† Critics Slam MO Domestic Security Report Linking Militias To Republican Presidential Candidates: The Department of Homeland Security issued a threat assessment warning that "right-wing extremists" - a group that includes returning war veterans – angered over such hot-button issues as illegal immigration, Second Amendment restrictions, and the loss of U.S. sovereignty pose a domestic security threat, reports World Net Daily:

 
The report, titled "Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," dated April 7, states that "threats from white supremacist and violent anti-government groups during 2009 have been largely rhetorical and have not indicated plans to carry out violent acts." …

The report from DHS' Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines right-wing extremism in the U.S. as "divided into those groups, movements and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups) and those that are mainly anti-government, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration."

"[T]he consequences of a prolonged economic downturn - including real estate foreclosures, unemployment and an inability to obtain credit - could create a fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities.”

The report claims that Barack Obama’s race is “proving to be a driving force for right-wing extremist recruitment and radicalization.” 

The threat assessment, prepared by the DHS Extremism and Radicalization Branch in consultation with the FBI, “is provided to federal, state, local, and tribal counterterrorism and law enforcement officials so they may effectively deter, prevent, preempt, or respond to terrorist attacks against the United States.”  Imagine, the Obama Administration believes that the heroes who willingly put themselves in harm’s way in Iraq and Afghanistan to protect the homeland are threats to the country they are sworn to protect.

† April Fools Jokes: The New York Times explores the difference between being innocent of a crime and being found not guilty of it, in the context of the corruption conviction of former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) being voided by U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan because of prosecutorial misconduct:

Mr. Stevens is certainly innocent in the civics-book sense that everyone is innocent in the eyes of the law until and unless proved guilty.

But lawyers point out that such a definition is part of the legal construct in which the burden of proving guilt falls on the government.

Mr. Stevens’s chief lawyer, Brendan Sullivan, said of his client: “His name is cleared. He is innocent of the charges as if they had never been brought.”

Prof. Joshua Dressler of the Ohio State University law school said, however, that the failure to be convicted in a criminal trial does not, by itself, confer innocence on someone.

“The decision by the judge to dismiss the case is certainly not a statement that the defendant is innocent,” Professor Dressler said, “but that the prosecutors didn’t play by the rules, and for that reason alone we have to use this strong remedy” to deter other prosecutors from similar misbehavior.

† Don’t Know Much About History, Don’t Know Much Foreign Policy: With President Barack Obama's spokespeople continuing to insist that his people shouldn't trust their lying eyes when they see the video clip of that bowser of a bow before a Muslim king, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Steve Huntley writes: 

What could give this issue legs is that it conforms to the view of his critics that the president spent too much time on his European tour seeming to apologize for America. His defenders respond that Obama needed to do some fence-mending. We could argue about this all day, as is the case with the videotape of the "bow." ...

No one argues Obama went to London intending to bow with the cameras running so the world would see him. Likely it was some kind of spontaneous moment that, whatever the intent, just plain looks bad. We won't know what was going on in his head unless Obama tells us ... [Emphasis, The Stiletto].

Having already explained why the left-handed Obama eats finger food with his right hand, The Stiletto will go out on a limb and posit that the "spontaneous moment" was the result of childhood conditioning or socialization while attending a predominantly Muslim school in Indonesia (whether it was a secular school  or a madrassa is open to debate), and that Obama recalls the rituals and strictures of his Muslim upbringing on some deep - or not so deep - level, which made that reverential bow reflexive, rather than spontaneous. 

Editorial Note: Is the First Family’s attending Easter Sunday services and getting that much-talked about dog a calculated campaign to neutralize any political fallout from Obama’s show of subservience? White House “faith adviser” Joshua DuBois did not rule out the possibility that the trip to St. John's Episcopal Church may be a one-time event, and after a few obligatory photos of BO playing with Bo, feeding him doggie treats and allowing him to lick his face , wanna bet Obama will not come into physical contact with the dog again?

† Employers Hiring Forged Documented Aliens Are Lawbreakers In Other Ways, Too (second item): Former Agriprocessors personnel manager Elizabeth Billmeyer, 48, has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to harbor undocumented aliens for profit and one count of knowingly accepting counterfeit resident alien cards, reports The Associated Press. She could be sentenced to as much as 20 years in prison and a $500,000 fine.

