A Wednesday afternoon dose of Occupy Wall Street predictability courtesy of MRCTV:

To get a pulse of the thinking of the Occupy Wall Street protesters, MRCTV’s Dan Joseph asked them a series of quickie questions, one being whom they thought was a greater threat to the United States: conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh or international terrorist group al Qaeda?

The results weren’t completely predictable: one person answered “Al Qaeda.” Poseur!

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

…Why, the civil court system of course:

Holder’s declaration came in a Thursday speech to hundreds of progressive lawyers, advocates, judges and students gathered at the American Constitution Society’s annual gala. “I know that – in distant countries, and within our own borders – there are people intent on, and actively plotting to, kill Americans,” he told his legal peers in the enthusiastic audience. “Victory and security will not come easily, and they won’t come at all if we adhere to a rigid ideology, adopt a narrow methodology, or abandon our most effective terror-fighting weapon – our Article III [civil] court system,” he declared to much applause.

That’s taken nearly verbatim from Churchill’s famous “We shall fight them in the courtroom” speech.

Holder is a member of the elite Justice Department SEAL team (Summon, Exhibit, Appeal and Litigate) that Osama bin Laden feared more than anything.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Meanwhile, while much of the nation was distracted by Weiner, climate change and Sarah Palin’s emails…

ABC News:

Police detained a man near the Sept. 11 memorial at the Pentagon this morning after he was reportedly found carrying a suspicious device and pro-al Qaeda literature, officials said.

The man appears to be a U.S. citizen of Ethiopian ethnicity. He would not make any admissions to the police.

The man’s backpack contained what officials believe is ammonium nitrate and spent 9mm shells as well as written material that contained statements including: “al qaeda taliban rules,” sources told ABC News.

One source told ABC News that they need final confirmation on whether it is ammonium nitrate and it’s not clear whether this was a workable device.

The New York Post reports there may be other suspects.

Ed Morrissey links to a Washington Post article containing more details:

The man was found in the cemetery after it closed and Schlosser said authorities decided it was “important” to locate his vehicle following an interview with him. Arlington County police found the car off of Washington Boulevard near the Pentagon early this morning, Schlosser said.
[...]
Channel 9 is reporting authorities are planning to do a controlled explosion of the suspicious vehicle.

This has also caused major Beltway roads to be closed.

JWF sarcastically notes: “What a horrific shame that meanie Peter King has been holding hearings on Islamic radicalization.”

Update:

The FBI said the man had a backpack with him. Items found “in bags” in the backpack were deemed suspicious, but later determined to be non-explosive material. At one point, it was believed that police were searching for one or two more people who fled the scene on foot when police stopped the vehicle, according to NBC News Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski. But the FBI later said they believe the man was acting alone and there was “no reason to believe any other individuals acted with him.”

“Early reports” are often downgraded like this, so we’ll keep an eye on this one.

Update II: He’s been identified:

The man in custody for carrying a backpack with “suspicious items and products” inside Arlington National Cemetery overnight is a U.S. Marine Corps reservist, military and law enforcement sources tell Fox News.

Yonathan Melaku, a Lance Corporal Marine corps reservist who lives in Virginia and who is Muslim, has been identified as the suspect in custody, Fox News has learned.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

As James Caan said to Kathy Bates in Misery: “Whatever you’re thinking about doing, please don’t do it.”

The SEALs want less attention, and there’s nothing like having Disney getting involved in marketing your story to make that happen:

MediaBistro.com reported Friday that the Walt Disney Company has officially trademarked “Seal Team 6,” which is the unit designation of the special operatives that waged the assault on the al Qaeda leader’s Abbottabad compound.

The trademark applications were submitted just two days after President Barack Obama announced the commando mission that resulted in the death of bin Laden.
[...]
Disney is certainly covering all bases: Their trademark applications for “Seal Team 6″ are nothing if not comprehensive.

In addition to “entertainment and education services,” they cover toys, games and playthings (including the legally all-embracing “hand-held units for playing electronic games other than those adapted for use with an external display screen or monitor”); gymnastic and sporting articles; clothing, footwear and headwear; Christmas stockings, Christmas tree ornaments and decorations; and – no doubt ideal for depicting raids in Pakistan – snow globes.

