We Don't Want to Know, and We Can't Report It If We Never Discover It, so Let's Just Give this One a Miss.

You've seen this, of course, in the Gosnell case. The media suspects the details of the case would not be helpful for the pro-partial-birth-abortion left and therefore does not endeavor to collect the details. You can't be charged with failing to disclose what you intentionally made yourself ignorant of.

We also see this in the case of Dzhohkar Tsarnaev. Why did USAToday alone get the scoop on the radical mosque and its myriad terrorist connections?

Not just hard work and beating everyone to the punch. Though they should be credited with that.

No, they got the scoop because other media organizations realized The News Would Probably Not Help the Left and hence gave it a pass.

Meanwhile, the NYT, for example, spends its journalistic dollars to interview the Lovely Lads' former high-school classmates and other such The Human Side soft-soap.

USAToday went to where the news was likely to be; the New York Times did not.

This is not because the New York Times didn't know there was some news to be had there. Rather, it's because they had the same notion USAToday had -- that there would be a scoop there -- and deliberately chose to not land that scoop, preferring to write stories about Tsarnaev's dreams of wrestling and Tamarlan's dreams of... well, I'd imagine not having his fucking face run over by a car driven by his brother would up there on his list of dreams.

When the right says the media "hasn't covered a story," the media's defenders will sometimes point to a brief stub of an article listing the very basic facts announced by officials on the matter and claim victory. "See, they 'covered' it," they claim.

But an organization doesn't devote virtually any journalist resources to a story accidentally. They make a choice. They choose which stories to suffocate for want of media oxygen.

If you're reading the New York Times, you're not reading the news. You haven't been reading the news there for quite some time.

What you're reading is a supplementary brief to the DNC's and liberal coalition's newsletter-- the footnotes to that newsletter.

But not the news. Never the news, and by design.

Bonus: Iowahawk parodized the left making a Holden Caufiled comparison last night, before the NYTimes decided to do it for real.

Posted by: Ace at 03:42 PM | Comments (250)
Post contains 424 words, total size 3 kb.

Wow.

Posted by: Ace at 02:16 PM | Comments (415)
Post contains 19 words, total size 1 kb.

Legal Insurrection notes that this poll comes out as the liberal media -- itself the cause of that 60% vote of no confidence -- whines that a hypothetical Koch Brothers purchase of the Los Angeles Times would be just tewwible for the media and the public.

Oh, and the archliberal partisan amateur webzine Slate joins in to say how tewwible this would be.

They're very protective of the institutions they've captured, are they not?

Posted by: Ace at 01:02 PM | Comments (204)
Post contains 108 words, total size 1 kb.

This week, we're going local and going far on the subject of rings. Despite the full moon this week washing out the skies for even the most remote observers, I'll give you two items definitely worth checking out. I also compiled a very, very long list of objects for urban/suburban observers who may feel left out with their light-washed skies.

Big bonus image of SMOD after the jump.

more...

Posted by: CAC at 05:05 PM | Comments (28)
Post contains 1754 words, total size 12 kb.

Wacky. What a sticky wicket.

The mayoral hopeful delivered, as he's taken to doing lately, admitting that he sent sexy messages for "a couple of years" and that we may not have seen the last of them. "If reporters want to go try to find more, I can't say that they're not going to be able to find another picture, or find another person who may want to come out on their own," Weiner told RNN's Dominic Carter. "The basics of the story are not going to change."

more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:47 AM | Comments (353)
Post contains 162 words, total size 2 kb.

Tshocking.

The mosque attended by the two brothers accused in the Boston Marathon double bombing has been associated with other terrorism suspects, has invited radical speakers to a sister mosque in Boston and is affiliated with a Muslim group that critics say nurses grievances that can lead to extremism.

Several people who attended the Islamic Society of Boston mosque in Cambridge, Mass., have been investigated for Islamic terrorism, including a conviction of the mosque's first president, Abdulrahman Alamoudi, in connection with an assassination plot against a Saudi prince.

Its sister mosque in Boston, known as the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, has invited guests who have defended terrorism suspects. A former trustee appears in a series of videos in which he advocates treating gays as criminals, says husbands should sometimes beat their wives and calls on Allah (God) to kill Zionists and Jews, according to Americans for Peace and Tolerance, an interfaith group that has investigated the mosques.

