J's Cafe Nette

Archive for September 5th, 2007

For those who have anticipated the entrance of Fred Thompson into the Presidential race, the wait is over. I posted this while watching the Fox News Republican debate so please forgive the brevity.

At 7:57 p.m. Eastern time Wednesday, while taping “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” for broadcast later in the evening, Fred Thompson finally said: “I’m running for president of the United States.”

The studio audience responded with thunderous applause.

Thompson rejected the notion that he has waited too long to get into the race for the White House.

“People treat politicians sort of like the dentist — they don’t have anything to do with them till they have to,” he said.

The balance of the story is available at Politico.

More on Senator Thompson entering the field of candidates here.

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This is absolutely unbelievable. I take that back..no it’s not!

A top Democratic fundraiser whose criminal past has roiled the campaigns of top presidential candidates failed to appear Wednesday for a bail hearing and a judge issued a new warrant for his arrest.

Norman Hsu, who had been a fugitive for more than 15 years, forfeits the $2 million bail he posted last week. His attorney said Wednesday he didn’t know where his client was.

Hsu pleaded no contest in 1991 to a felony count of grand theft, admitting he’d defrauded investors of $1 million in a bogus investment scam. He was facing up to three years in prison when he skipped town before his 1992 sentencing date, Deputy Attorney General Ronald Smetana said last week.

During a hearing last Friday, Judge H. James Ellis ordered Hsu handcuffed and jailed until he could post $2 million bail, which he did after spending about five hours behind bars. The judge declined Hsu’s request to immediately reduce the bail by half, instead scheduling Wednesday’s hearing to consider the request.

The surprise development is the latest twist in the case of the California businessman who remade himself into a New York apparel executive and benefactor of Democratic causes and candidates. They included presidential contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose campaign designated Hsu a “HillRaiser” – a title given to top donors.

Federal Election Commission records show Hsu donated $260,000 to Democratic Party groups and federal candidates since 2004. Though a top fundraiser for Clinton, he also donated to Obama’s Senate campaign in 2004 and to Obama’s political action committee.

The judge in this case should never have granted bail and allowed Hsu the right to walk away in light of his status as a fugitive at the time let alone the future charges he may have faced.

Now will the Democrats return all monies he contributed to their campaigns either directly or indirectly?

HT: Gateway Pundit

Update: Rick Moran at Right Wing News
quotes the LAT in further information on the disappearance of Mr. Hsu. Seems his lawyers have known for a while that his passport was missing. Curiouser and Curiouser.

Also check this out: Looks like the vetting process for donations from Mr. Hsu do not include an address check.

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Next week General Petraeus will deliver his assessment of the military situation in Iraq to Congress. I expect there will be countless politicians attempting to spin this report to their advantage but as they do, I will be thinking of these folks who give of themselves every day, all over the world to not only protect our liberty but the freedom of many.

We have always in this country believed in seeing a mission through to its completion which is why as I was reading this piece at Captains Quarters it prompted me to sign the petition to Congress he has available on his post. It serves as a reminder that politics and war are a terrible mix.

For those who believe General Petraeus is a lackey to the President, I say think again. He would be doing a terrible disservice to his country and to the uniform he wears if that were the case. The military is not a political or a media football. I hope Congress keeps that in perspective next week and shows some respect for the men and women doing the “tough work.”

We’ll see.

*The petition available at CQ was designed by The Victory Caucus and may be signed there also.

Check out Senator Schumer’s statement on the Senate floor. I suppose our troops can only take credit for failures not for success. Thanks to Don Surber for pointing us to this disturbing behavior, especially from a United States Senator. Like I said, political footballs.

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According to this report, US interests in Germany were targeted by terrorists. Fortunately, German security forces were able to locate and arrest those who would have carried out this attack.

Three suspected Islamic terrorists from an al-Qaida-influenced group nursing “profound hatred of U.S. citizens” were arrested on suspicious of plotting imminent, massive bomb attacks on U.S. facilities in Germany, prosecutors said Wednesday.
German Federal Prosecutor Monika Harms said the three, two of whom were German converts to Islam, had trained at camps in Pakistan run by the Islamic Jihad Union, a group based in Central Asia. They had obtained some 1,500 pounds of hydrogen peroxide for making explosives.

“We were able to succeed in recognizing and preventing the most serious and massive bombings,” Harms told reporters.

Harms declined to name specific targets, but said the suspects had an eye on institutions and establishments frequented by Americans in Germany, including discos, pubs and airports.

Sudwestfunk televison, citing unnamed security sources in Berlin, reported that Frankfurt international airport and U.S. Ramstein Air Base were among the targets.

This report serves as a reminder that globally no one is immune from the actions of this faceless enemy.

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If I lived in Arizona and had children attending school, I would certainly keep a close eye on this situation.

Hundreds of students in Arizona are trying to learn English from teachers who don’t know the language, state officials say.

The kids are taught by teachers who don’t know English grammar and can’t pronounce English words correctly. Last year, for example, a Mesa teacher stood in front of a class of language learners and announced, “Sometimes, you are not gonna know some.” A teacher in Phoenix’s Creighton Elementary District asked her kids, “If you have problems, to who are you going to ask?” A Casa Grande Elementary District teacher asked her kids to “read me first how it was before.”

Each year, the state evaluates a sampling of classrooms where kids are learning English. Last year, officials visited 32 districts and found similar problems at nine. Some teachers’ English was so poor that even state officials strained to understand them. The state also found that students learning English at all ages were being taught by teachers who did not have appropriate training or materials. At a dozen districts, evaluators found teachers who ignored state law and taught in Spanish.

So, we have teachers who are instructing students in an English class but they are teaching in Spanish? Are there no principals in these schools who do random checks on their teachers and the progress of their pupils? I could understand if you only observed for a very short time that you may not notice a slight language deficiency, but come on, can these folks not distinguish betweeen two separate languages?

Children will use their language skills throughout their lives. As long as we live in America, we should provide educators who not only teach English well but never instruct in a foreign language on a continuous basis unless teaching such a class. For the sake of the children, I hope Arizona corrects this situation and sooner rather than later.

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Here we go again. Another recall of Mattel products has been announced.

Mattel Inc. on Tuesday announced its third major recall of Chinese-made toys in little more than a month, including 675,000 Barbie doll accessories, because of excessive amounts of lead-tainted paint.

The recall is the latest blow to the world’s largest toy maker as the critical holiday shopping season approaches. The action, whose details were negotiated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, involves a total of more than 800,000 units, Mattel said in a statement.

The recall covers 90,000 units of Mattel’s GeoTrax locomotive line and 8,900 Big Big World 6-in-1 Bongo Band toys, both from the company’s Fisher-Price brand. The Big Big World products were sold nationwide from July through August of this year, while the GeoTrax toys were sold from September 2006 through August of this year.

The recalled Barbie accessories were sold between October 2006 and August of this year. No Barbie dolls were included in the action.

This has gotten to the point that perhaps all of the factories in China manufacturing toys for this company should be shut down entirely and production begun again only when materials used are deemed 100% safe.

Mattel will have some serious trust issues to address if and when these recalls come to a halt. I’m not sure they will ever have the reputation they once had as a trusted manufacturer of childrens toys.

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Few across the web can begin a post with the words, “at the end of the world only two things will survive, cockroaches and Cher,” and somehow incorporate politics, health, personal woes and entertainment successfully.

The Anchoress manages to do just that in her latest post with the flair which all of us who are faithful readers have come to know.

Hop on over, have a visit and enjoy.

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