I know this is probably another post that will create another blog civil war but this is, in my estimation, not only ineffective and ridiculous but a huge violation of civil rights.

Miami police announced Monday they will stage random shows of force at hotels, banks and other public places to keep terrorists guessing and remind people to be vigilant.

Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez said officers might, for example, surround a bank building, check the IDs of everyone going in and out and hand out leaflets about terror threats.

“This is an in-your-face type of strategy. It’s letting the terrorists know we are out there,” Fernandez said.

Yeah lets get out there and harass people for IDs that you don’t legally have to carry. I am all for strong enforcement but this is just a easte of police power and the only reason they use it is that it is “flashy.” I shouldn’t have to show my ID to anyone just walking down the street. I am willing to concede obviously for airlines, banks, etc. But the sidewalk shouldn’t require an ID, if I go in a park I don’t need to prove who I am to anyone.

If anyone remembers from Hunt from Red October, the one Russian commander is amazed you don’t need papers to go from state to state. Well one would think you wouldn’t need to carry an ID to walk on the sidewalk.

The Editors at NRO have provided the conservatives with “blind vendettas” against our president with some more ammunition to carry on the fight. I am somewhat shocked that NRO would turn against Bush during this critical time during the war on terror, but then again they aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed.

A sampling of their brilliant work:

The current issue of Time magazine has a revealing quote from “a Republican official close to the White House” about the president’s approach to supporters of immigration enforcement: “Bush decided to give these guys their rhetorical pound of flesh. In return, he wants a comprehensive bill, which is what he has always wanted. He’s just going to lead with a lot of noise about border security.”

So once again President Bush will use conservatives to get his bill passed, but he has no real intentions of changing the tune when it comes to “border politics”.

The President’s own words damn him:

We will not be able to effectively enforce our immigration laws until we create a temporary-worker program.

Wrong, wrong and wrong again. [this space has been intentionally left blank]

A pull quote from the Human Events article in the previous blog entry that I found highly amusing in light of recent events:

Smith refused to name names; but other sources confirmed a report by columnist Bob Novak that Rep. Duke Cunningham (R.-Calif.) had taunted Smith after the vote–waving his checkbook and promising to donate to Brad Smith’s primary opponents. (See Curmingham’s statement in “Capital Briefs,” page 2.)

[Warning this article reposted from Human Events is guaranteed to boil your blood, but as I am doing a paper on the passage of the Prescrition Drug Bill I just had to repost it. Mourning, wailing, and gnashing of teeth welcomed and encouraged on the comments thread. As well as monuments to fmr Reps Toomey and Smith. Oh and Pence '08!]

The House Republican leadership kept the late-night vote open almost three hours–toward the break of dawn–but the prescription drug entitlement still seemed on its way to a 216-to-218 defeat. Then just before 6 a.m., Representatives Trent Franks (R.-Ariz.) and Butch Otter (R.-Idaho) switched their votes from “no” to “yes.”

After a few vote-changes by Democrats, the bill passed by a final tally of 220-215. (See roll call, page 26.)

This is the story of how a small band of committed conservatives stood up to enormous political pressure and almost defeated a massive new entitlement program proposed by their own party.

Around 5:30 a.m. on Saturday, November 22, Republican Representatives John Shadegg (Ariz.), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Mike Pence (Ind.), Trent Franks (Ariz.), and Butch Otter (Idaho), all opponents of the bill, were huddled outside the House chamber. The GOP leadership told them that if the bill were defeated, Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) would bring up either the same bill again or, amazingly, a Democratic package twice as costly. That proposal, they were told, already had the 218 votes needed to pass.
Arm-Twisting

Worse, they were also told, President Bush was behind the plan, and would sign the Democratic bill if it reached his desk.

President Bush has never vetoed a bill.

The conservatives were shocked by this threat, which endangered the solidarity and resolve they had maintained all night. “Both Jeff [Flake] and I made it clear to Trent [Franks] and Butch [Otter] that if they chose to change their votes, we would not fault them,” said Shadegg, in retrospect not the clearest way of keeping them in opposition.

