OK, the story is all over the Old Media edifice: forty-one-year-old Teresa Lewis has become “the first woman to be executed in the U.S. in five years.”

Every news outlet from TV and cable, to newspapers, to radio, to the Internet is using this line, this “the first woman to be executed in the U.S. in five years” line. They are all playing the same narrative.

So, here’s the question I have. How exactly can anyone be the “first” anything “in five years”? Doesn’t the whole “in five years” presuppose that someone else came first? See, the one “five years” ago was at the very least the real first one, not the one that came today. And in this case, the real “first” woman executed came over a hundred years ago.

See that woman was Lincoln assassination conspirator Mary Surratt. And that is only the “official” version of events because one could easily count those women hanged for being witches in the famed Salem Witch Trials way back in the 1600s (though this country wasn’t quite “the United States” yet, granted).

Why, then, is this language being used? Why so that this murderer’s execution somehow sounds like a bad thing, that’s why. If we say “the first one in five years,” we make it all seem so outrageous, so shocking. And that heightened emotion is applied to the execution making many people feel that it is somehow untoward.

The truth is, though, that this woman got what she deserved. There is nothing at all untoward in her elimination from society. She does not deserve the distinction of being known as any “first” anything.

And as the Old Media establishment tsk tsks America after executing a woman that confessed to her crime, underwent an extensive trial with proper representation, and saw years of court procedures, can we remember what is going on elsewhere?

How about the 1983 hanging of ten women by the Iranian regime? Why were they murdered by the mad mullahs? Because they dared believe in the Baha’i faith, a religion that Iranian authorities had banned. One was only 17 years old and was tortured by the Iranians before she was hanged.

But, heck, we don’t have to go all the way back to 1983. Women are commonly raped, murdered, and executed by hanging and stoning by the “religion of peace.”

Then there are the hundreds of thousands of women held in North Korean gulags, the hundreds of thousands held in Chinese prison camps, the many thousands held in Cuba’s prisons…. the U.S. executes one admitted murderer and we are the evil ones while these other “respected” nations do this sort of thing on a daily basis and no one says a word.

Excuse me if I don’t feel so bad for Teresa Lewis.

There has never been a trial of a fallen national leader that would stand up to the scrutiny of good criminal law. They have always been politically motivated, full of passion, and short on legal niceties or any observation of technical precision. Because of this, should the United States capture Usamma bin Laden, she should quickly and immediately execute him. Period. End of discussion.

From the absurd trial of Charles I by Cromwell’s Roundheads, to the Nazi trials at Nuremberg, to the Soviet Show Trials all the way to the execution of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, no political trial has been legally legitimate. Moral legitimacy is another subject, but the truth is that every one of these trials mentioned was bad on legal procedure.

Not only are these trials bad on technical law, but they set bad precedents. The Nuremberg trials, for instance, should never have happened because they emboldened those miscreants that had the idea that an “International community” could possibly have the legal power to try and convict a leader of a fallen state or deposed government.

Better that the Nazis should have been taken out back of a death camp and summarily executed as befits any fallen, evil foeman. The Romans were right. Kill those fallen leaders and move on. There is no need to justify it via some warped appeal to “the law.”

This is not to say that justifying a war is a waste of time. It is not to say that laying out the reasons that a foe must be eliminated is unnecessary. It’s just that the silly trials are pointless and disingenuous. Remember what Barack Obama said about the terrorists currently under lock and key? He said that they’d be convicted no matter what. So, if this is the case, why the faux trials?

Now there are two reasons why the false appeal to “the law” in these cases is illegitimate. This appeal to “the law” tends toward the destruction of state sovereignty and it is a terrible softening of war.

Starting with the later, a quote widely attributed to Robert E. Lee is instructive: “It is well that war is so terrible, or we would grow too fond of it.”

This quote bears directly on why political show trials are detrimental. Ostensibly Lee was saying that the glory, pomp, and circumstance of war are so stirring of the martial soul that only the terrible nature of war can temper a misplaced love of it. Here I want to focus on that terrible nature as juxtaposed with the “legitimizing” of war through the political show trial that is supposedly meant to punish the losers. After all isn’t a regularizing of the punishment via a show trial an act that obviates from the terrible nature of war? Aren’t we essentially making war less terrible this way? Aren’t we making of the outcome of war a mere procedure of law?

