Support For Arizona Law Hits 75%

As Obama’s support circles the drain, the Arizona immigration law’s skyrockets.

Public support for Arizona’s controversial new immigration law has increased slightly, a new CBS News poll shows, with 57 percent of Americans characterizing the law as “about right” in the way it addresses the issue of illegal immigration.

Support for the measure increased five points since May. Since then, the Justice Department has filed suit against the law, claiming that it usurps federal authority to enforce immigration laws.

Epic fail.

Rasmussen: 56% Oppose United States v. Arizona, 61% Are Down With a Similar Law In Their State

Raaaacists!

Voters by a two-to-one margin oppose the U.S. Justice Department’s decision to challenge the legality of Arizona’s new immigration law in federal court. Sixty-one percent (61%), in fact, favor passage of a law like Arizona’s in their own state, up six points from two months ago.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 28% of voters agree that the Justice Department should challenge the state law. Fifty-six percent (56%) disagree and another 16% are not sure.

These findings are unchanged from late May when the possibility of such a challenge first surfaced in news reports.

Eighty-six percent (86%) of all Likely Voters say the immigration issue is at least somewhat important to how they will vote for Congress this November, with 55% who say it is Very Important.

This is going to be a killer for many Democrats in November, but Barry & Co. couldn’t care less.  They have their eye on 2012 and must pander to the La Raza crowd for turnout and cash.

Civil Rights Panel Will Pursue Federal Probe In New Blank Panther Case, Will Issue New Subpoenas

A nation of racial cowards no more.

The bipartisan panel investigating allegations that the Justice Department wrongly abandoned a case against the New Black Panther Party plans to issue a new round of subpoenas and call for a separate federal probe following explosive testimony from an ex-Justice official, a commissioner said. 

As the case heats up, members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights may even travel to South Carolina to track down one witness. 

Former Justice attorney J. Christian Adams on Tuesday testified before the commission that his former employer not only abandoned the voter intimidation case for racial reasons, but had instructed attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and white victims. 

Commissioner Ashley Taylor said the panel will send out a letter as early as Wednesday calling for the Justice Department to open an investigation into the charge. The letter will go to Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, who in May told the panel to bring any such claims “to our attention” if there’s evidence. 

Post-racial my ass.

(Via Fox News – linking  not working at the moment.  Thank you very little, WordPress.)

Obama WH Withdraws Dawn Johnsen’s Nomination For Office Of Legal Counsel Post

Johnsen was an outspoken critic of the Bush administration’s interrogation policies which made her a dream candidate to head up the office in Eric Holder’s Justice Department.  Now she must remain in the dreaded private sector.

The White House on Friday announced that it was withdrawing the nomination of Dawn Johnsen to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, citing lengthy delays in getting Johnsen’s nomination through the U.S. Senate.

Johnsen had gained next-to-no support among Senate Republicans, largely because of her criticism of the Bush administration’s terrorist interrogations. She had headed the Office of Legal Counsel in the Clinton administration on an acting basis in 1997 and 1998.

The Office of Legal Counsel post is considered one of the most important jobs in the Justice Department, because the office assists the attorney general in providing legal advice to the president. In a statement, White House spokesman Ben LaBolt blamed the demise of the Johnsen nomination on Senate Republicans.

“Her credentials are exemplary and her commitment to the rule of law has been proven time and again, but it is now clear that Senate Republicans will not allow her to be confirmed,” LaBolt said.

Perhaps she can get a job defending Gitmo detainees.  That seems to be all the rage for lefist lawyers these days.

Judging from the fact that 58% of Americans wanted the undies bomber waterboarded, I think Senate Republicans are only representing the wishes of the people – unlike the Democrats.

Could Holder Be The Next Victim Of Barry’s Bus?

One can only HOPE.

Holder Under the Bus?

Aside from the sloppy legal work by Holder (including citing cases that have been since overturned by the Supreme Court), it is curious to see that the Obami are now retreating to the defense that “Bush did the same thing” (ignoring the instances in which Bush designated terrorists as enemy combatants). None of this seems to be working to shore up support for the criminal-justice model, which the Obami have insisted on employing, in part because the legal arguments are weak (e.g., disregarding the military-commission system, now in place to handle these cases) and in part because neither the public nor members of Obama’s own party think it makes sense to try KSM in a civilian court, Mirandize a terrorist, or ship Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. Joining the chorus of other mainstream critics of the Obama approach, Stuart Taylor calls Holder’s decisions to Mirandize the Christmas Day bomber and to try KSM in a civilian court “two glaring mistakes” that require a serious course correction by Obama in his anti-terrorism policies.

In a piece in the New Yorker, which aptly describes the gathering storm of opposition, Holder doubles-down (”What we did is totally consistent with what has happened in every similar case”) and lashes out at former Vice President Dick Cheney (”On some level, and I’m not sure why, he lacks confidence in the American system of justice”). But Holder seems to be on thin ice and the White House might now view him as a liability. The New Yorker quotes a source close to the White House:

“The White House doesn’t trust his judgment, and doesn’t think he’s mindful enough of all the things he should be,” such as protecting the President from political fallout. “They think he wants to protect his own image, and to make himself untouchable politically, the way Reno did, by doing the righteous thing.”

