Inmates are converting to Islam in order to gain perks and the protection of powerful Muslim gangs, the Chief Inspector of Prisons warns today.

Dame Anne Owers says that some convicted criminals are taking up the religion in jail to receive benefits only available to practising Muslims.

The number of Muslim prisoners has risen dramatically since the mid-1990s -- from 2,513 in 1994, or 5 per cent of the population, to 9,795 in 2008, or 11 per cent. Staff at top-security prisons and youth jails have raised concerns about the intimidation of non-Muslims and possible forced conversions.

Dame Anne's report, Muslim Prisoners' Experiences, published today, says that, although several high-profile terrorists have been jailed recently, fewer than 1 in 100 Muslim inmates have been convicted of terrorism.

She says that prison staff are suspicious about those practising or converting to the faith and warns that treating Muslim inmates as potential or actual extremists risks radicalising them. The report says: "Many Muslim prisoners stressed the positive and rehabilitative role that Islam played in their lives, and the calm that religious observance could induce in a stressed prison environment. This was in marked contrast to the suspicion that religious observance, and particularly conversion or reversion, tended to produce among staff."

All prisons offer a halal menu, which some inmates see as better than the usual choices. Muslims are excused from work and education while attending Friday prayers. Some converts, who are known as "convenience Muslims", admitted that they had changed faith because they got more time out of the cells to go to Friday prayers. One quoted in the report said: "Food good too, initially this is what converted me."...

But of course, halal food is just the beginning.

France will jail and impose huge fines on anyone who forces a Muslim woman to wear a full-face veil, according to a leaked version of a proposed law revealed on Friday.

While women will face only a 150 euro penalty if they choose to don a burqa or a niqab, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to slap one-year prison terms and USD 20,000 fines on those who make others wear them.

"No-one may wear in public places clothes that are aimed at hiding the face," says the text of a new law that is to be presented to parliament in July, according to a copy seen by the pro-government newspaper Le Figaro.

The law will create a new offence of "incitement to cover the face for reasons of gender," the paper said, and this offence will incur a 15,000 euro fine and a year in prison.

Legislators decided to impose a much smaller fine on women caught wearing the veil in public "because these women are often victims," one of the authors of the law told Le Figaro on condition of anonymity.

BELTON, Texas -- The Army psychiatrist charged in a deadly shooting spree at Fort Hood will be kept isolated from other inmates at the Texas jail where he's been transferred.

Maj. Nidal Hasan was airlifted from a San Antonio military hospital to the Bell County Jail in Belton at about 4 a.m. Friday.

Sheriff Dan Smith says Hasan will be kept in a cell in the jail infirmary and will be under 24-hour watch. Smith did not say whether Hasan is under guard because of fears for his safety or others....

Last month, Bell County commissioners finalized a contract with the military to house Hasan. Although the jail usually houses military defendants from nearby Fort Hood, which does not have holding facilities, a special agreement was required for Hasan because "unusual and extraordinary security measures" were necessary, the sheriff has said....

Why? Are outraged American prisoners targeting him? Or are his fellow jihadists planning a little bombing celebration in his honor?

A group of 60 to 70 Muslim prisoners in highly restrictive jail programs, in Terre Haute, Indiana and Marion, Illinois are suing because they don't get enough time to visit with family and friends.

The suit, brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights claims the prisoner's constitutional rights are being violated at the "Communications Managment Units," a set of experimental prison facilities.

They are taking a case to court on behalf of inmates that have been placed in highly secured prisons in the U.S.

The jail birds complain the prisons are not allowing them ample outside contact time with relatives and their buds.

Yes, lots of jihad to plan!

Non-Muslim inmates at the high-security Long Lartin jail have been forced by the gangs to stop playing "Western" music and take down pictures of women from their cells, according to one former prison officer there. Prisoners at the jail, although allowed to cook their own food, are not allowed to prepare pork for fear of offending the Muslim inmates, the officer said.

The officer, speaking to Radio Five Live's Donal Macintyre show, told how younger prisoners were targeted for forced conversion to Islam by the gangs. "They went along because they were intimidated. They genuinely weren't of the Muslim faith," she said. "I knew one lad quite well, who was approached by the radical Muslims and he changed. He was being controlled and bossed around and he wasn't even allowed to look at me or speak to me.

"He just seemed very frightened all the time. He used to be forced to pray at certain times and he was even forced to grow a long beard even though he didn't want to."

One Catholic prisoner who refused to convert was seriously assaulted after being repeatedly threatened by the gang, the officer said. "He said every so often they would come to his cell and hold the Koran up through the small window in the cell door and start running their fingers along their throats," she said.

The officer's testimony is consistent with findings by the official prison watchdog, the chief inspector of prisons. In a report last year, the inspector, Anne Owers, quoted a number of prisoners at Long Lartin about the increasing dominance of Muslim gangs in the jail.

Long Lartin was, said one, "turning into an American-style jail, [where] if you are not in a gang, you're in trouble. People are converting to Islam for protection."

Another said: "There is a gang culture here, which is an issue. There are issues with Muslim gangs wanting to overpower others. A lot of people are becoming Muslim just because it is a bigger gang."

Ms Owers says there is a similar gang culture in at least three other high-security prisons, Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire, Belmarsh in south-east London and Full Sutton in North Yorkshire. Some of the gang leaders are terrorist prisoners but most are in for ordinary offences.

Two Muslim former prisoners claimed in the BBC programme that Muslims "run" some London jails and describe how they watched al-Qaeda videos in their cells, brought in by corrupt prison officers. They also detail further bullying and abuse of prisoners who refused to convert to Islam and said that in one London jail, prisoners who wanted to play music had their stereos smashed. They said that the official prison imams appointed by the Home Office were largely ineffective and not respected by Muslim prisoners.

Malcolm Moss, national chair of the Prison Officers' Association, said: "We are seeing more and more Muslim gangs in our prisons. Often Muslims who go to prison are forced into gangs for their own protection. And that culture takes over a wing, takes over an area of the prison. We see it as a real danger, now and for the future of prisons."

Mr Moss called for more Muslim prison officers to be recruited as part of an urgent effort to "face up" to the gangs.

Why can't the current prison staff "face up" to the gangs? Who is in control in the prison?

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: "It is ridiculous to suggest that any gang 'controls' a prison. The Prison Service has a wealth of experience in dealing with gang activity and managing prisoners who form gangs. Expert staff identify, challenge and disrupt those prisoners attempting to bully, influence or intimidate others. We have long established strategies to address gang behaviour, and to counter bullying, combat illicit mobile phones and tackle drugs."