Essentially a show trial makes the execution of the deposed a “legitimate” and technical outcome instead of a mere result of his losing at war. That, in and of itself, takes away some of the terribleness of war. It makes of war a “legal” issue instead of a harsh and terrible action forced upon a people ending with a terrible conclusion.

Better that the world sees the swift and terrible justice of the execution of a losing leader without all the false moralizing and empty appeals to “the law.” You start a war, you lose… you die. It is terrible, it is harsh, it is war, all as it should be. Pretending that we are appealing to the niceties of “the law” is foolish.

Secondarily we have the proper definition of sovereignty at stake with these empty show trials. During his trial Erich Honecker, the one-time leader of East Germany, wondered how his accusers could possibly try him legitimately and he had a particularly prescient point in the question. Honecker, it will be remembered, was tried for his part in the many shootings of East German citizens cut down in an attempt to breach the famed Berlin Wall and make it to freedom in West Germany.

Honecker asserted that he was the leader of a nation officially recognized by some 100 other nations, that his nation was a sovereign nation, and that regardless of his actions he was that nation’s duly constituted leader at the time. Honecker wondered how it was that a reunified Germany, an entity that was essentially newly born and did not have any standing in his old East Germany, could possibly have the legal standing to try him? Certainly, he mused, his own old national authorities had the power to try him, but how could an authority that didn’t even exist in his day legally or legitimately try him as a criminal? These are logical and legitimate questions putting the sense of his trial in much doubt. But his trial went on unabated despite the truth of Honecker’s queries.

So, by what real authority was Honecker tried? For that matter, by what legal authority did the Allies try the Nazis? There really is only one legitimate reason that works for Nuremberg, for instance, and that is that the Allies simply won the war. That was the only real legitimacy by which Cromwell tried Charles I, too. All the faux appeals to “the law” or “crimes against humanity” or even God are meaningless jargon.

Yet we have guilty parties on moral issues. The Nazis, Honnecker, maybe even Charles I, were not nice folks. They certainly deserved their fates. So, how do we legitimately execute them?

The winner of war should simply make up the charges, present them to the world, and carry out the sentence without all the silly trappings of faux law. And what will prevent sudden mass bloodshed should the world do away with this idiotic pretense to “the law” it now relies upon? Nothing. Nothing simply because nothing would change. Nations would still war if they felt they could get away with it, enemies would still fall as a result, and if one nation went too far with it’s might-makes-right argument, they’d be opposed strongly enough to put them in check eventually. But, you see, that is how it is now even with all the childish claims that the world is following some sort of “international law” governing war.

Those that think appeals to “international law” governs how nations interact on the level of armed conflict are fooling themselves.

So, if we were to capture bin Laden, let’s do without the silly appeals to “the law” and instruct our solders to just put a bullet in the man’s head and be done with it. It would be far more honest.

Not so long ago, Adam Gadahn, who has both Jewish and Catholic ancestry, was growing up on a goat farm in Orange County, California. Now he’s been charged with treason against the United States — “perhaps the most serious offense for which any person can be tried under our Constitution,” according to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty.

But Gadahn, aka Azzam al-Amriki or “Azzam the American,” 28, is accused of deliberately making the choice to leave his country and join al Qaeda, providing “aid and comfort” to the country’s most determined enemy.

Announcing the charges at an afternoon press conference at the Justice Department Wednesday, the Deputy Attorney General asserted that “in fact Mr Gadahn is the first person to be charged with treason against the United States since the World War II era.”

The indictment, returned by a federal grand jury sitting in Santa Ana, California, includes a second charge of providing material support to a terrorist organization.

But it is the treason charge that is most serious; in fact, it is so unusual that it is the only crime specifically mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. In the entire history of the country, only about 40 individuals have ever been charged with the crime. The charge of treason carries a maximum possible penalty of death, but the decision whether to seek the ultimate penalty will not be made until Gadahn is apprehended and brought into court.

