† Restorative Capital Punishment (second item): She was once against the death penalty, but since January 29, 1999 Kristie Reed has “eagerly awaited” the execution of the man who had murdered her sister and had raped her and left her for dead, reports The Washington Post:

Kristie Reed was on the basement floor, her throat and wrists slashed. Her older sister, Stacie, was upstairs, dead from a stab wound to the heart. When police reached Kristie, who was then 14 years old, an officer leaned in and asked who had done this to her. Kristie mouthed two words: "Paul Powell."

On Thursday night, more than 11 years later, Paul Warner Powell, 31, was executed in Virginia's electric chair. He was declared dead at 9:09 p.m. …

"I need to know that he's gone, that we don't have to deal with this anymore," said Kristie Reed, now 25 and an advocate for rape victims. "I was totally against the death penalty before this happened, and I didn't know why people would want to do it. But those people haven't been through what we've been through. Now I'm totally for it. He definitely deserves to die. He needs to die for what he did to Stacie."

Kristie and her mother, Lorraine Reed Whoberry, witnessed Powell's execution. Whoberry tells The WaPo, "Justice was served.”

And what a long, strange trip it’s been: Powell had threatened to kill the two women in letters sent from jail; Jennifer Day, the forewoman on the jury that convicted Powell, said she loved him and had made the wrong decision; the VA threw out Powell's death sentence on a technicality; Powell sent a taunting letter to prosecutors that included an admission that he had tried to rape Stacie, too; Powell was re-indicted, convicted and sentenced to death a second time.

† Defending The Indefensible: September 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his four conspirators were provided with battery-powered laptops by the Pentagon to facilitate access to materials that would assist in their legal defense, “raising concerns among security officials that the terrorism suspects could pass sensitive data to terrorists in the future,” reports The Washington Times:

In addition to Mohammed, the other al Qaeda members who were given computers were Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al-Hawsawi.

The five al Qaeda members were "provided access to stand-alone computers without Internet access in order to review discovery material provided by the government, conduct legal research and prepare for their defense" against charges related to the Sept, 11 attacks, Col. Melnyk said.

The laptops, the ruling stated, include word-processing software and legal documents related to military law. The ruling bars Internet access, PowerPoint software, a DVD writer, and printers or scanners. …

The detainees' access to laptops and their interaction with lawyers is one element of an ongoing CIA and Justice Department investigation into whether lawyers representing the detainees compromised the safety of covert CIA interrogators. Lawyers showed the prisoners privately obtained photographs of CIA interrogators in an attempt to have the terrorism suspects identify the interrogators in order to call them as witnesses in future trials.

The agent-identification effort is part of a joint program of the American Civil Liberties Union and National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers called the John Adams Project.

CIA counterintelligence officials have expressed serious concerns that intelligence on the interrogators' identities may have leaked or will be passed out of Guantanamo through the lawyers. The agency also is opposing efforts by the Justice Department to support the John Adams Project in granting foreign terrorists the same constitutional rights granted to criminal defendants.

† Is This Any Way To Run A Transition?: Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson makes the case that Attorney General Eric Holder is the Desirée Rogers (fifth item) of the Obama Cabinet: “Holder is the most endangered member of the Obama Cabinet ... Just about everything he has touched has backfired.” For instance:

Holder has been unable to articulate reasons some terrorism cases are referred to civilian courts while others are tried in military tribunals. And his groundwork for a "trial of the century" was botched in almost every respect. …

[O]ne of [the Supreme Court briefs Holder filed that he forgot to disclose to Congress during his confirmation] opposed the detention of Jose Padilla as an enemy combatant, leading Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) to wonder, "Are we expected to believe that then-nominee Holder, with only a handful of Supreme Court briefs to his name, forgot about his role in one of this country's most publicized terrorism cases?" Holder's briefs preview his later decisions on the underwear bomber and KSM. Few in Congress or the White House have leapt to defend Holder's convenient omission.

