Obama Watch... 11/14/09
A Chronicle of the Socialization of America
The American People: Mugged!
Headlines ...
Expert: Healthcare Reform Hidden Costs To Trigger 'Massive' New Taxes
| Friday, November 13, 2009 11:38 AM By: David Patten | |
Congress is using "every budget gimmick in the book" to conceal hundreds of billions in healthcare-reform costs that will lead to "massive tax increases" and higher insurance premiums, one of the country's leading healthcare experts warns.
Dr. Robert E. Moffit, a senior official in the Department of Health and Human Services during the Reagan administration, who now directs the Heritage Foundation's Center for Health Policy Studies, tells Newsmax that taxpayers are about to be blindsided by a spiraling healthcare expenses.
Moffit says the sharp jump in costs will occur despite what he calls [Alleged] President Obama's "absurd promise" that that his healthcare reform proposals would bring sharp reductions in Americans' healthcare bills.
Read more <http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/healthcare_reform_taxes/2009/11/13/285952.html>
NYC Trial of 9/11 Suspects Poses Legal Risks
| Friday, November 13, 2009 5:40 PM | |
WASHINGTON – Hauling the professed 9/11 mastermind and four alleged henchmen to a New York courthouse is a risky proposition for [Alleged] President Barack Obama. The move will bar evidence obtained under duress and complicate a case where anything short of slamdunk convictions will empower the president's critics.
Attorney General Eric Holder announced the decision Friday to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to trial at a lower Manhattan courthouse hard by the site of the World Trade Center, whose twin towers they will be charged with destroying.
The case is likely to force the civilian federal court to confront a host of difficult issues, including rough treatment of detainees, sensitive intelligence gathering and the potential spectacle of defiant terrorists disrupting proceedings. U.S. civilian courts prohibit evidence obtained through coercion, and a number of detainees were questioned using harsh methods some call torture.
Holder insisted both the court system and the untainted evidence against the five men are strong enough to deliver a guilty verdict and the penalty he expects to seek: a death sentence for the deaths of nearly 3,000 people who were killed when four hijacked jetliners slammed into the towers, the Pentagon, and a field in western Pennsylvania.
Read more <http://www.newsmax.com/us/us_guantanamo_us_trial/2009/11/13/286127.html>
Obama Urges Congress to Put Off Fort Hood Probe
| Saturday, November 14, 2009 6:10 AM | |
[Alleged] President Barack Obama on Saturday urged Congress to hold off on any investigation of the Fort Hood rampage until federal law enforcement and military authorities have completed their probes into the shootings at the Texas Army post, which left 13 people dead.
On an eight-day Asia trip, Obama turned his attention home and pleaded for lawmakers to "resist the temptation to turn this tragic event into the political theater." He said those who died on the nation's largest Army post deserve justice, not political stagecraft.
"The stakes are far too high," Obama said in a video and Internet address released by the White House while the president he was flying from Tokyo to Singapore, where Pacific Rim countries were meeting.
Read more <http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/us_obama_fort_hood/2009/11/14/286239.html>
Virginia Family Claims H1N1 Vaccine Sickened Son
Friday, November 13, 2009
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A northern Virginia family says their lives were turned upside down just 24 hours after getting their 14-year-old son received his seasonal flu and H1N1 vaccines.
Jordan McFarland is an avid young athlete who was unable to walk without the aid of a walker just one day after getting his flu shots. His father Calvin says doctors made a preliminary diagnosis of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a disease characterized by muscle weakness and sometimes paralysis.
Read more <http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,574910,00.html?test=latestnews>
Related Stories
Pelosi: Health Bill Would Limit Abortion Access
<http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/pelosi_abortion_healthcar/2009/11/13/286176.html>
Palin: House Health Bill Should Be DOA
<http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/palin_healthcare_bill_doa/2009/11/13/286165.html>
Fort Hood Shooter May Be Paralyzed
<http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/us_fort_hood_shooting/2009/11/13/285835.html>
Lawmaker: Hasan Money Trail Leads to Pakistan
<http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/us_fort_hood_shooting/2009/11/13/286112.html>
New Yorkers Worry About Trial for 9/11 Mastermind
<http://www.newsmax.com/us/us_new_york_sept_11_trial/2009/11/13/286164.html>
9/11 Suspects to Face Death Penalty in NYC Trial
<http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/us_guantanamo_us_trial/2009/11/13/285999.html>
Domestic ...