If you've got the strategies... use them.

The spokesman said there was "no evidence" that al-Qaeda videos had been watched and insisted that bacon was not banned.

Actor Sean Penn loves Venezuela’s communist dictator Hugo Chavez so much he wants journalists who dare to call Chavez a dictator put in prison, FoxNews.com reports.

Appearing on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday, the Oscar-winning actor said

Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it, and accept it, and this is mainstream media, who should — truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.

Fox News legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano said that apart from an immediate incitement of violence, Penn may say virtually anything he wants in the “political arena.”

“What he is saying is protected, as wacky and weird as it is,” said Napolitano. “But the substance of what he’s saying would be absolutely contrary to the First Amendment, which fully protects all political opinions. So if a journalist says Dick Cheney should go to jail, the journalist is privileged to say that.”

“Mr. Penn is calling for a communist-like regime in which journalists who criticize the government are sent to jail because of that criticism,” Napolitano said. “That is utterly un-American and hasn’t happened here since the Civil War.”

Penn also previously called the Chavez-crafted constitution of Venezuela, which gives the president the power to rule by decree, “a very beautiful document.”

It is unclear what Penn thinks of Chavez’s crackdown on the media –including the movie industry– in Venezuela. After local filmmakers protested Chavez’s plan to give taxpayers’ funds to the American actor Danny Glover to produce movies, Venezuela outlawed two local film guilds, Variety reported.

The man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing is living with his family in a luxury villa in Libya six months after he was released from jail on compassionate grounds because he had less than three months to live.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, who is suffering from terminal prostate cancer, no longer receives hospital treatment after ending the course of chemotherapy that he had been given after returning to his homeland last August.

Professor Karol Sikora, the London-based doctor who examined Megrahi and predicted he would be dead by last October, admitted this weekend that the fact the bomber is still alive might be "difficult" for the families of the 270 victims of the attack....

No kidding, really?

Writing for Right Wing News, conservative blogger Warner Todd Huston notes that Seattle radio host Brooke Fox recently said on Twitter that she’d like to punch out Ann Coulter and a host of others who dare disagree with her (political) views:

On her Twitter feed on February 17, Miss Fox asked the question “Fill in the blank ‘I would be willing to go to jail for the opportunity to punch out ____!’” The next day she answered the question by posting a few names of celebs she apparently wouldn’t mind punching out. That list included Zach Efron, Ann Coulter, Kanye West, Octomom, Kate Gosselin, and John Mayer.

How nice: once again we meet a leftist who dreams of committing violence against conservatives (and others she dislikes).

Can you imagine the outrage from the mainstream media if Fox would have been a conservative instead of a radical progressive? They would’ve fallen all over themselves in an attempt to make this today’s lead story in every major newspaper and on every single network. But because she’s a leftist, they ignore her sick dreams to focus on, well, the latest joke at Governor Sarah Palin’s expense.

As Warner put it rather succinctly:

But our Miss Fox is a left-winger, so she gets a pass. For her the Old Media is silent. Just more of the double standard the Old Media employs.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Congressman John “Jack” Murtha, who died last week at the age of 77, represented western Pennsylvania’s Twelfth District in the House for 35 years. But Murtha’s impressive longevity belies his more dubious political legacy. The narrative of Murtha’s legislative career was punctuated on virtually every line by self-absorption, self-interest, secret dealings, and an ugly brand of political hackery that placed Murtha’s own lust for power above the welfare of his country.

A logical place to begin an examination of Murtha’s career would be the early 1980s, when the Congressman was named as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the so-called “Abscam” (a contraction of “Abdul scam”) corruption probe of several U.S. legislators. That inquiry was conducted between 1978 and 1980 – not by right-wing enemies of Murtha and his fellow Democrats, but by President Jimmy Carter’s Justice Department. Initially, the FBI established a phony investment firm called “Abdul Enterprises” in New York City and invented a fictitious Middle Eastern sheikh, “Yasser Habib.” Bureau agents, posing as “Habib” and his attendants, offered bribes to Murtha and several other members of the House and Senate in exchange for their pledge to provide political favors to the “sheikh.” Specifically, the legislators were asked to help “Habib” purchase asylum in the United States and transfer his financial assets out of his native country. In exchange for their assistance, the Congressmen were offered handsome financial rewards.

Murtha, for his part, rejected a blatant $50,000 bribe but not the influence buying tactics. Murtha unambiguously left open the possibility that he might be willing to “do business” with the “sheikh” and his retinue at some point in the future. A 54-minute FBI videotape shows Murtha, then a member of the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, telling the FBI undercover agents:

“You know, you made an offer. It might be that I might change my mind someday.”

Murtha explained that he simply needed some time to get to know the “sheikh” and his cohorts a bit better, and to develop a sense that he could trust them not to squeal, before he would be ready to risk accepting such a large bribe:

“I want to deal with you guys awhile before I make any transactions at all, period. After we’ve done some business, well, then I might change my mind [and agree to the scheme]. I’m going to tell you this. If anybody can do it — I am not bullsh–tting you fellows — I can get it done my way. There’s no question about it.”

“You know,” Murtha added cautiously, “we do business for a while, maybe I’ll be interested, maybe I won’t.”

These were the words of a political opportunist whose eagerness to complete a lucrative transaction was tempered only by his fear of being caught in the act. “I’ve gotta be completely to the point where I can disclaim anything,” Murtha stressed. “And that’s why I’m so careful about making any deals.”

As fortune would have it, Murtha actually did think of a way to structure a mutually beneficial arrangement with the “sheikh,” short of taking the $50,000 bribe at that point in time. Murtha said that in lieu of accepting the bribe just yet, he would be glad to offer political favors to “Habib” in exchange for money which the “sheikh” might make available, through Murtha, for businesses in the latter’s congressional district. Said Murtha:

“I wanna do business with you. I mean I want to get the goddamn jobs in the area. You know, if you, the bank deposits in my area. [There's] nothing I’d like better. Later on, you know, after we’ve dealt awhile, you know we might change our minds. We might want to do more business. But right now, I think I can do more this way than any other way.”

Murtha proceeded to crudely express his concern that the public might someday find out about his secret willingness to put a price tag on his political influence:

“When I make a fu**in’ deal, I want to make sure that I know exactly what I’m doing …  And what I’m sayin’ is, a few investments in my district, a few you know, is big to me … to a couple of banks which would get their attention. And investment in a business where you could legitimately say to me — when I say legitimately, I’m talking about so these bastards up here can’t say to me, well, why, in eight years from now, that’s possible, we’d never hear a thing for eight years, but all at once, ah, some dumb bastard would go start talking eight years from now, ah, about the whole thing and say, ‘[Jesus Christ], ah, this happened,’ then he, then he, in order to get immunity so he doesn’t go to jail, he starts talking and fingering people and then the [expletive] all falls apart.”

