Asleep At The Real
By Bob Parks (12/18/06)
As some of you may know, I've been busy with a little political side venture. With that, it's time for some catch-up. This may take awhile....
The Revenge Business
According to the Associated Press, “Faced with grim testimony of poorly trained executioners operating in cramped, dimly lit quarters, a federal judge in San Jose on Friday declared California’s execution procedure unconstitutional. California’s “implementation of lethal injection is broken,” U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel wrote in a 17-page ruling. “But it can be fixed.”
“The decision is expected to further delay executions as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s staff revises execution procedures. Fogel said the case presented the narrow question of whether a three-drug cocktail administered by San Quentin State Prison officials is so painful that it “offends” the Eighth Amendment ban on “cruel and unusual punishment.”
What’s happening here is a judge that apparently believes we should execute killers in a manner that excludes “extreme pain”.
I suspect a perfect stranger would be easier on the inmate than a family member of the person that inmate killed. So after a hearing revealed that prison guards were inadequately trained to participate in executions, Fogel brought up the American Veterinarian Association claim that animals aren’t euthanized in the same way California executes inmates.
Most euthanized in California aren’t animals like Michael Morales, who was sentenced to death in 1983 and is at the center of this debate. Last February, Fogel spared Morales from lethal injection because of “questions about the procedure’s constitutionality amid concerns that inmates might suffer excruciating deaths.”
Execution is really The Revenge Business, so what goes around should come around….
As the story goes, Morales’ victim Terri Winchell, played piano by ear, sang in her church choir, donated time to charities, was a straight-A student, helped classmates with their homework over the phone, and won a ribbon for her work with developmentally disabled children competing in the Special Olympics.
On January 8th, 1981, Winchell picked up some fish and chips from a nearby restaurant for her sick mother. At the last minute, she agreed to meet her friend, Ricky Ortega (who was romantically involved with a boy whom Winchell was dating)….
Winchell got into Ortega’s car and his cousin Michael Morales, who was in the back seat, attempted to strangle her with a leather belt, and it broke during the struggle. Morales then repeatedly beat Winchell in the head with a hammer until her face was unrecognizable. He dragged her to a secluded vineyard, raped, and stabbed her to death.
I wasn’t there, but it seems clear Mr. Morales had little concern that his strangulation, rape, and stabbing might be a violation of Terri’s constitutional rights.
“Every day the evidence mounts that the United States is using unacceptably cruel methods to put people to death.”
– Jamie Fellner, Human Rights Watch
Most on Death Row have committed horrific murders. In comparison to the discomfort an inmate may feel while being put to sleep, it’s not even close to the horror and pain experienced by the victim within the last few seconds of his or her life. Whether an anesthesiologist or a guard with big hands administers a lethal injection, we must be very careful that we don’t cease executing our worst just because it might hurt.
How does it feel?
In Plain VIEW
Senator Tim Johnson’s emergency brain surgery and its implications for the control of the Senate was discussed on a recent episode of “The View.” The segment’s guest was Fox News Channel’s Dari Alexander, where she explained to the audience that if Johnson had to resign from the Senate, the Republican governor of South Dakota would pick an interim senator to satisfy the remainder of Johnson’s term.
That would create a 50-50 tie in the Senate, which could be broken by Vice President Cheney, that is if all 50 Republicans were united. Nowadays, that’s a big IF.
Co-host Joy Behar offered an opinion obviously shared by many on the left….
Joy Behar: “Is there such a thing as a man-made stroke? In other words, did someone do this to him?”
Dari Alexander: “Maybe they gave him polonium.”
Co-host Rosie O’Donnell (laughing): “Oh no, no.”
Co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck: “Let me ask you something. Why is everything coming from the liberal perspective a conspiracy? This is a conspiracy.”
Behar: “I know what this – that party is capable of.”
Which party are we talking about, Joy? The party that supported racism and still hasn’t formerly acknowledged it, despite calling everyone else a racist? The party whose members often publicly fanaticize about the death of people who disagree with them?
Joy Behar is entitled to her public opinions, that include a veiled accusation that the Republican Party poisoned a Democrat just to gain partial control on Capitol Hill. Okay, to her credit, she appeared on many television programs for one episode, and is supposedly a comic. I guess that’s all you need do to provide political analysis.
Al Franken and now Joy Behar. I’d hate to see the liberal first string….
It’s About TIME
Okay… by their definition, I’m one of those Time Magazine Persons of the Year.
Yes, me.
“I control the Information Age.
Welcome to my world.”
Yeah, right.
Must have been a slow “Person” year….
Waking Up A State
As some of you know, I’m running for Massachusetts Republican Party Chairman. Based on the previous performance of Republicans in the Bay State, some of you have asked, “Why?”