Administration
Obama: Domestic Spending Cuts in Next Budget
| Friday, November 13, 2009 5:10 PM | |
The Obama administration, mindful of public anxiety over the government's mushrooming debt, is shifting emphasis from big-spending policies to deficit reduction. Domestic agencies have been told to brace for a spending freeze or cuts of up to 5 percent as part of a midterm election-year push to rein in record budget shortfalls.
Yet with the economy still in distress and unemployment pushing past 10 percent, prospects for making a dent in a trillion-dollar-plus annual deficit seem slight. And since the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs would likely be shielded from such cuts, overtures toward trimming the deficit may hold more symbolic value than substance.
[Alleged] President Barack Obama is expected to make post-recession spending restraint a key theme of his State of the Union address in January and an important element of the budget he submits to Congress a few weeks later. He is under increasing pressure, including from moderate and conservative members of his own party, to show he is serious about tackling a deficit that has become both an economic and political liability.
Read more <http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/obama_spending_cuts/2009/11/13/286109.html>
Economy
World Rushes to Prop Up U.S. Dollar
| Friday, November 13, 2009 11:09 AM By: Julie Crawshaw | |
In efforts to prop up the ailing U.S. dollar, experts estimate that some of the largest emerging economies may have spent as much as $150 billion on currency intervention over the past two months, according to data from Brown Brothers Harriman.
Though currency markets usually experience turnover of more than $3 trillion a day, traders pay close attention to what governments are doing and where they are likely to intervene.
Thailand, South Korea, Russia and the Philippines have been buying dollars in hopes of holding down the value of their currencies, as the dollar hovered near 15-month lows.
Thailand alone has bought $15 billion trying to push the dollar higher against the baht, Korn Chatikavanij, Thailand's finance minister, told The Wall Street Journal.
"Quite clearly, all Asian central banks have found it necessary to intervene, and it's costing us," Korn said.
"I'm convinced that in the long term the dollar is more likely than not to decline in value, so we're building up assets that are declining in value over time. That's not healthy."
A softer greenback makes gold, which is priced in dollars around the world, cheaper for buyers using stronger currencies.
Read more <http://moneynews.newsmax.com/streettalk/us_dollar_gold/2009/11/13/285912.html>
Abortion, Life & Family Issues
Spanish Bishop Says Catholic Politicians Who Vote for Abortion Excommunicate Themselves
By Thaddeus M. Baklinski
MADRID, November 13, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The secretary general of the Spanish bishops' conference, Auxiliary Bishop Juan Antonio Martinez Camino of Madrid, warned that Spanish Catholic legislators who vote in favor of a bill to liberalize abortion which is currently before parliament would publicly place themselves in an "objective state of sin" and therefore may not receive Communion.
"Excommunication is provided in the Code of Canon Law for those who cooperate actively in the practice of abortion," Bishop Martinez Camino stated in an AFP report.
He said Catholics cannot support the legalization of abortion and if they do "they will objectively find themselves in a public state of sin and may not be admitted to Holy Communion."
While "the Church cannot judge their subjectivity," he added, those who "directly collaborate" in or promote abortion incur excommunication.
Read more <http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/nov/09111308.html>
Related Stories
Catholic Church Threatens D.C. Over Same-Sex Marriage Issue
<http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/Catholics_DC_same_sex_law/2009/11/13/286113.html>
Planned Parenthood Director Who Quit Now Rejected by Episcopalian Church
Pasted from <http://www.lifenews.com/state4578.html>
Homeland Security
Napolitano: U.S. Border More Secure Now
| Friday, November 13, 2009 6:01 PM | |
The Obama administration has met many of the border security benchmarks Congress set in 2007 as a prerequisite to immigration reform and now it's time to change the law, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Friday.
Napolitano, designated by [Alleged] President Barack Obama to lead the administration's efforts to overhaul immigration laws, said many members of Congress had said they could support an update of immigration laws, but only after border security improved, Napolitano said.
"Fast-forward to today, and many of the benchmarks these members of Congress set in 2007 have been met," she said in a speech to the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.