All told, seven members of Congress (six of them Democrats) accepted bribe money from the “sheikh.” The House Ethics Committee appointed a special prosecutor, Barrett Prettyman, to investigate the matter. Then, in early 1981 the Committee became concerned that Murtha, too, had violated House rules by failing to report the attempted bribery to law-enforcement authorities. Prettyman began looking into Murtha’s activities as well. In addition, as the Wall Street Journal explains, the prosecutor was “rumored to be offering deals in exchange for testimony that would take the scandal inside the office of [House] Speaker O’Neill” – a reference to Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, the Democratic U.S. Congressman from Massachusetts. At that point, a jittery O’Neill moved to shut down the Murtha probe as quickly as possible. That decision so infuriated the special prosecutor, that he promptly resigned in protest.

Of course, Murtha was not really innocent. He even testified in federal court that he had gone so far as to call his “immigration guy” to discuss the possibility of helping the “sheikh” – who had just offered Murtha a $50,000 bribe – to resolve his immigration concerns. Ultimately, the congressman, as stipulated by the terms that would enable him to avoid prosecution, testified against two House colleagues who had been implicated in the FBI sting. In other words, Murtha himself had morphed into the same type of shadowy figure he had previously claimed to fear: a “dumb bastard” who “would go start talking … in order to get immunity so he doesn’t go to jail.”

Abscam was by no means Murtha’s only involvement in financial chicanery. In 2004 the congressman, who was then the ranking Democrat on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, steered more than $20 million in federal appropriations to at least ten companies that were represented by KSA Consulting, a Maryland-based lobbying firm where two of the senior partners were Murtha’s brother, Robert “Kit” Murtha, and a former aide to Rep. Murtha, Carmen V. Scialabba.

Murtha always viewed taxpayer dollars essentially as slush funds that he could use to finance his own political pet projects. In February 2008 the taxpayer watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), which promotes fiscal responsibility and federal earmarks reform, named Murtha as Congress’s 2007 “Porker of the Year” “for flouting the rules and playing games with reform, while filing spending bills with pork and arrogantly threatening anyone that challenges his authority.” Noting that Murtha had secured 72 earmarks worth $149.2 million for his district in fiscal year 2007, CAGW said:

“Rep. Jack Murtha has long been known inside the Beltway for using threats, power plays, and backroom deals to control spending decisions. There is an area of the House floor known as ‘Murtha’s corner,’ where the legendary appropriator dispenses earmarks. The overwhelming vote for Porker of the Year shows that his shameful behavior is attracting attention throughout the country.”

Midway through 2009, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) – which reserves most of its criticisms for Republicans – anointed Murtha as the U.S. Congress’s “King of Pork,” in recognition of the $192 million in earmarks he had secured for his district in 2008, coupled with another $134 million in earmarks he had requested during the first half of 2009. CREW executive director Melanie Sloan put it this way:

“The more Rep. Murtha’s dealings are exposed, the more we all learn about how Congress really operates and the more disgusted the public becomes. CREW will continue to shine the light on Rep. Murtha until the congressman changes his ways or is indicted. I’d take a bet on which is the more likely outcome.”

Impervious, as always, to the taxpayers’ legitimate concerns about how their hard-earned money was spent by government, Murtha glibly shrugged off Sloan’s comments by saying: “If I’m corrupt, it’s because I take care of my district.”

Further questions about Murtha’s use (or misuse) of taxpayer money were raised by the expenses associated with the John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport in Johnstown, Pennsylvania – the congressman’s home district. This facility is equipped with a $7 million air-traffic-control tower, a $14 million hangar, and an $18 million, state-of-the-art runway. As a result of Murtha’s influence, more than $150 million in taxpayer funds were funneled to this airport between 1999 and 2009, including $800,000 (from the February 2009 stimulus bill), which was allocated for repaving an “alternate runway.” These massive expenditures hardly seem justified: Only three flights per day – all to Washington, DC – originate from the Murtha airport.

His many financial shenanigans aside, Murtha in recent years was best known to the public as an inveterate critic of the U.S. war effort in Iraq. In October 2002 Murtha voted, albeit grudgingly, to authorize America’s use of military force against Saddam Hussein: “I only voted for it,” he explained, “because I [had] said to [Vice President] Cheney and the President, ‘You have to go to the U.N.,’ and when they did that, what the hell could I do?”

After that, Murtha did everything he could to hamstring President Bush, to paint the war effort as a foolish endeavor, and to thereby pressure the President to adopt the type of minimalist approach to the war that would only prolong the slow bleed – an outcome that Murtha well understood could potentially cause great harm to the country. But he was more interested in the political benefits he and the Democrats could derive from it. Presaging Harry Reid (who would infamously proclaim “this war is lost”), in May 2004 Murtha asserted that the Bush administration’s strategy in Iraq had made the war “unwinnable.” In November 2005 he announced that “the Army is broken,” and that “the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq” was not only “impeding … progress” there, but indeed was acting as a “catalyst for violence.”

Then in May 2006, the Haditha story landed in Murtha’s lap. It was an unsubstantiated allegation that a squad of eight U.S. Marines had killed, without cause, up to two-dozen unarmed civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha. The congressman appeared immediately on ABC’s This Week program, where he said that the Marines had “overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood.” “There’s no question in my mind about what happened here,” declared Murtha. “There was no gunfire [from the Iraqis]. They [the American Marines] killed four people in a taxi and then in addition to that, they went into the rooms and killed them.” He further alleged that the U.S. military was trying to “cover up” what had occurred in Haditha.

In the May 17, 2006 edition of Hardball with Chris Matthews, the host said to Murtha: “[W]hen you say ‘cold blood,’ Congressman, a lot of people think you’re basically saying you have got some civilians sitting in a room or out in a field and they’re executed just on purpose.” Murtha replied, “That’s exactly what happened.”

Except that it wasn’t. By June 2008, it had become apparent that Murtha’s allegations against the eight Marines were entirely unfounded. Charges had been dismissed against six of the eight, while a seventh had been fully acquitted. Moreover, two of the Marines – including Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, the only one who was still facing any charges – filed defamation and slander suits against Murtha.

