May 2, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Please dont’t miss John Fonte’s piece on NRO about provisions in the Gang of Eight bill (see pages 370-94) that will funnel federal dollars to left-wing activists so they can organize illegal aliens who obtain amnesty. The money is cleverly earmarked as intended to help integrate immigrants. Thus, it is designated for programs that will promote “linguistic, economic, and civic integration.” But who will get the money? According to the
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May 2, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
President Obama told fellow leftists yesterday to put aside concerns over the Gang of Eight’s immigration bill. He assured them that once Congress locks an overarching plan into place, his administration will be able to revisit the specifics and figure out how to address them. It’s natural that both Obama and Marco Rubio are holding out the prospect of “fixes” to the immigration bill; they need to assuage nervous constituent
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May 2, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that he doesn’t think his immigration bill can pass in the House. “It will have to be adjusted,” he told radio talk show host Mike Gallagher, “because people are very suspicious about the willingness of the government to enforce the law now.” Rubio didn’t stop with this interesting prediction. He went on to agree that his bill needs to be improved. The Senator described suspicion
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May 1, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Strip away the pro-illegal alien rhetoric and name-calling in this piece by NBC Latino contributor Stephen Nuno and you will find an important truth — the immigration reform game is dominated by money, and the pro-amnesty side has nearly all of it. Nuno points out that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has put together a coalition of like-minded billionaires to sell Schumer-Rubio style immigration reform to Republicans. Michael Bloomberg has been
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May 1, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Steve’s post about the controversy over the Washington Redskins’ name made me think about the nicknames of European soccer teams and their supporters. Followers of Dundee United, a decent team in a poor league, call themselves the Arabs. The name has no political content, although in recent times Scotland turned strongly against Israel. Supporters of Ajax, a Dutch superpower and until about 15 years ago a European superpower too, are
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May 1, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Republicans think they have a deep bench of potential presidential candidates for 2016. It consists, by most reckonings, of Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, Bobby Jindal, and an assortment of other governors. But for me, the bench looks more problematic today than it did six months ago. I have never been fond of Rand Paul because, among other concerns, of his views on foreign and defense policy. Rubio lost
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April 30, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
At his press conference today, President Obama took the same position on Syria that his spokesmen have previewed. It’s a lawyerly, two-part position. First, we don’t know for sure that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons. Second, even if it has, this is just one factor in our analysis of what to do (or not do). The first part may be true, and after Iraq we should have less
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April 30, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Politico suggests that our friend Rep. Tom Cotton is “the last, best Hope for GOP hawks.” The idea is that, with even conservatives moving away from an interventionist mindset, Tom now carries the banner for those like Bill Kristol who hold out for the post-9/11 Republican consensus on foreign and national security policy. There is some truth to this narrative. But the story’s author, Alex Burns, falls into the Washington
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April 30, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
My friend Bill Otis, who sometimes contributes to Power Line, is scheduled to appear on Piers Morgan’s show on CNN tonight some time after 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Bill will discuss Arsenal’s amazing unbeaten streak since Morgan trashed the team on television. NOT — Bill actually will debate Alan Dershowitz about whether The Boston Bomber should face the possibility of the death penalty. Bill’s article about the subject in Forbes
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April 30, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
In case you have been vacationing in Outer Mongolia, let me be the first to inform you that NBA player Jason Collins has disclosed his sexual orientation — gay. I have no interest in the sexual orientation of Collins or anyone else, and I doubt you do either. At the same time, it is easy to imagine that Collins has had a rough time of it in “the closet”. So
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April 29, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Former federal prosecutor Bill Otis graciously quotes my latest reflections on the Mirandizing of the Boston Marathon terrorist and adds some thoughts of his own. Bill says that, if the Justice Department was concerned that 16 hours of interrogating Tsarnaev without a Miranda warning was pushing the outer limits of the Quarles exception for emergency questioning, the concern was undertandable: I am not aware of a case in which any
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April 29, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Fox News has two related stories regarding State Department and CIA employees who reportedly have information they wish to offer about the Obama administration’s conduct in relation to the Benghazi attack. According to a lawyer for one of these whistleblowers, the information pertains to (1) the State Department’s failure, prior to the attack, to provide proper security despite warnings that should have led to a security beef-up (2) the government’s
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April 29, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post reports that the defense cuts mandated by the sequester are proving to be a “paradox” for the left. Keith Ellison, the ultra-leftist congressman from Minnesota, says he “feels torn” by the cuts because they further his goal of reducing the money available to the military, but contradict his goal of maximizing government spending. When in doubt, the left these days will tend to opt for government spending,
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April 29, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Mike Rogers, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is as perplexed as I am about the circumstances associated with the Mirandization of the surviving Tsarnaev terrorist. Accordingly, he has written a letter to Eric Holder posing questions for the Attorney General. Concerned that the interrogation of Tsarnaev may have been “conducted in a manner that prematurely cut off a lawful, ongoing FBI interview to collect public safety information,” Rogers tells
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April 28, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
That’s the question posed on Fox Sunday News by Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House homeland security committee. McCaul stated: “I think the experts all agree that there is someone who did train these two individuals.” It’s easy to understand this consensus. The Tsarnaev brothers had a fairly sophisticated operation — seemingly beyond what they could have picked up solely from the do-it-yourself websites they apparently frequented. But if
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April 28, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Aquille Carr is a 5’7″ (maybe) high school point guard. He’s nicknamed “the Crime Stopper” because during his games in a tough area of Baltimore, Carr’s must-see play was said to bring a halt to crime. Today, in a less impressive feat, Carr was “the blog stopper” as far as I’m concerned. That is, I put blogging and all other pursuits aside to watch Carr play in a high school
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April 27, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
I have never practiced criminal law (except briefly at the international level) and have not studied it since 1974. Thus, like most Americans, much of what I think I know about criminal procedure comes from watching television and movies. My viewing experience does not include any instances in which a judge read a criminal defendant his or her Miranda warning in the middle of police interrogation. Thus, I was shocked
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