This touched off a brief but heated exchange between Shadegg and Pence, sources said. The two men calmed down and made up after raising their voices at each other.

The five opponents of the bill then met in an office in the Capitol with Speaker Dennis Hastert (R.-Ill.), DeLay, Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (Calif.), and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, who had been working the House all night.

Franks, who had earlier rejected pleas by Hastert and DeLay to change his vote, agreed to call President Bush. Franks finally told Bush that he and Otter would provide the switches necessary for the package to pass. They were apparently so taken with the argument that a worse bill actually might be enacted by their leaders and signed by their President that they changed their votes. Pence said that he disagreed with their rationale for switching.

Other conservatives held firm under enormous pressure, most notably retiring Rep. Nick Smith (R.-Mich.), whose son Brad hopes to win his safe 7th District seat in a crowded Republican primary (see Politics, page 12).

Smith said he was told his son would get “almost unlimited financial support, plus some nationally recognized names to endorse him,” if Smith voted for the drug bill.

“This comes after [Brad] had sold part of his property to put his own $100,000 into his campaign” said Smith.

But his son told him, said Smith, “‘Hey, Dad, you stick to your guns and do the right thing. I don’t want to go to Congress that way.’” Smith didn’t waver.

“The only sad part is that I may have hurt Brad’s chances of getting in, because some of the members were pretty adamant that they were going to work to make sure he didn’t,” said Smith. “I thought that after 20 years in elected office, I knew what arm-twisting was. This was pretty aggressive arm-twisting.”

Smith refused to name names; but other sources confirmed a report by columnist Bob Novak that Rep. Duke Cunningham (R.-Calif.) had taunted Smith after the vote–waving his checkbook and promising to donate to Brad Smith’s primary opponents. (See Curmingham’s statement in “Capital Briefs,” page 2.)

Rep. Walter Jones (R.-N.C.) told HUMAN EVENTS he would rather resign from Congress than support the costly new federal entitlement program.

“[Chief GOP Deputy Whip] Eric Cantor [R.-Va.] did approach me on the floor and asked me if I would vote for the Medicare package,” said Jones. “And I said, ‘If the Good Lord came down and asked me, I’d say no.’”

“My hope was that they would make this a better bill,” said Rep. Jim DeMint (R.-S.C.), who also voted “no.” “But this never happened.”
‘Successful Failure’

DeMint, who is running for the Senate in a crowded primary, said several doctors in his state called to tell him they would not support him if he voted no. “I said I was doing something that went beyond the next election, and supporters were being bought with short-term candy in a stocking” he said.

Freshmen Scott Garrett (N.J.), Gresham Barrett (S.C.), and Tom Feeney (Fla.), among others (see related story on page 7) were also hammered. Feeney personally told President Bush over the phone that he had “not come to Washington to ratify and expand Great Society programs.” Some House members, sources say, threatened to delay Feeney’s anticipated ascent into the House leadership. But he was overheard telling his tempters on the House floor, “This isn’t about my career–this is about my country.”

The conservative effort was a “successful failure,” Pence told HUMAN EVENTS, because a net of six more Republicans opposed the bill this time than when it first came up in June. “When 25 principled conservatives held on for almost three hours in the longest vote in history, I was pretty proud to be a participant.”

The administration made up for the six additional GOP “nos” by winning a net of seven new Democratic “yes” votes.

Meanwhile, Republican Representatives Richard Burr (N.C.)–a 2004 Senate candidate–Steve Buyer (Ind.), and James Sensenbrenner (Wis.) who voted against the bill in June, voted for it this time. And Rep. Ernest Istook (R.Okla.) switched in the middle of the voting period from “no” to “yes.” All four Republicans gave the same explanation as Franks and Otter: They had been persuaded to believe that their President would actually sign an even worse bill.

Congressmen John Culberson (R.-Tex.) and Jeff Miller (R.-Fla.), on the other hand, changed their votes the opposite way–from “yes” to “no”–at the last minute, once the bill’s passage had been ensured.