She cited construction of 600 miles of border fence and the hiring of more than 20,000 Border Patrol agents. Illegal immigration has also fallen sharply because of better enforcement and the economy.
Read more <http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Napolitano_border_secure/2009/11/13/286138.html>
Politics
N.C. Rep. Declines to Challenge Sen. Burr
| Friday, November 13, 2009 4:55 PM | |
RALEIGH, N.C. -- North Carolina Rep. Bob Etheridge says he will not run for the U.S. Senate next year.
Etheridge told The Associated Press on Friday that he thinks he can best help the people of North Carolina by remaining in the House, where he recently began working on the powerful Ways and Means Committee.
The seven-term Democrat says he looks forward to watching another member of his party run against first-term Republican Sen. Richard Burr.
Read more <http://www.newsmax.com/politics/us_nc_senate/2009/11/13/286103.html>
Related Stories
N.Y. Congressional Race Not Over Yet
<http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/ny_congress_race_not_over/2009/11/13/285849.html>
Gingrich: Contract with America round 2
<http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/11/gingrich_contract_with_america.html>
International ...
Korea
S.Korea keeps military on alert over N. Korean threat
Nov 14 01:16 AM US/Eastern
South Korea kept its military on high alert Saturday after North Korea vowed to take "merciless" action following a naval clash four days earlier.
"We remain on high alert for possible provocations by the North," a defence ministry spokesman told AFP, while adding there had so far been no signs of any unusual movements by the North.
Defence Minister Kim Tae-Young said Friday the North might stage further military provocative acts in retaliation for Tuesday's clash, which left a North Korean patrol boat in flames.
Sources quoted by local media said one North Korean sailor was killed and three wounded in the brief but intensive exchange of fire.
"We're fully prepared for any provocative acts. We'll keep a close watch on the North," Kim was quoted as telling Yonhap news agency.
South Korea has sent a destroyer to reinforce the border area, and two extra patrol boats, but has said it does not want the clash, which was the first such skirmish in seven years, to damage relations.
It has also ordered army, navy and air force commanders in charge of border areas to step up surveillance and respond immediately to any provocation.
Read more <http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.8911d735dd5c05aad05b843ae7110cc4.4b1&show_article=1>
China
China dissidents 'detained ahead of Obama visit'
Nov 14 03:55 AM US/Eastern
China has detained several dissidents and campaigners ahead of US [Alleged] President Barack Obama's much-anticipated first visit to the country, their relatives and close contacts told AFP Saturday.
Obama arrives in Shanghai on Sunday and moves onto Beijing the next day for a four-day maiden presidential trip during which he has been urged to raise human rights with the Asian giant's top leadership.
But as the visit drew close, the head of an activist group for parents whose children were sickened by tainted milk in China had been detained, his wife told AFP.
Read more <http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.a751493682512bdc967745cbdcd60551.771&show_article=1>
Opinion …
Obama's Man-Caused Disaster Chickens Come Home to Roost
By Neil Braithwaite
In her first testimony before Congress back in March of this year, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano laid the groundwork for the Obama administration's new "politically correct" Homeland Security doctrine. Without ever mentioning "terrorist" or "terrorism" during her testimony, Secretary Napolitano put forth the politically correct term for those two words: "man-caused disaster." Defining the term as "nuance" to the German news site Spiegel Online, Secretary Napolitano further stated, "...it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur." The "T"-word has been off limits by the Obama administration ever since.
Noting the Obama administration's new Homeland Security doctrine as proffered by Secretary Napolitano, James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation may not have known just how prophetic he was when he stated, "By deliberately trying not to use the 'T'-word, they [the Obama administration] run a serious political risk. If something does happen, they'll be accused of taking their eye off the ball and no amount of explanation after the fact will suffice."
Well, something did happen, and Carafano's prophecy has come true.
[Alleged] President Obama's new Homeland Security doctrine has taken our country from being the world's strongest and most intimidating superpower to a weak and vulnerable nation being singled out by every terrorist organization in the world. And make no mistake: Whether homegrown or international, these terrorists want America destroyed at any cost. The Obama administration's Homeland Security doctrine has become no more than a politically correct welcome mat for every Muslim jihadist on the planet.
