Hey, Geraldo …

Illegal Alien Cop Killer Could Face Death Penalty

By Penny Starr

(CNSNews.com) - A Harris County, Texas, jury is beginning deliberations in the punishment phase of the capital murder trial of an illegal alien who killed a Houston police officer. was convicted May 8 of killing Officer Rodney Johnson after Johnson pulled over Quintero in September 2006.

Quintero had a previous conviction for driving while intoxicated, and he received deferred adjudication for indecency with a child before being deported to his native Mexico in 1999. He slipped back into the country that same year.

In 2006, as Quintero sat handcuffed in the back of Johnson’s police cruiser, he took a gun from his waistband and shot the 12-year police veteran seven times as Johnson was filling out paperwork in the front seat of his vehicle.

Before convicting Quintero, the jury rejected the defense’s claim that a childhood head injury and excessive alcohol consumption since the age of eight led to the killing.

Lead defense attorney Danalynn Recer, who also is the founder and executive director of the Gulf Region Advocacy Center, which represents indigent persons charged with capital crimes in the state courts of Texas and Louisiana, argued that Quintero was “not guilty by reason of insanity.”

“There’s no way Mr. Quintero … logically, rationally decided to shoot Officer Johnson,” Recer said. “It’s a puzzle that we have to put together.”

“Officer Johnson was a hero,” Recer said in her closing remarks. “He was a family man. We have an explanation. It’s just not the quick, easy, bumper-sticker explanation the prosecution wants you to believe.”

Johnson, who was 40 when he was gunned down, was described by colleagues, family and friends as a dedicated father and husband. Before joining the Houston police force, he was a corrections officer with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and served in the U.S. Army.

He is survived by his wife of seven years, Joslyn, also a police officer, three daughters and two sons.

American Thinker:

Barack Obama’s call to action is “Change we can believe in.” I would love to believe it, but until now I haven’t even been able to understand it. What is going to change? With his latest about face on direct talks with Iran’s Ahmadinejad, Obama has finally clarified what he is going to change: his opinion. From terror to funding for tots, where there’s controversy and two sides to be wooed, there is the Obama about-face.

On unconditional presidential meeting with terror-sponsoring states: Yes to No

This week, Obama’s key foreign policy advisor, Susan E. Rice, told the New York Times that Obama never claimed he would be willing to meet “unconditionally” with Iran’s president Mr. Ahmadinejad. Dr. Rice said that Obama would not meet at the presidential level with this Iran or any other so-called “rogue” state without the preparation to use such a meeting as leverage for change. In fact, it was only right-wing machinations or imagination that “distorted and reframed” Obama’s views.

That was certainly a change from numerous statements candidate Obama made on the same topic. Did John McCain enter the following posting on Obama’s campaign website? “Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions.”

Nothing could have been clearer than Obama’s response to Anderson Cooper during the YouTube debate. (transcript)

COOPER: In the spirit of that type of bold leadership, would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries? Senator Obama?

OBAMA: I would..

On talking with the terrorist group Hamas: No to Yes (but it wasn’t really me)

Obama has repeatedly stated that he would not engage in talks with Hamas until the group stopped its terror campaign against Israel, yet on May 9, 2008 the Times of London reported that Obama adviser Robert Malley, a noted critic of Israel, had been conducting talks with Hamas. Of course, Malley’s position of advisor was downgraded to “informal.” How did Obama fire Malley if the man never worked for him?

On driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants: Yes to huh?

As an Illinois state senator, Obama voted to require illegal immigrants get a license. His position seemed cleared, yet when Wolf Blitzer questioned Obama about his stance, the response was anything but clear. From the November 15, 2007 debate:

BLITZER: “I take it, Senator Obama, you support giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. Is that right?” OBAMA:”…I have to make sure that people understand the problem we have here is not driver’s licenses. Undocumented workers don’t come here to drive. (Laughter) they don’t go - they’re not coming here to go to the In-N-Out Burger. That’s not the reason they’re here. They’re here to work. And so instead of being distracted by what has now become a wedge issue, let’s focus on actually solving the problem that… this administration, the Bush administration, has done nothing about.”

BLITZER: “Do you support or oppose driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants?”

