Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Ft. Hood shooter, was charged with 13 counts of murder as he lies on a hospital bed, paralyzed from the waist down due to the four bullets he took that ended his shooting spree.  Reports indicate that Hasan contacted Islamic militant preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, who currently resides in Yemen.  As Thom Hartmann points out, good thing the last President still isn’t in charge, as with the right-wing frothing over themselves that the Ft. Hood shooting constitutes a “terrorist” attack, we probably would have been dropping bombs in Yemen by now.

The Obama administration announced, care of Attorney General Eric Holder, that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed -along with four others who assisted with the plot- will be tried in a U.S. federal courthouse in lower Manhattan, just blocks from Ground Zero.  Of course, this led to outrage from Republicans, with the NRSC releasing a histrionic press release stating that the only reason why KSM is being tried in a Manhattan court room is due to Harry Reid caving into the “far Left.”  The release included the following quote:

“Those who think elections don’t matter will have an important wake-up call when Khalid Shaikh Mohammed walks into the very American city where he helped slaughter thousands of innocent Americans and they shouldn’t forget that Harry Reid helped roll out the welcome mat,” said National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) spokesman Brian Walsh.

I guess Mr. Walsh feels that New Yorkers (who are, after all, primarily Democratic) are such push-over wimps jumping at their own shadow, that the simple thought of a criminal who helped kill thousands of New Yorkers is far too much to bear.  If I were a New Yorker, I would welcome the chance for justice to be served in the jurisdiction where the crime actually committed, in as transparently and beholden to the rule of law as possible.  As opposed to, say, a military commission courtroom on a rocky island that is out of sight and out of mind for the rest of the country.  I wonder, when the system works and KSM is found guilty and sentenced to death, will the Republicans continue being outraged that Obama and Holder is committed to following the rule of law that makes our country so great?

And finally, from the ‘Duh’ department, it appears that David Brennan, the CEO of AstraZeneca, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies, has vowed to oppose health care in the current form that was passed out of the House last weekend.  Supposedly, the pharmaceutical companies had committed $80 billion for reform in exchange for various assurances- price controls, Medicare rebates, moving dual eligibilities back from Medicare and back into the Medicaid discount program- that would not occur.  The White House and the Senate agreed to these assurances in exchange for support from the pharmaceutical industry, but it appears the House is refusing to play along.  Oh well.  Should anybody be surprised?  Big Pharma would have found pretty much any reason to have opposed health care reform for some reason at some point anyway.