The FBI has him listed as one of their Top Ten Most Wanted Terrorists, and also lists his many aliases:

Abu Suhayb Al-Amriki, Abu Suhail Al-Amriki, Abu Suhayb, Yihya Majadin Adams, Adam Pearlman, Yayah, Azzam the American, Azzam Al-Amriki

And now, he’s been captured.

Coincidentally, a video featuring Gadahn was just released today. You can see it here; in it, he praises Nidal Hassan (the Fort Hood shooter) and encourages other Muslims in the military to follow suit. JWF has a pretty good timeline of events.

The question now is, what will happen to Gadahn? If he’s handed over to the United States, it’s hard to not be worried when we have a president like Obama in office. It’s undeniable that he has, at the absolute least, given aid and comfort to our enemy. Will Obama be sure to get him a lawyer first? Read him his Miranda Rights and make sure he’s got a teddy bear to keep him comfy in his prison cell? The penalty for treason is death, but what are libs going to do? To them, even lethal freakin’ injection is cruel and unusual punishment. Frankly, if I had my way, Gadahn would be castrated, hung, and then drawn and quartered. Publicly, too.

But where should Gadahn be tried?

Knowing Obama, he’ll probably give him a nice civilian trial in federal court. Or will he? He’s reversed Eric Holder’s decision to give KSM and the other 9-11 conspirators a federal trial. In this case, though, would a federal trial be the best option? Considering the indictment for treason against him from 2006, a federal trial might not be a bad idea. He is a civilian, after all, and proving treasonous activity won’t exactly be difficult. The problem would be the sentencing. Even if he is convicted and sentenced to death, will he be able to just sit in a jail cell for decades until we finally get around to executing him? Jose Padilla was tried in a federal court and only got sentenced to 17 years and 4 months in prison. There’s also the possibility of an appeal with a federal trial. That can’t be allowed to happen. He needs to be convicted quickly and executed even more quickly. Would a military tribunal accomplish that?

The sad part about all of this is that we should be celebrating. Unfortunately, we have a president who we know is not concerned first and foremost for the safety of the country. Were President Bush still in office, no one would be worried that the president would be hemming and hawing about what to do. Obama, right about now, is probably worried about who he should betray: the American people or the liberals he represents. Obama has a serious chance here to redeem himself with the public. He needs a political victory, and bad. This would give it to him, and it would give him the patriotic, tough, strong appearance that Bush always had. Obama comes across as a pansy ass; this could be the first step towards changing that. The pathetic thing is that his reputation and a political victory are probably the only reasons he would act tough on this issue. If he thought being lenient would make him look better, that’s probably what he would do.

Here’s hoping that, for once, Obama will forget about his socialist liberal base and do the right thing for the country.

UPDATE: UPDATE: There’s been confusion over whether or not Gadahn is who was captured. It seems that if it wasn’t Gadahn, then it was some other American traitor who deserves to get executed mercilessly. The AP has updated their story, and Pakistani officials are saying that an American who has been charged with treason was captured. Sounds like Gadahn, right? But US officials haven’t confirmed the story.

Two Pakistani officers and a government official said Sunday that an American charged with treason for working with al-Qaida had been captured, a development that could deliver another significant blow in the U.S.-led battle against the terror network.

U.S. defense, intelligence and law enforcement officials could not immediately verify the reported detention of Adam Gadahn, a 31-year-old spokesman for al-Qaida who has appeared on videos threatening the West, including one that emerged earlier Sunday.

The reported arrest of Gadahn follows the recent detention of several Afghan Taliban commanders in Karachi, including the group’s No. 2. Those detentions have been seen as a sign that Pakistan, which has been criticized as an untrustworthy ally, was cooperating more fully with Washington.

Some observers were cautious about giving credence to the claim that Gadahn was in custody as reports emerged that the man arrested might instead be a Taliban militant leader. There was no way of independently verifying the arrest or identity, and detentions of terror suspects in Pakistan are often surrounded by conflicting reports.

So, is it Gadahn or isn’t it? Frankly, if Pakistani officials are saying it is an American who was charged with treason, it sure as heck sounds like it is Gadahn. And if US intelligence operatives weren’t involved in this capture, then how would they know whether it is or isn’t Gadahn?

