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KSM trial a “nightmare” — and Open Thread

Bookworm on Nov 18 2009 at 9:41 am | Filed under: Open Threads

Spoke with a federal prosecutor the other day. She was honorably very circumspect, but she couldn’t stop herself from saying that a KSM trial in New York’s federal court system would be a “nightmare.” I don’t know her political viewpoints, so I can only believe that she’ talking about the discovery and motion aspects, as well as the circus atmosphere that will inevitably result from this bit of political insanity.

On other subjects, I’ve spent the last hour (yes, hour!) working on carpool schedules for the kids’ various events — and, why, oh why, do I keep volunteering to put together the carpool schedules? So, no blogging ’til later. Therefore, it’s Open Thread time!

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37 Responses to “KSM trial a “nightmare” — and Open Thread”

on 18 Nov 2009 at 9:55 am 1suek

As usual, Dr Sanity approaches the issue from the aspect of “what’s wrong with liberals”, but check out this article and look at the time line of the prosecution of Lynne Stewart. Then put it into possible context of KSM.

http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2009/11/common-cause-with-theocratic-homophobic.html

I agree with your acquaintance – it’s going to be a nightmare.

I keep envisioning a huge mass of people gathering when they bring him to court, wresting him away from the police and disposing of him. Preferably by hanging. Would the police start shooting? I wonder.
If they’re smart, they’ll hook up a TV system which allows him to stay in a special room in a prison, where he can hear everything, and from which he can testify – and never leave the prison.

There was an interview with a Senator Reed a couple of days ago…his position was that there was no way there would not be a conviction, and even if they didn’t get a conviction, he wouldn’t be released. That pretty much blew my mind!! I couldn’t believe it. “No doubt” about the conviction is bad enough, but “he won’t be released”??? find the man “Not Guilty” and then keep him in prison??? Unbelievable.
Flopping Aces had a very good comment recently on the possibilities of why he would _not_ be convicted…I’ll try to find it. It might be worth a discussion or two. It sounded very reasonable, but I’m not a lawyer – it could be so much gobbeldy-gook.
on 18 Nov 2009 at 10:36 am 2Danny Lemieux

It appears that even Obama has already made prejudicial statements convicting KSM and sentencing him to death (wasn’t Obama supposed to be a law professor?).
My prediction is that this is going to be OJ all over again and that the Democrats are already propping the stage with ammunition whereby to acquit KSM on technicalities.
on 18 Nov 2009 at 10:36 am 3MacG

I found this story on the Religion news blog chronicling how a violent Muslim sect is being run from INSIDE a federal prison. How they think that we should keep these guys on US Soil is beyond me.

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/23848/islamic-hate-group-2
on 18 Nov 2009 at 10:59 am 4suek

Re: the carpool schedule…

Book, do you have an Excel program available? I think it would be useful to plan your schedule…
If not, I’ve been told that “Open Office” – a linux free to download program – is very equivalent. Excel would allow you to do a columns down and colums across worksheet…
It’s actually an accounting program, but short of a data entry program. I think it would be a good possibility for you to try.
on 18 Nov 2009 at 11:29 am 5Danny Lemieux

Hi Book- here’s another tool that my spouse (who is much smarter than I) has had very good luck with…http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/organize-your-schedule-and-share-events/
on 18 Nov 2009 at 11:51 am 6highlander

Back to the KSM trial — the question that keeps coming into my mind is: How are they ever going to find an impartial jury in New York City — or anywhere else in the U.S. for that matter?

With all the pretrial publicity, the “guilty-before-proven-innocent” statements made by Obama, the unavoidable bias of any jury empaneled in New York City, and the overall “climate of hostility” toward KSM that still exists eight years after 9/11, I think even a first year law student could get him off. You’re the lawyer, Book — what do you think?