† Madoff’s Victims: Gullible Or Greedy?: Federal judge Judge Louis L. Stanton will allow several Bernard Madoff victims to force the Ponzi schemer into involuntary personal bankruptcy to protect assets that were not the proceeds of Madoff's crimes, reports New York Law Journal. Contending that they are already taking all possible and necessary actions to recover Madoff’s assets, federal prosecutors, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Securities Investor Protection Act trustee oppose a bankruptcy proceeding. But Stanton ruled that “the concern that appointment of a Bankruptcy Trustee would increase administrative costs or delay recovery by victims is speculative, and outweighed by the benefits to Mr. Madoff's victims” of an “orderly and equitable administration of his individual estate."

† Bob (Not-So) Quick: Having left a complex multi-location counterterrorism operation at the mercy of the media's patriotism, by allowing a secret briefing document laying out the planned details to be photographed, Bob Quick, Britain's top counterterrorism officer resigned, reports The Washington Post:

In a statement, Quick said: "I have today offered my resignation in the knowledge that my action could have compromised a major counter terrorism operation. I deeply regret the disruption caused to colleagues undertaking the operation and remain grateful for the way in which they adapted quickly and professionally to a revised timescale."

† Squatters Take Over Foreclosed Homes (third item): The New York Times reports that advocacy groups are helping homeless people take over foreclosed and abandoned homes:

Michael Stoops, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, said about a dozen advocacy groups around the country were actively moving homeless people into vacant homes - some working in secret, others, like Take Back the Land, operating openly.

In addition to squatting, some advocacy groups have organized civil disobedience actions in which borrowers or renters refuse to leave homes after foreclosure.

The groups say that they have sometimes received support from neighbors and that beleaguered police departments have not aggressively gone after squatters.

“We’re seeing sheriffs’ departments who are reluctant to move fast on foreclosures or evictions,” said Bill Faith, director of the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, which is not engaged in squatting. “They’re up to their eyeballs in this stuff. Everyone’s overwhelmed.” …

Anita Beaty, executive director of the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, said her group had been looking into asking banks to give it abandoned buildings to renovate and occupy legally. Ms. Honkala, who was a squatter in the 1980s, said the biggest difference now was that the neighbors were often more supportive. “People who used to say, ‘That’s breaking the law,’ now that they’re living on a block with three or four empty houses, they’re very interested in helping out, bringing over mattresses or food for the families,” she said.

† Wind Farms Good For The Environment – But Bad For Property Values: A Washington Post editorial notes, “[t]he United States can't possibly hope to reduce its addiction to greenhouse-gas-emitting fossil fuels without harnessing the power of the wind, the sun and water,” and that power transmission lines need to be built that can move surplus energy from sparsely populated “areas of the country where those resources are most abundant” to densely populated areas that have the greatest demand for electicity.” Sounds reasonable. But not to homeowners in Northern Virginia, who “have fought these two projects every step of the way, citing concerns about the environment and scenic views, declining property values, health risks and the desecration of Civil War grounds.” The WaPo rightly swats those parochial concerns away: “If the promise of renewable energy is to be fulfilled, the national interest must prevail.”

† Now Is Not The Time To Talk About Race: Kathleen Leavey, who led the Detroit Law Department, filed a reverse discrimination lawsuit in federal court claiming that she was unfairly demoted and labeled a racist, after describing a local court as a "ghetto court," reports The National Law Journal:

Her "ghetto court" comments were not about race, she argued, but rather about poor service, long lines and disorganization that plagues the 36th District court, which services mainly African Americans.

"She was disturbed that they're getting crummy service. That's hardly racist," said Leavey's lawyer, James Fett, of Pinckney, Mich.'s Fett & Fields, who quoted the Slang Dictionary in his complaint.

"The Slang Dictionary defines 'ghetto' as 'backwards and messed up,'" Fett wrote in the lawsuit. Leavey v. City of Detroit, No. 2:09-cv-11288 E.D. Mich.