OBAMA: “I am not proposing that that’s what we do. What I’m saying is that we can’t - No, no, no, no, look, I have already said I support the notion that we have to deal with public safety and that driver’s licenses at the state level can make that happen.

Whatever the response really meant, it does not sound like a man who sticks to his convictions.

Funding child welfare: No to Yes

Sometimes the change of opinion is framed as an accidentally incorrect vote; for example, there was the time Barack Obama voted to cut millions of dollars from a Chicago-area child welfare office. When angry Democrats rebuked him, Obama claimed that he was not aware that he had voted no. It may have been a mistake or an easy way to placate both sides of an issue.

Freer rules for riverboat casinos: Yes to No

When Chicago churches were opposing looser rules for riverboat casinos in 1997, Obama cast his vote with the gambling industry. After the measure passed, Obama stated that he wanted to be recorded as voting “no.” Voting both sides of an issue could perhaps garner him support from both churches and casinos.

Reverend Wright: Didn’t say it, didn’t hear it, isn’t accurate, is justifiable, is unacceptable

The number of opinion reversals on Reverend Wright are mind-spinning: his church is not especially controversial, he never heard the hate-speech, the snippets of the sermons are “charicatures peddled by some commentators,” the pastor’s remarks were akin to those made by Obama’s white grandmother, rejecting the anti-American and anti-Semitic minister would be rejecting all of black America, and on and on. Obama thus courts the radical left by participating comfortably in its extremism and mollifies middle American with a range of excuses.

Iraq War: It’s dumb, I might be wrong, We can win, Failure would be a disaster, Failure’s inevitable, I don’t know, Reduce troops, not withdraw, Withdraw troops, Maybe?

Although Obama boasts that his is the Democratic candidate that has not changed its tune on the Iraq War, he has been quoted singing different lyrics. The Boston Globe online tracks some of Obama’s variations.

October 2, 2002, Chicago Wearing a war is not an option pin, Obama called to the crowd,” The Iraq war is a dumb war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle, but on politics.”

When America was obtaining clear victories on the ground in Iraq, Obama wrote in The Audacity of Hope, “I began to suspect that I might have been wrong [about the war]”

On March 28, 2003, on CNN, Obama claimed, “I absolutely want to make sure that the troops have sufficient support to be able to win.”

At the Democratic National Convention that July, 2004, his only mention of the war was, “There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it.”

July, 2004 “The failure of the Iraqi state would be a disaster…It would dishonor the 900-plus men and women who have already died. . . . It would be a betrayal of the promise that we made to the Iraqi people, and it would be hugely destabilizing from a national security perspective.”.

July 26, 2004 “I’m not privy to Senate intelligence reports. What would I have done? I don’t know.” The New York Times

2004 “I’m always careful to say that I was not in the Senate, so perhaps the reason I thought [the war] was such a bad idea was that I didn’t have the benefit of U.S. intelligence,” The New Yorker

November 2005 speech, he called for a gradual withdrawal of forces. “Notice that I say ‘reduce,’ and not ‘fully withdraw [troops]’”

December, 2005), “It is arguable that the best politics going into ‘06 would be a clear, succinct message: ‘Let’s bring our troops home…But whether that’s the best policy right now, I don’t feel comfortable saying it is.” Chicago Tribune

July 2007 “Presidential hopeful Barack Obama said the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there.”

March, 2008 Obama’s website states, “Obama will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months.”

March 7, 2008 Obama’s then key foreign policy advisor Samantha Power, spoke on the commitment to get combat forces out in 16 months. “You can’t make a commitment in March 2008 about what circumstances will be like in January of 2009.”

Although I still don’t know how a President Obama would change the nation or if these “changes” would benefit or harm the country, I now know that there is a change I can believe in. Just present Barack Obama with a controversial issue which requires a firm stand on principle, and we are guaranteed change.

Anybody remember what Travis Bickle did to “Sport”?

Touchy subject with me…Send these people my way, I got justice for them…

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Federal prosecutors on Monday unsealed an indictment against a man and woman accused of training the woman’s child to be a dominatrix, selling her services and photographing some of the acts.

U.S. Attorney John Wood said the case is the first in which a parent of the victim has been charged with the commercial sex trafficking of his or her own minor child.

