Decisions, Decisions UPDATE: Decision Made - Miranda Read to Terrorist 32 Hours Before Required

Now that Boston terrorist bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, has been caught, the big question is whether or not to hold him as an enemy combatant or to read him his Miranda Rights and allow him to be lawyered-up.

The entire time they were chasing this guy down, as much as I would have liked to see them blow him away, I hoped that they would get him alive so that we could find out if there are other people involved.  Once he's dead, there's a good chance much of this information would probably die with him.

According to this article, "...the public safety exception that allows suspects to be questioned without being read those rights expires 48 hours after the arrest...".  Some serious decisions need to be made really soon.

Via:  Fox News

Republican lawmakers urge Obama to use 'combatant status' for bombing suspect
Top Republican senators urged President Obama on Saturday to hold the suspect captured in the Boston Marathon bombing as a potential enemy combatant -- denying him a government-appointed attorney and other legal rights under the “Law of War” so investigators can learn about other possible attacks.
After his capture Friday, bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was not read his Miranda rights, which essentially state those arrested have a constitutional right to be told information they give to officials can be used against them.
However, the public safety exception that allows suspects to be questioned without being read those rights expires 48 hours after the arrest.
“The events we have seen over the past few days in Boston were an attempt to kill American citizens and terrorize a major American city,” Sens. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina; John McCain, Arizona; and Kelly Ayotte, New Hampshire, said. “The suspect, based upon his actions, clearly is a good candidate for enemy combatant status. We do not want this suspect to remain silent.”
They were joined in the statement by New York Republican Rep. Peter King.

Read more... 

The article includes a Fox video interview between Martha McCallum and Sen. Lindsey Graham (which I can't seem to post to the blog), but you can access it at the article link. He makes a good case for charging the terrorist as an enemy combatant.  

Not surprisingly, "...The American Civil Liberties Union expressed concern about Tsarnaev being questioned without being read his Miranda rights."  Why am I thinking Mr. Obama would side with the ACLU?  Can you say "Major Hasan"?

He will be interrogated by the Obama administration's High Value Interrogation Group.
Justice Department officials tell Fox News they hope to file charges against Tsarnaev by the end of the day Saturday.
Federal public defenders said Saturday they have agreed to represent Tsarnaev.
Miriam Conrad, the federal defender for Massachusetts, says her office expects to represent Tsarnaev after he is charged.
Conrad said he should have a lawyer appointed as soon as possible because there are "serious issues regarding possible interrogation."

Graham's group says:

"We remain under threat from radical Islam and we hope the Obama administration will seriously consider the enemy combatant option,” the Republican lawmakers said. “We are encouraged our high value detainee interrogation team is now involved … .A decision to not read Miranda rights to the suspect was sound and in our national security interests.”
President Obama in the immediate aftermath of the bombings declared them an “act of terrorism.” And he vowed after Tsarnaev’s capture Friday to get answers but has yet to say whether the administration will use the combatant status.

Here is another interesting article I found:
Boston bombs: Obama lulled America into false confidence over terror threat


UPDATE 4/25:

Boston jihad bomber clams up after being read Miranda rights 32 hours before it was required

BOSTON (AP) - The surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings acknowledged to the FBI his role in the attacks but did so before he was advised of his constitutional right to keep quiet and seek a lawyer, U.S. officials said Wednesday.Once Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was read his rights on Monday, he immediately stopped talking, according to four officials of both political parties who were briefed on the interrogation but insisted on anonymity because the briefing was private.  Read more...

Obama Admin Slashed Bomb Prevention Budget by 45%

Why do we have to read this in a foreign newspaper to find it out?  
Sorry, I know the anwer, but it really ticks me off.  I heard about this on Rush's show and he said that this cut was not a result of the sequester.

According to the UK Mail Online:

Obama administration has SLASHED budget for domestic bombing prevention by 45 per cent, says former Homeland Security Assistant Secretary

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• $20 million budget under Bush became $11 million under Obama

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• Both administrations neglected domestic bombing prevention, devoting a tiny fraction of the $1 billion earmarked for IED prevention overseas

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• Obama issued a lengthy 'National Policy for Countering Improvised Explosive Devices' in February but a spokesman won't say if it failed

Barack Obama's administration has cut the budget nearly in half for preventing domestic bombings, MailOnline can reveal. 

Under President George W. Bush, the Department of Homeland Security had $20 million allocated for preventing the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by terrorists working inside the United States. The current White House has cut that funding down to $11 million.

That assessment comes from Robert Liscouski, a former Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection, in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15 that killed three Americans and injured at least 173 others. 

He told MailOnline that the Obama-era DHS is, on the whole, about as well-positioned as it was during the Bush administration to handle the aftermath of the April 15 bombings in Boston, 'but the Obama administration has continued to cut the budget for offices such as the Office for Bombing Prevention from $20 million started under Bush, to $11 million today.'

Read more... 

