This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Legal

  • Edinboro “peace thugs” admit “They were wrong”

    Frequent commenter and good friend to This Ain’t Hell, Dan Maloney, NY State Coordinator, Gathering of Eagles, and a blogger in his own right, alerts us to the judgment in the Swartout case that has been the subject of much discussion here over the few weeks. GoErie.com reports;

    A peace group that meets in Edinboro will receive training in nonviolent conflict resolution — a result of two members being charged for their parts in an April 22 brawl.

    Trainers from the Erie Peace Initiative will meet with the Tuesdays at Two group, which includes a number of students from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. The session has not yet been scheduled.

    Two members of the group — Alyssa Stelmack, 21, and her sister, Andria Stelmack, 23, both of Erie — were charged with harassment after they fought with a Townville couple that crossed the street to challenge their anti-war rhetoric.

    The group’s leader issued a mealy-mouthed apology of sorts;

    “They were wrong,” said Richard McVay, a Penn Action activist who met with the sisters after the fight. “They were wrong to react violently to a violent provocation. But I can see how it could happen.”

    The Swartouts had the same charge levied on them;

    The Townville couple — Jason Swartout, 33, and his wife, Carrie Swartout, 30 — also were charged with harassment, a summary offense. They have not responded to requests for comment.

    Despite the fact that I’ve been accused of being against the Swartouts by implying they had some measure of culpability here, apparently the court agreed with me. No amount of exclamation points can change the truth. I hope this a lesson for both sides – if we’re going to have a discussion about this, neither side wins when the discussion is raised to the level of physical confrontation. I’ll admit there have been times my anger has boiled over, but nothing is gained by clocking the opposition and getting arrested.

  • The peaceful Left

    I received this in my email this morning;

     The AAR for Saturday’s Iran-mobile counter in Meadville will be delayed.  Our video camera has been confiscated by the Edinboro PD.  We had a counter protest today in Edinboro.  It was an Iraq war protest put together by Richard McVay.  He was not present but there were about 10 college students, a couple professors and a group of Hillary supporters.

    Anyways, Andrew went to the their protest site to videotape a couple odd displays they put up.  They were beginning to get aggressive with Andrew simply because he was recording their protest.  Jason and I went over to make sure he was ok.

    Long story short one girl attacked me which turned into 2 girls attacking me.  Jason pulled one off of me and then he was attacked and held down by 4-5 people getting punched in the head.  Meanwhile Andrew pulled the other girl off me and then she kicked me in the head with a great big boot.  I called the cops and while we were waiting on them the girl that kicked me in the head went over to Andrew(14 years old) and punched him right in the face.  My 12, 9, and 7 year olds were standing across the street witnessing the whole thing.  Here’s the kicker.

    The cops watched the video at the scene and no arrests were made.  One of the cops was very aggressive toward us.  The girl later spit on Jason right in front of the cop and nothing was done about it.  Amazing!  Right now I have a huge headache and knots coming up all over my head.  Jason has scratch marks on his face not to mention someone stomping on his glasses when they fell off.  Andrew has a red cheek.  So we’ll get a AAR for this event and Saturday’s maybe tomorrow night after we get our camera back.

    Just last month our own buddy, Skye from Midnight Blue was attacked by anti-war protesters and Free Republic members were attacked in front of the Army Recruiting station in downtown DC. Out of all of these incidents, only Skye’s attacker was arrested. The attack at the recruiting office was even witnessed by police – at least one officer was struck with a bottle of paint – yet no arrests were made.

    There is a disturbing trend of escalating violence from the Left, probably stemming from their frustration that they’re losing the argument and they’re being proved wrong,  in terms of our national security. They’re coming to the realization that they don’t represent the majority of Americans like Nancy Pelosi and Medea Benjamin told them last year.

    But, I blame this trend of violence on authorities who coddle the protesters fearing lawsuits and taking a beating the media. The longer authorities allow this behavior to continue, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. The more crimes the Left can get away with, the more they’re going to attempt until someone finally dies (that’s what ended the Vietnam War protests). The Left are like insolent children who will continue to push the limits of the law until the law starts pushing back.