Todd B. Barkau, 35, of New York, and the 44-year-old mother were charged in the seven-count indictment. Both used to live in Blue Springs, Mo. in the same household.

From Jan. 1, 2002, until Feb. 20, 2005, Barkau created a venture to entice the minor to engage in commercial sex acts, according to the indictment.

“The court filings allege that Barkau obtained control of a 12-year-old girl and he groomed, trained and forced her to become a sexual dominatrix,” Wood said at a news conference in Kansas City on Monday.

Barkau was arrested near the Niagara Falls area in New York and had an initial court appearance on Saturday in Buffalo, N.Y., Wood said.

The mother was arrested on Friday in Dallas and was scheduled to have an initial court appearance Monday in federal court. The mother’s name is not being published to protect the identity of the victim, who is now 20 years old.

Federal prosecutors, who had investigated the case for nearly two years, have filed a detention motion to detain both in federal custody without bond.

The indictment accused Barkau of training the girl, starting in 2000, and forcing her to engage in sex acts with him and with other men while he watched. According to the indictment, Barkau also had the girl watch pornography on the Internet to teach technique and skills.

Barkau is also accused of later creating a business out of a Blue Springs home when the girl was 14 and marketing her as a 19-to-20-year-old BDSM dominatrix on the Internet for about two years. The domain name has since been sold, Wood said.

Wood said the mother, who lived in Barkau’s residence, assisted and encouraged the child to participate. She is charged with participating in a venture to entice a minor to engage in commercial sex acts and with inducing a child who was in her custody to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the production of visual depictions.

Prosecutors will also seek $80,000 the couple is accused of making through the illegal acts.

Politico:

The current high spirits in the Obama campaign could be tempered in coming weeks when West Virginia and Kentucky voters render their verdict on the Democratic race.

And it’s not just that Hillary Rodham Clinton is heavily favored to win both states — but more than that they could further underline Obama’s lackluster support in Appalachia, a region that is ground zero for the sort of populist Reagan Democrats both parties will covet in the fall.

As Clinton noted this week, Obama’s lagging vote totals among white, working class voters in broad swaths of culturally conservative territory continue to feed doubts about his ability to expand his electoral base in Appalachia — a region which, according to one’s definition, can stretch from the cornfields of western New York all the way through the deltas of northern Mississippi.

That’s territory that includes states — Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia — that will be key to a Democratic victory in November. And some Democrats are already worried that John McCain is poised to scoop up crucial votes in the region if Obama is the Democratic nominee.

“McCain’s going to camp on the Pennsylvania-Ohio border” in Appalachian regions, said Democratic strategist Dave “Mudcat” Saunders, of Roanoke, Va. “He knows if he wins those states he can’t lose.”

Obama has consistently come up short in Appalachia, even when he was romping to victory nearby. Consider Obama’s 14-point victory in North Carolina on Tuesday, when he still soundly lost a series of counties near the Tennessee border, including Cherokee, Clay and Graham.

Clinton’s strong performance in the Appalachian region’s 11th Congressional District caused Rep. Heath Shuler, a North Carolina superdelegate, to throw his support behind the New York senator’s flagging campaign.

Virginia, another strong Obama primary state, also delivered the majority of its rural Appalachian votes to Clinton. In the Feb. 5 contest, Clinton overwhelmingly won a series of counties nestled in the state’s southwest corner between West Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina.

The numbers were similar in Ohio on March 4. Except for Cincinnati-based Hamilton County, every county along the Ohio River went for Clinton, often by over 70 percent. The Appalachian portion of Pennsylvania was equally strong for Clinton when she won statewide on April 22. Washington, Greene and Fayette counties, each along the Ohio or West Virginia state lines, each gave at least 71 percent of its vote to Clinton.

Democratic strategists chalk up Obama’s problems in the region to several factors. His race, many say privately, is clearly an obstacle in the predominately white region, as is an elitist image both the Clinton and McCain camps have worked hard to stamp him with.

But Obama’s Appalachian struggles do not faze supporters such as Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), even though Clinton won his district by an almost 2-to-1 margin.

