Collected Thoughts

Every now and again I have several items I want to call to your attention. So here it goes:

Item One: Senator Wayne Allard (R-Co.), one of the most decent men serving in public life, has introduced the Religious Liberties Restoration Act (S 1558). The bill has been referred to the Judiciary Committee where Sen. Arlen Specter (R.-Pa) holds the swing vote.

This measure is really a states’ rights measure via the Tenth Amendment. The Allard bill simply affirms that each state would have the right to display our national motto (In God We Trust), would be able to recite the Pledge of Allegiance with the words “under God” included, and would have the right to display the Ten Commandments.

The bill would only apply to public buildings, and that would include schools where the Pledge is most often recited.

The way this bill accomplishes its objectives is to withdraw jurisdiction on these matters from any court inferior to the Supreme Court. Had this bill been in force, the Ninth Circuit court of appeals would not have been able to issue their infamous decision declaring the Pledge unconstitutional. And in Alabama, the State Supreme Court could continue to display the Ten Commandments.

Of course I support the objectives of the bill, but in my view it is well worth consideration because of the precedent of removing courts from jurisdiction. That idea is one that deserves greater use. No less than the then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle passed a measure removing the jurisdiction of the lower courts regarding a matter which pertained mainly to South Dakota, so liberals will be hard pressed to claim that Allard is destroying the Constitution by this action. The Founders put this provision in the Constitution for precisely such matters to which this bill pertains. One would hope the Senate leadership would get on board this worthy cause.

Item two: Rep. Peter King (R-NY), no down-the-line conservative he, nevertheless has introduced H.R. 931. His bill would repeal bi-lingual voting requirements. He would restrict Clinton’s Executive Order 13166, which requires that when federal funds are involved, information about the use of those funds must be available in any language that a citizen speaks. The Bush Justice Department is now enforcing this Executive Order, combined with the Voting Rights Act. It will lead to so much chaos it will make us nostalgic for Florida in 2000.

King’s bill would also make English the only official language of the USA. This is a measure that I hope the Congressional leadership has the courage to take up. I say courage because the minute someone raises the issue of English being the only official language in this country he is labeled a racist. I am convinced that is why President George W. Bush didn’t repeal E.O. 13166, which even Clinton was ashamed to issue. We were positive that he would overturn this Executive Order the way he did Clinton’s cancellation of the Mexico City Policy and other issues as well. No, he is enforcing this hideous construction with an aggressiveness that even the Clinton White House did not display.

English First, under the capable leadership of Jim Boulet, is pushing the King measure. He provided an excellent example of why bi-lingual ballots are a terrible idea. In the Flushing area of New York in 2000, the Chinese ballot translated the Democrat label on all state races as Republican while Republican was translated as Democrat. The absentee ballot for state Supreme Court in English instructed voters to “vote for any three” but the Chinese ballot told voters to “vote for any five.” Then later it said to vote for any three.

English must be the official language here and those who live here must learn English just as my father had to do when he came here from Germany in 1923. And others of our relatives from Norway, Russia, Italy and Albania had to learn English. It made them part of America.

Finally item three: You will recall back when the Democrats were in charge of the Executive and Legislative branches of government, they had the American Bar Association involved in the selection of judicial nominees. Many of us had insisted that the ABA should have no special role in picking judges and indeed, President Bush 43 removed the ABA from this position, something that his father and Ronald Reagan had declined to do. Well, when that happened the Democrats howled to high heaven and insisted that the ABA ratings were the “gold standard” of judging judicial nominees.

Larson Frisby of the ABA was kind enough to provide me with the ABA ratings for the 108th Congress. The ABA has two categories for such nominees, Qualified and Well Qualified. Remember all of the circuit court nominees that liberals claim are extremist? Miguel Estrada, Carolyn Kuhl, Patricia Owen, Charles Pickering, William Pryor, Claude Allen, and Janice Rogers Brown come to mind. Every one of these has been judged “well qualified” either unanimously or by a substantial majority. Not a single nominee was graded simply “qualified.”

So what do we hear from the liberals about the ABA now? Would that organization, no bastion of conservatism, really rate all of these controversial judges as “well qualified” if they were extremist ideologues? I rather doubt it. The next time you encounter a liberal Senator you might ask him or her about the ABA. If they denounce the ABA as being part of the right wing conspiracy, why we’ll just have to revise our charts. Marion Harrison, President of Free Congress, used to be involved with the ABA. Perhaps he now secretly controls that organization. Or perhaps the liberals are just liars.

Here is one of Kings Comments/opeds on the Wilson Mess:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/994438/posts

Rep. Peter King - The CIA Leak: Rogue Agency?
New York Post ^ | 10/3/03 | Rep. Peter King (R - N.Y.)

Posted on 10/03/2003 7:01 AM PDT by WhiteTrashRepublic.com

THE CIA LEAK: ROGUE AGENCY?

By PETER KING

October 3, 2003 -- THE current furor over who, if anyone, in the White House leaked anything about Joe Wilson's wife and whether that leak, if it occurred, constitutes a crime is off the mark. My concern is about something far more ominous. It is what I see to be a systematic pattern of conduct being carried out by elements within the Central Intelligence Agency constituting a virtual covert operation against the Bush White House - a covert operation designed to protect the spy agency's turf and deflect charges of incompetence.