Murtha not only remained unapologetic but he signed on to another Democratic campaign to discredit the war effort, voting in favor of a June 2008 resolution drawn up by Congressman Dennis Kucinich to investigate the feasibility of impeaching George W. Bush for “high crimes and misdemeanors” – as punishment for having led the U.S. to war in the first place.

Indeed, after voting to authorize it, Murtha opposed the U.S.-led war effort at every step. In June 2006 Murtha voted against a Congressional proposal to formally declare that Iraq was a crucial theater in the overall War on Terror, and that it would be unwise to set a firm withdrawal date for U.S. troops. Four months later, Murtha voted in favor of withdrawing American troops at the earliest practicable date. Then, in early 2007, Murtha spoke out against the Bush administration’s planned troop “surge” – where an additional 21,500 soldiers would be deployed to Iraq in an effort to quell the insurgency there. Vowing “to stop this surge,” Murtha stated that “surges have not worked in the past” because enemy forces “disappear, and then they come back later on. To think that a surge will work is, in my estimation, false thinking.” Murtha could not have been more wrong, as the troop surge successfully turned the tide of the war.

One irony of Murtha’s career is that although he worked tirelessly to secure taxpayer dollars for his district, he did not hold his constituents in high esteem. In October of 2008, just weeks before the presidential election, he accused voters in his Pennsylvania home district of being bigots because, in his estimation, they were not supporting Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy in sufficiently large numbers (though Obama was in fact leading in the local polls). “I think Obama is going to win [the local vote], but I don’t think it’s going to be a runaway,” Murtha said. “There is no question that western Pennsylvania is a racist area,” he added. “The older population is more hesitant [to embrace a black candidate].”

Murtha’s remarks drew considerable media attention, and the congressman issued an ambiguous “clarification” the next day: “It’s [the racism is] better than it was a few weeks ago. It’s better than it was a few months ago.” In an interview with a local news channel the following week, Murtha sought to further “clarify” his remarks: “What I mean is there’s still folks that have a problem voting for someone because they are black…. This whole area, years ago, was really redneck.”

It was some thanks to the voters who had sent him to Washington for over three decades. As a final act in Murtha’s career, it was also fitting. For all his political success, Mutha remained a self-anointed know-it-all who considered himself not only more enlightened than the “rednecks” who inhabited his district, but also better qualified to spend money than the hardworking Americans who made it.

A senior judge could be called on to investigate a complaint that Cherie Blair handed down a more lenient sentence to a man who had been convicted of fracturing a person's jaw because he was religious.

Mrs Blair, a devout Roman Catholic who sits as a part time judge under the title Cherie Booth QC, spared Shamso Miah from jail last month after he was convicted of assaulting a person at a bank queue in east London.

The 25-year-old from Redbridge, north-east London, was given a two-year suspended sentence instead of a six-month jail term because, Mrs Blair said, he was a "religious person" who had not been in trouble before.

In response the National Secular Society made an official objection to the Judicial Complaints Office which handles complaints against members of the judiciary. Last night the OJC said the complaint was being "considered under the Judicial Discipline Regulations". If it finds that Mrs Blair may have breached those regulations, a senior judge would then be brought in to investigate and could recommend formal disciplinary action.

Mrs Blair was hearing the case at the Inner London Crown Court on 23 January. The court heard how Mr Miah, who described himself as a devout Muslim, had punched Mohammed Furcan in the face following an argument with over who was first in a queue at a bank.

CCTV captured Mr Miah punching Mr Furcan in the face before running out the bank. When Mr Furcan followed him to demand why he had been hit, Mr Miah lashed out again knocking Mr Furcan to the pavement and breaking his jaw.

In court Mr Miah pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm. At sentencing, Mrs Blair appeared to take into account Mr Miah's religious convictions as a partial reason for imposing a more lenient sentence.

"I am going to suspend this sentence for the period of two years based on the fact you are a religious person and have not been in trouble before," she said. "You caused a mild fracture to the jaw of a member of the public standing in a queue at Lloyds Bank. You are a religious man and you know this is not acceptable behaviour." [...]

Jonathan Bartley, from the liberal Christian think-tank Ekklesia, agreed. "You can't pretend religion is an irrelevant factor in assessing someone's behaviour because faith will always have some sort of an impact on how we behave," he said. "However it would be very wrong to assume that just because a person is religious they will automatically be a good person. You only have to look back through history to know that is not the case."

Uh, yeah.

"Jordanian jailed for sister's 'honour killing,'" from AFP, January 29 (thanks to Maxwell):

AMMAN (AFP) - A Jordanian court sentenced a 19-year-old man to 10 years in jail for stabbing his sister to death in order to "cleanse the family honour," a judicial official said on Friday.

The defendant turned himself in to police after killing his 22-year-old sister last year for many unexplained absences from home, said the official who requested anonymity.

"The court sentenced the defendant to 15 years in prison for premeditated murder, but reduced the sentence to 10 years after the family dropped any legal claims" against him, the source said.

"The defendant killed his sister with knife stabs on April 5, 2009 to cleanse the family honour, because of her many absences from home," the official said. "He then turned himself over to the police."

Murder is punishable by death in Jordan but in so-called "honour" cases a court sometimes commutes or reduces sentences, particularly if the victim's family urges leniency.

Between 15 and 20 women are murdered in honour killings each year in Jordan despite government efforts to fight such crimes....

Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, left, and Le Cong Dinh were sentenced to long prison terms in Vietnam

Tonight, Glen Beck will air his must-see special on communism, which should artfully recount the historical development of that inherently evil, political ideology. While Beck’s narrative will focus on the past, we must not lose sight of the fact that communism has not gone away, and its continued existence in much of the world still brings misery, oppression and death to those unfortunate enough to be living under its yoke.

Take Vietnam, for example.

This week, the communists ruling that country took, according to a European Union spokesman, a “major and regrettable step backwards,” by sentencing four people to stiff periods of incarceration (remember, in communist societies that usually means hard labor in a “re-education camp). After a speedy, one-day trial in typical communist fashion (behind closed doors), Tran Huynh Duy Thuc received a 16-year sentence. Nguyen Tien Trung got 7 years. Le Cong Dinh and Le Thang Long each received 5 years.

What was their crime?

They had the audacity to post writings on the Internet advocating freedom of expression and a multi-party system for Vietnam. You see, by definition, communism cannot have a political rival—and even discussing such a thing in a communist state can land you in jail, or worse.

A communist judge convicted the men of “a well-organized campaign in collusion with overseas exile reactionary organizations, aimed at overturning the government with the help of the Internet.” The men were immediately taken away to begin serving their sentences.