Gerson also cites Holder’s “decision to release Bush-era interrogation memos and reopen the investigation of CIA interrogators after they had been cleared by career prosecutors” which “started a national security debate he has pretty much lost”; Bush administration lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee being cleared of professional misconduct by the Justice Department's senior career attorney after “Holder appointees had determined the two lawyers guilty”; “treat[ing] a national security judgment as a purely legal one” by Mirandizing underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab after just 50 minutes of questioning.

† Why We Need Gitmo (second item): In a Washington Post op-ed Benjamin Wittes and Jack Goldsmith propose a “third way” to break the “standoff” between the Obama administration and its critics over whether Khalid Sheikh Mohammed should be tried by a military commission or in federal court:

Don't bother trying them at all.

Mohammed has already spent more than seven years in military detention. Both the Obama administration and the Republicans who object to trying him in federal court accept the legitimacy of such detention as a traditional incident of war for those in the command structure of al-Qaeda, and perhaps for associated forces as well. In general outline, so do the courts. Given these facts, the politically draining fight about civilian vs. military trials is not worth the costs. It also distracts from more important questions in the legal war against terrorism. …

Detention already serves to incapacitate high-value suspects. A trial potentially adds three things: the option of the death penalty; enhanced legitimacy in some quarters, especially abroad; and a certain catharsis and historical judgment in the form of a criminal verdict.

These are not trivial benefits, but as the political battle over the past few months has shown, they come at great cost. Domestically, the political costs of trying high-level terrorists in federal courts have become exorbitant for the administration - unaffordably high, it seems to be turning out.

Wittes and Goldsmith, who sit on the Hoover Institution's Task Force on National Security and Law, write that “it is time to be realistic about terrorist detention [and] define the contours of the detention system that will, for some time to come, continue to do the heavy lifting in incapacitating terrorists.”

† We Fight Them Over There So We Don’t Have To Fight Them Over Here?: Part V (second item): Chicagoan David Coleman Headley has agreed to plead guilty to federal charges for his role in the 2008 Mumbai, India, terrorist attack and for a terrorist plot against Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten, reports The Associated Press:

Headley, 49, is accused of going to Mumbai to lay groundwork for the November 2008 rampage that the government blames on the Pakistan-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba. The group is antagonistic toward India because of a dispute over the territory of Kashmir. …

Headley is accused of scheming to launch a terrorist attack on a Danish newspaper, Jyllands Posten, which in 2005 published a dozen cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that were highly offensive to Muslims. That attack never happened. …

Headley is the son of an American mother and Pakistani father. His name at birth was Daood Gilani, but he had it legally changed to make it easier to get through customs without questions, according to federal prosecutors.

In January Headley pleaded not guilty to 12 counts, including six counts of murdering U.S. nationals in India, conspiracy to bomb public places in India and providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Under the terms of his plea deal with federal prosecutors – which likely requires him to testify against his co-defendant, Chicago businessman Tahawwur Hussain Rana – Headley will not face the death penalty.

† Living In These Mad, Mad, Madoff Times: According to The Christian Science Monitor, the global recession has caused displaced workers worldwide to flock to Bologna, Italy, to attend Gelato University:

The university was established seven years ago but has recently seen a 90 percent spike in enrollments as victims of the global recession seek to forge new careers.

“We start them off with a bit of history about gelatomaking and then teach them how to use and maintain the machines,” says Patrick Hopkins, the American director of the university, which was established in 2003.

More than 6,000 people attended the university last year. Courses range from beginners to advanced and cost €700 ($947) a week.

“A lot of them are senior businesspeople who have lost their jobs,” says Mr. Hopkins.

† Updates To Previous Posts (fifth item, When Healthcare Is Rationed, Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others): The Associated Press drops the bombshell that “[l]ast fall, as swine flu cases mounted and parents desperately sought to protect their kids, the hard-to-get vaccine was handed out in some surprising places: the Royal Caribbean cruise line, the headquarters of drug giant Merck, the Johnson Space Center and a Department of Energy office in Idaho”:

In some cases, financial institutions and other recipients got doses before some county health departments and doctors' offices, according to records obtained by The Associated Press through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Also, even though the federal government spent more than $1.6 billion to manufacture and distribute the vaccine, there is no complete record of where it went.

