The Time Square Bombing: Failure and Treason

The United States has moved pretty far away from prosecuting the crime of treason. There are probably a number of reasons and that part is not important. The crime is still on the books and can be used. Faisal Shahzad (the bomber) is technically a U.S. citizen, which makes it difficult to treat him as an enemy combatant during the initial interrogations. He was read his Miranda Rights at one point after being questioned for several hours under some bizarre public safety exception. The exceptions allows witnesses to be interrogated with Miranda warning in certain cases.

Miranda is part of an American citizen's Constitutional Rights. Shahzad is an American, therefore he must be given these rights. The public safety exception seems murky but if that works, I see no problem with the Government using that to get at Shahzad before giving him the right to remain silent and right to counsel.

That is why I am suggesting something not that different from Lieberman: if you are charged with treason, I think your citizenship is effectively forfeited for the purposes of custody, interrogation, and evidentiary rules. Certainly some standard would have to be met before the treason charge would lead to forfeiture of citizenship or Constitutional Rights, that is complicated as well. I believe Shahzad's actions, which are treason, should be effective grounds to revoke his citizenship and eliminate the Constitutional problems here.

In the Constitution: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

Most politicians and experts have not mentioned treason.

Many, including Sen. McCain, argue that reading Shahzad his Miranda Rights was a mistake and he should have been treated as an enemy combatant from the start. That is highly problematic. I have trouble with the U.S. Government having the authority of designating U.S. citizens as enemy combatants in any situation. Of course if Shahzad was stupid enough to admit it from the start, at that point he should've have been reclassified an enemy combatant and a traitor.

There is an argument that he wasn't a "real" citizen (naturalized through marrying American citizen) and therefore his Constitutional Rights can be more easily thrown out, but I reject that. Once you are an American, you are an American. There is no hierarchy of how "American" you are. The fact that he married to expedite the naturalization process is troublesome but more directly calls into question our policies of naturalization. It does not argue for treating naturalized citizens different from U.S.-born citizens. That would takes us down a ultra-nationalistic road that flies directly into the face of our immigrant foundation as a country.

So Shahzad is an American. How can he be an enemy combatant? Well, in World War 2 if an American citizen went to Germany and swore allegiance to them, and even fought with the German Army, how would we treat him? Well, first it would be easy for us to label him an enemy combatant because he wears their uniform. That is not so easy here. Terrorists don't wear uniforms and Shahzad certainly did not. If Shahzad had the nerve and the stupidity to claim he was fighting in service of the Pakistani Taliban, its over. He has indicated his allegiance to an American enemy. He is an enemy combatant.

Lets say he didn't. Lets say his lawyer got there in time to shut him up. How do we prove an American citizen is an enemy combatant without a uniform or an admission? Until we find a foreign-terror connection, he is just an attempted-murderer and a "domestic" terrorist. Can domestic terror suspects be treated as enemy combatants? I don't know the answer and am uncomfortable with the implications of this. If any law enforcement agency had evidence proving his links to the Taliban prior to his arrest, he should've been classified as an enemy combatant from the start, with a charge of treason to boot.

Unfortunately a lot of this comes down to timing. What did we know and when did we know it? The details that answer these two questions have not fully come out yet. Therefore, I think Sen. McCain, Sen. Lieberman, and others criticizing the process by which Shahzad was interrogated are jumping the gun (unless they know something we don't). On the other side, those rushing to applaud the federal, state, and local law enforcement handling of the situation should also show pause until we see exactly how things developed.

To be clear, this was not a success. Shahzad was able to drive an SUV full of explosives into Time Square and walk away. Had he adequate knowledge of explosives, he would have killed hundreds. We failed to stop him prior to the attack. He was able to execute just as the underwear bomber did on that flight. We should not see success in capturing these guys after the fact. We should be very worried that we failed in both instances to prevent the attack. The fact that no one died is not a testament to our counterterrorism efforts, but only our good fortune that many of these guys are fucking idiots.

Suggestions for getting us out of the Recession

Here are some suggestions that might help us out of the jobless recovery/recession we are struggling to pull out of.

1. Repeal Obamacare, kill Cap-and-Trade.
2. Make Bush Individual Income Tax Cuts permanent.
3. Repeal Capital Gains and Dividend Taxes
4. Cut Corporate Tax rate from 35% (second highest in developed world), to somewhere around 20-25%.
5. Six month suspension of payroll tax.
6. BALANCED THE #$@&#$%!!! BUDGET. Cut discretionary spending by $300 billion (~20%), then freeze it there. Reform entitlement programs to make sure their costs grow by 1% per year or less, instead of 5-15% like they are now.
7. Simplify the Tax Code.
8. Sell Canada.

Also, States with high corporate tax rates (5% and above) should consider cutting them dramatically.

There is no guarantee this will bring us to the promise land, but I think it could really do a lot of good really fast.

Unemployment and Jobs Report

The media has done a lot of work to try and convince the American people we are pulling out of this recession. Everytime there is a government report with some positive news or the stock market moves up for a week or two, they are quick to say on TV "Are we finally coming out of this recession???". But then there is this jobs report from April. It estimates that 260,000 jobs were added to the economy, but unemployment went up to 9.9%. How is this possible?

