United Liberty

You would think that reading the Twilight book series would be used as a form of torture, but Gitmo detainees apparently like the angsty story about sparkly teen vampires and warewolves:

While the 181 men being held in the prison wait to learn their fates after the administration fell through on its January 2010 deadline to move them out,  90 percent now live in a communal environment that includes Skype, the online video chat service, and access to a 17,000-book library.

That’s up from 40 percent of detainees a year ago.

The “Twilight” series, a hit among so-called “tweens,” is also popular with detainees, the camp’s “librarian” said.

I wonder if they’re on Team Edward or Team Jacob.

Here comes a bizarre story from Saudi Arabia:

Sheikh Al Obeikan, an adviser to the royal court and consultant to the Ministry of Justice, set off a firestorm of controversy recently when he said on TV that women who come into regular contact with men who aren’t related to them ought to give them their breast milk so they will be considered relatives.

“The man should take the milk, but not directly from the breast of the woman,” Al Obeikan said, according to Gulf News. “He should drink it and then becomes a relative of the family, a fact that allows him to come in contact with the women without breaking Islam’s rules about mixing.”

Organized religion seems to have a deep seated problem with the sexual reproduction process of human beings. Sheikh Al Obeikan’s proclamation is one further revelation of this twisted phobia that masks itself as deity-enforced tradition.

A very disturbing trend is occurring in the prosecution of the federal’s government’s “War on Drugs:” an additional war on the country’s canine companions. It started in Maryland in 2008 with the case of a small town mayor:

BERWYN HEIGHTS, Md. (AP) - Mayor Cheye Calvo got home from work, saw a package addressed to his wife on the front porch and brought it inside, putting it on a table.

Suddenly, police with guns drawn kicked in the door and stormed in, shooting to death the couple’s two dogs and seizing the unopened package.

The package had 32 pounds of marijuana, quite a bit of the illegal substance, but certainly not of more worth than the life of a pet.

The trend continued recently with the released video of a raid in Missouri in May, in which dogs can be heard howling as they are shot by a SWAT team:

(Click on the video to watch)

The next story comes with a raid on an elderly woman in D.C., resulting in the killing of her dog:

While walking around the most liberal town in America, Berkeley, California, I found this heartening sticker:

Maybe the South Park controversy is getting their head in order. That or the Berkeley conservatives are making their presence known.

This is hardly new news, but appears to have gone under the radar:

In declaring May 20th to be “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day,” Seattle artist Molly Norris created a poster-like cartoon showing many objects — from a cup of coffee to a box of pasta to a tomato — all claiming to be the likeness of Muhammad.

Following controversy, she has backtracked, and when asked about her change of heart, Norris told The Ticket that she didn’t intend for the cartoon “to go viral”: “This particular cartoon of a ‘poster’ seems to have struck a gigantic nerve, something I was totally unprepared for,” she said.

I recommend everyone continue on and draw Muhammed on May 20. Don’t give in to terrorists.

Obama’s approach to civil liberties is looking a little too much like his predecessor:

President Obama is “open to looking at” a new rule that would allow terror suspects to be questioned for longer periods before they’re notified of their Miranda rights, White House adviser David Axelrod told CNN on Monday. The change, called for by Attorney General Eric Holder, comes in the wake of outcry that the accused Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad and attempted underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab were being treated as criminal defendants rather than as military detainees under wartime rules. Axelrod said the administration was willing to look at a change to the rule, but would make adjustments, not a wholesale revision.

This is pretty convenient for the inflated ego of Glenn Beck, who came out and said that we should declare any war on terrorism and said that Abdulmutallab, as a US citizen, should be mirandized. (The suspecting side of me wonders if someone told Beck that Obama would take a Bush-like approach, and that taking the opposite approach would help increase his power and influence with conservatives.) I hate to be in agreement with him but I am. Terrorism is a crime, and treating a criminal like a prisoner of war, without ever declaring war or even calling him a prisoner of war, sets a horrible precedent.

Take a look at this interesting tidbit from today’s New York Times:

George LaMonica, a 35-year-old computer consultant, said he bought his two-bedroom condominium in Norwalk, Conn., from Mr. Shahzad for $261,000 in May 2004. A few weeks after he moved in, Mr. LaMonica said, investigators from the national Joint Terrorism Task Force interviewed him, asking for details of the transaction and for information about Mr. Shahzad. It struck Mr. LaMonica as unusual, but he said detectives told him they were simply “checking everything out.”

It would be very interesting to say the least what it might have been about the sale of that Norwalk house that would have brought the sale to the attention of the JTTF, wouldn’t it ?

Granted, it could have been nothing serious. Perhaps Shahzad wirted part of the sales proceeds back to his family in Pakistan and that raised a red flag. Nonetheless, it’s not every day that a house sale gets attention like that, I would assume.

H/T: Byron York via a Tweet from Allahpundit

As Doug noted yesterday, some Republicans are questioning whether the indvidual that tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square should be read his Miranda rights. Apparently, the fact that Faisal Shahzad is an American citizen guaranteed basic civil liberties under the Constitution and Bill of Rights shouldn’t matter.

Appearing on Fox and Friends on Tuesday morning, Glenn Beck said, “We don’t shred the Constitution when it’s popular,” explaining that since Shahzad cannont be treated differently because of the protections afforded to him.

Joe Lieberman got on the air yesterday and basically took John McCain’s ignore the Fifth Amendment idea one step further:

In fact, he’s even got a bill ready:

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) thinks he’s found a work-around on the whole Miranda rights debate for U.S. citizens accused of terrorism: Strip their citizenship and ship them to Guantanamo.

Lieberman plans to introduce a bill that would amend a decades-old law aimed at yanking citizenship from U.S. citizens who fight for a foreign military.

“I’m now putting together legislation to amend that to [specify that] any individual American citizen who is found to be involved in a foreign terrorist organization, as defined by the Department of State, would be deprived of their citizenship rights,” Lieberman said Tuesday.

Such a law would potentially cover terror suspect Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-born American citizen charged in connection with the attempted car bombing in New York City’s Times Square. He was apprehended Monday night at the city’s John F. Kennedy airport after he boarded a flight to Dubai.

“If you have joined an enemy of the United States in attacking the United States and trying to kill Americans, I think you sacrifice your rights of citizenship,” Lieberman said.

Only hours after Faisal Shahzad was taken in to custody at Kennedy Airport, John McCain was on the air suggesting we deny him his civil liberties:

It would have been a serious mistake to have read the suspect in the attempted Times Square car bombing his Miranda rights, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Tuesday.

McCain, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a longtime leading Republican on national security issues, said he expected the suspect in the case could face charges that might warrant a death sentence if convicted.

“Obviously that would be a serious mistake…at least until we find out as much information we have,” McCain said during an appearance on “Imus in the Morning” when asked whether the suspect, 30-year-old Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized American citizen from Pakistan.

“Don’t give this guy his miranda rights until we find out what it’s all about,” McCain added.

McCain isn’t alone in jumping the gun:

Rep. Peter King (N.Y.), the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, wants to know whether the Justice Department consulted with the intelligence community.

“I hope that [Attorney General Eric] Holder did discuss this with the intelligence community. If they believe they got enough from him, how much more should they get? Did they Mirandize him? I know he’s an American citizen but still,” King told POLITICO.