  • Mischaracterizing McCain

    The Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama, between jabs at each other have been squeezing out shots at John McCain. Today, Charles Krauthammer deals with one of their more disingenuous claims – that McCain wants to fight a war in Iraq for another 100 years;

    Asked at a New Hampshire campaign stop about possibly staying in Iraq 50 years, John McCain interrupted — “Make it a hundred” — then offered a precise analogy to what he envisioned: “We’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea for 50 years or so.” Lest anyone think he was talking about prolonged war-fighting rather than maintaining a presence in postwar Iraq, he explained: “That would be fine with me, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed.”

    And lest anyone persist in thinking he was talking about war-fighting, he told his questioner: “It’s fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintained a presence in a very volatile part of the world.”

    There is another analogy to the kind of benign and strategically advantageous “presence” McCain was suggesting for postwar Iraq: Kuwait. The United States (with allies) occupied Kuwait in 1991 and has remained there with a major military presence for 17 years. We debate dozens of foreign policy issues in this country. I’ve yet to hear any serious person of either party call for a pullout from Kuwait.

    I’d add something, but, as always with Mr Krauthammer, there’s nothing left to be said. In another part of the Washington Post, Clinton and Obama take turns painting McCain as a heartless Republican;

    In an economic speech on Tuesday, McCain (Ariz.) said he supports government assistance for Americans facing home foreclosure because of the turmoil in financial markets. But he declined to embrace the kind of government intervention for individuals and institutions favored by Clinton and Obama, arguing that “it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers.”

    Obama (Ill.) and Clinton (N.Y.) have pounced on that quote in an effort to paint McCain as indifferent to the problems of ordinary Americans. Speaking in New York yesterday, Obama characterized McCain’s views as amounting to “little more than watching this crisis happen.” Clinton, appearing in Raleigh, N.C., said McCain prefers to ignore the crisis or simply blame families for their problems.

    Of course Hillary is stuck on her 3 AM phone call ad;

    “Sometimes the phone rings at 3 a.m. in the White House and it’s an economic crisis,” Clinton said, alluding to an ad she ran against Obama weeks ago. “And we need a president who is ready and willing and able to answer that call.” McCain’s plan, she said, does virtually nothing to ease the credit or housing crisis. “It seems like if the phone were ringing, he would just let it ring and ring and ring,” she said.

    Yeah, except economic crises aren’t in the job description of president according to the Constitution – like defense which is in the first sentence. It will take nearly six months for the government to accomplish the easiest thing they could have done for the economy. It will be June before everyone gets their tax-rebates. By the time everyone will have gotten their checks and we’ve all gone out and bought our Wii, it, this latest of our crises, will all be over.

    Government is never the solution to economic problems – the problems can always be prevented with education and making people responsible for their decisions. Where’s the impetus to make good, reasoned decisions when all you have to do is call some knucklehead Congress person to bail you out?

    John McCain realizes this and at least he’s honest with people, not promising impossible visions of lollipops and fruit roll-ups every time the economy hits a bump. Of course, since the media only plays these messages of false hope from the Democrats, anyone offering a dose of reality is perceived as mean and nasty.

  • See no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil

    story_bonior_mcdermott.jpg 

    Photo from CNN

    The images of the three monkeys leapt into my mind as we’re all treated to a replay of the three Congressmen standing on the roof of Saddam Hussein’s palace and preaching to us ignorant Americans that Hussein was more trustworthy than our own president. from the Weekly Standard;

    The controversy ignited on September 29 when Bonior and McDermott appeared from Baghdad on ABC’s “This Week.” Host George Stephanopoulos asked McDermott about his recent comment that “the president of the United States will lie to the American people in order to get us into this war.”

    In an interview with CNN’s Paula Zahn, Bonior was asked if he trusts Saddam Hussein;

    ZAHN: Representative Bonior, do you trust Saddam Hussein?

    BONIOR: Well, of course, Saddam Hussein has committed some very bad atrocities while he has been in public office, and we all know that. The question is not whether or not I trust Saddam Hussein. The question is whether I trust impartial observers, like Mr. Blix from the United Nations, to come in and make a good judgment.  

    So we shouldn’t have questioned the trustworthiness of Saddam Hussein, but it was fine to mistrust the US President. Sweet. Apparently, Hussein’s money for propaganda was well spent. I’d remind the reader that the actual invasion of Hussein’s Iraq wouldn’t happen for another five months after this trip – in the “rush to war”.