So what does Disney have in mind if it’s approved (big “if”) — other than snow globes, shoes and lunch boxes? Is an animated feature about a half dozen actual seals charged with double-tapping global warming just around the corner? Will SEAL Team 6 replace the miniature Army men in Toy Story IV? Will they be substitutes, minus one, for the seven dwarfs in “Snow White and the Gutsy Call”? An “Abbottabad Disney” theme park, perhaps? I shudder to imagine what they have in mind.

In a way, Saturday Night Live predicted this move not long ago, as evidenced by their “Little Mermaid” sketch.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

If you notice the Sheriff attracting a crowd these days like a switched-on 200 watt light bulb during a moth infestation, it might be because news recently hit the street that one of the safest places to be in Washington, DC is wherever Joe Biden is.

New York Mag:

Bin Laden’s hand-written diary lists the secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as major targets, but the head of Joe Biden? Meh, maybe later. A counter-terrorism official tells the Telegraph, “There is a note indicating that the vice president is not an important target because that position has less weight.”

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

The Donald must be trying to generate a much needed “bin Laden bump” in the polls.

From CNN:

During his second trip to the early presidential contest state of New Hampshire, the famously confident Trump said he appeared on television “a few weeks ago” saying bin Laden was in Pakistan but that “nobody else picked it up.”

“You tell them (Pakistan) we’re not giving you any money unless you hand over to us Osama bin Laden and everybody looked at me like eh, nobody else picked it up,” Trump told a crowd at the Chamber of Commerce Nashua Expo. “That’s what I hate about politics. You know when I buy a piece of real estate I own it, OK? When you come up with a good idea in politics, if they like it they take it and they say I have an idea and you know, by that time most people forgot it was Trump’s idea so Trump doesn’t get any credit. I love to get credit.”

To help sway any disbelievers, Trump released this photograph that was purportedly snapped outside Osama bin Laden’s compound the night he was killed. The picture was taken right before Trump jumped out of the copter, stormed the compound and personally said to bin Laden, “Osama, you’re fired!”

(h/t NRO)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

America can’t see photos of the body of the formerly most wanted terrorist in the world, but we will get to see Osama bin Laden’s home videos… maybe featuring one of his kids hitting him in the crotch with a Nerf bat accompanied by a wacky sound effect and snarky narration from Tom Bergeron.

From the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON – The world is expected to get its first glimpse at Osama bin Laden’s daily life as the world’s most wanted terrorist Saturday with the disclosure of home videos showing him strolling the grounds of the fortified compound that kept him safe for years.

The footage shot at the terror leader’s hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and propaganda tapes made there, are expected to be released to the news media Saturday, U.S. officials said.

The release of “Osama’s Funniest Home Videos” will have to do, because the Obama administration is holding firm on not releasing the Bin Laden death photos, continuing to say doing so could “embolden our enemies.” One might think that allowing the publication of photos of fallen US soldiers’ caskets could do the same, but that’s not how the administration sees it.

Mitt Romney also said that the photo should be sealed forever because of the further damage it could cause — you know, that one of Mitt signing the Massachusetts health care bill with Ted Kennedy grinning in the background. Oh, and Romney also thinks Obama was right to not release the Bin Laden picture.

Meanwhile, Bin Laden’s wife — one of them anyway — has said that they didn’t leave the house in Abbottabad, Pakistan for five years. There’s some measure of extra justice in knowing that Osama might have spent every single day of the last half-decade of his life enduring cries of “you never take me anywhere!”

Update: As of 1:30pm eastern CNN has the Bin Laden videos on their live stream page, though it seems to come and go.

Update II: This page works better. It’s basically Bin Laden watching television coverage of himself.

Update III: Evidently Osama bin Laden, in addition to being a terrorist, was guilty of zoning violations and owed a bundle in property taxes.

Update IV: Among the footage the Defense Department decided not to release:

**Written by Doug Powers

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At the time of this writing, if you go to GutsyCall.com, you’ll be automatically re-directed to President Obama’s presidential campaign website. This has some wondering if Team Obama is behind the domain purchase and re-direct — something the campaign denies:

The re-election team is adamant it is not responsible. “We in fact do not own that domain nor do we know who does,” an official with the re-election campaign tells CNN. The official refused to speak on the record because the campaign is refusing comment on the story. The official said the campaign did not buy the rights to the site.

