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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jlallen who wrote (551821)	3/15/2004 10:13:03 AM
From: AurumRabosa	Respond to of 769670

Beyond the Duck Blind (March 15, 2004) Supreme Court arguments are only six weeks away in the Sierra Club's challenge to the secrecy surrounding Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force and the formulation of the Bush administration's energy policy. And Justice Antonin Scalia, Mr. Cheney's duck-hunting buddy, still stubbornly resists stepping out of the case. To protect the Supreme Court's integrity and legitimacy — and honor the rule of law — the final choice can no longer be left to Justice Scalia alone. Unless he suddenly reverses himself, the Supreme Court as a whole has a duty to intervene, much as it reviews the recusal decisions of lower-court judges. As late-night comedians have embarrassingly noted, again and again, Justice Scalia went duck hunting with Mr. Cheney, and accepted free rides on Air Force Two for himself and his daughter, shortly after the Supreme Court agreed to hear the task-force case. Mr. Cheney had appealed a lower-court's order to reveal the names of some of the people who helped formulate President Bush's energy policies in 2001. Extended private socializing between a litigant and a judge poised to hear his case triggers serious concerns, not least because it gives one side a chance to talk about the case without the opposite side present. Justice Scalia has said the case did not come up, which is reassuring but inadequate. Federal judges at all levels are legally mandated to disqualify themselves from cases in which their "impartiality might reasonably be questioned." This case plainly meets that standard. No matter how Justice Scalia might rule, his involvement would hurt the court's reputation. When the Sierra Club moved formally for Justice Scalia's recusal, the court properly referred the motion to him initially. The court has a practice of letting individual justices handle their own recusal issues and Chief Justice William Rehnquist and the other justices probably do not relish second-guessing Justice Scalia's personal contacts. But Justice Scalia has had time to do the proper thing, and his eight colleagues now need to render an institutional judgment on the widely expressed concern about his impartiality. The swelling controversy has exposed other less egregious but still troubling outside activities by Justice Scalia. The Los Angeles Times recently reported that he delivered a speech to a $150-a-plate dinner of an anti-gay advocacy group in Philadelphia even as the Supreme Court was deliberating in the Texas sodomy case last year. This problem is not Justice Scalia's alone. On the other side of the court's ideological spectrum, as another L.A. Times article noted, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg maintains involvement in a lecture series named for her that is co-sponsored by New York City's bar association and the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, which frequently participates in Supreme Court cases. Justice Ginsburg is relatively circumspect in her public remarks, but it's still unwise for her to retain an ongoing affiliation with such an active advocacy and litigation group. As the newly released papers of the late Justice Harry Blackmun demonstrated, Supreme Court justices are human beings with intellectual and personal strengths, foibles and frailties. They cannot be expected to live in a bubble, never speaking before bar organizations, for example, or expressing anything but the most innocuous personal views. Like the rest of the world, legal and judicial ethics are full of nuances. Everyone would benefit from an overall reappraisal of what kinds of actions are exemplary, borderline or unacceptable. That said, Justice Scalia chose a terrible moment to go duck hunting with the vice president and ride on his airplane. That decision, and his refusal to recuse himself in the upcoming case, are clear examples of bad judgment that his colleagues on the court can no longer responsibly ignore. nytimes.com

To: jlallen who wrote (551821)	3/15/2004 10:21:52 AM
From: goldworldnet	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

British jihadist depicts U.S. Capitol in flames Sheikh who operates openly around world supports al-Qaida © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com worldnetdaily.com Radical British Islamist Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, never one to shy away from incitement, now maintains on his website a prominent picture of the U.S. Capitol in flames, reports Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin. The image runs under a headline promoting one of his conferences in London – "How the Khilafah will be restored and man-made law destroyed." Bakri has boasted openly about exploiting the freedom of speech in the West as a weapon against it – to "transform the West into Dar Al-Islam," or House of Islam. "I want to see the black flag of Islam flying over Downing Street," he has said. His al-Muhajiroun group is dedicated to this goal. How does he get away with such inflammatory rhetoric? "As long as my words do not become actions, they do no harm," he explains. "Here, the law does not punish you for words, as long as there is no proof you have carried out actions. In such a case you are still on the margins of the law, and they cannot punish you. If they want to punish you, they must present evidence against you, otherwise their laws will be in a state of internal contradiction." Al-Muhajiroun has chapters all over the world – including the United States. It actively supports the ideology of Osama bin Laden and Bakri has long been suspected of having ties to al-Qaida. Part of Bakri's al-Muhajiroun empire is the website – which has called for the death by crucifixion, or worse, of the real terrorists: Americans and their Muslim proxies in Pakistan. According to Sheik Omar, Muslims in the West have very serious responsibilities in preparing the people to embrace Islam or to accept the Islamic way of life. Al-Muhajiroun calls for Muslims in the West to "be the front line of the coming Khilafah ... to become strong and united in order to become the fifth column, which is able to put pressure on the enemies of Islam and to be able to support the Muslim Ummah worldwide." The organization believes that "bonding the Muslim community in the West with the Muslims globally" is the secret to setting off a "worldwide Islamic revolution." Bakri has said the West is guilty of imposing "man-made law" on Muslims, but that a "[future] Islamic regime will impose Islamic religious rulings on them." "Either we preach to them [the West] and they will accept [Islam], or we will live among them and they will be influenced by our lives and will accept Islam as a political solution to their problems, not as an ideological solution," he said. The Syrian-born Bakri also said, "Islam defended the religion of the Christians, the Jews, and others, and stated that 'there is no coercion in religion.' But the coercion is in the laws. Laws can be Islamic-religious and they can be man-made." "Allah willing, we will transform the West into Dar Al-Islam [that is, a region under Islamic rule] by means of invasion without," said Bakri. "If an Islamic state arises and invades [the West] we will be its army and its soldiers from within. If not, [we will change the West] through ideological invasion … without war and killing." * * *