The head of the group is among critics who say the two mosques teach a brand of Islamic thought that encourages grievances against the West, distrust of law enforcement and opposition to Western forms of government, dress and social values.

"We don't know where these boys were radicalized, but this mosque has a curriculum that radicalizes people. Other people have been radicalized there," said the head of the group, Charles Jacobs.

I can't quote the whole thing but do click over to check the middle part, where the Murderer's Row of terrorists associated with the mosque are bullet-pointed.

Anwar Kazmi, a member of the Cambridge mosque's board of trustees, called for leniency for Mehanna and Siddiqui [terrorists-- ace] at a Boston rally in February 2012, in a video posted to YouTube. He characterized Siddiqui's 86-year sentence as excessive.

In an interview with USA TODAY, Kazmi insisted that the Cambridge mosque is moderate and condemns the marathon bombings. On Monday, the mosque e-mailed members to caution them that the FBI may question them and that they may want to seek representation.

"This kind of violence, terrorism, it's just completely contrary to the spirit of Islam," Kasmi said. "The words in the Quran say if anybody kills even a single human being without just cause, it's as if you've killed all of humanity."

I am becoming radicalized myself. I am sick to death of these monsters giving us the Sweetheart Act, coming forward after a massacre to claim that their mosques teach nothing but peace and harmony, while somehow attracting and inspiring butchers and cutthroats and murderers.

Meanwhile... The New York Times gets to the bottom of things, "analyzing" the murderers' tweets:

Given the layers of irony, sarcasm and joking often employed on Twitter, it can be difficult to parse the messages of a stranger. Yet some of them can seem menacing or portentous, given what we now suspect: “a decade in america already, I want out,” “Never underestimate the rebel with a cause” or “No one is really violent until they’re with the homies.” But others suggest a more Holden Caulfield-like adolescent alienation: “some people are just misunderstood by the world thus the increase of suicide rates.”

That last via @slublog.

"Without Just Cause:" @johnekdahl alerts me to the mosque defender keeping open the door for murder-- so long as there's a "just cause."

"This kind of violence, terrorism, it's just completely contrary to the spirit of Islam," Kasmi said. "The words in the Quran say if anybody kills even a single human being without just cause, it's as if you've killed all of humanity."

Posted by: Ace at 10:51 AM | Comments (351)
Post contains 617 words, total size 4 kb.

This isn't as uncommon a maneuver as you might think. There are two tracks of a legal defense: The affirmative defense and the more common tactic of challenging each part of a proseuctor's case.

Bear in mind, for each offer of proof the prosecution made, the defense questioned the expert or witness, attempting to cast doubt on his claims.

But the case now goes to the jury, which has been dismissed until Monday. The New York Times immediately announced it would devote a special section of the Sunday magazine to something else entirely.

In addition, the judge reversed his previous error -- apparently he had dismissed the murder charges for the wrong baby. He had meant to dismiss them as against one but instead named another. He corrected this snag by reinstating charges in the case of the murder of Baby C and dropping them against another one, in whose case there was (in his opinion) no evidence of murder.

Update: Obama had been scheduled to be the keynote speaker at a Planned Parenthood gathering on Friday night. The last word is that President Gutsy Call has backed out.

Ahem:

White House spokesman Jay Carney announced the decision to cancel the keynote speech at the gala during his daily press briefing with reporters Wednesday. He attributed the schedule change to Mr. ObamaÂ’s desire to spend more time at a memorial service in Waco, Texas, for family members of the victims of the fertilizer plant explosion.

I believe you, Jay. You believe I believe you don't you? Because I do. I really believe you. It's important to me that you believe that.

Thanks to Jane D'oh and rickb223.

Well Then! I seem to have gotten virtually everything wrong in my original post. "Criminal Procedure 101" corrects me:

The main blog author needs a refresher course. An "affirmative defense" is something for which the defense has the burden of proof. Such as self-defense or insanity. The defense can't call its own witnesses during the prosecution's case in chief. For the defense to call its own witnesses it needs to put on its own defense case. The defense cross-examines the prosecution's witnesses; it does not "rebut" them. "Rebuttal" is an entirely separate component of a trial. Only the prosecution can offer "rebuttal witnesses" in a criminal trial. Not that any of these details matter. It's the Internet, after all.

Okay, so rebuttal witnesses can't be called after a prosecution witness but can only be offered in the defense's case. So apparently Gosnell has none.