That's "a big deal" - the absence of complete data makes it hard to spot waste and other problems, said James Colgrove, a Columbia University scholar on the history of immunization campaigns. …

The vaccine campaign began slowly in early October, with only 11 million doses shipping in the first three weeks of that month, when swine flu was closing schools and approaching its worst, most widespread levels. Ultimately, 86 million people were vaccinated.

The CDC decided how many doses would go to each state, and state and local health departments decided where the vaccine was sent. Doctors' offices, large employers and even federal offices were among those that applied for vaccine. Health officials told them to give it to at-risk people first, but there was no enforcement of that.

It's clear that at many sites, lower-risk people got precious doses in the first two months. …

Given the circumstances, health officials did "a very respectable job," Colgrove said. The assessment might have been harsher had the virus turned out to be more deadly, he added.

"In a way, we really dodged a bullet," he said.

Had Katrina been another bullet dodged, President George Bush wouldn’t have been mercilessly savaged over the inadequacy of government at all levels to deal with a storm of biblical proportions. But for the grace of G-d, swine flu could easily have been President Barack Hussein Obama’s Katrina – not that he has the humility to admit it.

† Updates To Previous Posts (seventh item, The Uniter: Part II): Barack Hussein Obama, who ran as a “uniter,” has now driven a wedge between Catholics over the Stupak Amendment, reports The Boston Globe [source and contextual links added by The Stiletto]:

A coalition of 59,000 nuns released a letter yesterday calling on Congress to approve the overhaul, defying the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which opposes the measure. The Catholic Health Association, which represents 1,200 Catholic hospitals, has endorsed the package, as have Catholics United and Catholic groups promoting social justice. …

Catholic bishops are familiar with the “anguish of mothers who are unable to afford prenatal care, of families unable to ensure quality care for their children, and of those who cannot obtain insurance because of preexisting conditions,’’ Cardinal Francis George, president of the US Council, wrote. But “despite the good that the bill under consideration intends or might achieve, the Catholic bishops regretfully hold that it must be opposed.’’

The letter from the group representing the nuns disagrees. “Despite false claims to the contrary, the Senate bill will not provide taxpayer funding for elective abortions. It will uphold longstanding conscience protections and it will make historic new investments . . . in support of pregnant women. This is the real pro-life stance, and we as Catholics are all for it.’’

† Updates To Previous Posts (third item, Only The Little People Pay Taxes): Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) is “irked that nearly 100,000 civilian federal employees owe the IRS $962 million in back taxes” and has introduced a bill that requiring the federal government to "ferret out" civilian employees who have "seriously delinquent tax debt" and prevent the hiring of other tax delinquents, reports ABC News. He would “spare” employees appealing to the IRS or "making a good faith effort" to repay their back taxes.

† Updates To Previous Posts (ninth item, Garbage In, Garbage Out: Part II): After he voiced his approval of Superintendent Frances Gallo firing the entire staff of Central Falls High School in Central Falls, RI, one of the teachers who lost his job made an effigy of President Barack Hussein Obama holding a sign with the words, "Fire Central Falls teachers," and hung it by its feet from a whiteboard, reports The Associated Press:

The teachers union on Thursday condemned the effigy, discovered Monday in the teacher's third-floor classroom at, saying it was wrong and cannot be condoned under any circumstances.

Jane Sessums, president of the Central Falls Teachers Union, said in a written statement that the teacher hung the doll "as part of what he described as a lesson plan." A spokesman for the union said he could not immediately explain what that meant.

What it means is that a subset of those who rapturously idolized Obama as The One who will bestow the blessed miracles of Hope and Change have realized he is a false god and are now denouncing him with equal fervor.