PHOTO (COLOR): In 1996, conservative Rep. Nick Smith (R.-Mich.) chaired the House Task Force on the Debt Limit and the Misuse of the Trust Funds. He’s shown here at a Feb. 12,1996 press conference calling for then-Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin to resign. This year, Smith stayed true to his limited-government principles, standing up against the leadership of his own party to vote against the most expensive new entitlement in 40 years.

~~~~~~~~

By John Gizzi and David Freddoso

“We will not be able to effectively enforce our immigration laws until we create a temporary-worker program.”

That was all I needed to hear last night to know that we were being given another song and dance. Actually, Mr. President, there is a way to stop it. It’s called a wall. China built one a thousand years ago; we can do it now. Admitting that may even seem crude by today’s standards, the technology exists today to monitor the border effectively and stop the flow of illegal immigrants even without the Great Wall of Arizona. Perhaps a combination of both would be in order? There is no reason why four years after 9-11 our borders along Mexico remain as porous as they are. The Minute Men have proven that it can be done. Put the guards on the borders or build the wall or put up the military technology. Don’t blow smoke up our butt, Mr. President. We are all smart enough to know that this simply is about garnering the vote of the illegal Mexicans for the Republicans.

And what of the 11 million illegals that are already here? The ones that are forcing hospitals to close in California because they don’t pay. The ones whose kids get free education on the taxpayers’ dimes. The ones who give birth to their kids on US soil so they can collect welfare. Bush did not address these 11 million in his speech. Will they be allowed to sign up for this guest worker program after they have already shown that they have no respect for the laws of our country? Bush says he does not believe in amnesty, but if these 11 million can apply for this program then is this guest worker program not a euphemism for amnesty?

Earth to George! Drop the guest worker program. We have five percent of Americans currently unemployed. Take away their food stamps and their Section 8 housing and trust me. They’ll pick the lettuce. We should be concentrating on the job market and standard of living for our own people, not Vincente’s folks. Bush is leading the Republicans down a bottomless pit on this one. Some Democrats are already beginning to realize what a hot button issue this is and that they can make big gains by running to the right of the Right on this one.

If Bush were serious about putting a stop to illegal immigration he would have done something about it on September 12, 2001.

This issue is going to be on the front burner for some time so thought it would be an interesting topic of conversation.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican newspaper said on Tuesday that homosexuality risked “destabilizing people and society”, had no social or moral value and could never match the importance of the relationship between a man and a woman.

The remarks were contained in a long commentary published to accompany the official release of a long-awaited document that restricted the access of homosexual men to the Roman Catholic priesthood.

The article by Monsignor Tony Anatrella, a French Jesuit and psychologist, said homosexuality could not be considered an acceptable moral alternative to heterosexuality.

“During these past years, homosexuality has become a phenomenon that is always increasingly worrying and in many countries is considered a quality that is normal,” the article in L’Osservatore Romano said.

The article was specifically approved by the Vatican’s secretariat of state.

“It (homosexuality) does not represent a social value and even less so a moral virtue that could add to the civilization of sexuality,” Anatrella said. “It could even be seen as a destabilizing reality for people and for society.”

The Catholic Church, the article said, had a duty to reaffirm its position that homosexuality is “against conjugal life, the life of the family, and priestly life”.

“In no case is this form of sexuality a sexual alternative, or even less, a reality that is equivalent to that which is shared by a man and a woman engaged in matrimonial life,” the Italian-language article said.

“It (homosexuality) cannot be encouraged or even less so, supported with pastoral initiatives,” it said in an apparent reference to Catholic priests who administer to homosexuals without reminding them of the Church’s position against gay sex.

It said homosexuality was “a sexual tendency and not an identity” and repeated the Church’s stand against allowing gays to marry or to adopt children. It also called homosexuality “an incomplete and immature part of human sexuality”.

It repeated some themes in the Vatican document, and added a list of ways seminary directors could determine if a candidate for the priesthood had overcome homosexual tendencies or risked not being able to respect the Church rule of priestly celibacy.