Either way, an American traitor was caught and that’s reason to celebrate, whether it is Gadahn or not… unless of course Obama messes it all up and throws away an opportunity to execute a traitorous dirtbag.

Cross-posted from Cassy’s blog. Stop by for more original commentary, or follow her on Twitter!

Two-thirds of Americans disagree with the Obama administration’s decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a civilian court rather than a military court, according to a new national poll.

But, you know what? All you folks who oppose Obama and Holder’s idea are raaaaacists. And mean. And hate our Constitution. Or something like that.

But six in 10 people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday say that the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks should be tried in the United States, as the administration plans to do, rather than at a U.S. facility in another country.

I have to wonder how that would have changed had the question said Guantanamo Bay rather than at a U.S. facility in another country.

“The decision to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in front of a civilian court is universally unpopular – even a majority of Democrats and liberals say that he should be tried by military authorities,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “Despite that, most Americans say that he will get a fair trial in the U.S.”

So, in private, where the Obamazombies do not have to push their talking points, a majority think the Obama/Holder idea is dumb as a bag of rocks. Figures.

“Nearly eight in 10 favor the death penalty if that happens – including one in five who say they normally oppose the death penalty, but would support it in this case,” adds Holland.

Notice how Democrats tend to drop their beliefs in a heartbeat, depending on which way the wind blows?

Shockingly, the only left leaning site that seems to be sort of kind of covering this is TPM. No, wait, they are only pointing out the NY Gov. Paterson is against the plan. I’m waiting with bated breath for some of the bigger supports, who went down the insult people road when the plan was announced Friday morning, such as The Moderate Voice (snicker) and Alan Colmes, to post the survey.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove

Conservatives and Liberals agree that Sonia Sotomayor hid her liberality while testifying before Congress about her views, and how those views will influence her decisions if she is confirmed for the U.S. Supreme Court. Ignoring Sotomayor’s La Raza membership, an extremist organization known as the “Latino answer to the KKK,” and many other controversial opinions, papers and speeches, some Conservatives will cast a vote for her. Liberals will all vote for her, but activists are grousing that she has let down the cause, abandoned her judicial capital, and betrayed minorities by donning her Conservative hat and keeping her cool. Conservatives and Liberals agree that the “real Sonia Sotomayor” has not yet stood up.

Sonia Sotomayor

Conservatives are flummoxed that the Sonia Sotomayor witnessing under oath, is a completely different Sonia Sotomayor known by her previous court rulings, her speeches and her mammoth pile of writings.

Liberals are flummoxed that this week’s testimony is not the Sonia they know and love,

…the same Sonia that will deny a White man his right to have a reverse discrimination case heard, the Sonia that holds membership in La Raza,

La Raza was condemned in 2007 by former U.S. Rep. Charles Norwood, R-Ga., as a radical “pro-illegal immigration lobbying organization that supports racist groups calling for the secession of the western United States as a Hispanic-only homeland.”

Norwood urged La Raza to renounce its support of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan – which sees “the Race” as part of an ethnic group that one day will reclaim Aztlan, the mythical birthplace of the Aztecs. In Chicano folklore, Aztlan includes California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and parts of Colorado and Texas.

…the same Sonia that, speaking as a member of La Raza, said “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion as a judge than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” and then repeated it another 6 times, the same Sonia that supports “the Latino answer to KKK,” :

Miguel Perez, a La Raza spokesman at Cal State-Northridge, has been quoted as saying: “The ultimate ideology is the liberation of Aztlan. Communism would be closest [to it]. Once Aztlan is established, ethnic cleansing would commence: Non-Chicanos would have to be expelled — opposition groups would be quashed because you have to keep power.”

…the same Sonia who has had 60% of her rulings overturned by the Supreme Court,

…the same Sonia who in January 2009 ruled that States do not have to abide by the Second Amendment. In other words, if a State decides that residents do not have the right to keep and bear arms, then Sonia thinks that decision is Constitutional. In Maloney v. Cuomo, she signed the opinion stating a that the Second Amendment does not protect individuals from having Second Amendment rights.