Actually, Vietnam has been very busy putting people away lately for having similar views. In the last three months, 10 other democracy activists have been sentenced to long prison terms, and 6 students in the city of Haiphong received sentences of between two and six years for hanging up a pro-democracy banner. The irony here is that the Vietnamese government crackdown on dissent comes before elections to be held next year, where certain members of the Communist Party will try to gain coveted seats in the Party congress.

As harsh as these sentences are, these dissidents really are rather fortunate, as the authorities did show an uncharacteristic level of leniency. In Vietnam (and in nearly every other communist state, past and present), the normal punishment for the crime of dissent is death.

Related posts:

1. The Nation Celebrates the Fall of Communism by … Celebrating Communism!
2. Feel the Need to Express Your Political Views? In China, that Will Get You Serious Jail Time.
3. Like Obama, the Secret Service Speaks No Evil, Sees No Evil, Hears No Evil

The Religious Left understandably relishes its memories, real and imagined, of heroic support for the Civil Right movement during the early 1960’s.  It was maybe their last great and fully admirable moral cause that history still rightly salutes. So Religious Leftists frequently attempt to equate their political causes du jour with fighting Jim Crow 50 years ago.

Now, the chief of the United Church of Canada (UCC) is comparing the struggle against climate change with the Civil Rights protests of yesteryear.  UCC Moderator Mardi Tindal even dramatically penned a letter that she self-importantly likened to Martin Luther King’s historic missive from a Birmingham Jail.  Apparently she composed her letter through tears over the failure of the Copenhagen Climate Summit to agree to the massive shut-down of global capitalism for which the Religious Left has long prayed.

“The day after I returned home from the climate change  talks, I needed a place to go where I could safely cry tears of lament,” Tindal bewailed to Ecumenical News International (ENI).  “I needed somewhere where I would be supported as I wrestled with the bitter disappointment I felt with the result of the Copenhagen talks.”  Lest anyone still fail to understand her Civil Rights analogy, she read her letter from the pulpit of her home church congregation on January 17 to coincide with King’s birthday.

As ENI helpfully explained, her Ontario church is where she “she sought comfort immediately following her return” from the devastating disappointment of Copenhagen. Unlike King, Tindal has not been jailed, or faced growling police dogs, or tear gas, or death threats, for her ostensibly heroic struggle against carbon dioxide.  But she still identifies with King as a crusader for justice.  After all, Global Warming, like Civil Rights, is “one of the most urgent moral challenges in human history.”

“What if, instead of racial segregation, King had spoken about high greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere?” Tindal preeningly asked from the pulpit.  “Would his words hold? It seems clear to me that they would ring loud and true.”  The church lady’s rhetorical overreach is not untypical for her ultra-politically correct UCC.  Although still Canada’s largest Protestant denomination, over 40 years it has lost about half its membership thanks partly to such obtuse political posturing.  Naturally, emptying pews and Canada’s secularization did not inhibit the UCC Moderator from crusading in Copenhagen.

After all, the whole planet is at stake.  “Our moment of opportunity came and then went, and here we are now, the fate of civilization and of millions of the planet’s life forms hanging by the frayed thread of inaction,” a “heartbroken” Tindal intoned.  “We have no plan to reduce deadly emissions of carbon dioxide. Emissions that are a symptom of our broken relationship with the web of life. Emissions that are rising faster than at any time in human history.”

Terrifying!  Perhaps Tindal’s listening congregation reacted as New England Puritans did when Jonathan Edwards read his famous 18th century sermon “Sinners in  the Hands of an Angry God,” amid shrieks and howls and pleas for divine mercy.   Edward’s hell-fire revivalistic appeal helped ignite America’s first Great Awakening.  Surely the terrors of a warming planet are no less motivating than the threat of eternal damnation.   Edwards warned his unsaved listeners that they were hanging over the nether regions like a spider dangling from his slender web over a fire.   Even more powerfully, Tindal pleaded that not just individual sinners, but the whole planet is “hanging by the frayed thread of inaction” over Global Warming.    No wonder the church Moderator is weeping.

Edwards, in his famous sermon, admonished the impenitent that they could face divine judgment that very evening.  Similarly, Tindal told her church, after Copenhagen’s failure, “I too believe the time for waiting has run out.”  Thankfully, she, as did Edwards, believes there is still some time for repentance. But unlike Edwards, who pointed towards God, she urged self-help.  “I believe the answer…is that hope is in you. It is in me and in all of us who choose to reject despair and embrace hope. Together, we will replace the Copenhagen failure with success. It is up to us.”

It’s a heavy burden to believe that the whole planet’s salvation depends on self-initiated political action.  But Tindal cited King for inspiration.  “Watching the tens of thousands of citizens who gathered at the talks to exhort our world’s political leaders to act reminded me of the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., who said it would be ‘fatal…to overlook the urgency of the moment.’”  She liked King’s Birmingham Jail letter for describing an “inescapable network of mutuality.”

King was talking about struggles for voting rights and equality before the law.  But of course Tindal applied the sentiment to planet activism.  “Biologically, we live within an inescapable network of mutuality,” she explained. “As the carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere rise, the planet will fail to provide for us. Life as we know it will die. Millions of human lives are on the line, rich and poor, old emitters and new, vulnerable and strong. There is no inoculation against this except all of us changing our behavior all at once.”

In the wake of Copenhagen’s “fearful self-interest,” Tindal urged her Canadian parishioners to take immediate action towards planetary salvation.  So much is at stake!  She concluded with an almost imprecatory litany, fiercely declaring:  “When our actions threaten the lives of millions of people and other creatures, that is wrong; When our lack of action endangers communities in every region of the world, that is wrong; When our economic systems jeopardize the well-being of future generations, that is wrong; When the lifestyles of the wealthy undermine the survival of the poor, that is wrong; If we fail to act, we are helping to doom millions of our species to abject suffering and death. That is wrong.”

King’s Civil Rights movement focused on tangible goals to alleviate specific injustices against a suffering people.  In contrast, Tindal and other Religious Leftists apocalyptically warn of an impending cosmic calamity that continued enjoyment of modern conveniences ostensibly will ignite.  King’s achieved his concrete goals because he aimed towards moral and social uplift.  Religious and other leftists failed at Copenhagen, and will fail elsewhere, because they aim to impoverish humanity to evade an unproven threat against the ethereal goal of climate equanimity.

Did Saddam Hussein’s fall and the formation of a fledging democracy in Iraq encourage and embolden regime-threatening dissent in Iran?

