President Zero

The name's sticking to the worst President ever

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Of all the people least expected to back the NRA from Jonathan Turley in an editorial in USA Today :

A liberal’s lament: The NRA might be right after all

This term, the Supreme Court may finally take up the Voldemort Amendment, the part of the Bill of Rights that shall not be named by liberals. For more than 200 years, progressives and polite people have avoided acknowledging that following the rights of free speech, free exercise of religion and free assembly, there is “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” Of course, the very idea of finding a new individual right after more than two centuries is like discovering an eighth continent in constitutional law, but it is hardly the cause of celebration among civil liberties groups.

Like many academics, I was happy to blissfully ignore the Second Amendment. It did not fit neatly into my socially liberal agenda. Yet, two related cases could now force liberals into a crisis of conscience. The Supreme Court is expected to accept review of District of Columbia v. Heller and Parker v. District of Columbia, involving constitutional challenges to the gun-control laws in Washington.

The D.C. law effectively bars the ownership of handguns for most citizens and places restrictions on other firearms. The District’s decision to file these appeals after losing in the D.C. appellate court was driven more by political than legal priorities. By taking the appeal, D.C. politicians have put gun-control laws across the country at risk with a court more likely to uphold the rulings than to reverse them. It has also put the rest of us in the uncomfortable position of giving the right to gun ownership the same fair reading as more favored rights of free press or free speech.

…

Liberal Commenters on the article are fuming check it out here .

h/t: Hot Air

t/b: Stop The ACLU

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Hillcare fundraiser, and alleged money bundler, Norman Hsu was captured in a Colorado Hospital.

San Jose Mercury News reports :

Norman Hsu’s quickly jumpstarted life on the lam came to a screeching stop less than 48 hours after it began when he got sick on the California Zephyr and was nabbed after being rushed to a Colorado hospital, according to the FBI.

The prolific Democratic fundraiser and fugitive was busted at 7 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time by FBI agents from the Denver office, according to Special Agent Joseph M. Schadler in the FBI’s San Francisco office.

He was still in St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction – 250 miles west of Denver – Thursday evening, according to Pete Smarr, a nursing supervisor. Smarr declined to say what Hsu was suffering from – other than to report him in custody and in “fair” condition.

Hsu was traveling on Train #6, according to Cliff Cole, an Amtrak spokesman. Hsu boarded the train in Emeryville and was scheduled to get off the train in Denver, Cole said. Cole had no information as to who – if anyone – Hsu may have been traveling with.

Hsu was arrested on federal charges of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, according to a statement released Thursday night by the FBI.

He will at some point be returned to California to be sentenced in San Mateo Superior Court in connection with his 1991 conviction, according to the release.

After Hsu is returned to state custody, the FBI added, federal charges are expected to be dismissed. The FBI credited help in the high profile bust to Grand Junction police, the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the U.S. State Department Diplomatic Security Service.

Hsu had fled the law for the second time by skipping out on a Wednesday court date – and $2 million bail – in Redwood City.

…

t/b: Wizbang ,  Michelle Malkin , Hot Air

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What started out as an effort to recall a school board member that had missed 9 out of the last 17 meetings has now turned into needed legislation. Why you might ask? Because state law currently allows for recall of all elected county officials with the exception of school board members for unchartered counties, of which we are one.

After finding out that we had elected officials who cannot be recalled we checked into the attendance requirements for school board members only to find out that there are none. There are rules that mandate attendance requirements for students and for the school advisory panel which is a volunteer position, but not for the people who are actually being paid. The local school board could set their own attendance requirements but when asked to add it to the agenda for a vote the board chairwoman refused to even discuss it. Judy Kennedy, a concerned citizen, addressed the board to discuss this and followed it up with a letter asking for it to be added to the agenda of an upcoming meeting. The response she received was done on school board letterhead and stated, “I am in receipt of your letter. I will not bring up an attendance policy for elected school board members at the next meeting or any other meeting. If any other member wishes to bring this up for discussion, then I will address the issue.”

Needless to say no one wants to bring this up on the agenda. The bottom line here is that we have an elected school board that is held to no standards. The way it is currently set up a person could be elected and never attend one school board meeting while still making a paycheck of $37,500 per year. The only way they can be removed is by the Governor, but since there is no attendance requirement, there are no grounds to remove them. This should be unaccepatable to all voters! When one considers that there are only 24 meetings per year each lasting approximately 2 hours I don’t think it’s too much for the voters to ask that they attend these meetings. While the majority of our school board members do attend the meetings we need to have some kind of accountability for those who do not. If you want to get involved with this issue please contact Representative John Legg at john.leg@myfloridahouse.gov and let him know you believe some accountability is needed by our local school board .

From George:

The school board member that missed the 9 meetings was paid $14062.50 for her non-attendence. Not a bad paycheck for a do nothing, non caring elected official.

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A friend of mine in my hometown in New York lost his long time hunting companion in 2005.

My friend , Mike Kelly, is a recently retired outdoor columnist for the Post Standard in Syracuse. This is his tribute to Harley, his Springer Spaniel that had to be put down.

With Mike’s permission I am posting his story of his long relationship with Harley.

Farewell, Old Girl

On Nov. 18, the final day of the local pheasant season, I tumbled a nice cockbird that erupted from a patch of goldenrod with my English springer spaniel in hot pursuit.

When the rooster hit the ground, Harley pinned it in place with one paw, just like she’d always done, and look proudly in my direction, as if to ask, “How’d I do, boss?”

By my reckoning, she did just fine.

Guiding Light Harley, named after a soap opera character, was the best hunting partner I ever had. She was a beloved family member and a loyal protector with lots of bark and no bite.

On Tuesday, Harley died in my arms.