Boucher suggested voters in his largely rural southwest Virginia district would ultimately gravitate to Obama’s message of economic development, telemedicine to expand health care, federal support for water infrastructure projects, and broadband development to provide expanded Internet service and attract high tech jobs.

“It’s a challenging region for Democratic presidential candidates under all circumstances,” Boucher said. “But I am absolutely confident that he will be even stronger than Sen. Clinton was in contending for the votes of rural voters.”

In the general election, “I do not anticipate a defection of Democratic voters away from Sen. Obama and to the Republicans,” Boucher said. “Sen. Obama has special qualities that will enable him to be more competitive” than previous Democratic nominees Al Gore and John F. Kerry, both of whom came up short in Boucher’s 9th District and statewide.

Democratic strategist Saunders, who worked for former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards’ presidential campaigns and helped propel Democrat Mark Warner into the Virginia governor’s mansion, said emphasis on issues over rhetorical style would be key for Obama.

“What people don’t understand about Appalachia is that we’ve heard all this ‘hope’ and ‘change’ stuff since the English kicked the Scotch-Irish out in the 1700s. We’re ‘hoped’ out. Nothing ever changes out here. He’s got to come with some solid policies.”

Rep. Nick J. Rahall, the longtime Democratic congressman from southern West Virginia, said Obama was a lot closer to Appalachia voters than might be apparent on the surface. After all, sections of central and southern Illinois bear a striking resemblance to much of Appalachia.

“Sen. Obama is from a coal state. Sen. Obama is for using coal in an environmentally sound manner. Sen. Obama’s familiar with these technologies,” Rahall said.

Moreover, the prolonged Democratic primary fight with Clinton has made rural voters more comfortable with Obama, Rahall said. That was on display in the Indiana primary this week, which Obama lost by a narrower margin than many had expected, and in which he kept down Clinton’s vote totals in some Ohio River counties.

“With each succeeding primary election, as Sen. Obama becomes more toughened, he will continue to improve,” Rahall said. Locals will “recognize that he is more attached to their issues than John McBush — I mean McCain.”

Questions over what factor Obama’s race will play in Appalachian voters’ decisions were brought into stark relief this week with Clinton’s comments about “white Americans” backing her over Obama. It’s a highly sensitive issue that is difficult to measure in polls and surveys, but also a reality Obama clearly must address.

“The South has changed a lot, but not that much,” Gary Pearce, a Democratic consultant in Raleigh, N.C., said of his state and surrounding areas.

But racial questions can be mitigated.

“The way he can change things is to increase the electorate — attract young people and independents,” Pearce said.

North Carolina, considered a safe Republican state in November, will be a good test of Obama’s message.

“There are some Democrats that think instead of getting 42 percent [about the average vote totals of Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004], he can get 47 percent,” Pearce said. “Four years from now, a lot of people think this could be a battleground state, with a rapidly growing, highly educated, more professional” populace.

Phillip J. Ardoin, political science professor at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., said Obama’s party affiliation, much more than his race, may be his undoing in parts of Appalachia.

“Religion plays a big role in this area of the state among white voters, and I am constantly surprised how many white social conservative voters continue to believe only the Republican Party can represent the interests of ‘Christians,’” Ardoin said. “The e-mails going around which question Obama’s religious views and patriotism have been popular and, I think, effective.”

And perhaps most daunting for Obama, not all of the concerns comes from expected quarters. Some Democrats who have backed Clinton in the primaries may very well give the Republicans another look, said Mary Ann Kominar of Kermit, W.Va. — the wife of 14-year state Del. K. Steven Kominar. Both are Clinton supporters.

“I have to support my party. I don’t ever intend to let my party down. But a lot of people are saying ‘McCain looks better every day,’” said Kominar, who lives in Mingo County, W.Va., just across the Kentucky state line.

“I’m opposed to Obama because of his religious beliefs. I believe Rev. [Jeremiah] Wright told me a whole lot,” Kominar said, echoing familiar Republican talking points. “The fact that [Obama] doesn’t pledge allegiance to the flag, he doesn’t wear a flag pin, concern me.”

Obama simply isn’t the right kind of Democrat for the region and would lose in West Virginia just as former party standard-bearers Gore and Kerry did, she said.