The anti-Iraq War crowd, many of whom suffer from Give-George-W.-Bush-No Credit-for-Anything Disease, says, “No, of course not.” How dare anyone even suggest that the former President was correct, if not about the rightfulness of the war itself, then about his argument that a “free and peaceful” Iraq would provide a “dramatic and inspiring example” to the Middle East and the Muslim world. Good Lord!

The Iraq War-achieved-zero crowd begrudged Bush nothing even after the democratic Cedar Revolution in Lebanon. Never mind that Walid Jumblatt, a Lebanese Druze Muslim leader, said: “It’s strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting (in 2005), 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world.”

As to Iran, The New York Times quoted a pundit-blogger who, when protests began this past summer, wrote, “(N)o Iranian … has mentioned Iraq as an inspiration for the demonstrations, nor has any leader of their opposition cited their Iraqi neighbors as a model or a source of guidance.”

None?

Meet Mohsen Kadivar. In May 2004, Time magazine profiled this Iranian intellectual in a flattering article called “The Critical Cleric — Reclaiming Islam for a New World.” Newsweek called him a global leader “to watch in 2005.” His criticism of the Iranian regime landed him in jail. He now teaches at Duke University, and PBS’s Charlie Rose interviewed him in July.

What does this cleric says about Iraq’s possible influence on his native country? In February 2005, he said: “I think the Iraqis can make what we wanted to create but were unsuccessful: a real Islamic Republic. By that I mean a republic with Islamic values, democracy with Islamic values … (where) the clergy has no special rights. If they have a good government with Islamic democracy and without any special or divine rights for the clergy, the Iranian government won’t be able to justify its situation to the Iranian citizens.”

Meet Mashallah Shamsolvaezin. In 2000, this Iranian journalist received an International Press Freedom Award but could not attend the formal dinner honoring him. Shamsolvaezin was then sitting in a Tehran prison for the crime of “insulting Islamic values.” The authorities shut down several publications that he edited. Just days ago, he and several other journalists were arrested in Iran.

What did he say about Iraq’s possible influence on Iran? “The Shi’as in Iraq have accepted the notion of having a secular government, and they are slowly moving toward the democratization of their country — free elections, democratic institutions, a free press.

All of this in and of itself will have an impact on the situation in Iran.”

Meet Mohsen Sazegara. This Revolutionary Guard co-founder and former Islamic Republic supporter became a critic. He attempted to run for president of Iran, but authorities denied his application. He spent three months in jail for opposing the regime. He now lives in the United States and faces more prison time should he return to his country.

What did he say about Iraq’s possible influence on Iran? “I personally hope that Iraq’s (transition to democracy) will be completed successfully so that it can also help our nation. For sure, neighbors with democratic governments are much better for us than dictators such as Saddam Hussein or backward groups such as the Taliban … . Our young generation in particular has shown … that it has a strong desire for democracy, human rights and civil society, and a strong desire to join the international (community). And when democratic changes take place in our neighboring and brother country Iraq, with its many ties to us, it encourages our youth, and emboldens our young people to ask for change in our current constitution.”

In truth, the anti-Iraq War/Bush-hating left despises the former President far more than do the Iranians.

Almost two years after we entered Iraq, Iranians, according to a 2004 BBC poll, preferred Bush (52 percent) over John Kerry (42 percent) in the U.S. presidential elections. When asked whether the U.S. should get out of the Middle East, only 20 percent of Iranians said yes.

In May 2004, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof traveled to Iran. He wrote: “Everywhere I’ve gone in Iran … people have been exceptionally friendly and fulsome in their praise for the United States, and often for President Bush as well. … Indeed, many Iranians seem convinced that the U.S. military ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq are going great, and they say this with more conviction than your average White House spokesman.”

The Iraq War and fledging democracy continue to pay dividends. It helped convince Libya’s strongman to surrender his WMD. It helped inspire a democratic movement in Lebanon. And it may, just may, help to bring down an Islamofascist government that is the leading exporter of terrorism — before it gets a nuclear bomb.

Just as the “neo-cons” had hoped.

Kuala Lumpur: Fifty-two unmarried Muslim couples face charges of sexual misconduct and possible jail terms after being caught alone in hotel rooms by Malaysia's Islamic morality police during a New Year's Day crackdown, an official said Monday.

Scores of officers fanned out across budget hotels in central Selangor state before dawn on Jan. 1, knocking on doors and detaining unmarried Muslim couples who were sharing rooms, said Hidayat Abdul Rani, a spokesman for the Selangor Islamic Department.

The detained, mostly students and young factory workers, are expected to be charged with "khalwat," or "close proximity," which under Malaysia's Islamic Shariah law is described as couples not married to each other being alone together in a private place....

...Mohamed Ibrahim, 35, is charged with commission of a terrorist act, false reporting and disorderly conduct. He is in the Shelby County Jail on a $50,000 bond....

Friday afternoon, Memphis police dispatchers issued an alert that a man driving a black Chrysler PT Cruiser had threatened to "blow up the business" at 300 Poplar, a BP gas station....

After Ibrahim was arrested and placed in a police cruiser, he began cursing police and attempting to kick out the windows, according to the charges. Officers subdued him with pepper spray.

Police determined that Ibrahim had earlier that day made threats to blow up seven other businesses around town, according to the charges....

An FBI agent called to the scene recovered three cassette tapes described as "Islamic" in a police affidavit, and took the GPS from the vehicle.

Court records show that Ibrahim had been arrested two days earlier with a 10-inch butcher knife concealed in his jacket sleeve and charged with unlawful possession of a weapon. He was released on $100 bond.

That day, Ibrahim had threatened other businesses and "stated he was a Muslim, and wanted to start jihad here in Memphis," according to the weapon charge.

Is it a mainstream Muslim civil rights organization, an illegal lobbying firm, a terrorist front group or all of the above?

In the eye-opening new book titled Muslim Mafia, former federal investigator Dave Gaubatz and Paul Sperry (author of Infiltration:  How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington) provide an inside look into the controversial tax-exempt organization known as Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

In a brazen display of courage, Dave’s son, Chris, feigned conversion to Islam and loyalty to its radical tenets.  After winning over the trust of CAIR’s top leaders and inner circles, Chris Gaubatz aka David Marshall became privy to the private meetings and secret documents of this notorious organization.  Muslim Mafia tells the story of what Chris and his cohorts discover when they infiltrate the infiltrators.

