The Amboy Times

Mr Jefferson

Hat tip IBA.

Obama Nominee Harold Koh Hearts Sharia

On almost a daily basis, Obama turns out to be even worse than I feared. It's one thing to reach out to the enemy, but Obama's administration is becoming a smorgasbord of dhimmitude and incompetence.

Hat tip, JW. Emphasis not mine.

JUDGES should interpret the Constitution according to other nations' legal "norms." Sharia law could apply to disputes in US courts. The United States constitutes an "axis of disobedience" along with North Korea and Saddam-era Iraq.

Those are the views of the man on track to become one of the US government's top lawyers: Harold Koh.

President Obama has nominated Koh -- until last week the dean of Yale Law School -- to be the State Department's legal adviser. In that job, Koh would forge a wide range of international agreements on issues from trade to arms control, and help represent our country in such places as the United Nations and the International Court of Justice.

It's a job where you want a strong defender of America's sovereignty. But that's not Koh. He's a fan of "transnational legal process," arguing that the distinctions between US and international law should vanish.

The primacy of international legal "norms" applies even to treaties we reject. For example, Koh believes that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child -- a problematic document that we haven't ratified -- should dictate the age at which individual US states can execute criminals. Got that? On issues ranging from affirmative action to the interrogation of terrorists, what the rest of the world says, goes.

Including, apparently, the world of radical imams. A New York lawyer, Steven Stein, says that, in addressing the Yale Club of Greenwich in 2007, Koh claimed that "in an appropriate case, he didn't see any reason why sharia law would not be applied to govern a case in the United States."

A spokeswoman for Koh said she couldn't confirm the incident, responding: "I had heard that some guy . . . had asked a question about sharia law, and that Dean Koh had said something about that while there are obvious differences among the many different legal systems, they also share some common legal concepts."

Score one for America's enemies and hostile international bureaucrats, zero for American democracy.

Koh has called America's focus on the War on Terror "obsessive." In 2004, he listed countries that flagrantly disregard international law -- "most prominently, North Korea, Iraq, and our own country, the United States of America," which he branded "the axis of disobedience.[...]

Even though he's up for a State Department job, Koh is a key test case in the "judicial wars." If he makes it through (which he will if he gets even a single GOP vote) the message to the Obama team will be: You can pick 'em as radical as you like. Full article.

Koh is against capital punishment and in favor of gay marriage, but he thinks that sharia can used in the United States? This idiot doesn't even make any sense.

From Daniel Pipes.

David Limbaugh adds some information to Clyne's research at "Another Day, Another Scary Nomination":

It turns out that on March 21, 2007, Carol Iannone, on Phi Beta Cons blog, published a letter from Stein to Dean Koh about his Yale Club remarks. Stein wrote, in part, "In your discussion of 'global law' I recall at least one favorable reference to 'Sharia', among other foreign laws that could, in an appropriate instance (according to you) govern a controversy in a federal or state court in the US." 

Limbaugh goes on to comment: "Whether or not Koh ever responded to Stein's letter, Stein's representations of Koh's remarks are certainly consistent with Koh's writings that I reviewed."

Also read, A Dream Team to Tear Down the United States.

No Dim Bulbs Here

I'm supposed to be sitting in the dark right now. But I'd rather celebrate the Human Achievement Hour.

Hat tip, MM.

Yeah, that's better.

Sean Penn is Officially a Stooge

That's right, the useful idiot who got chummy with Saddam, Raul Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Iran.
So it's only fitting that...

Two time Academy Award winner Sean Penn, Academy Award nominee Jim Carrey and Academy Award winner Benicio Del Toro are MGM's choices to star as Larry, Curly and Moe in their Farrelly Brothers-directed relaunch of The Three Stooges. Yes, really. Sean Penn, who might have seemed the least likely of the three, is the first to be signed, and Carrey and Del Toro are in negotiations. Jim Carrey is also planning on gaining 40 pounds to acquire the physical look of Curly. These casting choices are remarkably inspired, with Penn in particular actually bearing a remarkable facial resemblance to Larry Fine. Benicio Del Toro's gruff demeanor can also easily be seen as translating quite easily to the role of Moe Howard, the Stooges' eye-poking and face-slapping leader. The Farrelly Brothers have been trying to get their dream project, The Three Stooges (which is not a biopic, but a modern relaunching of the characters in comedic misadventures) for a decade now, with the project formerly being at both WB and Columbia before landing at MGM. Production is expected to start this fall, 2009 in time for a release in 2010. Source.

"Muslim smokers worse than cows" says Muslim cleric

The smoking fatwa is in place, but it's none too popular even amongst Muslims.

Muslims who smoke and try to portray themselves as pious are worse than cows which defecate in the street, a top Malaysian Muslim cleric and politician said.

"...a cow which defecates in the middle of the road, (we) cannot take legal action against it because it has no brain and cannot think," said Nik Aziz who is the spiritual leader of the country's Pan-Islamic Party (PAS).