All the elements are in place: repeated leaks of selective classified information and tawdry political use of pre-war intelligence. But this is a story most of the media have chosen to ignore.

Let me get a few things straight right away. I support a strong CIA and oppose virtually all of the restrictions liberals have imposed on it over the past three decades. Also, as a practitioner of New York politics for those same three decades, I'm no stranger to inelegant turf battles.

But it's one thing to fight over a sewer contract or a highway project and quite another to put a bureaucracy's parochial interest before the national interest - particularly when our nation is in a war for survival against international terrorism. Sadly, that is what the CIA did after 9/11 and what it continues to do in the aftermath of the war in Iraq.

There's no doubt the CIA missed a lot of signals leading up to 9/11. Whether there were enough signals to prevent the attacks - or, in the popular term of art, enough dots to connect - is another question. In any event, President Bush decided against seeking scapegoats.

We were entering into a new and dangerous war and the president did not want to disrupt the national security leadership - so he reaffirmed his support of CIA Director George Tenet and no heads were made to roll.

Unfortunately, the CIA has not seen fit to return that loyalty - either to President Bush or to the national interest.

Consider the following:

* In the spring of 2002, when the CIA was coming under increasing scrutiny for its pre 9/11 failures, a memo was leaked suggesting the CIA had warned President Bush of the terrorist attacks more than a month prior to 9/11 and that he failed to take any action.

The resultant political firestorm succeeded in diverting attention from the CIA. It took several days to realize that this supposed warning consisted primarily of a 3-year-old intelligence report indicating that terrorists might hijack planes to obtain the release of prisoners and that no time frame was given.

* In May and June of this year, when weapons of mass destruction were not found in Iraq, CIA sources began to leak that Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials had pressured its WMD analysts prior to the war, causing them to inflate their estimates, though these estimates were almost identical to those of previous years.

* In July of this year, Wilson charged in print and in repeated TV appearances that President Bush had lied to the American people in his State of the Union speech when he said the British government had learned that Iraq was attempting to purchase enriched uranium from Niger for its nuclear program. Wilson claimed he was basing his allegations on a secret mission to Niger he had carried out for the CIA last year.

The Wilson incident raises troubling issues and serious concerns. Why did the CIA entrust a non-CIA man with such a sensitive assignment? Wasn't the CIA aware that Wilson opposed the Bush policy in Iraq? How extensive was Wilson's investigation? Why didn't the CIA take action against Wilson when he went public against Bush and revealed the details of his mission?

Why didn't the CIA point out that Wilson's investigation never addressed what the president said in his State of the Union speech, that the British source was separate from the CIA's and that the British stand by their finding to this day. In other words, that despite Wilson's posturing and outrage, everything the president said about Niger was true.

Against this backdrop, isn't the position of Wilson's spouse at the CIA a matter of legitimate concern or debate? Isn't it more significant that we have a rogue spy machine operating at cross purposes with our national interest than who said what to Robert Novak?

And how much credibility should we give to Wilson, who shows off pictures of his wife, comparing her to an actress in a TV spy drama?

America is at war with international terrorism. For us to win that war, the CIA must be focusing its attack on Islamic fundamentalists - not spreading disinformation against the elected leaders of our nation.

The CIA must be made to realize that we don't have the luxury of being at war with ourselves. For the CIA to get that message, perhaps the time has come for some heads to roll.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) represents parts of Nassau and Suffolk counties.

Then 3 days later, Peter King nailed who violated CIA rules and laws. He named Wilson.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/996445/posts

Rep. Peter King: Prosecute Leakgate Accuser for CIA Secrecy Violation
NewsMax.com ^ | Monday, Oct. 6, 2003 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

Posted on 10/06/2003 9:14 PM PDT by jmstein7

A leading New York congressman is calling for an investigation into whether Leakgate accuser Joseph Wilson violated CIA secrecy when he blew the lid off his role in a February 2002 mission to determine whether Iraq had sought uranium from Niger.

For the last week Wilson has been demanding an investigation into the Bush administration's role in revealing his wife's job as a secret CIA operative, a move that he contends was an act of retaliation for his decision to go public about the Niger mission in a July op-ed piece for the New York Times.

But Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said Sunday that it's Wilson who needs to be investigated - and even prosecuted if he violated CIA secrecy.

"I assume that if he went into this job for the CIA, he had to sign an oath of secrecy - a confidentiality [agreement]," King told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg. "And if he did, then he violated it and he should be prosecuted."

"He conducted a so-called secret mission for the CIA," King complained. "[However] he's talking about it all over national and international television - undermining the president of the United States. ... Why wasn't this guy called in before a grand jury?"

King says that if the CIA didn't require Wilson to sign a confidentiality agreement, then the agency should explain why not - along with why it picked the talkative Wilson for the sensitive mission in the first place.

"Why did they pick the guy who was anti-Bush, anti-war with Iraq, to go over and conduct a really half-assed investigation of Niger?" the House Homeland Security Committee member told Malzberg.

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