Even more ominous for Holder: Rahm Emanuel is making it clear to all those concerned that he disagreed with a string of highly controversial and politically disastrous decisions by Holder. We learn: “Emanuel adamantly opposed a number of Holder’s decisions, including one that widened the scope of a special counsel who had begun investigating the C.I.A.’s interrogation program. Bush had appointed the special counsel, John Durham, to assess whether the C.I.A. had obstructed justice when it destroyed videotapes documenting waterboarding sessions.” And then there is the KSM trial:

At the White House, Emanuel, who is not a lawyer, opposed Holder’s position on the 9/11 cases. He argued that the Administration needed the support of key Republicans to help close Guantánamo, and that a fight over Khalid Sheikh Mohammed could alienate them. “There was a lot of drama,” the informed source said. . . .  “Rahm felt very, very strongly that it was a mistake to prosecute the 9/11 people in the federal courts, and that it was picking an unnecessary fight with the military-commission people,” the informed source said. “Rahm had a good relationship with [Sen. Lindsay] Graham, and believed Graham when he said that if you don’t prosecute these people in military commissions I won’t support the closing of Guantánamo. . . . Rahm said, ‘If we don’t have Graham, we can’t close Guantánamo, and it’s on Eric!’ ”

When you lose Rahm, you’re as good as gone.  If Holder does join the ranks of other bus victims, imagine the confirmation hearings for his replacement? 

 

Collins and Lieberman: Does The Obama Adminstration Really Believe We Are At War?

In a letter to Eric Holder and John Brennan, Senators Collins and Lieberman rip the Justice Department a new one for mirandizing Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab while he was signing like a canary and push to have him transferred to the Department of Defense – where he should have been since Northwest flight 253 landed on Christmas day. 

Citing reports that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was “speaking openly about the attack” and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s involvement in it before he was read his Miranda rights, Sens. Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins said that reading the suspect his rights shortly after his arrest was an opportunity lost. 

Lieberman, I-Conn., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Collins, R-Maine, the committee’s ranking Republican, said officials would be able to continue interrogating Abdulmutallab and try him before a military commission if they treat him as an enemy combatant.

“The decision to treat Abdulmutallab as a criminal rather than (an unprivileged enemy belligerent) almost certainly prevented the military and the intelligence community from obtaining information that would have been critical to learning more about how our enemy operates and to preventing future attacks,” the senators wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and counterterrorism adviser John Brennan. 

“Though the president has said repeatedly that we are at war, it does not appear to us that the president’s words are reflected in the actions of some in the executive branch, including some at the Department of Justice,” they wrote. 

Contrary to what Dough Boy Gibbs et al are saying, this was one of the driving issues behind Scott Brown’s win last week.  Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to treating terrorists like common criminals and reject trying them in our civilian court system.

This line at The People’s Rally drew thunderous applause:

“WE WILL USE OUR TAX DOLLARS TO PROVIDE WEAPONS TO KILL TERRORISTS AND NOT USE TAX DOLLARS FOR LAWYERS TO DEFEND TERRORISTS!”

But then again, we were a bunch of racist, redneck, truck-driving homophobes so what the hell do we know.

Gee Whiz. 9/11 Defendants Plan To Plead Not Guilty, Use Trial As Platform For America Bashing

Is anyone surprised by this?

The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said.

Scott Fenstermaker, the lawyer for accused terrorist Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, said Sunday the men would not deny their role in the 2001 attacks but “would explain what happened and why they did it.”

The U.S. Justice Department announced earlier this month that Ali and four other men accused of murdering nearly 3,000 people in the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.S. will face a civilian federal trial just blocks from the site of the destroyed World Trade Center.

Ali, also known as Ammar al-Baluchi, is a nephew of professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Mohammed, Ali and the others will explain “their assessment of American foreign policy,” Fenstermaker said.

“Their assessment is negative,” he said.

There is no way that Obama and Holder did not anticipate this happening, yet they still opted for a trial in federal court.  This preventable show trial will be Obama’s legacy and fresh in the minds of voters in 2012.

9/11 Mastermind Will Be Tried In Civilian Court – In NYC

This is wrong on so many levels.  Not only will Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the others be afforded all of the rights of a U.S. citizen facing trial, but their defense teams will have all discoverable evidence handed over to them which will surely include sensitive intelligence information.  And if that isn’t bad enough, Mohammed and the others’ public trial (and repeated focus on “torture”) will surely be used as a recruiting tool for the Jihad.  The trial of a terrorist who has admitted he was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks which took the lives of 3000 innocent human beings will likely take on a circus-like atmosphere.  What a slap in the face to the families of the victims.

New York Post/Via Ace of Spades

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.

Bringing such notorious suspects to U.S. soil to face trial is a key step in President Barack Obama’s plan to close the terror suspect detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Obama initially planned to close the detention center by Jan. 22, but the administration is no longer expected to meet that deadline.

Another Friday news dump.  Barry was conveniently on the other side of the world making excuses about his indecision on Afghanistan and blathering about climate change when this news hit.

Elections have consequences.  This is by far – in my opinion – the most appalling decision to come out of the Obama administration.  Yet.

More Trouble In Paradise. Panetta Threatened To Quit

Who can blame him?

A “profanity-laced screaming match” at the White House involving CIA Director Leon Panetta, and the expected release today of another damning internal investigation, has administration officials worrying about the direction of its newly-appoint intelligence team, current and former senior intelligence officials tell ABC News.com.

Amid reports that Panetta had threatened to quit just seven months after taking over at the spy agency, other insiders tell ABCNews.com that senior White House staff members are already discussing a possible shake-up of top national security officials.

“You can expect a larger than normal turnover in the next year,” a senior adviser to Obama on intelligence matters told ABCNews.com.

Panetta’s anger is justified.  Queen Nancy tells the press that his agency “lies all the time” to Congress and Eric Holder appears bent on prosecuting CIA agents for pouring water on people who planned the murders of 3,000 Americans and had knowledge of future attacks.  And now the pending document dump while Barry vacations with the Beautiful People on Martha’s Vineyard.  I’d be livid, too.