As for "affirmative defense," I didn't know the right word; I meant the defense case, apart from the cross-examination of the prosecution witnesses during the prosecution's case.

Posted by: Ace at 09:59 AM | Comments (280)
Post contains 468 words, total size 3 kb.

As Obama finds less political support for his agenda and less time to pass it, he will, being a thoughtless thug with no regard for American constitutionalism, history, or values, resort to claiming a broad array of heretofore unknown executive powers to recreate the law to his liking.

This ruling is important not just as regards the instant case -- and that is important in itself -- but as a shot across the bow of the USS Obama's damn-the-torpedoes mad charge against the constitutional basis of the nation.

Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano does not have the authority to refuse to enforce laws that require illegal immigrants to face deportation, according to the federal judge hearing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement unionÂ’s lawsuit against DHS.

“The court finds that DHS does not have discretion to refuse to initiate removal proceedings [when the law requires it],” U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor said today, per Business Week. O’Connor asked DHS and the ICE union to offer additional arguments before he makes a final ruling on the legality of President Obama’s “deferred action on childhood arrivals” (DACA) program, which invoked prosecutorial discretion as a means of allowing people to stay in the country if they would have qualified for amnesty under the DREAM Act, which never passed through Congress.

Click the link for more: It was only yesterday Napolitano scolded the ICE union over its suit against her. (They sued because they were being ordered to break the law.) Napolitano answered a question about this from Jeff Sessions snittily, insisting the union members had to "follow the law" -- by which she means "follow the illegal executive order I have issued, claiming the power to violate the law per my own whim."

If the Cosby Kids had written this opinion, they would have written that Janet Napolitano is like Anthony Weiner on a lonely Friday night -- "No discretion."

Oh, and Nigel Tufnel just called the opinion "sexy" but I think he meant "sexist."

Thanks to pat.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:13 AM | Comments (279)
Post contains 389 words, total size 3 kb.

I know no one reads Maureen Dowd anymore -- including, apparently, her own editors -- and yet there was a time, from approximately March 1996 to December 1998, in which she was actually considered a leading light of liberal opinion.

Perhaps there's no point in brutalizing her any further; just as everyone knows the Tsarnaev's motivation without having to say so, everyone knows that Maureen Dowd is a failure and a bore.

Still, if you were annoyed by this gum-cracking, spitball-shooting aged juvenile becoming prominent for a couple of years, you might enjoy her grisly remains being pulled behind the chariot one last time, Hector-style.

The whole column is worth reading (and it's not very long), but for those who want a pull-quote:

Column writing is dangerous work and long success in the game can lead to the stifling of that Editor Within who keeps you from looking too stupid in print. A rich self esteem, fortifed by decades of op-ed tenure and dinner party table talk dominance, has apparently given Ms. Dowd the confidence to believe that she is a maestro of political infighting, a Clausewitz of strategic insight and a Machiavelli of political cunning rolled up into one stylish and elegant piece of work. From the heights of insight on which she dwells, it is easy to see what that poor schmuck Barry Obama canÂ’t: those 60 votes on gun control were his for the taking, if he was only as shrewd a politician as Maureen Dowd.

The President needs to get his hands dirty, our genteel and accomplished op-ed writer advises the ex-community organizer and Chicago pol. He needs to get real, get down in the dirt, muck around with the senators and exercise raw power. DonÂ’t make empty gestures and donÂ’t give up, she advises him: fight! fight! fight!

Perhaps because she fears that the President is too stupid to understand what she means, or simply out of her benevolent desire to show her readers just what brilliant political insight looks like, she vouchsafes us some examples. HereÂ’s how she sees the President twisting the arm of North Dakota Democrat Heidi Heitkamp:

Sometimes you must leave the high road and fetch your brass knuckles. Obama should have called Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota over to the Oval Office and put on the squeeze: “Heidi, you’re brand new and you’re going to have a long career. You work with us, we’ll work with you. Public opinion is moving fast on this issue. The reason you get a six-year term is so you can have the guts to make tough votes. This is a totally defensible bill back home. It’s about background checks, nothing to do with access to guns. Heidi, you’re a mother. Think of those little kids dying in schoolrooms.”

If only Lyndon Johnson had understood the art of political pressure as well as Maureen Dowd. “You work with us, we’ll work with you.” It’s… brilliant! Reminding her about her six year term… if that doesn’t swing her around, nothing will. “You’re a mother…” This is a set of brass knuckles no one could resist. The NRA must be thanking its lucky stars that a bumbling amateur like Barack Obama is in the White House instead of the arch-politician Maureen Dowd; Heidi Heitkamp would have been putty in her elegantly manicured hands.

