Archive for August, 2010

Gregory D. Lee

In January 2009, I wrote a column about how former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich appointed Roland Burris to replace Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate in an effort to spoil the jury pool. Sure enough, one or more jurors hung on 23 of the 24 counts, and gave him a second chance to win an acquittal of those charges.

There are motions before the court to disclose the identities of the jurors, and it will be revealing if the juror(s) who couldn’t decide whether or not Blago was guilty were influenced by his appointment of Mr. Burris.  Just maybe, my boasting is premature, but I would be surprised if I was wrong.

See?

The jurors, when polled by the prosecution and the press, said the jury instructions were like getting a manual on how to fly the space shuttle.  That’s a great point. When I teach law enforcement officers how to conduct conspiracy investigations, I always emphasize that you have to make the case understandable to your jury. Investigators must produce evidence that even the O.J. Simpson jury would understand and be willing to vote to convict.

Despite this, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and his assistants presented evidence that a jury of third-year law students might find challenging. That’s why it took almost three weeks for the jury to come to its verdict.

In any event, I am certain that Blago’s defense attorney, Ed Genson, decided that it was never too early to taint a Chicago jury pool. And, he did a magnificent job doing it. He was searching for just one individual who felt that this was “politics as usual” in Chicago, and he obviously found at least one.

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Dan Calabrese

You probably don’t even realize it, because there are few headlines saying so. And God knows the president of the United States won’t use the word, which tells you a lot about the current president of the United States.

But the United States won a war this week. A big one. A long one. We completed our victory in Iraq. We won.

Yes.

It took seven years. It cost us 4,416 lives, which is 4,416 too many, but still far, far less than we have ever lost before in a war of any significance. We ousted Saddam Hussein, who threatened his neighbors (and out-and-out attacked two of them), did his best to develop nuclear weapons and, despite what you think, supported terrorists everywhere from Israel – where he routinely sent $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers – to his own backyard, where he harbored Achille Lauro hijacker Abu Abbas, to the rest of the world, where his connections to Al Qaeda (the ones you always read didn’t exist), threatened the security of pretty much everyone.

And let’s not forget Saddam’s oppression and torture of his own people, from the rare but brave political dissident to the Olympic soccer team member who didn’t acquit himself well on the field.

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Bob Franken

So let’s get this straight, Sarah (may I call you Sarah?). You fiercely defend talk show host Laura Schlessinger’s repeated use the “N-word” on her radio program because of her First Amendment protections but oppose the exercise of Muslims’ First Amendment rights to build a Mosque near the 9/11 site.

Hypocrite.

To review the recent Palin Twittergrams: re: Schlessinger: “Don’t retreat…reload!” (What does that even mean?) and her constitutional privileges “ceased 2exist thx 2activists trying 2silence her” (which is almost 2cute, but hey, the Freedom of Expression she cites for Schlessinger applies 2her2.)

But when the Mamma Grizzly roared from her cave at Fox News about the lower Manhattan Islamic Center, that was a “stab in the heart” which didn’t deserve the Freedom of Religion in that very same opening sentence in the Bill of Rights.

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Dan Calabrese

This is so easy, it’s almost unfair to do it, but let’s be unfair. Imagine: Early in the Afghanistan War, U.S. fighter jets take out a prominent mosque in Kabul. As soon as the debris is cleared away, the Bush Administration deeds the land over to Franklin Graham, who announces he will build a missionary Christian church on the site.

Now, what are they writing in the New York Times, Mother Jones and Salon?

Exactly.

I love my country, but . . .

When it was decided that a mosque should be built at the World Trade Center site – not exactly on the site of the Twin Towers, but close enough that the building at the actual site was damaged by the debris – the developers could not have been so clueless as to think no one would be upset. You don’t have believe that attending a mosque means supporting terrorism – and I, for the record, do not – to understand that such a decision is highly provocative.

Why, then, has the American left embraced support for this project – almost as if they want it to be a defining issue in the current political environment? Indeed, it seems that the more upset right-wingers become about the mosque, the more virulently left-wingers support it.