But then this will not really be a trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, will it? He will simply be a guilty bystander in a trial of the Bush administration.
on 18 Nov 2009 at 11:53 am 7SADIE

No person shall be held to answer for any capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
The rest below
http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/10193.html
on 18 Nov 2009 at 12:22 pm 8SADIE

Leave it to the Beaver make that Congressman Cleaver of Mo. November 25th is…drum roll please is ‘Complaint Free Wednesday’. From the land of the ‘Show Me’ state – don’t show ….
http://biggovernment.com/2009/11/18/finally-a-congressman-with-a-solution-stop-complaining-so-much/
on 18 Nov 2009 at 1:50 pm 9SADIE

I always hated the Mel Brooks film Springtime for Hitler. It was a lurid attempt to satirize a monster. If you missed the film and the first offense against all your senses, a Broadway production was yours for the price of an even more expensive ticket.

Eric Holder,with the help of his backers (producers, script writers and stage production managers-the very ones who set POTUS in front of a colosseum, are in full off-Broadway mode. The cast of terrorists, who have performed on a world wide stage with few rave reviews, aside of their stand-ins, who perform daily are coming to NYC. Please check with the NYT Entertainment section for opening night, dates and show times. The cost of a ticket will run in the millions of dollars, but everyone will have a front row seat. The play, in its final stages, has the working title of “Sheik Your Booty” or “allah hu dunnit”. *PIMP is still going over the final touches and are in the process of whether it should be billed as a musical or musical-tragedy. The Playbill promises to be a keeper.

*Prayer Incorporated Mat Productions promises us, secure seating and a happy ending.
on 18 Nov 2009 at 5:49 pm 10suek

A couple of interesting articles:

http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2009/11/holder-is-traitor-still-working-for.html

http://newzeal.blogspot.com/2009/11/obama-file-90-alice-palmer-re-examined.html
on 18 Nov 2009 at 6:28 pm 11Bookworm

suek#4: I do have Excel. The problem isn’t the spreadsheet, it’s getting seven families, with varying car capacities (holding 3 boys, 4 boys, or 6 boys), organized to take seven little boys who live all over Marin into San Francisco for 10 different rehearsals, some of which are on weekends or during school hours. Yikes!
on 18 Nov 2009 at 6:40 pm 12BrianE

“And if we must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that KSM was complicit in mass murder, by what right do we send Predators and Special Forces to kill his al-Qaida comrades wherever we find them? For none of them has been granted a fair trial.

When the Justice Department sets up a task force to wage war on a crime organization like the Mafia or MS-13, no U.S. official has a right to shoot Mafia or gang members on sight. No one has a right to bomb their homes. No one has a right to regard the possible death of their wives and children in an attack as acceptable collateral damage.
Yet that is what we do to al-Qaida, to which KSM belongs. ”

Certainly valid questions raised by Pat Buchanan.

When Karl Rove was asked why Barack Obama and Eric Holder decided to try KSM in federal court, he response was “self-delusion”. These are smart guys, but like the wonder kids in the Johnson administration, they are too smart for their own good, and are so driven by ideology– by an attempt to validate their leftist views that they only prove themselves to be idiots.
KSM was going to plead guilty in the military trial and Obama stopped the proceedings. Idiots.

The Savage coined phrase “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder” is once again being proven not to be a clever title, but an apt description, being substantiated by Obama and Holder.
on 18 Nov 2009 at 7:23 pm 13suek

Economic stuff again. Start here and go to the main page for other very good articles – letters to China’s president, and then to Obama – but this one includes three 7-9 minute videos of Glenn Beck’s show worth watching.
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1640-MUST-WATCH-Glenn-Beck-And-The-Dollar-Carry.html
on 18 Nov 2009 at 8:16 pm 14BrianE

There was a thread on another blog asking the question- are we headed for a depression or hyper-inflation. Given interest rates and the massive government spending you would think inflation, especially since the Fed said they were going to keep interest rates low for as long as it takes. The consensus was a depression. Is gold a good investment in a depression? I think you want to hold cash. If inflation is the future, then gold or real estate would be a good bet.
on 18 Nov 2009 at 8:42 pm 15SADIE

Maybe the unemployment rate in Marin is not an issue..but I was thinking, hire someone with a van and pay them to drive all the kids $xx/per hour plus mileage.
on 18 Nov 2009 at 8:45 pm 16SADIE