    Well, now it turns out that the trip was financed with profits from Hussein’s corrupt manipulation of the Oil For Food program – meant to feed Iraqis affected by the UN’s 1991 sanctions against the country. The money from the Hussein regime flowed through his agent in the US, Muthanna Al-Hanooti. Ed Morrisey of Hot Air writes;

    Bonior, Thompson, and McDermott apparently didn’t know about Al-Hanooti’s connection — but they don’t appear to have asked, either. Instead, they got snookered into a ploy by Saddam to buy some American dissent at a time when our nation still reeled from the deaths of 3,000 people in a terrorist attack. Wouldn’t the possibility of exploitation have crossed their minds — and shouldn’t the three Congressmen have asked the FBI to check out Al-Hanooti at the time?

    Al-Hanooti appears to be an official of CAIR, according to Debbie Schlussel and Michele Malkin. From Ms. Schlussel;

    Today, Al-Hanooti, a former chief of CAIR-Michigan was indicted for acting as a spy for Saddam Hussein in America. (And–shocker–he has a second wife and family in Iraq.) To me and anyone who followed the story and read a newspaper, that isn’t news. In fact, the indictment is far too little, far too late. The indictment says that a trip taken by three Congressmen–liberal Democrats Jim McDermott, David Bonior, and Mike Thompson–to Iraq in 2002, was funded by Saddam Hussein, using a third party to arrange the financing, and Al-Hanooti to put the trip together. Again, not news, since I wrote about it repeatedly on this site and also in The New York Post as far back as 2003.

    Baldilocks says this explains why George Galloway was in an extra-pricky mood when he was being questioned by Norm Coleman about the Oil-for-Food Program – he knew he wasn’t the only dirty politician who’d benefitted from Iraq’s new-found largesse. I’ll bet that if anyone ever shakes that fig tree, we’ll be up to our necks in corrupt politicians who benefitted from that “humanitarian program” administered by the UN.

  • Who are the racists in PW County?

    Just when you thought you’d seen the worst that evil conservatives can do to the least of us, they do something new and something more evil. Now, they’ve almost destroyed soccer in Prince William County, Virginia…well, according to the page one story of the Washington Post;

    When Northern Virginia’s Latino soccer leagues kick off the 2008 season early next month, fans of Honduras de Manassas will have to travel outside their base in Prince William County to see their team score goals. So will supporters used to watching Juventus Sure¿o crush the competition in Woodbridge. Devotees of longtime Manassas powerhouse Fiorentina will need to switch allegiance. Their team is sitting out this season.

    As Prince William proceeds with its crackdown on illegal immigrants, one result is a shake-up and shrinking of the area’s entrenched Hispanic soccer leagues. The reason is simple, organizers say: Players and fans, among them many illegal immigrants, are so worried about being detained by authorities en route to or at games that they are avoiding local fields. Legal immigrants are also wary, for themselves or their illegal relatives, organizers say.

    Honduras of Virginia? That doesn’t indicate to me that there’s much assimilation going on, or that people who benefit from our economic and political situation are grateful that they’re here. Legal residents have nothing to fear, do they? Can anyone name even ONE legal immigrant who has been mistakenly deported by US immigration officers? Cheech Marin in the movie “Born in East LA” doesn’t count.

    Officials have said the policy is not meant to intimidate but to remove illegal immigrants, particularly those who commit crimes. The imperiled leagues draw little sympathy from backers of the county’s enforcement program.

    “I would hope that the soccer leagues didn’t depend on illegal aliens to make them viable,” said Greg Letiecq, president of Help Save Manassas, an anti-illegal-immigration group. “It just doesn’t seem like a valid reason for overturning the rule-of-law resolution: because without the illegal aliens, the soccer clubs will all fall apart.”

    Indeed. The illegal aliens are here ILLEGALLY (hence the label), they’ve already committed crimes and until recently there’s been no repercussions for that illicit behavior. Me, personally, since I’m married to a LEGAL resident of hispanic origin, stepfather to another LEGAL resident, and step-grandfather to yet another LEGAL resident, I enjoy the abundance of Latins in the area.

    I like to immerse myself in the Latin culture from time-to-time. My barber, a legal immigrant from Paraguay, have long passionate discussions in Spanish about US politics in relation to Latin America. There’s a lot of tropical foods and pastries I enjoy.

    Learning Spanish in barrooms and discos has helped me learn and use my own language better. I’ve never spent a day in a Spanish class although I have two years of college credit in Spanish and the Army designated me a Latin American and Castillian Spanish interpreter.