The unemployment number is a joke. It counts only people drawing unemployment from State and Federal unemployment insurance. If you are not drawing insurance, like say if you just graduated college and haven't paid into it, you are not counted. If you have given up looking for a job after your unemployment ran out, you are not counted. If you are working part time and are dying for a full time job, you are not counted. That 9.9% is a pretty high number in historical terms, but what is sad is that its a low-ball estimate of the true misery in the US economy.

Adding in the millions who have left the labor force because they can't find a job and have given up, those who have taken major cuts to hours, and others, the real unemployment rate in the United States is 17.1% and is the highest it has been in over 30 years.

What about the confusing jobs and unemployment reports? Jobs were created, but a lot of people have decided to re-enter the labor force after leaving it for the last couple months, or longer. So of 260,000 jobs created, it may be that about 500,000 people are now looking for jobs that weren't before (don't know for sure, just guessing). The total number of "discouraged" workers numbers in the millions. So added it all up and we would need to add at least 500,000 jobs per month for several years to get back to 6% unemployment. Not likely.

Americans don't need a jobs or unemployment report to tell us that things are very rough. We don't need the media to tell us how the economy is doing, or to convince us that we are either still in recession or we aren't. We know the truth. Whatever they say is according to government-produced numbers. They aren't lying, but consider the source and consider that any capable statistician and skew the numbers to show a more favorable result.

Projections are not good. Stock Market is still stuck at 10,000-11,000 which is basically where it was in 2008, so in the last two years we have done nothing but climb out of the pit to where we were in terms of value. Nothing to be happy about. Most economists and experts predict that we will not see unemployment decline below 9% well into 2011, which means the REAL unemployment will stay at 15-17% for at least another year.

Can we please accept that fact that the Stimulus Package failed, even better that Washington's entire economic policy since 2008 has failed to turn us around, meanwhile they have spent trillions of taxpayer dollars trying to do just that. Normally I would argue that Washington is not responsible for the ebb and flow of the economic cycle, but in this case they stuck their necks out with the Stimulus, TARP, bailouts, and all sorts of other expensive and aggressive programs to turn this economy around. All of it at our expense by the way.

The American people need to stop tossing cash into the money pit. Two years later the house is still falling apart.

Busting Myths of Liberal Media

And now for some random thoughts. Here are some liberal myths that need busting.

Right-wing protests and activist groups are more violent, racist, and intolerant
False. Tea Partiers and allied groups have had demonstrations, protests, and gatherings in every city across the country for over a year and the number of violent incidents is almost zero. In fact, there have been a couple instances of Tea Partiers being attacked by Union thugs as in St. Louis, as well as Black Panther and other groups actively trying to obstruct, disrupt or outright attack such movements.

The Oklahoma City bombing is often invoked as the consequences of letting right wing passions run high. In the last twenty years that is the only incident, and in that case McVeigh and Nichols acted alone without any support or validation from other groups. In fact, conservatives and the supposed "right-wingers" were among the most strident groups demanding justice. In every case of armed militia groups going off the deep end, conservatives never sympathize. The only sympathy they receive is when the government goes in heavy-handed and kills a good number of them as in Ruby Ridge and Waco (religious group in this case). Even, then most conservatives I know have very little sympathy for these types of groups.

Left-wing groups meanwhile have a more checkered past (Weather Underground for one). No bombings recently but - pro-illegal immigration groups attacked pro-rule of law demonstrations in Arizona not two weeks ago. In fact they are pushing hard for draconian efforts to punish Arizona for its passing of the law. In other states they are actively trying to obstruct business with Arizona, bordering on criminal. Radical environmentalists, socialists, and even some anarchists violently protested the WTO meetings in Seattle. Anti-war groups constantly disrupt public proceedings, block roads, protest military events, and even protest at military funerals.

Overall political violence in this country is very low, but a lot of it comes from the left wing, not the right.

Liberals still believe that conservatism is still dominated with groups that are intolerant, racist, and even violent towards those that oppose them. What they fail to see is that white supremacists have become so small and fringe, that they are not a part of the "right wing" anymore. They are radicals to conservatives. Liberals on the other hand are not always tolerant. Opposition to the liberal worldview is met with suspicions of racism, intolerance, and greed. Their blood begins to boil and they lash out at those that disagree with them. It is ironic, but in many cases liberals are the most intolerant of those with different beliefs and ideas.

It is difficult to enter this country legally, or its so complicated and takes so long that people have no choice but to cross the border illegally.
In 2009 alone roughly 700,000 immigrants became U.S. citizens including 110,000 from Mexico. At that rate, you could populate Chicago with nothing but newly naturalized citizens in four years. One has to ask, what number of immigrants and level of citizenship is appropriate or desirable? Should be we welcoming over 1 million per year? 2 million? Are our doors too narrow?

And why is it that we are so tolerant of illegal immigrants from Mexico only? Why is it that Mexico gets the opportunity to cross illegally in such a quick and easy manner? Those from China and other parts of Asia must spend the journey in cargo containers a lot of the time (when they are illegal) or worse. There are probably millions of Africans dying to come to this country as well. Why is it that Mexico gets the edge only because they are on our southern border?