I for one believe this denial from the Obama campaign. “Whaaat?” Yep, that’s right. Read a few comments from ticked off HuffPo readers (just as one example) concerning the killing of Osama bin Laden. This is part of a base that Obama has either lost and needs to reel back in or is close to losing.

Given the need to woo these people back into the Hope & Change™ fold, it’s hard to believe it would make strategic sense for the Obama re-election campaign to mock them by branding the order to rappel into a sovereign nation without that nation’s permission or even knowledge in order to eliminate an “alleged” terrorist without due process using information obtained by waterboarding as a “gutsy call.”

Now that I think about it, maybe a GOP operative bought the site.

However, if it was somebody on the left who did it, my money’s on Margaret Carlson.

Some are speculating that “Gutsy Call” might even end up as an Obama campaign slogan. Could be — but trying to sway people with a slogan that implies the choice is inherently risky doesn’t seem logical. Then again, neither does spending money to keep from going bankrupt, so what do I know?

In a related story, somebody purchased the domain name WeeklyNoStandards.com and re-directed it to the Weekly Standard… that I can see coming from somebody involved with the Obama campaign.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

You just knew this was coming:

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations’ top human rights official called on the United States Tuesday to give the U.N. details about Osama bin Laden’s killing and said that all counter-terrorism operations must respect international law.
[...]
“This was a complex operation and it would be helpful if we knew the precise facts surrounding his killing. The United Nations has consistently emphasized that all counter-terrorism acts must respect international law,” Pillay said in a statement issued in response to a Reuters request.

These are busy days at the White House, so to save them a little time I’ve taken the liberty of preparing a response that US officials should feel free to send to the United Nations as a reply to their request:

Full size memo here.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Osama bin Laden has been found, but the Obama administration’s search for the same page continues.

Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan was on Morning Joe earlier in the day and countered a New York Times article that said information obtained by waterboarding helped lead US forces to Osama bin Laden:

When directly asked by Mika whether waterboarding was involved he responded:

Not to my knowledge. The information that was collected over the course of nine years or so came from many different sources: human sources, technical sources, as well as sources that detainees provided. It was something as a result of the painstaking work that the analysts did. They pieced it all together that lead us to the compound last year and resulted in the very successful operation Sunday.

Later in the day, Brian Williams spoke with CIA Director Leon Panetta and asked him a similar question in an interview that appeared on the NBC Nightly News:

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
Turned around the other way, are you denying that water boarding was, in part, among the tactics used to extract the intelligence that led to this successful mission?

LEON PANETTA:
No, I think some of the detainees clearly were, you know, they used these enhanced interrogation techniques against some of these detainees. But I’m also saying that, you know, the debate about whether– whether we would have gotten the same information through other approaches I think is always going to be an open question.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
So finer point, one final time, enhanced interrogation techniques, which has always been kind of a handy euphemism in these post-9/11 years. That–

LEON PANETTA:
Right.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
–in– includes water boarding?

LEON PANETTA:
That’s correct.

As for Eric Holder and whether or not “advanced interrogation techniques” helped get Bin Laden, the Attorney General said he didn’t know. This all must be especially traumatic for somebody who a while back couldn’t bring himself to say the words “radical Islam,” so let’s cut him a break for a while.

Did waterboarding help track down Osama bin Laden? So far from administration officials we have a no, a yes, and one “I don’t know.”

Which one of those answers will President Obama give when Steve Kroft asks him about it tomorrow for Sunday’s 60 Minutes? Will we get a little of all three? Will the question even be asked? As Eric Holder might say, I don’t know.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Once in a while it’s nice to see a politician who can at least occasionally put country over politics. Nancy Pelosi is not one of them.

From Powerline:

Nancy Pelosi, press conference, September 7, 2006:

[E]ven if [Osama bin Laden] is caught tomorrow, it is five years too late. He has done more damage the longer he has been out there. But, in fact, the damage that he has done … is done. And even to capture him now I don’t think makes us any safer.

