† Is Obama Already A Lame Duck?: In a rare show of bipartisanship, the House of Representatives voted on two non-binding resolutions that “deliver[ed] a stunning rebuke to the commander in chief” and “escalated the brewing constitutional clash over whether he ignored the founding document's grant of war powers by sending U.S. troops to aid in enforcing a no-fly zone and naval blockade of Libya,” The Washington Times reports:

"He has a chance to get this right. If he doesn't, Congress will exercise its constitutional authority and make it right," said House Speaker John A. Boehner, the Ohio Republican who wrote the resolution that passed, 268-145, and sets a two-week deadline for the president to deliver the information the House is seeking.

Minutes after approving Mr. Boehner's measure, the House defeated an even more strongly-worded resolution offered by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Ohio Democrat, that would have insisted the president begin a withdrawal of troops.

Most lawmakers said that was too rash at this point, and said they wanted to give Mr. Obama time to comply. Some also said immediate withdrawal would leave U.S. allies in the lurch.

The Kucinich resolution failed 148-265. In a telling signal, 87 Republicans voted for Mr. Kucinich's resolution - more than the 61 Democrats that did.

Still, taken together, 324 members of Congress voted for one resolution or both resolutions, including 91 Democrats, or nearly half the caucus. The size of the votes signals overwhelming discontent with Mr. Obama's handling of the constitutional issues surrounding the Libya fight.

The Washington Post reports that “[i]t was, at times, a surreal debate”:

Democrat Howard Berman (Calif.) cited President George W. Bush’s famous charge that Democrats wanted to “cut and run” in Iraq.

In this case, he said, it was Republicans seeking to do it in Libya. “It seems now the running shoe is on the other foot,” Berman said.

“To tie the president’s hands - whether it be a Republican or Democratic president - is wrong,” said Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.). “We should not be doing this.”

This would be the same Jim Moran who repeatedly voted to tie President George Bush’s hands in Iraq, voted to investigate whether Bush should be impeached for “lying” about Iraq and co-sponsored a bill that set forth articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney on the same allegation.

† Lower Tolerance For Zero Tolerance (fourth item): The days of zero tolerance policies in schools may be numbered, The Washington Times reports:

[I]n many areas, efforts are underway to find a more calibrated approach to school discipline. Educators are increasingly focused on the fallout of suspensions, which are linked to lower academic achievement and students dropping out.

In Delaware, for example, zero-tolerance cases were a repeated issue in the Christina School District, where a 6-year-old with a camping utensil that included a knife was suspended in 2009 [explanatory link added by The Stiletto]. Discipline procedures were revamped last year, giving administrators the discretion to consider a student’s intent and grade, as well as the risk of harm. Out-of-school suspensions in the state’s largest school system fell by one-third in a year.

“It’s a more child-centered approach,” said Wendy Lapham, a spokeswoman for the Christina schools. …

“We’re clearly beginning to see changes in thinking and practice,” said Russell Skiba, an Indiana University professor who has written extensively on school discipline.

Still, “there are apparently a lot of places where, when zero-tolerance isn’t working, it’s just applied more and harder,” he said. “So what we see are two different trends happening at once in school discipline: reform and change in some districts, and an increased use of suspension and expulsion in others.”

† Updates To Previous Posts (penultimate item, King Of The Heels): A federal grand jury indicted two-time Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards on four counts of illegal campaign contributions, one count of conspiracy and one count of false statements, WRAL-TV (Channel 5, Raleigh, NC) reports:

The indictment follows a high-profile investigation that lasted more than two years into how Edwards' 2008 campaign accepted more than $900,000 in campaign contributions to allegedly cover up his affair with staffer Rielle Hunter and the pregnancy and birth of their daughter, Quinn.

People listed in the indictment:

Person A = Andrew Young, a former Edwards aide who initially claimed paternity of Hunter's daughter and traveled around the country keeping her in seclusion.

Person B = Rielle Hunter, a former campaign staffer who had an affair and daughter with Edwards.

Person C = Bunny Mellon, an heiress who gave Edwards $700,000 as a gift, according to Young. He said the money was used to help cover up Edwards' affair with Hunter.

Person D = Fred Baron, a Texas lawyer and Edwards' former campaign finance chairman who died in 2008.

Edwards pleaded not guilty during a 30-minute hearing in U.S. District Court in Winston-Salem. The trial is tentatively scheduled to begin July 11^th.

If convicted, Edwards faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each of the charges.

† Updates To Previous Posts (The Uniter: Part III): Remember when women used to swoon in Barack Hussein Obama’s presence? Now, “[f]emale voters have turned their backs on President Obama in droves,” The Washington Times reports:

In 2008, women helped deliver the presidency to Mr. Obama, voting for the Democrat 56 percent to 43 percent over Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican. Men split their votes between the two candidates almost evenly.

Black and white women turned out to vote in substantially higher numbers than their male counterparts, also boosting Mr. Obama's victory margin.

There was a startling turnaround two years later. Mr. Obama wasn't on the 2010 midterm ballot, but his agenda was. Female voters defected from the Democratic Party in historic numbers. Postelection surveys found female voters preferred Republican congressional candidates over Democrats, 49 percent to 48 percent - the first time in at least 30 years that Republican candidates received a majority of women's votes. …

Said freshman Rep. Diane Black, Tennessee Republican: "More and more, women are the decision makers in their households. They set the budgets, buy the groceries, take the kids to the doctor. And they've been seeing not only their budgets but their choices limited because Washington is deciding for them.