"But human beings, who have brains, for them to do something which is wrong in religion ... when they are in an attire which symbolizes Islam, they can be regarded as being more despicable than cows," he said on Friday, according to Malaysia's state news agency Bernama.

PAS is one of the three parties in Malaysia's opposition alliance led by former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim.

Nik Aziz said that smoking was forbidden by Islam.

Recently, Indonesia's top Islamic body passed a fatwa or ruling banning smoking. Malaysia's top Islamic body has also banned smoking.

Despite the ban in Malaysia, where over half the population of 27 million is Muslim, 50 percent of the male population smokes according to World Health Organization (WHO) data.

Take the Progressive Guilt Quiz!

I scored a 490. Report your score in the comments or at your Local Progressive Reeducation Camp.

Take the quiz.

Pat Condell on Anjem Coudary

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Pat Condell.

Newspaper Bailout

Up next, the Rotary Phone Bailout.

With many U.S. newspapers struggling to survive, a Democratic senator on Tuesday introduced a bill to help them by allowing newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks.

"This may not be the optimal choice for some major newspapers or corporate media chains but it should be an option for many newspapers that are struggling to stay afloat," said Senator Benjamin Cardin.

A Cardin spokesman said the bill had yet to attract any co-sponsors, but had sparked plenty of interest within the media, which has seen plunging revenues and many journalist layoffs.

Cardin's Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits for educational purposes under the U.S. tax code, giving them a similar status to public broadcasting companies.

Under this arrangement, newspapers would still be free to report on all issues, including political campaigns. But they would be prohibited from making political endorsements. Source.

Guess who gets to decide what's political. Are we really ready for a government run news media?

"We are losing our newspaper industry," Cardin said. "The economy has caused an immediate problem, but the business model for newspapers, based on circulation and advertising revenue, is broken, and that is a real tragedy for communities across the nation and for our democracy.

Newspaper subscriptions and advertising have shrunk dramatically in the past few years as Americans have turned more and more to the Internet or television for information.

Turning to the internet, what a tragedy!

Obama Wants to Seize Businesses

That's right, Obama wants to start nationalizing companies. First wreck the economy with massive spending and taxation, and then nationalize the victims of Obama's own economic planning. It seems unbelievable until you consider his background.

"True, there are cases in which nationalization is bad, but there are, likewise, quite a few benefits to be derived from it. " ~ Barak Obama Sr.

WaPo-The Obama administration is considering asking Congress to give the Treasury secretary unprecedented powers to initiate the seizure of non-bank financial companies, such as large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds, whose collapse would damage the broader economy, according to an administration document.

...giving tax cheat Tim Geithner of all people the power to confiscate privately owned businesses.

The government at present has the authority to seize only banks.

Giving the Treasury secretary authority over a broader range of companies would mark a significant shift from the existing model of financial regulation, which relies on independent agencies that are shielded from the political process. The Treasury secretary, a member of the president's Cabinet, would exercise the new powers in consultation with the White House, the Federal Reserve and other regulators, according to the document.

The administration plans to send legislation to Capitol Hill this week. Sources cautioned that the details, including the Treasury's role, are still in flux.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner is set to argue for the new powers at a hearing today on Capitol Hill about the furor over bonuses paid to executives at American Investment Group which the government has propped up with about $180 billion in federal aid. Administration officials have said that the proposed authority would have allowed them to seize AIG last fall and wind down its operations at less cost to taxpayers.

The administration's proposal contains two pieces. First, it would empower a government agency to take on the new role of systemic risk regulator with broad oversight of any and all financial firms whose failure could disrupt the broader economy. The Federal Reserve is widely considered to be the leading candidate for this assignment. But some critics warn that this could conflict with the Fed's other responsibilities, particularly its control over monetary policy.

The government also would assume the authority to seize such firms if they totter toward failure.

Besides seizing a company outright, the document states, the Treasury Secretary could use a range of tools to prevent its collapse, such as guaranteeing losses, buying assets or taking a partial ownership stake. Such authority also would allow the government to break contracts, such as the agreements to pay $165 million in bonuses to employees of AIG's most troubled unit.

The Treasury secretary could act only after consulting with the president and getting a recommendation from two-thirds of the Federal Reserve Board, according to the plan.

Geithner plans to lay out the administration's broader strategy for overhauling financial regulation at another hearing on Thursday.

The authority to seize non-bank financial firms has emerged as a priority for the administration after the failure of investment house Lehman Brothers, which was not a traditional bank, and the troubled rescue of AIG.

"We're very late in doing this, but we've got to move quickly to try and do this because, again, it's a necessary thing for any government to have a broader range of tools for dealing with these kinds of things, so you can protect the economy from the kind of risks posed by institutions that get to the point where they're systemic," Geithner said last night at a forum held by the Wall Street Journal.

The powers would parallel the government's existing authority over banks, which are exercised by banking regulatory agencies in conjunction with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Geithner has cited that structure as the model for the government's plans.

Let's review, Ex1, Ex2, Ex3.

Are you Punch drunk?

No comment here, just watch it for yourself.

Unbelievable.