…the same Sonia who holds for abortions at any stage of pregnancy even if the mother’s life is not endangered, the same Sonia who ruled in favor of a Muslim inmate’s right to have a “holiday feast” (which had been denied him because the particular holiday was not a mandatory holiday in Islam) on the grounds that it was “subjectively” important to him, regardless that it was not important to Islam.

…the same Sonia who opined in a dissenting opinion that minority felons should have the right to vote, based on past discriminations,

…the same Sonia who voted for the courts of other Nations to have a say when one parent removes a child from the country without the other parent’s consent – in other words, you, the parent, might be subject to the opinion of a court in another land where your spouse absconded with your child without your permission.

Still yet, some Republican liberals plan to vote to confirm Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. The names are no surprise. We learned some time ago we cannot count on Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), Senator Olympia Snow (R-MAINE) and now Senator Mel Martinez, a Republican Hispanic senator from Florida who is retiring in 2010.

Some more about La Raza and what it means for Judge Sotomayor to hold membership in this organization:
La Raza Facts: 15 things you should know
by Michelle Malkin writing for NationalReviewOnline:

Only in America could critics of a group called “The Race” be labeled racists. Such is the triumph of left-wing identity chauvinists, whose aggressive activists and supine abettors have succeeded in redefining all opposition as “hate.”

Both Barack Obama and John McCain will speak this week in San Diego at the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza, the Latino organization whose name is Spanish for, yes, “The Race.” Can you imagine Obama and McCain paying homage to a group of white people who called themselves that? No matter. The presidential candidates and the media have legitimized “The Race” as a mainstream ethnic lobbying group and marginalized its critics as intolerant bigots. The unvarnished truth is that the group is a radical ethnic nationalist outfit that abuses your tax dollars and milks PC politics to undermine our sovereignty.

Here are 15 things you should know about “The Race”:

15. “The Race” supports driver’s licenses for illegal aliens.

14.”The Race” demands in-state tuition discounts for illegal alien students that are not available to law-abiding U.S. citizens and law-abiding legal immigrants.

13. “The Race” vehemently opposes cooperative immigration enforcement efforts between local, state, and federal authorities.

12. “The Race” opposes a secure fence on the southern border.

11. “The Race” joined the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in a failed lawsuit attempt to prevent the feds from entering immigration information into a key national crime database — and to prevent local police officers from accessing the data.

10. “The Race” opposed the state of Oklahoma’s tough immigration-enforcement-first laws, which cut off welfare to illegal aliens, put teeth in employer sanctions, and strengthened local-federal cooperation and information sharing.

9. “The Race” joined other open-borders, anti-assimilationists and sued to prevent Proposition 227, California’s bilingual education reform ballot initiative, from becoming law.

8. “The Race” bitterly protested common-sense voter ID provisions as an “absolute disgrace.”

7. “The Race” has consistently opposed post-9/11 national security measures at every turn.

6. Former “Race” president Raul Yzaguirre, Hillary Clinton’s Hispanic outreach adviser, said this: “U.S. English is to Hispanics as the Ku Klux Klan is to blacks.” He was referring to U.S. English, the nation’s oldest, largest citizens’ action group dedicated to preserving the unifying role of the English language in the United States. “The Race” also pioneered Orwellian open-borders Newspeak and advised the Mexican government on how to lobby for illegal alien amnesty while avoiding the terms “illegal” and “amnesty.”

5. “The Race” gives mainstream cover to a poisonous subset of ideological satellites, led by Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, or Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan (MEChA). The late GOP Rep. Charlie Norwood rightly characterized the organization as “a radical racist group . . . one of the most anti-American groups in the country, which has permeated U.S. campuses since the 1960s, and continues its push to carve a racist nation out of the American West.”

4. “The Race” is currently leading a smear campaign against staunch immigration-enforcement leaders and has called for TV and cable news networks to keep immigration enforcement proponents off the airwaves — in addition to pushing for Fairness Doctrine policies to shut up their foes. The New York Times reported that current “Race” president Janet Murguia believes “hate speech” should “not be tolerated, even if such censorship were a violation of First Amendment rights.”