    But I don’t like lawbreakers. People who break one law are forced to break more laws to cover up their disregard for the first – and it becomes easier every time. Sooner or later, there grows an entire lawless underground culture – the tentacled arms of Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) proves that.

    To try to allay fears, league owners have hosted team meetings at which police have explained the county’s policy, which took effect last week and requires officers to check the immigration status of crime suspects who they think might be in the country illegally. There are to be no immigration checkpoints, racial profiling or sidelines raids, the teams were told. The meetings have had little impact, league owners said.

    Well, that’s because the Left and groups like La Raza have turned the illegal immigration discussion into something racial and use that to spread fear – and increase their membership and donations. Trying to assimilate Latins into American culture has been met with charges of racism from the entities that have the most to gain from an ignorant and frightened community of Latins – the racist groups like La Raza and the American Spanish language media.

    Latins in the United States are being victimized and stigmatized by their own people – the illegals who’ve created the whole problem and the race-baiters who perpetuate the illusion of American racism. Instead of blaming the American nativists for the collapse of their soccer league, Latins in Prince William County should be pointing at the real villains here.

  • FBI; Spitzer investigation wasn’t about sex

    According to ABC News, the FBI says they first became interested in NY goveror Elliot Spitzer because of large money transfers. Thinking it was bribes, they tracked his money;

    The suspicious financial activity was initially reported by a bank to the IRS which, under direction from the Justice Department, brought kin the FBI’s Public Corruption Squad.

    “We had no interest at all in the prostitution ring until the thing with Spitzer led us to learn about it,” said one Justice Department official.

    Spitzer, who made his name by bringing high-profile cases against many of New York’s financial giants, is likely to be prosecuted under a relatively obscure statute called “structuring,” according to a Justice Department official.

    Structuring involves creating a series of financial movements designed to obscure the true purpose of the payments.

    Prosecutors reportedly have a series of e-mails and wiretapped phone conversations of Spitzer.

    And then the money shot (so to speak);

    In a interview two years ago, Spitzer, then-attorney general, told ABC News he had some advice for people who break the law. “Never talk when you can nod, and never nod when you can wink, and never write an e-mail because it’s death. You’re giving prosecutors all the evidence we need,” he said.

    I’ve never been a criminal or a prosecutor, but it’s been my experience that criminals are idiots – such idiots that they do stuff they know is wrong because they think they’re the smartest guy that ever tried to do this particular thing. SpikeTV and TruTV run hours of programming of these guys – just before they’re caught.

    The Associated Press writes about the charges Spitzer might face;

    Charges against Spitzer have not been decided and it depends mostly on “how aggressive the U.S. attorney wants to be,” the law enforcement official said. Charges could including anything from Mann act violations to banking violations to possibly wire fraud.

    The Left lines up to spit out names like Gingrich, Giuliani, and all of the rest of the Republicans who’ve been caught in extra-marital affairs, but this thing by Spitzer was criminal – the transaction took place across state lines, the participants crossed state lines to commit the crime.

    This isn’t just a guy cheating on his wife or a guy with a wide stance in a public bathroom. It’s criminal activity – Spitzer formerly prosecuted people for the same crime he committed. If you can’t see the hypocrisy in that, you don’t know the meaning of the word.

    As for the “everyone does it defense” – no, everyone doesn’t do it. Only sociopaths who think they commit a crime and get away with it do it.

    Michele Malkin reports a bipartisan consensus that Spitzer should go. I noticed that the DOW and NASDAQ were poised for a higher opening. CNBC called it the “Spitzer bounce.”

    Somehow, the folks at Firedoglake decide that Spitzer’s behavior is the fault of Michael Chartoff. If Spitzer didn’t break the law, he’d have said so by now – what with him being a slick former prosecutor and all. It doesn’t matter how they caught the Governor of New York in an illegal interstate transaction, the fact remains that they did catch him and he’s not denying it. Banks are regulated by the feds, and they have to comply with regulations or lose their status – that’s not hard to figure out.

    Instead of trying to weasel Spitzer out of this, try admitting he was a criminal involved in illicit behavior and take the high road for a change.

    Please notice, I’m not holding my breath.

  • It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy

    [youtube egWJVciO6Y8 nolink]

    Soon-to-be-former Governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, has just admitted that he frequented hookers. The New York Times reports;

    Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel last month, according to a person briefed on the federal investigation.