[Alleged] President Obama is willfully surrendering America's safety for the sake of political correctness and tolerance. This comes on the back of his selfish ambition to become the savior of the world, the consequences of which are leaving America more vulnerable to attack at home and abroad on every front, be it financial or military.
Terrorist organizations are taking advantage of [Alleged] President Obama's perceived weakness and ignorance. But the truly ignorant are our political leaders -- and they should know better -- not to mention the left-wing media and the millions of duped Americans who have turned a blind eye and deaf ear to reality as they play in concert with [Alleged] President Obama's insidious plan to weaken and socialize America.
Read more <http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/obamas_mancaused_disaster_chic.html>
Explaining Away Mass Murder
November 13, 2009
By Charles Krauthammer
WASHINGTON -- What a surprise -- that someone who shouts "Allahu Akbar" (the "God is great" jihadist battle cry) as he is shooting up a room of American soldiers might have Islamist motives. It certainly was a surprise to the mainstream media, which spent the weekend after the Fort Hood massacre downplaying Nidal Hasan's religious beliefs.
"I cringe that he's a Muslim. ... I think he's probably just a nut case," said Newsweek's Evan Thomas. Some were more adamant. Time's Joe Klein decried "odious attempts by Jewish extremists ... to argue that the massacre perpetrated by Nidal Hasan was somehow a direct consequence of his Islamic beliefs." While none could match Klein's peculiar cherchez-le-juif motif, the popular story line was of an Army psychiatrist driven over the edge by terrible stories he had heard from soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
They suffered. He listened. He snapped.
Really? What about the doctors and nurses, the counselors and physical therapists at Walter Reed Army Medical Center who every day hear and live with the pain and the suffering of returning soldiers? How many of them then picked up a gun and shot 51 innocents?
And what about civilian psychiatrists -- not the Upper West Side therapist treating Woody Allen neurotics, but the thousands of doctors working with hospitalized psychotics -- who every day hear not just tales but cries of the most excruciating anguish, of the most unimaginable torment? How many of those doctors commit mass murder?
It's been decades since I practiced psychiatry. Perhaps I missed the epidemic.
But, of course, if the shooter is named Nidal Hasan, whom National Public Radio reported had been trying to proselytize doctors and patients, then something must be found. Presto! Secondary post-traumatic stress disorder, a handy invention to allow one to ignore the obvious.
And the perfect moral finesse. Medicalizing mass murder not only exonerates. It turns the murderer into a victim, indeed a sympathetic one. After all, secondary PTSD, for those who believe in it (you won't find it in DSM-IV-TR, psychiatry's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual), is known as "compassion fatigue." The poor man -- pushed over the edge by an excess of sensitivity.
Have we totally lost our moral bearings? Nidal Hasan (allegedly) cold-bloodedly killed 13 innocent people. In such cases, political correctness is not just an abomination. It's a danger, clear and present.
Consider the Army's treatment of Hasan's previous behavior. NPR's Daniel Zwerdling interviewed a Hasan colleague at Walter Reed about a hair-raising Grand Rounds that Hasan had apparently given.
Grand Rounds are the most serious academic event at a teaching hospital -- attending physicians, residents and students gather for a lecture on an instructive case history or therapeutic finding.
Read more <http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/11/13/medicalizing_mass_murder_99142.html>
Sacrificing Americans
by Victor Davis Hanson
NRO’s The Corner
November 12, 2009
Many in the media are arguing there is nothing more to the Major Hasan mass murder than derangement and the various personal "issues" that "set him off."
But there are two considerations that argue against such an interpretation. First, we look for patterns in all cases of individuals' shooting others on a mass scale. Hasan gave every indication that he was channeling his own personal sense of frustration into a larger Islamic writ against the West — as have some 20 other killers since 9/11 who have shot, stabbed, or run over innocents at malls, airline counters, military facilities, and Jewish-affiliated centers.
If we once focused on postal conditions and security at post-office installations when workers (between 1986 and 1997) snapped under the thematic pretense of job stress, and if we investigated the nexus of video games, drugs, cults, and counter-culture alienation when suburban youths went on shooting sprees, then it seems legitimate to look for commonalities when someone self-identifies as a rather radical Muslim and shouts "Allahu Akbar!" as he fires — in the same manner that the mad driver in North Carolina, or the killer in Seattle, or the homicidal driver in San Francisco afterwards said they were acting out of Islamic religious fervor against Jews or Westerners.