3. “The Race” sponsors militant ethnic nationalist charter schools subsidized by your public tax dollars (at least $8 million in federal education grants). The schools include Aztlan Academy in Tucson, Ariz., the Mexicayotl Academy in Nogales, Ariz., Academia Cesar Chavez Charter School in St. Paul, Minn., and La Academia Semillas del Pueblo in Los Angeles, whose principal inveighed: “We don’t want to drink from a White water fountain, we have our own wells and our natural reservoirs and our way of collecting rain in our aqueducts. We don’t need a White water fountain . . . ultimately the White way, the American way, the neo liberal, capitalist way of life will eventually lead to our own destruction.”

2. “The Race” has perfected the art of the PC shakedown at taxpayer expense, pushing relentlessly to lower home-loan standards for Hispanic borrowers, reaping millions in federal “mortgage counseling” grants, seeking special multimillion-dollar earmarks, and partnering with banks that do business with illegal aliens.

1. “The Race” thrives on ethnic supremacy — and the elite sheeple’s unwillingness to call it what it is. As historian Victor Davis Hanson observes: “[The] organization’s very nomenclature ‘The National Council of La Raza’ is hate speech to the core. Despite all the contortions of the group, Raza (as its Latin cognate suggests) reflects the meaning of ‘race’ in Spanish, not ‘the people’ — and that’s precisely why we don’t hear of something like ‘The National Council of the People,’ which would not confer the buzz notion of ethnic, racial and tribal chauvinism.”

The fringe is the center. The center is the fringe. Viva La Raza.

TEHRAN, Iran – Two men convicted of adultery were stoned to death in northeastern Iran last month but a third convicted man managed to escape, Iran’s judiciary spokesman said Tuesday.

Ali Reza Jamshidi said the stoning took place in the city of Mashhad in late December but did not provide the names of the convicted men.

Under Iran’s Islamic law, adultery is punishable by stoning, but such sentences are rare. International human rights groups have long criticized stoning in Iran as a cruel form of punishment.

Under Islamic law, the third guy who escaped is free now. There is no comment from the other two. Maybe Obama could reconsider his “no preconditions” pledge now? Doubtful.

All five of the Guantánamo detainees charged with planning and coordinating the Sept. 11 attacks have asked a military judge to accept their confessions in full.

The request appeared to be intended to cut short any effort to try them, and to challenge the United States government to put them to death. But the military judge in the case, Col. Steven Henley of the Army, indicated that he would not accept guilty pleas from the men right away, and that formal proceedings to do so may be a while off.

At the start of what had been expected to be routine proceedings Monday, Judge Henley disclosed that he had received a written statement from the five men. The statement said the five planned to stop filing written motions and instead “to announce our confessions to plea in full.”

Allahpundit:

Here’s a useful rule of thumb to help you decide, in bien pensant fashion, what does and doesn’t constitute a jihadist propaganda victory as the process goes forward. Executing this pig as he so richly deserves is a jihadist propaganda victory because it grants him the martyrdom he seeks, even though we happily run that same risk every time we fire a Predator missile at a safe house in the Pakistani tribal areas. Giving this pig a forum as plum as a trial in which to rant, curse the United States, sing hosannas to Allah, and hold forth on Israel and whatever else is on his mind is not a jihadist propaganda victory because, well, that’s just justice.

Fine, give em the trial and soapbox, but it isn’t a victory for terror to grant their death wishes. I could give a rat’s patooti about the propaganda. It will happen regardless. You can chase your tail in circles on that catch 22. Give em what they deserve.

But before the anti-death penalty crowd gets too overconfident in their argument that killing the 9/11 planners would “just be giving them what they want: martyrdom” — which appears to be actually right on in this instance — let me point out that al Qaeda propaganda video after propaganda video have also extolled the virtues of Khalid Shiekh Mohammed while he was busy rotting in Guantanamo. ie, he’s already a “martyr” for the cause alive or dead.

Also I’ll note that among al Qaeda’s many “reasons” given by Osama bin Laden for the 9/11 attack was that we were holding Omar Abdul Rahman (“The Blind Sheikh”) in the federal pokey. The moral of the story is that whether we kill them or simply hold them prisoner those with the jihadi mindset will still hate us and find reason to blame us for an act of “injustice”.

So, why not give them their wish and kill them? Call it an act of national catharsis. Palette cleansing if you will.