How many people do you think would immigrate here and become citizens if given the opportunity? Two million a year? Three million a year?

The Time Square bomber was a lone wolf attacker, a novice, who decided to attack because he lost his home to foreclosure and was having difficulty in the economic recession
This is such bull shit I have a hard time responding. The bomber was born in Pakistan, had made several trips back home and probably had jihadist leanings well-before he lost his house. He married an American to become a citizen despite the fact he should've been on a watchlist for his visits to Pakistan and other evidence of a possible threat. In my mind, he is not an American, he is still Pakistani. I do not suggest any change in immigration law, but at the very least we should take a closer look at those who marry themselves into citizenship.

Many have lost their homes, jobs, or worse in this recession. To date, only one tried to bomb something. That person was of Pakistani descent, had made several visits there and clearly had some sort of tie to the Taliban. Even if he got no logistical support from the Taliban, he clearly wasn't just some nut living alone and going insane with anger and a desire to do violence.

I have no sympathy for this man, and if the liberal media wants to stop their downard spiral of TV ratings and circulation, they should try to keep their expressed sympathy for this human piece of shit to a minimum.

Conservatives and Republicans are greedy and selfish. That is why they are opposed to social programs, equal protection, and social justice.
Statistically Republicans give more to charity in both absolute terms and relative terms (per capita). And it is not because Republicans are rich. Statistically Republicans and Democrats average roughly the same in terms of salary and personal wealth. That is changing, as a portion of the Middle Class is starting to leave the Democratic Party and become independents thus moving the Democratic number downward.

To the conservative, wealth is created, it is not a static number or overall amount. If that were true then we are all greedy for desiring to protect the piece of wealth we currently control. We are also greedy for wanting to expand our piece whenever possible, as we all do. Any attempt to increase the size of our piece of the pie must in effect be taking from someone else. This theory is false.

Wealth in general is not a static thing. Our economy was $6 trillion in 1993, it is now $14 trillion. Wealth is created, it expands. Conservatives want the opportunity to create as much as possible, not "take" it from another source. Those who want to take it from others are not capitalists, socialists or any other label - they are the ones that are truly selfish, greedy, and dangerous. But those are not ideologues, they are the opposite, they have no principles at all and therefore could be anywhere on the cultural spectrum or more likely they have no strong feelings either way. They just want what isn't theres.

Obama's Ideal Model of Good Government is crumbling: the EU

The policies of President Obama and the Democratic Party are those of the left-wing parties of the Europe. Obama's Healthcare Plan was to be the Universal Healthcare coverage system of Great Britain. His ideas for new taxes are similar to those of France, Italy, and elsewhere. Tax the income, profits, and inheritance of the rich, impose a value-added tax, and tax carbon emissions. His fiscal policy of spending our way out of economic recession, massive debts, and expanded mandatory spending programs is almost identical to every European country, like Greece for example.

President Obama seems to think we should be more like Europe. The problem is this center-right country is comprised mostly of selfish, intolerant, knuckle-dragging rednecks that cling to their guns and religion. But after 2008, he and his liberal-socialist allies had a chance to change all that and transform this country into another European Union.

We can now see where that leads.

Greece is on the verge of defaulting on its bonds and declaring the equivalent of national bankruptcy. Portugal and Spain have had their credit ratings reduced this week. Nearly every European country has massive national debts, high unemployment, low economic growth, and powerful public labor unions that have all but paralyzed government attempts to solve the fiscal problems.

Sound familiar? It should, I could've easily been talking about California or Illinois.

The European Union is in decline economically and politically. Its influence in the world has been in steady decline for years, its economy has been stagnant, and its fiscal problems are finally about to erupt. Many experts speculate we may be witnessing the end of the Euro currency and a collapse of the European Union as a whole.

Well, its a global recession right? Not really. China, India, Brazil, and Indonesia are seeing positive growth. They have recovered. China projects growth this year at 8-9%. So as the United States and European Union continue to drown in debt and see growth of less than 1%, other countries are growing. We can safely conclude that the US and EU are seeing their massive lead in the world economy and world politics shrink rapidly.

So who should we look to? China? Brazil? Well maybe. These countries don't have a great deal in common though. They do have lower taxes on corporations, no massive entitlement programs, low debt, and business-friendly labor laws.

Meanwhile we are doing the opposite. More taxes on corporations, new entitlement programs, more debt, and stricter labor laws.

One can see the contrast within the United States as well. Should we be adopting the same policies as our own states of California and Illinois? That is what Obama and the Democrats seem to be doing. Who should we be following?

The answer: Texas, Oklahoma, and Alaska. Low tax burdens, business-friendly conditions, small deficits, no big entitlement programs, and they are seeing unemployment rates much lower than the national rate of 9.7%. They are actually growing while the rest of the country is stagnant.

The answer is right in front of us.

President Obama is following a failed model. The European Union is on the verge of collapse, the euro is about to vanish, and the continent will soon shatter into disarray and might shift back to its historic roots of nationalistic rivalries and arms races.

The United States needs to adopt a new model. And fast.