I thought I had pretty much made up my mind on bin Laden being taken out in the way which he was.  An evildoer and the poster boy for terrorism had been killed by American SEALs in a clean and efficient operation in which none of the good guys were harmed. How perfect is that?

I think there is little doubt that the order was given to take out bin Laden on the spot as opposed to capturing him alive. There is no compelling evidence that the powers that be wanted a prolonged trial, one which would have given the al Qaeda leader a platform from which to spout his twisted and demonic justification for the killing of thousands of innocent people. I agreed with that decision to take him out and be done with it. Best to get rid of the vermin on the spot, I thought, than give them a second longer of precious life they did not deserve.

And then I received an email from a regular contributor to these pages, Tommy, who directed me to a post by Michael Moore over at HuffPo – Some Final Thoughts on the Death of Osama bin Laden – and it got me to rethink my position. I was aware of Moore’s position that bin Laden was executed. He pleaded for the President to come clean and admit as much. I simply dismissed Moore’s take as a well-intentioned example of liberal extremism – sweet but not practical in a real world setting. And then I read this from Moore:

In a perfect world [...], I would like the evildoers to be forced to stand trial in front of that world. I know a lot of people see no need for a trial for these bad guys (just hang ‘em from the nearest tree!), and think trials are for sissies. “They’re guilty, off with their heads!” Well, you see, that is the exact description of the Taliban/al Qaeda/Nazi justice system. I don’t like their system. I like ours. And I don’t want to be like them. In fact, the reason I like a good trial is that I like to show these bastards this is how it’s done in a free country that believes in civilized justice. It’s good for the rest of the world to see that, too. Sets a good example.

The other thing a trial does is, it establishes a very public and permanent historic record of the crimes against humanity. This is why we put the Nazis on trial in Nuremberg. We didn’t do it for them. We did it for ourselves and for our grandchildren so that they would never forget these horrors and how they were committed. And we did it for the German people so they could see the evidence of what their elected leaders had done. Very helpful. Very necessary. Very powerful.

And for those who wanted blood back then – well, the majority of the Nazis all hanged in the end. So, it doesn’t mean the bad guys get away – they still swing from the highest tree.

Can anyone see the flaw in Moore’s logic?  I can’t. Yes there is great satisfaction in knowing that justice was served and bin Laden is dead. And it was done, as Bill Maher described it, in Moe Greene fashion – a bullet in the eye. But how does one intelligently counter Moore’s argument about civilized justice and a public and permanent record that a trial would have given? I’d like to hear one.

Revenge is a dangerous game. It suspends reason for the instant gratification it affords us. I recall watching the Charles Bronson Death Wish vigilante movies and feeling somewhat good at watching the bad guys being taken out in the fashion that they were. A thorough beating and assassination, sans trial, of the murderous scum took away any possibility that they’d find a legal loophole they could use to prevent justice being served. Again, instant gratification, vigilante style, took away years of waiting and trials and lawyers doing their thing.  A bullet to the head, instant closure and everyone could move on with their lives. Wonderful…except that in the end what did it all say about ourselves that we would adopt the tactics of the very people we were out to avenge?

I get it and I’m not about to condemn President Obama and the people who made that difficult decision to execute the terrorist leader. Osama bin Laden is dead and anyway you choose to view it, that’s a positive. Moore’s point is that within the bigger framework of justice and the American way, there is a strong argument to be made that the same ending would have been achieved by taking him alive and subjecting him to an open trial for the entire world to see. Yes it would have dragged on for years and bin Laden would have had ample opportunity to defend his actions. But, so what? There is a price to pay for not rendering justice (yes, in the twisted minds of terrorists, killing innocent people is their version of justice) in the way that the Taliban, Nazis and al Qaeda do. As Moore puts it:

Assuming it was possible to take him alive, I think his victims, the future, and the restoration of the American Way deserved better. That’s all I’m saying.

Good riddance Osama.

Come back to your ways, my good ol’ USA.

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The U.S/Mexico border fence occupies 700 of the 2000 mile border.  It was built at a cost of $4 million per mile which works out to a total cost of about $3 billion. Maintenance will cost billions more.  Back in September, Bloomberg wrote:

If idiocy were a capital crime, at least 73 percent of Congress would be facing the hangman.

That’s the percentage of legislators who supported the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which created one of the most stunning boondoggles in U.S. history…

Was it worth the cost?  Check out the video below and decide for yourself.

Make what you will of this.

What?  And there’s no room for these two felons?

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(h/t: Foolocracy)

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Nice to see scum like this getting what they deserve.

Hal Turner, an online radio “shock jock” and blogger, was convicted on Friday of threatening to kill three federal judges in Chicago, Illinois, in retaliation for a ruling they made that upheld handgun bans, government officials said.

Turner was arrested and charged in June 2009 for posting incendiary comments that said the judges involved in the case deserved to be killed. The three judges he threatened, who had upheld a ban on handguns in Chicago and the Oak Park suburb, testified at the trial.

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The post included photographs of the judges, their phone numbers, addresses and a map of the building where they work.

Turner has been known to post the names and home addresses of judges he believes are on the wrong side of conservative issues, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups.

Get a load of his defense.

Turner had sought to portray himself as a “shock jock” and fierce gun control opponent whose tirades were protected by the constitutional right to free speech.

