charges of violating immigration laws, as well as bank-fraud and money-laundering charges.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff HAVE AN ABSOLUTE CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY to stand behind Guantanamo Military Judge James Pohl UNTIL OBAMA OVERCOMES “RES IPSA LOQUITUR” BY SUPPLYING HIS LONG FORM BIRTH CERTIFICATE AND PROVING HIS ELIGIBILITY TO BE PRESIDENT UNDER ARTICLE 2 OF THE US CONSTITUTION.
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