Leavey, who is white and worked for the law department for more than 20 years, alleges reverse race discrimination, retaliatory defamation and First Amendment retaliation in the lawsuit. She claims that her African-American colleagues occasionally use the term "ghetto" to describe things as inadequate, although they have never been disciplined or ridiculed for it. She was, however, because she is white, she claimed in her lawsuit.

"There are few things worse than being called a racist," Fett said.

† Snowy Day Fun (last item): The Washington Post’s third annual Peeps diorama contest drew 1,100 entries, including these depicting:
 

Charles Darwin's voyage to the Galapagos (the biologist's 200th birthday was in February), the Apollo 11 moon landing (the 40th anniversary is in July) and the introduction of the Suleman octuplets (who continue to crawl through the news three months after their birth). …

Jackknifing stock charts slice through the custard-colored fat of chicks, as pink bunnies float through dioramas on golden parachutes. …

Aretha Franklin's monstrous hat. A half-dozen dioramas depicted the Queen of Soul belting "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" at January's presidential inauguration, where her hat stole the spotlight. …

[The] winner: a gorgeous re-creation of an instantly recognizable piece of art whose tone of 1940s urban isolation continues to resonate even at the end of this sugary, decadent decade.

"NightPeeps," by Arlington resident Melissa Harvey, is both an homage to and twist on Edward Hopper's famous 1942 oil painting "Nighthawks." Its meticulous craftsmanship, with two working fluorescent lights that add the clinical Hopper glow, is elevated to a higher level by the subtle integration of the Peeps, which provide a breath of warmth to the otherwise dolorous scene.

† Updates To Previous Posts (Dems Still Beset By Indecision, Infighting And Intrigue): A MN court threw the Senate race to Al Franken (D), but former Sen. Norm Coleman (R) plans to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court, reports The Associated Press:  

After a statewide recount and a seven-week trial, Franken stands 312 votes ahead. He gained more votes from the election challenge than Coleman, who brought the legal action.

The state law under which Coleman sued required three judges to determine who received the most votes and is therefore entitled to an election certificate, which is on hold pending an appeal.

† Updates To Previous Posts (sixth item, Is This Why We Fight?): The Washington Post reports that the controversial Afghan law that requires a woman to submit sexually to her husband unless she is sick or menstruating, and to seek permission from her husband or father before leaving her home, “has provoked an extraordinary public debate on the once-taboo topic of religion and sex in this conservative Muslim nation and spurred an unprecedented protest by senior officials”:

Initially seen as a political gesture to the country's Shiites, who make up 20 percent of the population and have long sought legal recognition of their religious beliefs, the law has become a political nightmare for a government struggling to balance conflicting pressures from traditional and modernizing forces at home and abroad.

Not only has the law been denounced by the major Western governments on which the poor, insurgent-plagued country depends for economic and military aid, but it has also spurred a formal protest by several cabinet members and more than 200 other Afghan leaders, who said it treats women as "objects" and could lead to a new "Talibanization" of Afghanistan.

"I could not keep silent any longer," said Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta, one of the most prominent figures to sign the protest statement.

In an interview, Spanta said he remained loyal to Karzai but could not bear to see Afghan democracy and human rights come under continued assault from religious extremists. The Shiite law, he said, had a "totalitarian orientation that does not accept the difference between what is private and public. It identifies some Afghan citizens not as human beings but as slaves."

Spanta will not get an argument from The Intellectual Activist editor Robert Tracinski, who notes:

Women's rights and the treatment of women are a profound measure of the progress of a civilization …

In a society where might makes right, where the rule of brute force has been thoroughly unleashed, women are always the first victims. Even the poorest and meanest man, the guy on the lowest rung who is oppressed by others above him who are bigger and stronger-even he can find one person he is still able to dominate and oppress: a woman, whether it is his mother, his wife, or his daughter. …

This is a complete contrast to the kind of society in which force is subordinated to morality. A society in which a woman can do whatever she wants without fear is a society in which the physically weak can rely on being protected from the physically strong. In fact, in a civilized society the physically weak feel safe because of the physically strong. The mark of such a society is a sense of chivalry-the idea that a man's superior physical strength.