Some people came up to me last summer and said, “I love your ideas, but I wouldn’t vote for a Republican in a million years.” This is something I contemplated for a many a night.
I believe the main problem Republicans have in a state where close to half of the electorate is independent, is that we allow the mainstream media here to define us. Liberals call us “racists”, “bigots”, “homophobes”, “mean-spirited”, and more. Even though the Republican Party was birthed as an abolitionist party to slavery and the Democrat Party’s slavery-era slogan was “The White Man’s Party.”
It would appear the Democrats have conveniently forgotten that after the Civil War, 23 blacks (13 of them ex-slaves) were elected to Congress, all as Republicans. While calling Republicans intolerant, the leave out the first black Democrat was not elected to Congress until 1935, from the state of Illinois, and the first black congressional Democrat from a Southern state was not elected until 1973.
In 1865, the 13th Amendment emancipating the slaves was passed with 100 percent of Republicans voting for it and only 23 percent of Democrats voting for it. The 14th Amendment was passed giving the newly emancipated blacks full civil rights and federal guarantee of those rights, superseding any state laws. Every single voting Republican voted for the Amendment, no Democrat voted for it. Congress passed the 15th Amendment in 1870, guaranteeing blacks the right to vote. Every single Republican voted for it, with every Democrat voting against it.
Democrats admitted beginning the Ku Klux Klan during 1872 congressional investigations, as an effort to stop the spread of the Republican Party and to re-establish Democratic control in Southern states. Blacks, who were all Republican at that time, were the primary targets of violence.
Between 1870 and 1875, the Republican Congress passed many pro-black civil rights laws. But in 1876, Democrats took control of the House, and no further race-based civil rights laws passed until 1957. In 1892, Democrats gained control of the House, the Senate and the White House, and repealed all the Republican-passed civil rights laws. That enabled the Southern Democrats to pass the Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, literacy tests, and so on in their individual states.
I’m personally curious to see how liberals in Massachusetts will react to having history rubbed back in their faces, seeing how they’ve never acknowledged their racist past, and to this day call the real “Party of Civil Rights” the very names Democrats have always been.
As chairman of the Mass GOP, there are places I can go and it would be my privilege to do so.
Mel Gibson was pilloried while Michael Richards has gone low-key. Call a Jew a bad name in Hollywood and all hell breaks loose, while a liberal Jew can call blacks the n-word and Democrat Hollywood goes silent. The pattern continues. Rosie O’Donnell can mock the Chinese language (“ching chong ching”) with their c-word and get away with a half-assed apology. Liberals consider their racism cutting edge, thus the reluctance to pile on Richards’ “art”.
Black conservatives have been waiting for an opportunity to pounce on the self-righteous left that takes every opportunity to racially slander Republicans. In less than a month, a new day may be here. The left and their media will have a lot of explaining to do.
Guess who’ll be asking the questions…?
Negotiate In Ignorance
While in the Middle East and explaining to the troops how they should have understood his joke, John Kerry and others have decided to go and talk to our enemies face to face. In total disregard to the Constitution and proper protocol, these liberal Democrats and Republicans (like Arlen Specter) are opting to talk with the head honchos in Iran and Syria since our President is a stubborn SOB.
“LONDON, December 15 (IranMania) - US Senator John Kerry urged his rival in the 2004 elections, President George W Bush, to kindle a dialogue with Iran and Syria in a bid to stabilize Iraq, AFP reported.
“I think it’s important to talk, to have dialogue, but you don’t give up your principles and you don’t make deals that are against your larger interest. Syria needs to understand that and Iran needs to understand that, but I think it’s important to begin a discussion,” Kerry told reporters after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo.
“But Bush has vowed not be rushed into changing strategy and has resisted mounting calls to open fully-fledged talks with Syria and Iran.”
Now while the Iraq Study Group also insists we talk to Iran and Syria, who will be doing the talking? These people are not to be trusted and liberals are naïve to assume their intellectualism has credence with those people.
Many years ago while living in Los Angeles, I called in and talked to talk radio host Dennis Prager. This very wise man once told me on the air that I should get into the talk radio business. While that didn’t happen, it was that encouragement that partially set the stage for my becoming a conservative writer.
Prager is now under fire from Muslim and Jewish groups for “attacking” an incoming Muslim congressman who plans to bring a Qur’an to the House swearing-in ceremony on January 4th. To his credit, Prager said he stands by statements made in his November 28 Townhall.com column and has no intention of apologizing to Muslim Congressman-elect Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) or his critics.
“I called on (Ellison) not to break a 200-year tradition. He thinks it’s important, and I think it’s important. If you are incapable of taking an oath on (the Bible), don’t serve in Congress.”
According to published reports Prager added, if Ellison brought a Qur’an to the ceremony, it would do “more damage to the unity of America and to the value system that has formed this country than the terrorists of 9-11.”