During a six month sting operation, during which time he earned an award from CAIR, Chris was tasked with shredding confidential documents.  But instead, he brought them home for examination.  He taped conversations, researched court documents, and investigated the organization’s finances, goals, strategies and key players.  What he found is both fascinating and frightening.

Muslim Mafia portrays CAIR as nothing less than America’s fifth column.  It is part of a network of organizations including ISNA, NAIT, MSA, and others which front for the Muslim Brotherhood and conspire to incrementally Islamize the west.  The Muslim Brotherhood’s goal is to sabotage the United States from within, and its main weapon is deceit.

The book demonstrates that CAIR is anything but a true civil rights organization.  Rather, it constitutes a turnstile for terrorist-supporters and victimizes mainstream Muslims who seek its aid.  It has penetrated major US institutions, derailed counterterrorism training programs, placed moles in law enforcement agencies, and advised mosque-goers to remain silent in the face of FBI investigations.

Sadly, political correctness in collusion with Islamic radicalism has weakened America’s national security.  Indeed, some in the FBI notified CAIR in advance of its raids, rendering the raids useless.  And until recently, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies employed CAIR to provide “sensitivity training” to their agents, teaching them how to refrain from offending terrorist suspects held in custody.  Field agents complained that higher ups seemed more concerned about appeasing organizations with terrorist ties than actually investigating them.

Recently, in the largest terrorism trial in the US, where several defendants were convicted and sent to jail, CAIR and ISNA were named unindicted co-conspirators.  Despite this, aspects of law enforcement persist in “Muslim outreach” to these same organizations.

Political correctness is also causing America to lose control of framing the issues for the war on terror.  And generally, those who frame the debate win it.  Yet, succumbing to Islamist propaganda, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Counterterrorism Center have distributed memos to their employees dissuading them from using a host of words and phrases ranging from “jihad” to “Islamic terrorism”.  If America can’t name her enemies and discuss them, neither can she produce a strategy to defeat them.

It is progress that the FBI finally cut ties with CAIR subsequent to the Holy Land Foundation trial.  It is also encouraging that some Congressmen are calling for an investigation of CAIR.  However, much work remains.  Muslim Brotherhood fronts are still infiltrating other areas of society including corporations, banks, courts, academia and media.  Their persuasion tactics range from political donations and carefully crafted public relations messages to lies, propaganda, economic boycotts, name-calling, bogus lawsuits and veiled threats.

For example, CAIR affiliates have managed to obtain congressional staff positions.  CAIR still works closely with some congressional offices, drafting legislation and otherwise targeting key committees to influence policy.  Among its goals are to strip America of her counterterrorism tools, eliminate immigration restrictions from high risk Muslim countries, outlaw profiling, criminalize criticism of Islam, abolish aid to Israel, and withdraw US troops from both Iraq and Afghanistan. Some politicians share CAIR’s anti-freedom and anti-national security sentiments.  Others have been the recipients of purposeful disinformation campaigns by various Muslim Brotherhood front groups that pose as mainstream.

The Pentagon’s Muslim Chaplain program exemplifies another Muslim Brotherhood success story.  It was started by Alamoudi, then-head of the Muslim American Society, while he simultaneously raised money for Al-Qaeda.  The program provided the Pentagon’s stamp of approval to radical imams.  Though Alamoudi now sits in jail, the program he started remains in place.

The Treasury Department and Wall Street are the next targets for Islamists.  They are pushing for sharia-compliant financing, the instruments of which are precluded from dealing with alcohol, pork, and any business with Israel.  Dispute resolution must be handled by sheiks who are expert in sharia law, rather than by the SEC.  The goal is to create a parallel financial system at odds with American values and lacking government accountability.  Worse, a portion of the earnings from sharia-compliant financing goes to “Islamic charities” many of which are questionable at best.  Never-the-less, the Treasury Department offered its first course titled “Islamic Banking 101” earlier this year.

Allowing Muslims and others of all faiths to immigrate to America and enjoy her way of life is the American way.  But America cannot allow her freedom of religion to be turned on its head and used against her.  She ought not accommodate radicals who demand respect for the intolerant, attempt to reduce national security, restrict freedom of speech or ultimately seek the merging of mosque and state.

America must do more than merely defend herself from her enemies.  She must be pro-active.  America cannot wait for another 9/11 or until CAIR and other Muslim Brotherhood front groups achieve their objectives before learning their true motivations.   She must act now before it is too late.

Muslim Mafia is a fascinating read which, at a minimum, raises critical issues that demand to be asked and answered.  To support its claims, it details copious citations from court records, declassified FBI documents, interviews with government officials, counterterrorism expertise, and internal CAIR memos.  Get the book and become informed.  America’s freedom and national security depend on it.

To order Muslim Mafia, click here.

At Pajamas Media today Mary Grabar, a thoughtful writer and an acquaintance, has an effective piece in response to a recent tragic death which has reopened an important issue that’s not discussed nearly enough:

A truly sad story about a 23-year-old Panama City man dying while being subdued by Bay County sheriff’s deputies has reawakened the debate about the legalization of marijuana. On December 11, 2009, Andrew Grande choked on a plastic bag full of marijuana as police attempted to arrest him on a violence charge. A video shows police valiantly trying to save his life once it became apparent that he was having difficulty breathing.

Two talk show hosts in Panama City have been discussing the case in the early morning hours — and revealing a divide on the right. Burnie Thompson of WYOO, the libertarian, has called Grande “a casualty of the war on drugs” and contended that because marijuana is illegal, Grande felt “compelled” to swallow a bag of it to avoid punishment.

Mary then presents a number of pro-drug war arguments and rebuttals to common libertarian, pro-legalization points. She highlights the traditional role of alcohol and the countercultural nature of marijuana. She points out that marijuana use  hampers,

the work ethic, emotional engagement, sexual inhibition, and the ability to reason.

She notices that her stoner students who advocate for drug legalization do so in an incoherent fashion. She invokes conservative icon Barry Goldwater. (However she fails to mention that Goldwater supported medicinal marijuana in his later years.)

I’m sorry Mary but I remain thoroughly unpersuaded.

The arguments for drug legalization are numerous, and so as to avoid being dismissed as one of Prof. Grabar’s Jeff Spicoli students I’ll focus on one. (If Mary would like to engage the issue further then perhaps I’ll offer more.)

A single question for which all self-described “conservatives” should have a fairly similar answer: what is the purpose of the government as the founders intended?