Nancy Pelosi, earlier today:

The death of Osama bin Laden marks the most significant development in our fight against al-Qaida. … I salute President Obama, his national security team, Director Panetta, our men and women in the intelligence community and military, and other nations who supported this effort for their leadership in achieving this major accomplishment. … [T]he death of Osama bin Laden is historic….

Pelosi’s picturing that gavel falling back into her hands as we speak.

(h/t Instapundit)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

With a presidential election less than two years away, we’ve almost certainly seen the first and last of the idiotic civil trials for “man caused disaster suspects” for a while, thanks to this close shave:

NEW YORK (AP) – The first Guantanamo detainee to face a civilian trial was acquitted Wednesday of all but one of the hundreds of charges he helped unleash death and destruction on two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 – an opening salvo in al-Qaida’s campaign to kill Americans.

A federal jury convicted Ahmed Ghailani of one count of conspiracy to destroy U.S. property and acquitted him on more than 280 other counts, including one murder count for each of the 224 people killed in the embassy bombings. The anonymous jurors deliberated over seven days.

Prosecutors said Ghailani faces a minimum of 20 years and a maximum of life in prison at sentencing on Jan. 25.
[...]
The trial at a lower Manhattan courthouse had been viewed as a possible test case for President Barack Obama administration’s aim of putting other terror detainees – including self-professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – on trial on U.S. soil.

Ghailani’s prosecution also demonstrated some of the constitutional challenges the government would face if that happens. On the eve of his trial last month, the judge barred the government from calling a key witness because the witness had been identified while Ghailani was being held at a secret CIA camp where harsh interrogation techniques were used.

The Obama Justice Department said they were “pleased” with the outcome, but in baseball terminology, they barely avoided being no-hit because they got a bloop single. If they’re “pleased” about anything it’s that they didn’t end up looking like total asses.

As for other man-caused-disaster suspects facing civil trial, about a year ago, Eric Holder blew off questions concerning what would happen if Khalid Sheik Mohammed or any of the other 9/11 defendants were found not guilty in a civil court:

Attorney General Eric Holder brushed off the question, saying, “I would not have authorized the bringing of these prosecutions unless I thought that the outcome — in the outcome we would ultimately be successful. I will say that I have access to information that has not been publicly released that gives me great confidence that we will be successful in the prosecution of these cases in federal court.”

Talk about being counter-productive to Obama’s stated goal going in. The case made by Obama during his campaign was that the military justice system had been so corrupted by years of Bush abuse that no “man-caused disaster suspect” in U.S. custody could possibly get a fair military trial. But at the same time, Holder was open in stating that only those who were certain convictions would be granted access to US civil courts.

It’s ironic that Team Obama’s answer to distancing themselves from Bush’s alleged Gitmo kangaroo court system was to grant US civil court access only to those defendants who met the criteria of the DoJ’s politically motivated and/or naive preconceived trial outcomes. Now even their “sure things” aren’t so sure — and this was only their first crack at it.

Amateur hour is about to enter its third year.

Update: Well naturally – Bush’s fault! The quote in that story is from a “senior Obama administration official” who sounds as if he’s moonlighting as legal counsel for Gitmo detainees.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Much has been written about the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” and its proximity to where the World Trade Center towers once stood, but here’s an aereal photo that puts the location into perspective.

The red box is the old Burlington Coat Factory building where landing gear from one of the hijacked planes crashed through the roof, and it is the proposed site for Park51 (larger picture here):

Concerning the construction of a Ground Zero mosque, it’s too bad that the sudden respect for private property isn’t coming from people with a track record of giving a damn about private property rights — maybe they’d have just a little more support.

For example, Speaker of the New York City Council, Christine Quinn, supports the construction of a mosque on private property in close proximity to where Islamic terrorists murdered over 2,700 people — but what kind of New York grand opening does Quinn oppose? A Wal-Mart — on private property.

Maybe somebody can convince Quinn that Park51 won’t allow employees to unionize.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Too funny.

Click the pic to go to the video:

**Written by guest-blogger Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

The Obama administration said Friday that it would appeal a district court ruling that granted some military prisoners in Afghanistan the right to file lawsuits seeking their release. The decision signaled that the administration was not backing down in its effort to maintain the power to imprison terrorism suspects for extended periods without judicial oversight.

Somebody really owes George W. Bush an apology.