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Dacia Nichol Taylor

I really hope this will be the last thing I write about the Ground Zero mosque. I think they will build elsewhere and we can turn this page in the history book of uncertainty. The whole question, answer, and follow-up session is really causing heartstrings to pull and tempers to flare, which one would think should be completely unnecessary since the idea of that sort of building in that particular place is just … unthinkable. Since the discussion has begun however, there’s more to add, it seems.

There's a whole big country out there.

We thought we had a short story when really, it’s the introduction to a novel.

I’m not sure how this feels to anyone else out there who’s against the building of this mosque, but in my eyes the script has totally flipped in a matter of days from “how could they?” to “how could you?” Given the outrage at the president’s remarks, whether or not any wisdom was mentioned in them, perhaps it’s no surprise that in answering the call to defend their failed messiah, the liberal army has set out on a fact-finding mission to, once again, determine what exactly is wrong with this country.

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Bob Franken

It’s time for us to admit it. Americans…at least a lot of us, simply don’t like Muslims very much. A lot has been made of the recent CNN survey about that proposed mosque at the 9/11 site. Politicians, particularly those on the right, have jumped all over the 68 percent negative response when respondents were asked whether they favored or opposed constructing that particular Islamic Center. But a new one gives the more complete picture.

Let's just be honest here...

Time Magazine’s brand new poll gets to a much more relevant fundamental issue when it shows a full 43 percent disapproval of Islam…not the proposed New York mosque but the religion itself.

The demagogues know that full well. But they’ve gotten a free pass. They’ve been allowed to tiptoe around our ugly true feelings and declare they are for religious diversity and all that good stuff, just against the mosque on that particular site…”sacred ground” that it is.

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Jill Ciminillo

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.—I have to admit it. I am slightly underwhelmed by the styling on the all-new 2011 Volkswagen Jetta.

It is conservative, masculine, strong, bold and, well, a little boring. Not that it’s hideous or anything. It’s just that there’s nothing really exceptional that calls your attention to the car. In fact, during the time that I drove the Jetta around San Francisco, not a single person gawked or did a second take.

2011 VW Jetta

That never happens when a completely new car is out and about—and it’s not yet in production. When people see an all-new car, they typically ask questions. So, the only thing I can figure is that no one noticed the 2011 Jetta.

And that’s a damn shame because this new iteration of the Jetta is really nice—especially when you consider a base price of $16K.

For 2011, Volkswagen drops more than $1,000 off the price tag and lines up the Honda Civic in the crosshairs.

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Dacia Nichol Taylor

I was looking forward to writing about Mitt Romney today, but a friend of mine beat me to the punch. Thus, I move on to the next topic that pushed my rant button: Dr. Laura Schlessinger, or as those of us who slur when they drink too much coffee call her, Dr. Laura.

Backwards.

Now why would I rant about the great crusader for conservative women?  Well, because I was raised to believe that I can have as many cakes as I want, and eating them was the whole point of making the purchase. In other words: I’m a career mom, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I was raised by a career mom, and I am grateful of the numerous lessons she taught me from that perspective.

I don’t even think it’s necessary for me to address Dr. Laura’s numerous personal shortcomings, which arguably disqualify her from offering valid family-value-centered advice, in order to explain my distaste for her message. She’s no Danny Bonaduce, a former child star who speaks from a humbled, “You don’t want to do what I did” perspective.

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Brett Noel

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Large version for newspaper publication.

Greyscale version for newspaper publication.

Bob Franken

This is directed at all the people who claim they are all for the First Amendment rights of the Muslims who want to construct a mosque at the 9/11 site but insist it’s an “insult” to build it there, a “stab in the heart” as Sarah Palin puts it, for the millions who have intense feelings about the September 11th attacks. More than one politician cries out that the proposed Islamic center would violate “sacred ground”.

Seriously?

Question: What do you think about the plans of Glenn Beck to hold a “Restoring Honor” rally at the Lincoln Memorial? Did I mention it is scheduled 47 years to the day after Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” rally on the very same spot?

To millions, that location on that date is also “sacred ground”, which will be defiled by Beck and his followers.

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