Now what does this have to do with US politicians talking face to face with our enemies?
Simply that none of these people can be trusted. Unfortunately, the Qur’an is the instrument of deception, and whether we’re talking about swearing on it or talking to those who believe in it, we all seem to be quite ignorant of what it stands for, or those who use it as a playbook.
What would Ellison be swearing on? What would our enemies be thinking while talking with some of our elected representatives? Check it out….
“Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Qur’an should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth”
– Omar Ahmed, Chairman of the Board of CAIR (Council of American Islamic Relations), San Ramon Valley Herald, July 1998
Some of us have been saying this for years now, but most just don’t wish to listen. And now we have Congressman Ellison. Who’s next?
“And He made you heirs to their land and their dwellings and their property, and (to) a land which you have not yet trodden, and Allah has power over all things.”
– Qur’an 33.27
“Murder them (infidels) and treat them harshly”
– Qur’an 9:123
Not necessarily in that order….
“They desire that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so that you might be (all) alike; therefore take not from among them friends until they fly (their homes) in Allah’s way; but if they turn back, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and take not from among them a friend or a helper.”
– Qur’an 4.89
“Muslims, do not make friends with any but your own people.”
– Qur’an 5:51
Now just what do our senators and congressmen think they can say to make nice with these people. To tell you the truth, they’ll be lucky to get out of there alive.
“Instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers”; “smite above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them”
– Qur’an 8:12 cp. 8:60
“Kill the disbelievers wherever we find them”
– Qur’an 2:191
“And fight with them until there is no persecution, and religion should be only for Allah”
– Qur’an 2:193
Liberals claim we are the intolerant, and Muslims really mean us no harm. They’re teaching this to kids in schools across the United States. How many of these liberal teachers have shown those students writings from the Qur’an?
News flash, you know-it-alls: these crazies will kill you too. How? Read on….
“Fight and slay the Pagans, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem” “for them (the unbelievers) garments of fire shall be cut and there shall be poured over their heads boiling water whereby whatever is in their bowels and skin shall be dissolved and they will be punished with hooked iron rods”
– Qur’an 22:19-22
“Your Lord inspired the angels with the message: ‘I will terrorize the unbelievers. Therefore smite them on their necks and every joint and incapacitate them. Strike off their heads and cut off each of their fingers and toes.’”
– Qur’an 8:12
This boiling water and hooked iron rods thing has gotta hurt….
“Allah wished to confirm the truth by His words: ‘Wipe the infidels (non-Muslims) out to the last.’”
– Qur’an 8:7
“So, fight them till all opposition ends and the only religion is Islam.”
– Qur’an 8:39
Liberals love to insult Christians. These intolerant Christians seldom resort to violence. They do the unthinkable: they PRAY for you. Some Muslims are a bit more out there.
“The infidels should not think that they can get away from us. Prepare against them whatever arms and weaponry you can muster so that you may terrorize them. They are your enemy and Allah’s enemy.”
– Qur’an 8:59
“Strike off the heads of the disbelievers”; and after making a “wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives.”
– Qur’an 47:4
“And be not slack so as to cry for peace and you have the upper hand, and Allah is with you, and He will not bring your deeds to naught.”
– Qur’an 47.35
“The punishment for those who wage war against Allah and His Prophet and perpetrate mischief (reject Islam or oppose its goals) in the land, is to murder them, to hang them, to mutilate them, or banish them. Such is their disgrace. They will not escape the fire, suffering constantly.”
– Qur’an 5:33
So it would seem as though “waging war against Allah” is simply having the nerve to not be a Muslim, and we all deserve to die for that. Kerry and the others think they can go and negotiate with them. I have better things to do.
“Wherever you are, death will find you, even if you are in towers built up strong and high! If some good befalls, they say, ‘This is from Allah;’ but if evil, they say, ‘This is from you (Muhammad).’ Say: ‘All things are from Allah.’ So what is wrong with these people, that they fail to understand these simple words?”
– Qur’an 4:78
Was this passage the inspiration for the 9/11 attack?
And lastly to our conceited American politicians who think THEY can bring about a peace with people who’ve declared war against us, while we talk of retreat….
“Allah is not bound by any contract or treaty with non-Muslims, nor is His Apostle.”
– Qur’an 9:3
“Believers, obey Allah, and obey the Messenger. Do not falter; become faint-hearted, or weak-kneed, crying for peace. And any treaties with Infidels can be broken anytime for any reason, they have no meaning.”
– Qur’an 47:33
These politicians’ actions are dangerous and possobly treasonous. I fear we’ll not know how much damage they’ll cause until it’s too late.
Having a Muslim sworn in to the United States Congress, swearing on a Qur’an, is also dangerous. When will this country wake up, and will it only do so when it’s too late?
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