Dr. Stephen Bruck, a Marcellus veterinarian with a deep well of compassion, administered the fatal needle at my request. I wept convulsively, and that night I lay awake, thinking how quickly 13 years had passed.

My wife, Chickie, and I picked Harley from a litter of pups born in May 1992, in Vestal. I liked her black and white markings and the plucky way she climbed over her siblings to greet visitors.

The day we took her home, Chickie drove and I held the whining puppy against my chest. In that brief time, we bonded forever.

Under my wife’s guidance, Harley quickly learned to sit, stay and come, but her obvious intelligence did not deter her from mischief.

Like most puppies, she liked to chew on dangling fingers and wooden furniture legs, so we sought to channel the habit by giving her our daughter Brenna’s discarded cloth hand puppet, which at the time looked like a cartoon mouse.

Although the puppet was quickly chewed beyond recognition, Harley continued to play with it constantly, and we soon referred to it as her security blanket or simply, “blankey.” Even in her old age, Harley would fetch that odd, stinky toy to show our houseguests.

When Harley wasn’t trotting around with blankey in her mouth, she was apt to be boxing with our late cat, Tabby. They often sparred in the family room, Tabby lying on her back and flicking jabs in the air while Harley circled her, darting and barking. It was a hoot to watch.

If Harley could be a bit of a clown at home, she was deadly serious in the field. She was barely five months old when she flushed her first pheasant, a left-over from a summer field trial at the Three Rivers Wildlife Management Area. There were hundreds more birds after that one.

If Harley had any significant weakness as a hunter, it was her unwillingness to retrieve, which I always attributed to the sharp peck on the nose a wounded rooster gave her during her rookie year afield. Ever thereafter, instead of picking up a shot bird, she’d simply hold it down or stand by it until I collected it myself.

That flaw aside, she was a hunting machine. She had a radar nose, the stamina of a marathon runner and indescribable determination. She quartered instinctively, seldom ranging more than 25 or 30 yards in front of me, and promptly changed directions when I whistled or signaled left or right with my outstretched hand.

Once I realized Harley knew more about pheasants than I did, I simply tagged along, shotgun at the ready, while she slashed through fields like a canine Grim Reaper.

The number of pheasants Harley accounted for in her career was impressive, and might have been astronomical if not for my absentmindedness. One night when Harley was 2 years old, I let her out to do her duty and then simply forgot about her. An hour later there was a knock on the door and a stranger asked if we owned a black and white dog.

The car that struck Harley broke her pelvis and smashed her right hip. After emergency surgery, she underwent femoral head-and-neck surgery, a procedure in which her hip socket was essentially sawed off. Months later she was back harassing pheasants, a little slower than she used to be but even more determined.

Harley hit her peak at age 8, like most flushing dogs, but kept on ticking into her pre-teens. It was only this fall that she slowed appreciably.

During her preseason runs, Harley tripped and fell several times and occasionally ran with her right rear leg held inches off the ground. In addition, she suddenly grew hard of hearing.

I kept her subsequent workouts short. Since she could no longer hear my commands, I took care to hunt where I could watch her at all times.

It seemed her career was coming to an end, but on an early November visit to a Southern Tier shooting preserve Harley performed like a champ, flushing seven of eight birds stocked before our hunt.

On that season-ending junket at Three Rivers, my tough little buddy did so well that I began to think she had one more year in her.

Those dreams were dashed the day before Thanksgiving. That afternoon Harley didn’t eat her dinner – the first time we could remember her refusing anything remotely edible. She barely lapped her water and had labored breathing.

Dr. Bruck’s gentle hands detected an enlarged liver, and the veterinarian also informed us that Harley was feverish and seriously dehydrated. He wanted to keep her a couple of days to administer fluids and antibiotics, intravenously. At first he was hopeful, but on the sixth day he called us to the clinic.

Harley had taken a definite turn for the worse. Her skin and eyes had turned yellow. She was eating next to nothing. It was a gut-wrenching decision, but after a tearful few minutes together, we lifted Harley up onto the examining table.

Since then our house seems terribly empty. When I pull into the driveway, I half expect to hear Harley’s bark, and in one corner of my eye I can still see her curled in that old green armchair.

Yet I am not going to lose myself in mourning. Come spring, my wife and I are going to start looking for another little springer spaniel with a spunky attitude and black freckles on her white chest.

She won’t be Harley, but if we give our new pup half a chance, we will learn to love her, too.

Rest in peace, old girl.

Mike and Chickie have acquired a new addition for their family, Daisy, another Springer Spaniel. Mike says she is not another Harley but special to them in her own way. I am sure Daisy will find a special place in their hearts as Harley did.

tracked to: Leaning Straight Up , Perri Nelson’s Website

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Now Rosie O’Donnell has gone off the deep end. Her blog features one of her adopted children wearing a terrorist outfit complete with an ammunition belt. O’Donnell has reached the pinnacle of ignorance and stupidity with this stunt.

The woman is off the deep end.

(And I am sure she hasn’t hit bottom yet)

Others blogging this story: Hot Air

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The Iraqi Government Interior Minister has reported The leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq Abu al-Masri has been killed. The BBC is reporting:

The interior ministry in Iraq says it has received intelligence that the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq has been killed. Abu Ayyub al-Masri, believed to be an Egyptian, has led the group since June 2006 when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a US air strike. Al-Qaeda in Iraq is blamed for or has claimed some of the bloodiest insurgent attacks in Iraq since 2003. According to Iraqi officials, al-Masri was killed in an "internal battle" between militants.

Linked to: Hot Air

Technorati Tags: Iraq, Al Qaeda, Global War On Terrorism, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, Baghdad, Brig Gen Abdel Karim Khalaf, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, US military
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One form of Infanticide still ruled illegal:

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Don Imus has been fired by CBS Radio effective immediately:

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