“He thought it was political trash talk,” defense attorney Peter Kirchheimer said in opening statements. “It was the same thing he’d done many times before, only this time he was arrested.”

Testifying in his own defense, Turner said he was a paid FBI informant who was trying to “flush out” dangerous neo-Nazi and white supremacist members of his audience on behalf of the government.

I’m just waiting for some wingnut to cry out that the judge should have recused himself from the case.  They’ll claim his judgment was compromised in presiding over a case involving other judges.

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From Glenn Church over at Foolocracy comes this bit of nuttiness.

This November, Oklahoma voter will have a chance to decide on one of the pressing matters of the time – should Oklahoma ban sharia law?

Of all places in the United States, Oklahoma is one of the last that someone would expect sharia law. That is why the sponsor of the bill, Rex Duncan said, “I would describe this as a pre-emptive strike. We don’t want to let it get a toe-hold.”

[...]

…people like Duncan are playing to the lowest fears of people who think that radical Muslims and international socialists are going to take over the American judicial system.

Race-baiting, fear-mongering Republicans are getting more insane and desperate by the day.  These people have really lost it.

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Finally.

The Justice Department filed suit Tuesday against Arizona, charging that the state’s new immigration law is unconstitutional and requesting a preliminary injunction to stop the legislation from taking effect.

The lawsuit says the law illegally intrudes on federal prerogatives, invoking as its main argument the legal doctrine of “preemption,” which is based on the Constitution’s supremacy clause and says that federal law trumps state statutes. The Justice Department argues that enforcing immigration laws is a federal responsibility.

But the filing also asserts that the Arizona law would harm people’s civil rights, leading to police harassment of U.S. citizens and foreigners.

Although it was no secret that the Justice Department would take action, the right is going to go nuts over this.  Let the games begin.

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The Gulf disaster just keeps on getting uglier.

A New Orleans federal judge lifted the six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling imposed by President Barack Obama following the largest oil spill in U.S. history. Drilling services shares jumped on the news.

Obama temporarily halted all drilling in waters deeper than 500 feet on May 27 to give a presidential commission time to study improvements in the safety of offshore operations. More than a dozen Louisiana offshore service and supply companies sued U.S. regulators to lift the ban. The U.S. said it will appeal the decision.

U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman today granted a preliminary injunction, halting the moratorium. He also “immediately prohibited” the U.S. from enforcing the ban. Government lawyers told Feldman that ban was based on findings in a U.S. report following the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig off the Louisiana coast in April.

“The court is unable to divine or fathom a relationship between the findings and the immense scope of the moratorium,” Feldman said in his 22-page decision. “The blanket moratorium, with no parameters, seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger.”

Aside from the fact that preliminary inquiries show that safety measures were ignored by BP and others, it is precisely because “no one fully knows why” that the moratorium was invoked.  To follow the judge’s logic, no planes should have been grounded on 9/11 because to do so meant that a few hijacked airplanes assumed “imminent danger” for all other planes flying that day.

This makes no sense except to note…

That judge, it turns out, has in recent years had interests in Transocean—the world’s largest offshore drilling company and the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig—as well as other energy companies engaged in offshore oil extraction.

According to the most recently available financial disclosure form for District Court Judge Martin Feldman, he had holdings of up to $15,000 in Transocean in 2008. He has also recently owned stock in offshore drilling or oilfield service providers Halliburton, Prospect Energy, Hercules Offshore, Parker Drilling Co., and ATP Oil & Gas. Feldman was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1983.

Stinking politics, self-interest or madness before common sense…take your pick.

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I have a lot of respect for cops.  It’s a job that needs to be done and not one I’d ever be willing to do.  That said, there is something seriously wrong with the system when this type of thing is allowed to happen.

SWAT team breaks into home, fires seven rounds at family’s pit bull and corgi (?!) as a seven-year-old looks on.

They found a “small amount” of marijuana, enough for a misdemeanor charge. The parents were then charged with child endangerment.

So smoking pot = “child endangerment.” Storming a home with guns, then firing bullets into the family pets as a child looks on = necessary police procedures to ensure everyone’s safety.

Just so we’re clear.

There’s a video of  the incident.

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(Hat Tip: Balloon Juice)

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It all comes down to this.

The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday.

Scott Fenstermaker, the lawyer for accused terrorist Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, said the men would not deny their role in the 2001 attacks but “would explain what happened and why they did it.”

This of course will drive the right into further frenzy.

Critics of Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try the men in a New York City civilian courthouse have warned that the trial would provide the defendants with a propaganda platform.

Critics of Holder’s decision – mostly Republicans – argued the trial will give Mohammed and his co-defendants a world stage to spout hateful rhetoric. Holder said such concerns are misplaced, and any pronouncements by the suspects would only make them look worse.

Holder adds…

“I have every confidence that the nation and the world will see him for the coward that he is. I’m not scared of what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has to say at trial – and no one else needs to be, either.”

We just need to realize that repubs are scaredy-cats.  Fighting propaganda with truth is not a concept they fully grasp.

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This is exactly right.
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“And now repubs speak with a fear and cowardice that would have the terrorists saying, “Mission accomplished. They’re terrified of us. They won’t even allow us on their soil to try us by their very laws. Wonderful.””

“What happened to that attitude of strength Republicans once had? Why has it been replaced with fear and cowering?”

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-mario piperni November 16, 2009

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