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Federal government to buy closed Ill. prison for $165M, vows will not house Gitmo detainees Article by: SOPHIA TAREEN , Associated Press Updated: October 2, 2012 - 1:23 PM CHICAGO - The federal government has agreed to buy the closed Thomson Correctional Center in western Illinois for $165 million after the sale was held up for three years, state leaders announced Tuesday. Many Illinois leaders — including U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and Gov. Pat Quinn who spoke to The Associated Press ahead of a news conference to announce the sale — supported the purchase because they said it would bring...

Love the LORD with all your heart and love your neighbor. Keep hold on these commandments as you go through your days in this world.

Sorry for the dup from another thread, but I'd been considering this theme for a while this evening, and decided just to go ahead and start a thread: Is the hysteria we are seeing, similar to the Salem Witch Trials?

Republican Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and John McCain (Ariz.) battled on the Senate floor Tuesday over a proposed amendment to the pending defense authorization bill that could allow American citizens who are suspected of terrorism to be denied a civilian trial. Paul argued the amendment, which is cosponsored by McCain, "puts every single American citizen at risk" and suggested that if the amendment passes, "the terrorists have won." “Should we err today and remove some of the most important checks on state power in the name of fighting terrorism, well then the terrorists have won," Paul argued, "[D]etaining American citizens...

  Arrest Al-Awlaki and Put Him on Trial? David C. Stolinsky Oct. 6, 2011 On Sept. 30, Anwar Al-Awlaki was killed in an airstrike by an unmanned U.S. drone. He had been located in Yemen by U.S. intelligence. Al-Awlaki was born here, but his parents took him back to Yemen when he was seven, so he had joint U.S. and Yemeni citizenship. Awlaki was the imam at the Maryland mosque where Major Hassan was radicalized, then went on to murder 14 Americans at Fort Hood. He also had contact with three of the 9/11 hijackers, as well as the...

This is the 10th anniversary of what some have said is a seminal event in our national history. I would argue it was less a seminal event, and more an awakening as to the danger posed to the West since the 17th century when the armies of Kara Mustafa – capitalizing on the previous century’s work of warlord Suleiman the Magnificent – attacked Christian armies across eastern Europe. Suleiman’s and Mustafa’s wars were Jihads against the West. And though stopped at the Gates of Vienna in 1683, that Jihad has never ceased. But the enemy has been unable to effectively...

For the second time, U.S. prosecutors have filed charges with a military commission against the five suspects held in Guantanamo Bay in connection with planning the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. This is the first step paving the way for an arraignment. The body that oversees the commissions will make a decision on whether to accept the charges. If accepted, the arraignment must take place within 30 days. That will essentially begin the trial process, though pre-trial motions could take as long as a year.

The Obama administra tion's fumbling on trials for the 9/11 ter rorists turns out to be worse than anyone realized: It didn't just waste two years trying to hold a civilian trial for Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the confessed 9/11 mastermind -- it set the clock back even further. Plans by Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder for a trial in New York were always absurd -- even the old Democratic Congress felt obliged to render the move impossible. But, now that the administration's thrown in the towel on civilian trials, it refuses to just pick up proceedings against KSM back...

When Will They Ever Learn? According to the  Citizen Times and as also noted in the  Daily Beast, a North Carolina man recently found guilty of minting and distributing “Liberty Dollars” was, as stated by  U.S. Attorney Anne Tompkins, a domestic terrorist. The conviction resulted from an investigation which began in 2005. As reported in the Citizen Times, “Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism,” U.S. Attorney Anne Tompkins said. “While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear...

President Obama announced Monday that military trials will resume for detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, saying the tribunals are an "important tool in combating international terrorists."

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.(Romans 8:28)Though we are Sons of God and heirs of a new heaven and a new earth, our time has not yet come.We await the time when our inheritance will be realized, when our true Son ship will be manifested. We are groaning with creation, for a new creation and for the final release from sin and corruption. But the present is not merely an interim time of waiting, nor is it a painful but meaningless...