BrianE
I think people with enough money are hedging their bets and buying gold and hording dollars.
on 18 Nov 2009 at 9:09 pm 17SADIE

suek and anyone else who is keeping up the economics.
When it rains, it pours, when it pours, there’s floods, but when you open the floodgates in a court…
NEW ORLEANS – A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Army Corps of Engineers’ failure to properly maintain a navigation channel led to massive flooding in Hurricane Katrina, a decision that could make the federal government vulnerable to billions of dollars in claims.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091119/ap_on_re_us/us_katrina_flood_lawsuit
on 19 Nov 2009 at 12:02 am 18MacG

Another article of Muslms issuing Fatwas from inside jail this time in the UK: http://www.religionnewsblog.com/23903/jailed-muslim-terrorists-promote-jihad
on 19 Nov 2009 at 6:31 am 19Danny Lemieux

SADIE – I would like to know more about exactly who that Federal Judge is. Given what we know about all the failure points that led to Katrina (improperly constructed levees, corrupt local government, incompetent mayor and governor), it all seems a little too pat and a sop to the tort bar. Do you think this decision was political?
on 19 Nov 2009 at 9:33 am 20SADIE

Danny Lemieux
Duval is a Clinton appointee (1994). I went to Wiki and the only other ruling that would have made headlines was a ruling against license plates in La. that would say ‘Life’. We all know the corrupt political history of the area going back to Huey Long. I think Duval covered his ‘butt’ by the awards. He cited the Corps but not the malaise that permeates the politics of La. and by default sends the problem to the Feds, thereby relieving the State of any responsibility. The case no doubt will wind its way through all the appeals courts and will probably end up at the US Supreme Court. If the case was anywhere but the 9th Ward, I’d answer, no to your question. If the channel was improperly maintained (widened) as the judge wrote in his decision; it certainly didn’t happen overnight and everyone knew it was an accident waiting to happen.

snip via Reuters today:
“It is the court’s opinion that the negligence of the Corps, in this instance by failing to maintain the MR-GO properly, was not policy, but insouciance, myopia and shortsightedness,” Duval wrote in a 189-page decision.
“The Corps’ failure to provide timely foreshore protection doomed the channel to grow to two to three times its design width” which flooded the city’s Lower Ninth Ward and neighboring St. Bernard Parish, Duval wrote.
Judge Duval awarded $720,000 to six residents and one plaintiff who sued the Corps for damages from the flooding.
If upheld, the ruling could set a precedent for thousands of other plaintiffs to sue the government for billions of dollars in damages.
on 19 Nov 2009 at 10:32 am 21Danny Lemieux

Thanks, SADIE. I guess that means that we taxpayers are the goats to be fleeced for New Orleans’ mistakes.
on 19 Nov 2009 at 10:40 am 22SADIE

Danny Lemieux
BLEEATTT!
on 19 Nov 2009 at 10:55 am 23suek

You can’t fleece goats – they don’t have fleece. Sheep have fleece.

Other than that…same same.

Apparently the argument that placed responsibility on the Army is that the purpose of the canal through the city was to facilitate shipping, not to control flooding, as were the other canals. That, of course, raises other questions – but I doubt they’ll be asked.
I suppose the Army just decided it’s engineers needed some work to fill time…so they up and decided to build that canal for the heck of it…
on 19 Nov 2009 at 11:14 am 24SADIE

Good catch, suek. I feel like a he-haw (LOL)
You raise a good point about shipping canals, which raises the larger question – why were people living next adjacent to a shipping canal. Were the city planners crawfish?
on 19 Nov 2009 at 12:06 pm 25suek

What I want to know is … assuming that we all believe in Global Warming (I know…Hah!), and if Global Warming is supposed to result in a rise in the sea level over the next hundred years to a point where our coastal cities are endangered, why in heck would we spend penny one to rebuild a city which is already below sea level??? It makes not one iota of sense! So…do they_really_ believe in global warming or are they just the scamming us and they know it too?