But, wait! The ACLU cry injustice!

If the judge accepts guilty pleas, the ability of the Obama administration to transfer this case to federal court would be nearly impossible because the legal principle of jeopardy would attach, according to Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. That could mean the new administration may have to oversee an execution resulting from a process that many Obama supporters and legal advisers regard as deeply flawed.

“It is absurd to accept a guilty plea from people who were tortured and waterboarded,” said Romero, who is at Guantanamo to observe the proceeding…

Whatever! Let em have their military trial then where the treasure trove of intelligence we got from the monsters will certainly do them in. Oh wait! The ACLU are against those too! The only thing that will make the ACLU happy is to set these killers free! That ain’t gonna happen, so they should just shut their yaps already. I know, wishful thinking. Absurd? The ACLU are absurd!

Michelle Malkin: What about the truthers?

The Army has set a date for its first execution in nearly 50 years.

The military said Thursday that former North Carolina soldier Ronald A. Gray is to be executed Dec. 10 at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute (TEHR’-uh HOHT), Ind. He was convicted of multiple rapes and murders.

Army Secretary Pete Geren ordered that the former cook die by lethal injection. President Bush approved the execution in July.

Imagine if Gray was a cop killer or guy who started one of the most violent gangs in America. Or a terrorist. There would be candlelite vigils, protests, web pages, petitions. The ACLU would be suing. But, no, he is a soldier, so, eh, not worth their time.

And, yes, he should get the death penalty, just like anyone who did what Gray did.

How to Begin Repairing the Damage to Freedom in America After Bush

The next president will become chief executive of a nation that has been greatly weakened – in particular, our freedoms, our values, and our international reputation have been greatly undermined by the policies of the past eight years.

Part 1 – Day One

Day One: Stop Torture, Close Guantanamo, End Extraordinary Renditions

1. Stop Torture and Abuse

2. Close Guantanamo and Restore the Rule of Law for Detainees

3. End and Prohibit the Practice of Extraordinary Rendition

Part 2 – First 100 Days

1. Warrantless spying. Issue an executive order recognizing the president’s obligation to comply with FISA and other statutes, requiring the executive branch to do so, and prohibiting the NSA from collecting the communications, domestic or international, of U.S. citizens and residents.

2. Watch lists. Issue an executive order requiring watch lists to be completely reviewed within 3 months, with names limited to only those for whom there is credible evidence of terrorist ties or activities.

3. Freedom of Information – Ashcroft Doctrine. Direct the attorney general to rescind the “Ashcroft Doctrine” regarding Freedom of Information Act compliance, which instructs agencies to withhold information whenever there is a “sound legal basis” for doing so, and return to the compliance standard under Attorney General Janet Reno, which promoted an “overall presumption of disclosure” of government information through the FOIA unless it was “reasonably foreseeable that disclosure would be harmful.”

4. Monitoring of activists. Direct the attorney general and other relevant agency heads (eg, Defense and Homeland Security) to end government monitoring of political activists.

5. DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. Order renewed civil rights enforcement at Civil Rights Division, DOJ.

6. Real ID Act. Direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to suspend the regulations (73 Fed. Reg. 5272) for the Real ID Act pending congressional review.

7. Abortion gag rule. Rescind the Executive Memorandum of March 28, 2001, known as the “Mexico City policy” or “Global Gag Rule,” prohibiting foreign aid to organizations overseas that promote or perform abortions.

8. Ban all workplace discrimination against sexual minorities by the federal government and its contractors. Issue an executive order prohibiting sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination by federal contractors, and expand the existing order banning sexual orientation discrimination in federal employment to also protect against gender identity discrimination.

9. Death penalty. Implement a federal death penalty moratorium until racial disparities are addressed. The federal death penalty system suffers from obvious and extreme racial disparities.

10. “Faith-based initiatives.” Restore fundamental religious-liberty protections by halting Bush Administration efforts to permit direct funding of houses of worship, underwrite religious proselytism with taxpayer dollars, and allow government-funded religious discrimination.

This moonbat wishlist is much less likely to happen under McCain than Obama. I think we can read between the lines on who this “non-partisan” organization is rooting for. Make sure to get out and vote on Tuesday.