<p>The House voted Wednesday to block President Obama from sending Guan tanamo Bay inmates to the continental US for civilian trials, thus ensuring that the prison stays open.</p> <p>Good for the House -- and even better for the American people, who've made it clear that they don't want those trials anywhere near them.</p>

Don’t be surprised if President Obama swears off golf soon because, you know, we’re at war. And rather than boating off the Vineyard, he may be spending next summer vacation clearing brush on a Texas ranch. And make sure the Secret Service is on alert when he’s watching basketball, because he’s bound to choke on a pretzel one of these days. See, for all that talk about the oceans receding and wars ending and everything becoming, well, just super when Obama came to power, the longer he actually governs, the more a lot of his policies resemble those of his...

Outrage is growing at the intersection of ideology and incompetence that is the jury's collapse in the trial of Ahmed Ghailani, declared acquitted in the murders of 224 innocents, including a dozen Americans.The outrage is growing as Americans learn more and more about how utterly avoidable this outrageous miscarriage of justice was. John Podhoretz's and Jennifer Rubin's criticisms are among the most pointed and both employ the damning word "debacle" in the title, and Powerline's Scott Johnson and John Hinderaker weigh in with "The Failure Option." Eric Holder who repeatedly declared his confidence in this process should resign and...

Statement on Ghailani Verdict “Bad ideas have dangerous consequences. The Obama Administration recklessly insisted on a civilian trial for Ahmed Ghailani, and rolled the dice in a time of war. The Department of Justice says it’s pleased by the verdict. Ask the families of the victims if they’re pleased. And this result isn’t just embarrassing. It’s dangerous. It signals weakness in a time of war. The Ghailani trial was supposed to be a test case for future trials of 9/11 terrorists. We urge the president: End this reckless experiment. Reverse course. Use the military commissions at Guantanamo that Congress has...

The Gates of Vienna site, which is following the upcoming criminal trial of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Woff in Austria for insulting Islam, has issued an appeal to Counter-Jihad bloggers ‘round the world to join Elisabeth’s Voice. For bloggers who wish to have their web-sites added to the list of supporters, here is the e-mail address: www.gatesofvienna@chromatism.net You can find some background on the prosecution here and here. From the Gates here is a part of the story: “…Geert Wilders is well-known to most American conservative and libertarian bloggers, but Elisabeth’s case is not so prominent. Like Mr. Wilders, she faces trial for...

Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; (Romans 5:1-3) Romans 5 is a chapter all about the assurance of salvation. Because of our justification, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, we now have peace with God. Our conscience has been informed that something effective has been done to reconcile us to God, our sins...

Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;And patience, experience; and experience, hope:And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.(Romans 5:1-5) True Christians rejoice, and they have good reason to do so. The Holy God has taken the initiative to...

Panel takes up terrorism trials topic at judicial eventBy HARRY EAGAR, Staff Writer POSTED: August 18, 2010 KAANAPALI - More than 500 lawyers and judges filled the Monarchy Ballroom at the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort & Spa on Tuesday to hear a panel discuss trying terrorists, and the pros and cons of doing it in ordinary civilian courts or before military commissions. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who has presided over many terrorism trials in the Eastern District of Virginia, said civilian courts - Article III courts in lawyer lingo, after the part of the Constitution that provides for them...

FULL TITLE: It would be interesting if just one of the nine people obama has put on trial would reveal what they know about the FRAUD Obama *** Obama Has NO Paper Trail But He Does Have A PR Team That Has FAKED His Identity If any of the nine defendants actually retained the Obama's student-loan records they accessed, the information could blow the lid off questions still surrounding Obama's past. Nine have been accused of accessing information about Obama's student-loan records between July 2007 and March2009, before and after Obama was elected, from the Coralville, Iowa, offices of Vangent,...

Senator Lindsey Graham on Sunday outlined his plan to help President Obama close Guantánamo if the administration agrees to abandon a civilian New York terror trial for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in favor of a military tribunal. BY MARK SAPPENFIELD On Sunday, two moderate senators defended President Obama’s apparent willingness to reconsider his administration’s decision to use a civilian New York terror trial for the admitted mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The first, Senator Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina, is seen as the architect behind the Obama administration’s potential change in plans. He has promised...

