A lot of people — mainly but by no means exclusively Republicans — were on the Sunday shows yesterday denouncing the administration’s decision to jail and try KSM and four accused 9/11 plotters in New York City. And most of the criticism comes under three distinct but related arguments: 1) civilian trials give the defendants too many rights and protections and thus create too big a risk they’ll get acquitted and set free, 2) holding the prisoners and trial in New York City puts the city’s civilian population at unnecessary risk of new terror attacks, and 3) holding public, civilian trials will give the defendants an opportunity to mock the victims, have a platform to issue propaganda or gain public sympathy.
The first two arguments strike me as understandable but basically wrong on the facts. The third I find difficult in some ways even to understand and seems grounded in bad political values or even ideological cowardice. Read More
Washington Blade is shutting down, as are four other gay and lesbian urban newspapers, after the publisher goes out of business.
Harkin: If the GOP obstructs moving the health care bill to debate and vote, we will make them stay there 24/7: “We are planning to do something that would require Republicans to be there 24 hours a day, and if they leave the floor, we’ll ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading, and that’ll be the end of it.”
Blurb in the feature well on the CNN homepage …
The Michigan Militia is part of a growing movement. Members say they are not enemies of the state — but are prepared in case the state becomes the enemy. They call themselves patriots, but some observers call them extremists.
Haven’t we been through this movie before? About 15 years ago?
California state Assemblymen Chuck DeVore is shaping up to be the Marco Rubio / Doug Hoffman of the upcoming California senate race. And in an interview with TPM earlier today his spokesman sought to explain earlier comments which suggested he might be if not a birther, at least birther-curious.
You couldn’t make this up in a million years. As part of his one-man effort to combat the looming Islamo-imperial threat from the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood, Dave Gaubatz, author of Muslim Mafia, is planning a one-month “investigative counterterrorism project in the Sunni mosques of North Carolina,” as our Justin Elliott aptly puts it.
To fund the project, Gaubatz is soliciting private donations, including two motorcycles and a “Class A” RV. As a bonus, the most generous donor to the project gets to tag along as the team tootles around North Carolina investigating Muslims.
The motorcycles, Gaubatz explains to us, are for investigative work in the bigger cities where the RV might be unwieldy. Makes perfect sense.
After inexplicably getting a lot of flack for planning to burn their local congressman and Speaker Nancy Pelosi in effigy, disappointed tea partiers in Virginia have reluctantly called off their weekend bonfire.
In his new book, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe reveals that as John Edwards’ campaign was fading heading into the South Carolina primary, a top Edwards adviser went to both the Obama and Clinton campaigns offering up the Edwards endorsement in return for the veep slot on the Democratic ticket.
Gov. Paterson says he doesn’t think the 9/11 plotters should be tried in New York City either.
And according to a new CNN poll, most Americans seem to agree. Most think they should be tried in military courts; but most also say it should happen in the US, not in a US facility overseas.