Graphic credit: Chad Crow – Wall Street Journal

If Barack Obama wins the Oval Office, will America be so fed-up with Liberalism after four years of a Democrat President and Democrat-held Congress that we make a significant move back to Conservatism? Oh, if it were that simple.

Four years of Obama, Pelosi and Reid will entrench this country so deeply in Liberalism that it may take generations to turn the country around.

Within the first year of an Obama Presidency, three Supreme Court justices will likely retire, maybe four, and be replaced with Barack Obama’s vision of political, social and economic justice.

I’ve listened to Greta Van Susteran’s discussion of the replacement of Justices, and she believes two will retire, Obama will replace them with Liberal justices, and the current balance of Liberal judges will not change.

Greta is discounting the tenaciousness of Liberalism. I predict the older justices will retire sooner, rather than later, to enable Obama to stack the court in his first four years, infecting the remainder of our lives with social and economic justice. With a Democrat Congress and Obama as President:

1) there goes property rights to eminent domain
2) there goes the death penalty
3) there goes the Second Amendment and our guns
4) there goes the rule of law
5) there goes any semblance of judicial restraint
6) there goes any hope of stopping voter fraud
1) HERE COMES a bias for the treatment of enemy combatants
2) HERE COMES Constitutional rights to same-sex marriage
3) HERE COMES a thumb-of-the-nose to long-held State’s rights
4) HERE COMES “redistributive changes.”

Barack Obama expressed his regret that the Supreme Court hadn’t been more ‘radical’ and described as a ‘tragedy’ the court’s refusal to take up ‘the issues of redistribution of wealth.’ No wonder he wants to appoint judges that legislate from the bench,” Holtz-Eakin continued [McCain spokesman].

In July 2007, Barack Obama speaking at a Planned Parenthood event said, speaking of the persona of a Supreme Court justice of his choosing:

We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that’s the criteria by which I’m going to be selecting my judges.

Speaking of the ruling of Gonzales v. Carhart, which upheld the ruling on partial birth abortion, Obama said the decision was “a concerted effort” on behalf of the Court to deny access to abortions. He was particularly harsh on the majority opinion written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, saying:

He knows many things but my understanding is that he does not know how to be a doctor.

Last I noticed, Obama lacks a medical degree. This was dishonest and inflammatory rhetoric but nevertheless, it brought favorable reactions from the activists attending the meeting. Remember, this was a decision made on the merits of partial birth abortion, not abortion as protected by law.

Let us give serious thought to Senator Obama’s vision of a Supreme Court judge That judge will be empathetic to someone…to you? to me? because I’m young? I’m pregnant? I’m gay? I’m Black? I’m poor? I’m old?

“Our Constitution is colorblind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.”
John Marshall Harlan

Civil government cannot let any group ride roughshod over others simply because their consciences tell them to do so.”
Justice Robert H. Jackson

Let us give serious thought to Obama’s belief that our Constitution is a living, breathing document:

The layman’s constitutional view is that what he likes is constitutional and that which he doesn’t like is unconstitutional.
Justice Hugo L. Black

One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.”
Justice Robert H. Jackson

It is my belief that there are ‘absolutes’ in our Bill of Rights, and that they were put there on purpose by men who knew what the words meant and meant their prohibitions to be ‘absolutes.’ “
Justice Hugo L. Black

The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.
William O. Douglas

An Obama quote from his book, The Audacity of Hope, page 92-93 in my trade paperback:

What the framework of our Constitution can do is organize the way by which we argue about our future. All of its elaborate machinery – its separation of powers and checks and balances and federalist principles and Bill of Rights – are designed to force us into a conversation, a “deliberative democracy”…law in America compels us to entertain the possibility that we are not always right and to sometimes change our minds;…

Definition of “deliberative” from Dictionary.com: having to do with policy; dealing with the wisdom and expediency of a proposal.

Senator Obama wants America to have a discussion, and to deliberate, about the wisdom of The Constitution and the Bill of Right. Think about it – deliberate on it.

Others talking about an Obama Supreme Court:
Conservatives Slam Obama’s Misunderstanding of the U.S. Constitution