“I think over the years they’ve tried to force some very liberal New Englanders down our throat — Obama’s not from New England, but he still fits that mold.”

So … lemme git dis straight ah’ight?

Then WHY is it conservatives, such as those here at Dollard Nation, are days/weeks/months AHEAD of everyone else on these things? Hmmm???!!??

U.S. Needs More Oil Drilling, Not Higher Energy Taxes The Washington DC Examiner Newspaper

WASHINGTON - In a high-profile speech on the environment Monday, John McCain still foolishly defended the congressional ban on energy exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. As wrongheaded as McCain is on ANWR, however, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are even more misguided. Both favor a new windfall profits tax on oil companies that would do horrendous damage to America’s energy present and future.

ANWR’s coastal plain, about the size of Delaware, is estimated to contain more than 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil, enough to replace more than 20 years of imports from Saudi Arabia. New technology means that the area needed for actual drilling would be only about 2,000 acres, or roughly the size of a municipal airport. McCain last week insisted to talk show host Bill O’Reilly that the ANWR coastal plain is too “pristine” to consider drilling, but he couldn’t cite many facts. The area is boggy and treeless — and the vaunted caribou, about which environmentalists claim to worry so much, rarely use the area where drilling would be done. By the way, the caribou population in nearby Prudhoe Bay has gone from a mere 3,000 animals to more than 32,000 since drilling began there years ago.

McCain’s position on ANWR contradicts his own standards for governing energy exploration. In defending the ban against drilling off California’s coast, he cites “federalism” concerns, meaning that he thinks the people of California should make decisions about their own coastline.

But on ANWR, he resolutely ignores the 75 percent of Alaskans who consistently support drilling there. As the United States faces $4-per-gallon gasoline, McCain’s concern for stray caribou is an extremely harmful conceit.

McCain’s Democratic opponents propose to make things much worse at the gas pump. Obama wants a new energy profits tax to raise $15 billion a year, while Clinton would collect a total of $5 billion annually in new petroleum levies. Both candidates ignore history’s lessons. In the eight years after Jimmy Carter pushed through a windfall profits tax in 1980, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service reports that it raised only one-eighth of the revenue its advocates predicted — $40 billion rather than the claimed $320 billion.

But Carter’s energy tax depressed domestic oil production by as much as 8 percent, while increasing U.S. oil imports up to 13 percent. Let’s see if we have this right: Greater dependence on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will bring down gas prices? Even a caribou knows better than that. … Examiner INCLUDED

I’ll say it again … Damn! I love my call-sign!

A new weapon against cyber-jihad…Okay, the very first Bashman video was put up at Liveleak over a year ago, and from that moment on I have been harassed and harangued and dissed and threatened by these what I call “Internet Jihadis”…you know, the losers that still live with their parents, many in the basement, that pass along the videos of IEDs blowing up American Troops and so on and so forth.

From the “Got War Porn?” site:

Today we unveil our latest weapon in the fight against YouTub terrorists. We know how valuable your time is, so we wanted to make it even easier for you to participate in the YouTube SMACKDOWN.

To that end, it is with great pleasure that we announce:

Jihadi SMACKDOWN of the Day

A new tool to help get terrorist recruiting videos off of YouTube. The idea is simple, we will post one video a day. All you need to do is subscribe through your favorite feed reader or sign up to receive a once a day email containing the targeted video. When you receive the notification, simply click the link and flag the video.

If you would like to help promote jihadi SMACKDOWN of the day, email the page to your friends and family. You can also embed the feed into your website, blog, or social networking page. Or, if you prefer, you can add one of these cool animated headline tickers.

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

Great Idea!

Army Times

KABUL, Afghanistan — Two armored Humvees were missing from a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, a military spokesman said Monday.

The military was investigating whether the vehicles were stolen, although officials believed they were likely still in the possession of U.S. personnel but simply unaccounted for, said Lt. Col. Paul Fanning.

The two vehicles were reported missing May 6 from Camp Phoenix in the capital, Kabul, Fanning said.

“We have a witness from our own teams here that says he saw them last being operated by U.S. personnel,” Fanning said. “We are tying to locate where they are precisely.”

The Humvees have electronic equipment designed to thwart improvised explosive devices.