The federal government does not exist to make the world better. It’s not here to eliminate poverty. (Look at inner city ghettos to see how effective the Left’s efforts have been.) It’s not supposed to try and make sure that more people can buy homes. (Look at the economic crash of 2008.) The founders never intended a government which would require all citizens to buy health insurance. (Look into a crystal ball of how the next few years will turn out.) When government is shifted toward bringing about some form of utopia it fails.

The purpose of government is to protect a free society. It’s to allow for a country in which the individual is sovereign, in which every man and woman can pursue his own destiny as they see fit. If they want to create jobs and raise families they can. If they want to destroy themselves then that’s their freedom.

So how does throwing people into jail for growing and consuming a plant fit into this understanding of government?

It does not.

Thus it makes sense that Goldwater was hardly the only important conservative whose opinion of marijuana softened over the years. William F. Buckley, Jr. went even further, advocating full-blown legalization in 2004. Perhaps it’s best we close with some of his words on the subject:

And although there is a perfectly respectable case against using marijuana, the penalties imposed on those who reject that case, or who give way to weakness of resolution, are very difficult to defend. If all our laws were paradigmatic, imagine what we would do to anyone caught lighting a cigarette, or drinking a beer. Or — exulting in life in the paradigm — committing adultery. Send them all to Guantanamo?

Legal practices should be informed by realities. These are enlightening, in the matter of marijuana. There are approximately 700,000 marijuana-related arrests made very year. Most of these — 87 percent — involve nothing more than mere possession of small amounts of marijuana. This exercise in scrupulosity costs us $10-15 billion per year in direct expenditures alone. Most transgressors caught using marijuana aren’t packed away to jail, but some are, and in Alabama, if you are convicted three times of marijuana possession, they’ll lock you up for 15 years to life. Professor Ethan Nadelmann, of the Drug Policy Alliance, writing in National Review, estimates at 100,000 the number of Americans currently behind bars for one or another marijuana offense.

…

Such reforms would hugely increase the use of the drug? Why? It is de facto legal in the Netherlands, and the percentage of users there is the same as here. The Dutch do odd things, but here they teach us a lesson.

UPDATE: Mary Grabar responds here at NewsReal.

Related posts:

1. War on Drugs Divides the Right
2. Are we Fighting the Left or the Counterculture? Because They are Not the Same Thing
3. Marijuana, Conservatism, and the Culture Wars

What does a journalist famous for using fake quotes (think Rush Limbaugh and a made-up racist remark) do when covering the death of a pro-athlete? He learns his lesson, right?  He checks and double checks everything he reports, right?  Nope.

The world was shocked on Thursday to hear that NFL wide receiver Chris Henry died while reportedly falling out of a truck bed.  Rick Sanchez was quick to cover it on CNN Newsroom in his usual inept fashion.  Sanchez, always the Twitter fanatic, started editorializing Twitter responses of celebrities and pro athletes on his show last Friday without making sure he knew what they were talking about.

Here is Sanchez on last Friday’s show:

Meanwhile, speaking of tweets…This Chris Henry story has more questions than answers to it… This is interesting with some of the reaction that we are getting on Chris Henry.

…watch this one.”I reached out to him many times.” This is Jay Feely, you know, the placekicker for the New York Jets? He says: “I reached out to him many times, including in jail, to no avail. His death was not a result of past problems, but part of a pattern.”

That is interesting, a critical tweet from a fellow football player, Jay Feely, the placekicker for the New York Jets on this situation involving Chris Henry, who was obviously a guy who had many problems in the past.

There is one big problem with Sanchez’s analysis on Jay Feely’s Twitter on Chris Henry. Feely was not talking about Chris Henry when he wrote that particular tweet. Not only was Feely not talking about Henry, but his tweets were really, really clear he wasn’t talking about Chris Henry.

At 317pm on December 17th, Feely tweeted:

“My cousin died a couple of weeks ago at 27yrs old. He had history of drug and alcohol problems & was in and out of jail.” (emphasis on cousin added by me)

At 318pm Feely tweeted the part that Sanchez reported to the CNN audience of millions, as if Feely was talking about Henry and not Feely’s own cousin:

“I reached out to him many times, including in jail, to no avail. His death was not a direct result of past problems but part of the pattern.”

What makes matters worse, is that Sanchez reported on Feely’s twitters on Friday – a full day after Feely had written them.  So it would have been fairly easy for Sanchez or his crack research staff to figure out that Feely was talking about his own cousin and not Henry.  How horrible of a journalist do you have to be to miss something like that?

Shortly after Sanchez’s mistake, Feely had to contact CNN to tell them they messed up. Sanchez fessed up to it (sort of) on his own blog (read by far less than viewed his report).

“We’ve heard from Mr. Feely that he wasn’t referring to Chris Henry in that Tweet.  In fact, he was commenting about his own cousin who recently died.  We apologize for the error.”

Sanchez doesn’t even admit that it was plain to see on Feely’s Twitter page that he wasn’t talking about Henry.  His apology is not for poor research, but for just not knowing who Feely was referring to.

Sanchez repeatedly misinforms to make stories more sensational or to push his own point of view.  It isn’t that this example of horrible reporting is that big of a deal on its own.  But it adds yet another example to the increasing list of problems with Sanchez’s work.  Such poor journalism matters a great deal when Sanchez covers health care reform, environmentalism, terrorism, or immigration.  Therefore I echo my call to CNN to please fire this fake journalist.  He continues to hurt the CNN reputation for being real news.

Related posts:

1. Time for CNN to Dump Fake Journalist Rick Sanchez
2. Smarmy Sanchez: Trying to Deflate Focus on Radical Islam By Focusing on Fred Phelps
3. Smarmy Sanchez Part 5: Desperate for Reasons to Attack SC Republicans

Call it Willie Horton 2.0.   After winning the Democratic Party’s nomination in 1988, then-Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis’s presidential campaign was destroyed by Republican attacks on his role in the release of Willie Horton on a weekend furlough. Horton surprised and shocked leftists everywhere when he did not return to jail, and later raped a woman and assaulted her fiance.

In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, this is like deja vu all over again as former Pastor and Governor Mike Huckabee commutes the 95-year sentence of Maurice Clemmons who is now a suspect in the cold-blooded assassination of four Washington state police officers.   Now all we need is a photo of doofus Huckabee riding around in a tank.

Huckabee’s political career may not be completely over, but his prospects for a successful presidential run in 2012 are about as likely as a Cap and Trade bill passing the Senate.  Not very likely, in other words.

Bad for Huck fans, perhaps, but terrific news for the Palinistas.  As the Republican pool of possible candidates continues to shrink, the prospects for a Palin presidential run seem more and more likely.