*snip* A return to military commissions would be a major concession to Republicans. And administration officials appear to be using the potential shift as a down payment on a political deal to speed the closure of Guantanamo ***by allowing the federal government to purchase an Illinois prison to hold detainees. A formal recommendation has not yet been made to Obama, and an administration official said a decision remains weeks away. Still, the idea, first reported in the Washington Post, represents a trial balloon to test how the administration's reversal would be received by liberals and conservatives. *snip* But some Democrats...

The praise the film has already garnered, and the support for Polanski in his legal troubles, make it all too clear that the leftist “elite” view child rape with the same benign tolerance with which they view terrorism. They reserve their condemnation for those who prosecute the molesters and fight the terrorists. I am proud to be a citizen of the nation that earns their hostility.

Recall the ancient proverb: “He who is kind to the cruel will in the end be cruel to the kind.” We need to get our priorities straight, for both moral and practical reasons. If we use up our sympathy on criminals and terrorists, we will have none left for their victims − or for their future victims. But what would that say about us?

Michael Hayden, the former CIA director, penned a superb op-ed in the Washington Post on Sunday. Succinctly, he tallies the wages of having Attorney General Eric Holder make national-security decisions. Unlike the attorney general, Hayden is a real general, and very much worth heeding. He shows that these decisions have been premised on left-wing political calculations that always shortchange intelligence collection and the pursuit of American interests. Holder’s judgments are not based on what America’s safety requires or on what the law maximally permits U.S. intelligence to do in wartime. As Hayden points out, the policy decisions that President Obama...

Why are we even bothering to hold a trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? The mastermind of the 9/11 attacks has already been convicted and sentenced. The verdict came directly from the White House. Eric Holder has testified before Congress that the man is guilty and they have the evidence to prove it and President Obama has taken it a step further and announced he will be executed. His Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has reiterated that claim. From the President: "I don't think it will be offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him."...

When it comes to trying terrorists on American soil since 9/11, let's all work from the same set of facts. This morning we've heard three people in the Sunday shows talking about the "hundreds" of terrorists that we have tried in US courts and hold in US prisons - as if KSM was just some regular Joe terrorist. Some facts: First, the only civilian trial of a 9/11 terrorist was Moussaoui who was arrested before 9/11 had even happened and before the President had authorized detaining terrorists as enemy combatants. Second, Moussaoui had his trial while the entire military commission...

Breazeale Backs Military Court For Suspected Terrorists Will Breazeale, Candidate for United States Congress backed a letter by 20 GOP Senators to President Obama, urging him to rethink his strategy for the War on Terror. Mainly, the letter related to the prosecution of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted to blow up a flight bound for Detroit on Christmas Day. The letter urges the President to place the suspected terrorist in a military court, as opposed to civilian court. “This man was an agent of Al Qaeda. He admits it. He is an enemy combatant,” said Breazeale. “To give him the...

Lawyers for a terrorism suspect once held at Guantánamo Bay who is now facing prosecution in Manhattan asked a judge on Tuesday to dismiss his case on the ground that his nearly five years in detention denied him his constitutional right to a speedy trial.

After the bombing of the American embassy in Nairobi, the police found amid the belongings of one of the perpetrators a list of the unindicted co-conspirators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York. The list had been submitted to the lawyers for the defendant, Sheik Abdel Rahman, and signed by Mary Jo White, the United States attorney. Under the rules of discovery in a criminal trial, the defendant had every right to the list. If you read through the names of the unindicted co-conspirators, one name will jump off the page and grab your attention. It is...

House Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton on Friday said the Obama administration may be making a big mistake by trying in U.S. criminal courts the men accused of planning the Sept. 11 attacks, becoming the highest-ranking Democrat to publicly question the decision announced last week by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. Mr. Skelton, Missouri Democrat, said the decision "raises many serious questions" and said Congress set up military commissions specifically to handle the judicial cases of detainees from the war on terror. "As a former prosecutor, I am not yet convinced that the right decision was made in these...