This is a politician getting down to what the New York Times editorial page seems to think is a particularly fetching set of brass knuckles: reciting liberal talking points one after another in rapid fire sequence. ThatÂ’s hardball, thatÂ’s brass tacks at least in the mind of Maureen Dowd, a woman who on the evidence of this column could and would teach her own grandmother to suck eggs.

...

The Times apparently thinks it has readers who find columns like this either useful or diverting, so we say nothing about whether this is the caliber of political thought that ought to appear at the Newspaper of Record. But the paper may want to recalibrate its intellectual void detectors just a bit; it is hard to read anything this vapid without questioning the judgment of everyone involved.

I've not quoted the part where Read explains what real hardball would look like (hint: it's dirty political deals, such as were used to pass ObamaCare), which Dowd doesn't want to discuss because she wants to say "fight dirty" while actually maintaining her status as a bien pensant.

Posted by: Ace at 08:36 AM | Comments (151)
Post contains 761 words, total size 5 kb.

I'm sure most of you have seen by now the photos of the two Boston marathon bombers taken by Andrew Kitzenberg from his Watertown apartment during the shootout with the police last week. If not, here's one:

Here are the two brothers taking cover behind the black Mercedes SUV and shooting towards Watertown Police officers. (Taken at 12:46:11AM) ~ Andrew Kitzenberg

As a matter of marksmanship, that looks like a pretty easy shot to make on the terrorists. Maybe, maybe 50 yards ... and they're illuminated by the SUV's headlights and focused on the policemen in front of them. Fish, meet barrel.

As a matter of law, though, it's not an easy call at all. Your lawful actions if you find yourself in this type of situation is highly dependent on which state you happen to be located in.

And in Massachusetts, which is a "Castle Doctrine" state, your use of deadly force against a person who isn't in your home will always be at great risk of criminal prosecution and civil liability.

The relevant Massachusetts statute providing a defense for the use of deadly force is M.G.L. c. 278, § 8A (emphasis added):

In the prosecution of a person who is an occupant of a dwelling charged with killing or injuring one who was unlawfully in said dwelling, it shall be a defense that the occupant was in his dwelling at the time of the offense and that he acted in the reasonable belief that the person unlawfully in said dwelling was about to inflict great bodily injury or death upon said occupant or upon another person lawfully in said dwelling, and that said occupant used reasonable means to defend himself or such other person lawfully in said dwelling. There shall be no duty on said occupant to retreat from such person unlawfully in said dwelling.

Outside of that one safe harbor (which is also subject to interpretation on "reasonable means", etc.) in Massachusetts you have a legal duty to retreat when confronted by an assailant, and only when you can retreat no further can deadly force be used for self-defense. And you're going to find yourself in court no matter what.

The right thing to do is to drop those two maggots where they stand. Under the law, though, unless they barge into your home, your only recognized option is to "cower in place" like Watertown did all day.

If you're in that apartment, there's a novel self-defense case to be made because of all the stray bullets whizzing around:

After shooting had stopped my roommate found a bullet hole that penetrated his west-facing wall and continued to pierce through his desk chair. His room is on the 2nd floor corner of the house, closest to the street, with west and south facing walls

But in an anti-gun state like Massachusetts, I'm not sure I'd want to depend on prosecutorial restraint, even in this case, to keep it from going to trial. And I certainly wouldn't want to risk the lightning strike-like odds of finding 12 people who aren't hardcore lefties to give a nod for an acquittal on self-defense. And then there's the potential for civil liability ...

So, sadly, in Massachusetts when a law-abiding gun owner is confronted with a situation like that, the desire to stay out of jail/court/bankruptcy can overrule what otherwise is a no-brainer of a decision.

A bill that might have changed this situation was proposed last year, but the canonization of St. Trayvon put the brakes on it.

Under Brewer's bill, called Senate 661, or an Act Relative to the Common Defense, people could use deadly force, or less than deadly force, in self-defense and in public to defend others any place they have a right to be. There would be no duty to retreat from any place that they have a right to be.

Hopefully that will be reconsidered.
more...

Posted by: andy at 07:58 AM | Comments (182)
Post contains 708 words, total size 5 kb.