And Sadie…if we could go back that far…wonder who made money on that project? They’re probably dead and gone, but I bet they were in both Real Estate and City Government…

Open thread stuff:
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/11/economists-opposing-fed-audit-are-on.html

http://www.4-blockworld.com/2009/11/obama-and-ksm-the-end-game.html
on 19 Nov 2009 at 12:12 pm 26suek

More on the trial – and the possible consequences:

http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/10193.html#more-10193
on 19 Nov 2009 at 12:19 pm 27SADIE

See post #7
on 19 Nov 2009 at 12:23 pm 28SADIE

No doubt in mind, suek, who made profited from bad ideas – the usual suspects.
on 19 Nov 2009 at 2:22 pm 29suek

New York judge says gay couples married in other states where gay marriage is legal are entitled to “some” (not specified) benefits of married couples, even though gay marriage is not legal in NY. I’d be willing to bet that if gay couples had a domestic partnership that was recognized by registration of some sort, and permitting all benefits given to married couples, that the campaign to recognize gay “marriages” would cease.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,575825,00.html?test=latestnews
on 19 Nov 2009 at 2:38 pm 30Ymarsakar

The Palestinians will always live in refugee camps and gays will always refuse to accept domestic partnerships. Their cause would disappear over night if root problems were solved, you see. Better to maintain and enlarge the problems than to compromise away their power base.
on 19 Nov 2009 at 2:38 pm 31Ymarsakar

Gay political activists, that is.
on 19 Nov 2009 at 6:09 pm 32SADIE

Of course the announcements are made… how many thousands of miles from Iraq and Afghanistan.

SEOUL — President Obama will not announce his decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan before the Thanksgiving holiday, senior aides said Thursday.

Obama arrived on the base 3:19 p.m. local time (1 a.m. Eastern Standard Time) and received a rousing welcome from 1,500 troops in camouflage uniforms, many holding cameras or pointing cellphones to snap pictures.
“You guys make a pretty good photo op,” the president said.
Standing on a riser wearing a blue suit and red tie, with a cluster of troops and a large American flag behind him, Obama expressed “the gratitude of the American public” and said his meetings in four countries over eight days in Asia will help deliver a “safer, more prosperous world for all of us.”
He got a huge cheer when he told them he was increasing military pay. “That’s what you call an applause line,” he said, before boarding his jet and taking off at 4:11 p.m.
on 19 Nov 2009 at 6:25 pm 33SADIE

This map looks like an electrical grid of America that has crashed – it’s not.
on 19 Nov 2009 at 6:38 pm 34suek

Sadie….

WOW!!
on 19 Nov 2009 at 8:14 pm 35Charles Martel

A few years ago I read an interesting article on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ decades-long battle with the Mississippi River in southern Louisiana.

There is a point where the present-day river, after having flowed south for more than 2,000 miles, makes a dogleg at its meeting with the Atchafalaya River that takes it almost due east toward New Orleans.

But it seems the Mississippi would really like to head southwest to the Gulf of Mexico via the Atchafalaya, which is a watercourse it has used many times before in its existence. The dogleg to the east is the work of the Corps of Engineers, which over the years has built massive barriers that deny the Mississippi access to the Atchafalaya and force it to continue toward New Orleans.

I bring this up because New Orleans is doomed on several counts. Katrina exposed its physical and political liabilities, and the Mississippi eventually will have its way and flow to the Gulf far away from the city. I wish I could feel more badly than I do about New Orleans’s demise, but I take my cue from its own citizens. The town had a pre-Katrina population of almost 500,000 people. It’s now down to under 200,000. If 300,000 people can’t be bothered to return to a legendary city that’s awash in federal guilt money, where the heck would I get off telling them they’re wrong?
on 19 Nov 2009 at 9:06 pm 36Ymarsakar

They’re lucky Katrina hit them, Charles. Otherwise those blacks and whites would never have gotten off the Democrat ghetto plantation.
on 19 Nov 2009 at 9:07 pm 37Ymarsakar

Demoncrats in urban cities create roach motels. You can get in, but you won’t get out.