My radio pal Hugh Hewitt said to me on the air the other day that Barack Obama "doesn't know how to be president." It was a low but effective crack, and I didn't pay it much heed. But, after musing on it over the past week or so, it seems to me frighteningly literally true. I don't just mean social lapses like his latest cringe-making bow, this time to Their Imperial Majesties The Emperor and Empress of Japan – though that in itself is deeply weird: After the world superbower's previous nose-to-toe prostration before the Saudi king, one assumed there'd...

... — are all accused of being involved in the 9/11 plot, with Mohammed describing himself as the mastermind in a 2003 confession. The announcement follows from U.S. President Barack Obama’s first executive order, which he signed on Jan. 22, to close the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and another executive order to suspend the military tribunals set up under the Bush administration to try suspected terrorists. Holder’s decision has generated much debate and highlighted the legal murkiness concerning the status of Guantanamo detainees and how best to bring them to justice.

I am off on another trip to nowhere, and won't have time or ability to search for a respected journalist who will stumble onto what I think is the biggest risk associated with this ridiculous decision to try KSM and friends as civilians.

As he flew to Asia on Saturday, President Obama told the media in Alaska that he opposes a congressional investigation into the Fort Hood massacre, saying that we must "resist the temptation to turn this tragic event into political theater." Yet, even as he was posturing against political theatrics, he had just decided that the prosecution of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would proceed on the greatest of public stages -- New York City. With the strict evidentiary rules in force in federal civilian courts, it is easy to see how the prosecution of Mohammed could morph into an indictment...

Source: 9/11 Terror Detainees Face Trial in N.Y. Friday, November 13, 2009 WASHINGTON — Self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to New York to face trial in a civilian federal court, an Obama administration official said Friday. The official said Attorney General Eric Holder plans to announce the decision later in the morning. The official is not authorized to discuss the decision before the announcement, so spoke on condition of anonymity.

William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar III:1 President Obama, we are at war. The Islamic Terrorists are not cooperating with your transformation of our society into a Politically Correct Utopia with nomenclature that neutralizes the ugliness of war. They do not chant Obama, Obama, they do not faint on cue, they pay no attention to subjective pandering by sexually mis-oriented news journalists like Chris Mathews. Their war is a fanaticism that welcomes death while destroying us, the Infidel. Although you may see yourself whispering Allahu Akbar during your death and accruing your place in heaven, the vast majority have no interest or...

November 14, 2009Exclusive: Decision to Try 9/11 Masterminds in New York a Slap in the Face to All Americans Pam Meister In an act that further makes a mockery of the Islamist threat that faces us, the administration has decided that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Gitmo detainees will be sent to New York City to stand trial in a civilian federal court for their role in the 9/11 atrocity. According to Attorney General Eric Holder, prosecutors will seek the death penalty.   No word yet if Lynne Stewart has offered to be on the defense team.  ...

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) – Federal prosecutors in New York, Washington and Virginia are vying to try the accused plotters of the September 11 attacks if their cases are moved into U.S. civilian courts, the chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo war crimes court said. The Obama administration said last week it would decide by November 16 whether to try Guantanamo prisoners in a revised version of the much-maligned military tribunals or in regular civilian courts. Case files for self-described 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged al Qaeda co-conspirators are already under review by U.S. attorneys...

WASHINGTON — Sting is calling for the release of political prisoners in Iran. In a statement, the British rock star specifically calls on Iran to release prominent Iranian-American academic Kian Tajbakhsh. Iranian authorities arrested Tajbakhsh for the second time in recent years last month amid a crackdown following disputed June 12 presidential elections. In a statement posted on a website promoting Tajbakhsh's release, Sting urged Iranians to speak out against "political repression" and "human rights violations." Tajbakhsh is currently on trial, accused of fomenting unrest following the elections. Family and supporters deny the charges and have accused the Iranian government...