Second, if we counted up the number of "lone wolf" incidents and added it to the number of Islamist terrorist plots that have been foiled since 9/11, we would arrive at more than 40 incidents of terrorist killings or efforts to kill on a wide scale. If anyone could find a comparable series of anti-abortion terrorist acts, backlash attacks on Muslims, anti-Semitic attacks perpetrated by non-Muslims, Jewish attacks on Middle Easterners, or radical environmentalist killings, then one could argue that the public was unduly focusing on Islam.
It seems, instead, that about every three to four months, either a single Muslim male will shoot or run over somebody and tie the violence to some sort of jihadist theme, or a group of Muslim males will be caught trying to blow up something or shoot someone, usually on a mass scale.
Pasted from <http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson111209B.html>
Government Health Care: Back to the Plantation
by Anthony B. Bradley Ph.D.
Black leaders constantly remind Americans of our racism. Should not these same leaders protest the expansion of government control contained in the health-care reform bill currently working its way through Congress?
Here’s why. Notwithstanding their rhetoric of freedom and empowerment, many prominent black leaders appear content to send blacks back to the government plantation—where a small number of Washington elites make decisions for blacks who aren’t in the room. Why do minority leaders not favor alternatives that demonstrate faith in the intelligence and dignity of people to manage their own lives?
In a sermon at Howard University, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright reminded university students that, “Racism is alive and well. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run.” During the presidential campaign, Wright explained to his parishioners that America is “a country and culture controlled by rich white people.” But if racists and “rich white people” control America, why do those sympathetic to Wright assume that those same people will look out for the health of blacks?
If Princeton religion professor Cornel West was right in his 2008 book, Hope on a Tight Rope, that “the very discovery that black people are human beings is a new one,” then shouldn’t blacks raise questions about centralizing health care decisions in a bureaucracy peopled by officials who are only recently cognizant of minorities’ humanity? “White brothers and sisters have been shaped by 244 years of white supremacist slavery, 87 years of white supremacist Jim and Jane Crow, and then another 40 years in which progress has been made” but “the stereotypes still cut deep,” West wrote. He admits “relative progress for a significant number of black people,” but warns that there has not been “some kind of fundamental transformation” in America. Dr. West asserts that “white supremacy is married to capitalism.” If that is true, then why would we want to set up a health-care system that strengthens the government sanction of health-care provision by businesses?
Read more <http://www.acton.org/commentary/555_govt_health_care.php>
Giuliani: 9/11 Trials in NYC Will Lead to More Terrorism
| Friday, November 13, 2009 10:09 PM | |
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani blasted the Obama administration on Friday for its decision to try five Sept. 11 suspects in New York, saying that such a trial would only encourage terrorists to target the city once again.
Earlier Friday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba would be transported onto U.S. soil to face justice in civilian court.
"After eight years of delay, those allegedly responsible for that attacks of September the 11th will finally face justice," Holder said. "They will be brought to New York – to New York – to answer for their alleged crimes in a courthouse just blocks away from where the twin towers once stood.”
Giuliani, who was mayor of New York City at the time of the attacks, slammed the decision during an appearance on Fox News.
“I think this is a very dangerous decision, and an irresponsible one. And one that is absolutely unnecessary. Meaning, if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed couldn't be tried anywhere else but in New York, then of course New York would handle it and do it,” he said.
“New York is already a target for terrorists – we announce that every day and talk about it every day. To add something unnecessary to that makes no sense, and the president has made, I believe, an irresponsible decision.”
Other Republicans, like Arizona Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl, and Rep. Peter King of New York, agreed with Giuliani, who said 9/11 “was an act of war. And one of the things I thought we learned from Sept. 11 was that we were in a state of denial before Sept. 11. We went through this once before – 1993. We had people, terrorists, attack the World Trade Center. We did not recognize it as an act of war. We tried them in the Southern District of New York. It did no good. We were attacked in Africa, we were attacked at those embassies in Africa, we were attacked on the USS Cole and then we had the worst attack in our history.
Read more <http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/giuliani_Khalid_Sheikh_ny/2009/11/13/286215.html>
Big Apple GITMO Torture
By John Batchelor on November 14, 2009 11:07 AM
Torture Debate.