    The wiretap recording, made during an investigation of a prostitution ring called Emperors Club VIP, captured a man identified as Client 9 on a telephone call confirming plans to have a woman travel from New York to Washington, where he had reserved a room. The person briefed on the case identified Mr. Spitzer as Client 9.

    Syracuse Channel 10;

    Spitzer has built his political legacy on rooting out corruption, including several headline-making battles with Wall Street while serving as attorney general. He stormed into the governor’s office in 2006 with a historic share of the vote, vowing to continue his no-nonsense approach to fixing one of the nation’s worst governments.

    During his two terms as attorney general, his cases included a few criminal prosecutions of prostitution rings and into tourism involving prostitutes.

    In 2004, he was part of an investigation of an escort service in New York City that resulted in the arrest of 18 people on charges of promoting prostitution and related charges.

    Do I sound pleased? Yes, I am. Spitzer was one of the reasons (the other reasons being Schumer and Clinton) I left New York State – I figured if my neighbors were stupid enough to elect him to the office of Attorney General for being a “pragmatic Liberal”, I didn’t want to live among them anymore.

    From Associated Press;

    According to the law enforcement official, Spitzer is the person identified in legal papers as “Client 9,” who paid for a four-hour tryst with a woman identified as “Kristen” at a Washington hotel on Feb. 13.

    A defendant, Temeka Rachelle Lewis, confirmed that the client would be “paying for everything — train tickets, cab fare from the hotel and back, mini bar or room service, travel time, and hotel,” the court papers said.

    Client 9 paid $4,300 in cash to the service, with some being used for the encounter and the rest apparently to be used for credit.

    The prostitute, described in the complaint as a “petite, pretty brunette, 5-feet-5 inches, and 105 pounds” met the client in Room 871 at about 10 p.m., according to the complaint.

    In a conversation with the booking agent, Kristen said that she liked the client and that she did not think he was difficult, according to the papers.

    So there you go – he’s got the hooker vote locked up because “she did not think he was difficult”. A john with a spare $4300 and is not difficult is a goldmine. I drive through New York State every summer and I wonder how many of those folks up there between Syracuse and Buffalo have an extra $4300 laying around that they can afford to blow in a four-hour tryst.

    All of those years blackmailing US corporations and it all comes to this. Apparently, he thinks he won’t resign – but he’s been rendered ineffective. If he were a Republican, the Left would be crying for his resignation. This isn’t a “wide stance” in a public bathroom stall. This is an interstate criminal transaction. Throw his monkeyass in jail.

    As expected, the Kos Kids defend him against the charge of hypocrisy (Little Green Footballs link).

    Many more background links at Jammie Wearing Fool.

    That younger demographic at Ace of Spades is having fun with it. Here, too.

    American Pundit says he’s going to resign.

    Atlas Shrugs and Michele Malkin seem as pleased as me that Spitzer’s reign of idiocy has ended thus.

    Bob Owens is much classier than me and thinks of his kids first – and says Spitzer may be indicted.

    VanHelsing at Moonbattery gets the award for quote of the day;

    With his wife at his side, Spitzer apologized for his behavior, while downplaying it as a “private matter.” The phrase must have tasted funny in the mouth of a guy who has prosecuted prostitution rings, and who thinks even how much you weigh should be subject to state supervision.

    Hat tip to my cousin Scott (one of Spitzer’s constituents) for emailing me the story.

  • Tortuous debate

    waterboarding_nr.jpg

    The President is about to veto a measure passed by Congress (AP link) that forbids the practice of “waterboarding” to extract information from a difficult terror suspect who might have time sensitive information – information which might save American lives. The truth is; only three high profile terrorists have been water boarded by the US government. It’s not common practice, so why should there even be a law forbidding it?

    More protesters of the practice have been waterboarded by each other than terrorists (as portrayed above). If it really were as dangerous as they’d have us believe, why are they able to do it to each other without fear of deadly results?

    Vetoing the ill-considered ban alone is a strong enough message without even practicing the method. It tells terrorists that we’re serious about saving American lives – that we’ll do anything to prevent their dastardly plots from hatching. If this were to become law, we’re sending the message that we value the lives of terrorists above that of their potential victims. No one has died from the practice (despite what the Left would like you to believe), no one has been injured and valuable information has been extracted and probably saved lives.

    I think it’s vacuous of the Left to be outraged at waterboarding but protective of late-term abortion, which is much more barbarous.