DETAINEES at the Guantanamo Bay prison who face the death penalty, including five men charged over the September 11 terrorist attacks, could avoid special US military trials if they pleaded guilty under a legal change proposed by the Obama administration. The proposal, reportedly part of draft legislation to amend 2006 laws that created the US military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, would allow the five charged with planning the 2001 attacks to achieve what they regard as martyrdom. But it could also help get the US government off the hook over the difficulty of prosecuting detainees whose terrorism confessions were obtained...

Short comings are not obstacles but lessons learned to the extremes you see I AM your hope and glory , for it is the weight of my kingdom that is the balance and the foundation “ yeah “ the very scales on which all things are measured as I revealed to Ezekiel and now I reveal to you in each breath of your existence in me for to turn your back on the Spring of living waters takes your breath away ! So come to the waters of hope " The Father’s well " ; drink me in that I...

America is to transfer a detainee from Guantanamo Bay to New York to face trial for involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Africa. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian accused in the attacks in Kenya and Tanzania, would be the first former detainee at Guantanamo to face trial in a civilian court in the United States. Senior officials in Washington said announcement would be made formal around the time President Barack Obama makes a major national security speech on the future of the US naval base that holds 240 terrorist suspects. Several high-level detainees linked to high-profile terror cases...

The announcement of the "end" of Guantanamo Bay was characteristically Barack Obama - big fanfare, media swoon and mucho kudos from Europe. Look into the details, however, and the most difficult decisions were postponed and the reality amounted to no real change from George W. Bush. By "details", I mean where the 240 or so prisoners will actually go. And by "no real change" from Bush, I'm referring to Bush's desire to close Gitmo if the prisoners could be transferred elsewhere. Four months after the executive order ordering the closure of the Cuban prison, Obama's plan is in some trouble....

US scientists say they have successfully reversed the effects of Alzheimer's with experimental drugs. The drugs target and boost the function of a newly pinpointed gene involved in the brain's memory formation. In mice, the treatment helped restore long-term memory and improve learning for new tasks, Nature reports.

Captured enemy combatants presented a problem for the United States from the very beginning of the war. Since the world had not in previous wars dealt with enemies such as these, legal ground had not been firmly established. To his credit President Bush did everything he could to determine the appropriate legal methods and practices that his administration could use. Guantanamo was chosen specifically as a result of seeking an appropriate solution to the problem of housing captured enemy. When those methods were later questioned President Bush cooperated with Congress and the courts to address legal points and get them...

1 Peter 1:3-9 (King James Version) 3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, 5Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: 7That the trial of your...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 17, 2009 – The 16 suspected pirates captured recently in the Gulf of Aden by American military ships could face separate prosecutions in countries other than Kenya, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters here today. The governments of Kenya and the United States have signed a memorandum of understanding under which Kenya would prosecute pirates interdicted by U.S. forces in the region. But there are other options, Whitman said. “[Kenya is] not the only place where prosecution could take place,” he said. “It’s possible that prosecutions could take place in other venues, to include the states that...

SAN DIEGO -- A mistrial was declared Monday when a home-invasion robbery suspect smeared human feces on his attorney's face then threw more at the jury. Weusi McGowan, 37, was upset because San Diego Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Fraser refused to remove Deputy Alternate Public Defender Jeffrey Martin from the case, prosecutor Christopher Lawson said. At the mid-morning break, McGowan produced a plastic baggie filled with fecal matter and spread it on Martin's hair and face, then flung the excrement toward the jury box, hitting the briefcase of juror No. 9 but missing the juror himself

WASHINGTON, Jan. 29, 2009 – The Kenyan government has agreed to try pirates captured by the U.S. military, a senior Defense Department official said here today. The agreement came about earlier this month through a memorandum of understanding signed by U.S. State Department and Kenyan government officials, spokesman Bryan Whitman told Pentagon reporters. Britain also has a similar agreement with Kenya. Kenya is an east African nation that faces the Indian Ocean. Kenya’s neighbors include Ethiopia and Somalia to the north and northeast, Uganda and Sudan to the northwest and Tanzania to the south. Seagoing pirates operating off the coasts...