The Obama administration decision just announced to transfer 9-11 Devil KSM to New York to stand trial for mass murder in a Federal court looks to be laden with risks. The Justice Department states that it will seek the death penalty. Right away, how does KSM get a fair trial in NYC? Also, in a court, KSM is presumed innocent,and he has already confessed several times to his conduct without representation: Will this confession to a military tribunal authority remain in place, will KSM change his plea, will KSM be permitted to confess presumptively without counsel in the Federal system? Then there is the torture debate. POTUS and Attorney General Eric Holder have both on several occasions remarked that KSM was "tortured," when he was subject to the so-called enhanced interrogations at GITMO. I will wait on the full thinking of the massively shrewd lawyer pool in the nation, but as an amateur reader of US history, I am confounded to think of a model for trying in a Federal court a prisoner who has been tortured to confess his crimes. It sounds like lynching. It is lynching, until someone shows me how it is acceptable to torture a man to confess and then to sentence him to death upon his confession?
GITMO Politics
The fresh partisan news is that the GOP has immediately seized on the KSM decision to highlight the differences between the parties re national security. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell calls it a "Step backward." John Boehner asserts that the White House was "reverting to a dangerous pre-9/11 mentality." The major blast comes from Joe Liebermann, who uses WMD rhetoric: "It is inconceivable that we would bring these alleged terrorists back to New York for trial, to the scene of the carnage they created eight years ago, and give them a platform to mock the suffering of their victims and the victims' families, and rally their followers to continue waging jihad against America." Lieberman's point will be a rallying cry for his colleagues John McCain and Lindsey Graham. It is a fair guess that all New York lawmakers in Washington and Albany will contribute to the hissing and shrieking. Why does the Obama administration want to pick this fight? Is it because there is no one of weight in the White House from New York City? Can POTUS and his political advisers, chiefly Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett, be ignorant of New York and its pols? The 9/11 families live here and exercise overwhelming political moxie. The trial will make NYC the center of the known universe for legal, moral, political, spiritual and historical firefights? Everyone can imagine the security problem. Foley Square (right) as target uno for the world's do-I-feel-lucky jihadist cell. Then there are the sicko Hasans of the planet, some of have been known to visit New York.
NYC Risk.
There is the additional puzzle as to why the process of military tribunals, which was underway for KSM as recently as December 2008, did not answer the Obama administration's concerns? KSM admitted to the court that he is guilty. He did so the last time he faced a military judge in GITMO. He was ready to be sentenced. So were his four conspirators. The Obama administration chose last January to set all that aside and proceed to this mysterious ten month review (after saying it would require six months), and the result is this confusion. Eric Holder asserts that he is confident that the prosecution will be successful in obtaining a guilty verdict and the death penalty. But this is a Federal courtroom. Anything can happen, including especially treating the accused as not guilty and then risking a failure to convict. Perhaps KSM will do us a favor and interpret his life as martydom, insisting he is guilt, shunning lawyers, and asking to be executed. I cannot now answer (because I am an amateur historian) if a court is permitted to permit a defendant to insist upon guilt and execution without examining how the evidence provided by the prosecution was obtained. That would be the torture defense. Ed Hayes has told me repeatedly that he does nto see how you can get a conviction in Federal court based upon torture or even with torture as part of the process of detention since 2002. I am eager to learn how the prosecutors maneuver through an obstacle course that is immediately crowded with three centuries of jurisprudence about the accused and with every civil libertarian alive and dead. Then there is the death penalty part. How can Uncle Sam execute a man who POTUS has declared a victim of torture by Uncle Sam? This alone will be law school debate for the next several centuries. Look at how the 1865 Federal court treated the Lincoln conspirators. Who does not squirm at reading the abuse of the prisoners -- the hanging of Mary Surratt?
Read more <http://johnbatchelorshow.com/jb/2009/11/big-apple-gitmo-torture/>
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McCain Rips Obama Over NYC Terror Trial
<http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/mccain_obama_terror_trial/2009/11/13/286216.html>
Rep. King 'Disgusted' by Terror Trial in NYC
<http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/king_terror_trial_nyc/2009/11/14/286219.html>
