BoldlyRide

Okay, bad joke -- but her name is an anagram for plain -- I also note that Glen Close did play the role of a vice president at one time.

The good thing about the pick: It's not Lieberman or some other "moderate" choice guaranteed to split the party--we've already got McCain for that. I guess Romney was likewise out by virtue of evangelical blackmail.

So McCain picks a relative unknown. The Obamaphiles' retort is that she lacks experience, particularly foreign policy experience. I guess we should contrast that charge against all of the experience BHO has as a -- what was it again? Oh, a "community organizer."-- Funny they worry about her being just a heartbeat away from the presidency and so young and inexperienced, just being a governor, the chief executive officer of the largest state in the union; yet they promote a jr. senator whose past is cloaked in secrecy and who claims to be a uniter but his brief record clearly proclaims him the uberliberal partisan member of the chamber. Up to that last semicolon I was tempted to talk of pots and kettles, but I am constrained.

My 2 criticisms of Palin: (1) Her voice is not merely like fingers on a chalkboard to me; it's more like C-3P0 being slowly eaten by a metal shredder. (And in a salute to Joe Biden, let me give credit to James Lileks, from whom I believe I lifted that C-3P0 simile--although I forget for what it was that he was using it (That's Lileks, not Biden, who was using it). And (2) The picture they put on at least one of campaign the posters seems to be a poor pick for the former beauty queen; the glasses look like they were drawn on by my daughter well after the poster was printed. Oh, and my other second criticism: How many electoral votes does Alaska have?

Okay, so my criticisms are lacking in substance--but then again, so are most of my observations. Nevertheless, I pull no punches--it's just that I can't hit very hard.

The largest single work-place immigration raid in the U.S. history (so far) happened in Laurel, Mississippi. This story:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,411121,00.html
reports that many of the other workers applauded as nearly 600 illegals were taken into custody. As you might expect, the AP story concentrated on the trauma to the families, not knowing what was happening to their loved ones, and how many of the illegals didn't sent their children to school the next day out of fear. I especially appreciated the comment from the attorney representing some of the illegals: "There was no communication, an immediate loss of any kind of news and a lack of understanding of what's happening to their loved ones," -- Perhaps he expects law enforcement to schedule counseling sessions with the illegals and their families (who may also be illegals) before detaining and prosecuting and/or deporting them.

There are a couple important points to note: 1) No where in the report are the words "illegal aliens" or "illegal immigrants" used. The illegals are simply referred to as immigrants; and 2) these illegals were working at a plant along with American Workers -- these are not jobs that Americans won't do, but rather are good paying jobs that could be filled by Americans and legal immigrants.

While the rest of world turns to the DNC, I note that the French Head of State pulls a page from the American Playbook of Self Condemnation and turns it into a double reverse. Sarkozy condemns his own nation's conduct over the last 64 years in ignoring the massacre of French citizens by German troops in Maille in August 1944. The liberal elite of the United States might have chosen to explain how those murdered citizens really brought the catastrophe upon themselves by their mistreatment of the environment, their misguided opposition to Nazi Totalitarianism, and their evil and foolhardy defense of their homes and families. Sarkozy found the memorial of the atrocity an apt occassion for also remembering the French soldiers killed in a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan and to call for a stand against such barbarism and terrorism. -- I bet we don't anything like that from Michelle Obama or any of the other Defeatocrats at the conventions.

Here is the story on Sarkozy:

http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2008/08/25/nicolas-sarkozy-a-maille-la-france-a-commis-une-faute-morale_1087737_3224.html

"The law is clear: Texas is bound not by the World Court, but by the U.S. Supreme Court, which reviewed this matter and determined that this convicted murderer's execution shall proceed," said Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for the Texas Attorney General's Office.
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Aug03/0,4670,TexasExecution,00.html

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City has warned of "possible protests."


The Medellin case to which reference was made came about as a result of the International Justice Court's decision in The Hague which held in the Avena decision that
"based on violations of the Vienna Convention, 51 named
Mexican nationals were entitled to review and reconsideration
of their state-court convictions and sentences in
the United States. This was so regardless of any forfeiture
of the right to raise Vienna Convention claims because of a
failure to comply with generally applicable state rules
governing challenges to criminal convictions."

Medellin, who is named in the Avena decision, brought a petition for a writ of habeus corpus claiming that prior to giving his written confession to brutal rape and murder, he was not notified of his right under the Vienna Convention to contact the Mexican Consulate. The Texas court dismissed his petition as untimely for his failure to raise the issue at trial or on direct appeal. Pres. Bush had issued a memorandum directing state courts to comply with Avena. Texas declined to comply. Two narrow questions were presented to the USSC:

"First, is the ICJ’s judgment in Avena directly enforceable
as domestic law in a state court in the United States?
Second, does the President’s Memorandum independently
require the States to provide review and reconsideration of
the claims of the 51 Mexican nationals named in Avena
without regard to state procedural default rules? "

The USSC concluded that "neither Avena nor the President’s Memorandum
constitutes directly enforceable federal law that
pre-empts state limitations on the filing of successive
habeas petitions."

Here are some of the elements of the Court's reasoning:
"In sum, while treaties "may comprise international
commitments . . . they are not domestic law unless
Congress has either enacted implementing statutes or the
treaty itself conveys an intention that it be ‘self-executing’
and is ratified on these terms."

"[T]he ICJ’s judgment in
Avena does not automatically constitute federal law judicially
enforceable in United States courts."

"The pertinent international agreements...
not provide for implementation of ICJ judgments through
direct enforcement in domestic courts, and 'where a treaty
does not provide a particular remedy, either expressly or
implicitly, it is not for the federal courts to impose one on
the States through lawmaking of their own.'"

"Our Framers established a careful set of procedures that
must be followed before federal law can be created under
the Constitution—vesting that decision in the political
branches, subject to checks and balances. U. S. Const.,
Art. I, §7. They also recognized that treaties could create
federal law, but again through the political branches, with
the President making the treaty and the Senate approving
it. Art. II, §2. The dissent’s understanding of the treaty
route, depending on an ad hoc judgment of the judiciary
without looking to the treaty language—the very language
negotiated by the President and approved by the Senate—
cannot readily be ascribed to those same Framers."

"Medellín’s interpretation would allow ICJ judgments to override
otherwise binding state law; there is nothing in his logic
that would exempt contrary federal law from the same
fate. See, e.g., Cook v. United States, 288 U. S. 102, 119
(1933) (later-in-time self-executing treaty supersedes a
federal statue if there is a conflict). And there is nothing
to prevent the ICJ from ordering state courts to annul
criminal convictions and sentences, for any reason deemed
sufficient by the ICJ. Indeed, that is precisely the relief
Mexico requested."

As for the President's Memorandum the Court said:
"The President has an array of political
and diplomatic means available to enforce international
obligations, but unilaterally converting a non-selfexecuting
treaty into a self-executing one is not among
them. The responsibility for transforming an international
obligation arising from a non-self-executing treaty
into domestic law falls to Congress."