McCain & Schumer Agree...Immigration Plan Will Result in Unhappy Campers

According to reports today, we should be hearing a lot about immigration reform this week.  Senator Chucky Schumer (D-NY) thinks the Gang of Eight will have the immigration plan finished by the end of the week.    Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Chucky were on the Sunday news shows chatting it up and agreeing that there are going to be a lot of unhappy campers.

SCHUMER SEES DEAL THIS WEEK ON IMMIGRATION

By ERICA WERNER

"There will be a great deal of unhappiness about this proposal because everybody didn't get what they wanted," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a leader of the eight senators negotiating the legislation, said Sunday. "There are entrenched positions on both sides of this issue.""There's a long road," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., appearing alongside McCain on CBS' "Face the Nation." ''There are people on both sides who are against this bill, and they will be able to shoot at it."

"Shoot at it"???  Senator Schumer, shame on you!  Remember, Sarah Palin got in trouble for saying such things. Oh, wait, I forgot.  She's a republican...never mind.

Wonder if the "long road" will end with Mr. Obama making another executive order.  He has warned Congress that, if they don't move fast, he's got his own immigration bill waiting in the wings.

I keep hearing that my Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), who is part of the Gang of Eight, does not want this bill rushed through:

But Rubio advisers made clear that he views a lengthy, traditional process that includes hearings, a healthy committee markup and an open floor debate during which senators can offer amendments as key to his ability to build and maintain conservative support for a comprehensive immigration rewrite. Rubio does not have a specific timetable in mind. But anything viewed as “rushed” would violate promises he made to grass-roots conservatives and could cost his support, even if he is OK with the bill in principle.

Let's hope he keeps his promise.

I found this article that contains everything you wanted to know about "immigration", but were smart not to afraid to ask.
ALL ABOUT IMMIGRATION: GREEN CARDS? CITIZENSHIP?  By NANCY BENAC

I found one paragraph especially interesting:

SKIPPING IT

Nearly two-thirds of the 5.4 million legal immigrants from Mexico who are eligible to become U.S. citizens haven't done so, according to a Pew study released in February. Their rate of naturalization is half that of legal immigrants from all other countries combined. The barriers to naturalization cited by Mexican nonapplicants include the need to learn English, the difficulty of the citizenship exam and the $680 application fee.

Here's an intersting article I found:
High-Skilled Visa Requests Exceed Supply in 1 Week

The article does not mention the nationality of these people. 

Shroud of Turin on Italian TV...New Shroud App Available Soon

According to CNN, the Shroud of Turin will be making a rare TV appearance on Italian TV this Easter Sunday.  Pope Benedict XVI authorized this as one of his last acts.

The following video is an interview by a CNN reporter with one of the original scientists who dated the shroud to be within the time frame of Jesus Christ's life span.

Barry Schwortz, founder and editor of Shroud.com, tells us how his group believed the shroud was from the time of Jesus's life, but that a later study disagreed.  Mr. Schwortz, who tells us in the video that he is Jewish, was a total skeptic at the beginning of his research.  He now believes that the evidence is authentic and has deep respect for it even though it doesn't represent his beliefs.  He thinks that the fact that the shroud is a mystery, an object of faith and that science hasn't been able to answer the questions about the shroud even after 35 years of study, has made it even more fascinating.

There is also an iPhone & iPad app available called, Shroud 2.0, that will give you close up views of the shroud.  Unfortunately, I can't access it because I don't have either device.  Wonder if it will be available for android users some day?

Just a little side note...notice how the CNN reporter got Mr. Schwortz's introduction completely wrong.

  

Via:  CNN

Rare TV appearance for Turin Shroud, Christianity's famous relicBy Laura Smith-Spark and Livia Borghese, CNN
updated 2:02 PM EDT, Sat March 30, 2013

(CNN) -- What may be the most famous religious relic of them all, the Turin Shroud, made a rare appearance on Easter Saturday -- on Italians' TV screens.
One of Benedict XVI's last acts as pope, according to Vatican Radio, was to authorize the broadcast of video of the shroud from Turin Cathedral, where the mysterious Christian relic is kept, out of sight, in a bulletproof, climate-controlled glass case.
According to Vatican Radio, only once before have images of the centuries-old linen cloth been broadcast. That was in 1973, at the request of then-Pope Paul VI.
Some Christians believe the shroud, which appears to bear the imprint of a man's body, to be Jesus Christ's burial cloth. The body appears to have wounds that match those the Bible describes as having been suffered by Jesus on the cross.
Many scholars contest the shroud's authenticity, saying it dates to the Middle Ages, when many purported biblical relics -- like splinters from Jesus' cross -- surfaced across Europe.
Even the Roman Catholic Church does not insist the shroud was used to wrap the body of Jesus. Its official position is that the shroud is an important tool for faith regardless of its authenticity.
Archbishop of Turin Cesare Nosiglia will lead a service from the cathedral on Saturday afternoon during which the images of the shroud will be broadcast, according to Vatican Radio.
A video message from Pope Francis was played as part of the broadcast.  Read more...

3/28/13 - Late Breaking News:  New Shroud Book Sparks Immediate Controversy