"From the health care takeover to our out-of-control debt, Washington has imposed a future for them and their children that quite frankly they don't like, and I don't like either. The government is spending more, but the outlook for all of us is getting worse, and so I believe women are saying, 'Enough is enough.' "

† Updates To Previous Posts (fourth item, Waterboarding Works): Gen. Michael Hayden, who was director of the CIA from 2006 to 2009, argues that "truthers" who believe Bush orchestrated the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, "birthers" who continue to believe that President Barack Hussein Obama is not a natural born citizen and “interrogation deniers” who insist that enhanced interrogation techniques used against CIA detainees did not yielded useful intelligence are all cut from the same cloth in this Wall Street Journal op-ed: 

[W]e see carefully tailored arguments designed to discount the value of enhanced interrogations: the first mention of the courier's name came from a detainee not in CIA custody; CIA detainees gave false and misleading information about the courier; there is no way to confirm that information obtained through enhanced interrogation was the decisive intelligence that led us directly to bin Laden.

All fair enough as far as they go. But let the record show that when I was first briefed in 2007 about the brightening prospect of pursuing bin Laden through his courier network, a crucial component of the briefing was information provided by three CIA detainees, all of whom had been subjected to some form of enhanced interrogation. One of the most alerting pieces of evidence was that two of the detainees who had routinely been cooperative and truthful (after they had undergone enhanced techniques) were atypically denying apparent factual data - a maneuver taken as a good sign that the CIA was on to something important.

So that there is no ambiguity, let me be doubly clear: It is nearly impossible for me to imagine any operation like the May 2 assault on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that would not have made substantial use of the trove of information derived from CIA detainees, including those on whom enhanced techniques had been used. …

We can debate what was appropriate then, or now, but this is a discussion about a particular historical fact: Information derived from enhanced interrogation techniques helped lead us to bin Laden. …

Perhaps, when all the public ideological posturing is done, and they are through attacking both their opponents' arguments and their character, they quietly concede to themselves that facts really do matter.

† Updates To Previous Posts (penultimate item, A To Z Approach On Illegal Immigration In AZ): The American Civil Liberties Union, the Southern Poverty Law Center were among several groups and people who filed a lawsuit in Atlanta's federal district court seeking to enjoin enforcement of House Bill 87, the state’s new immigration law that takes effect July 1^st, Los Angeles Times reports:

The law allows authorities to check the immigration status of criminal suspects who do not produce a valid ID and to detain and turn over to federal authorities those who are found to be in the country illegally.

Among other things, the law outlaws the transporting or harboring of illegal immigrants while knowingly committing another crime. …

The law will establish a "show-me-your-papers regime," and encourages racial profiling, said Omar Jadwat, an attorney with the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project.

Pieces of the law bear resemblance to portions of the controversial Arizona immigration law, known as SB 1070, that were struck down in federal court, Jadwat said. "We're confident that a federal court will strike down this law as well," he said. …

"These organizations falsely claim HB 87 is a copycat of Arizona's legislation. It is not," said Stephanie Mayfield, a spokeswoman for Deal. "The Georgia General Assembly carefully vetted a piece of legislation that ensured a constitutional final product."

† Updates To Previous Posts (fifth item, The TSA Emperor Wears No Clothes: Part II): A woman and her son ran afoul  of T(it)SA(ss) screeners during the Memorial Day weekend as they were attempting to clear a security checkpoint at Sky Harbor International in Phoenix, AZ, Prison Planet reports:

After a woman refused to go through a full body scanner she was pulled aside and made to undergo the pat down procedure. When the TSA agent touched the woman’s breasts, she broke down into tears and screamed for a police officer.

When police officers arrived on the scene they led the woman away and told her that unless she would submit to the full pat down procedure she would not be able to fly. 

“Why won’t you help me? You’re a police officer why won’t you help me?” the woman asks in the video. …

The family was previously subjected to similar scrutiny from the TSA at Sky Harbor earlier in the year, prompting them to voice protest over violation of their Constitutional rights.

The previous incident was also captured on video (below) and was evidently remembered by some of the TSA workers who claimed to know that the whole family are routine troublemakers.

What makes this especially interesting is that AZ has a very large Arab population and The Stiletto is not aware of any woman in a hijab being touched in this matter in public where everyone can see.

† Updates To Previous Posts (Now Is Not The Time To Talk About Race): In a commentary about a new biography about President Barack Hussein Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, New York Times columnist Roger Cohen highlights something of interest to those of us with biracial families who are disappointed that President Barack Hussein Obama does not embrace his dual heritage (going halfway across the world to hoist a Guinness in honor of his Irish forebears doesn’t count):

In an affecting passage one colleague, Don Johnston, describes how Dunham “felt a little bit wistful or sad that Barack had essentially moved to Chicago and chosen to take on a really strongly identified black identity” that had “not really been part of who he was when he was growing up.” She felt that “he was distancing himself from her” in a “professional choice.”

Cohen muses on the reasons behind Obama’s self-identifying as black:

Was it political calculation, love of Michelle Robinson, dreams of his father, or irritation with a dreamer-mother that made Obama black? After all, he was raised white. He chose black. Or perhaps he had no choice. Being biracial in the America Obama grew up in was not much of an option.

“Obama’s America” was Hawaii, perhaps the state with the highest multiracial population in the U.S. – more than 20 percent, 10 times the national average – and Hawaii was one of the few states in the 1960s in which biracial marriage was legal. Half-white and raised white adds up to more whiteness than blackness – but biracial Americans will settle for his acknowledging he is both black and white. Equally. 
 

† Updates To Previous Posts (fourth item, All The News That’s Fart To Print): A mail carrier who dropped trou and pooped in the yard of family on his route will keep his job, but will be transferred to a different route, KOMO-TV (Channel 4, Seattle) reports. See, a unionized federal employee can’t be fired no matter how crappy he is.