Remember the terrorist who got onto a plane with a bomb built into his shoe and tried to give himself a hotfoot? With all the other distractions from oil to illegals, I’ll bet you didn’t know that his trial is over and he has been stiffly sentenced … the government media have a convenient way of missing things that no longer fit their agenda.
Prior to sentencing, the Judge asked the defendant if he had anything to say. His response … after admitting his guilt to the court for the record, the unrepentant terrorist also admitted his “allegiance to Osama bin Laden, to Islam, and to the religion of Allah” defiantly stating, “I think I will not apologize for my actions” and told the court, “I am at war with your country.”
Judge William Young, of the U.S. District Court then delivered the following statement, which needs to be heard by every American, especially those who still may not believe we are at war with radical Islam or who may somehow question American exceptionalism:
“Mr. Richard C. Reid, hearken now to the sentence the Court imposes upon you.
On counts 1, 5 and 6 the Court sentences you to life in prison in the custody of the United States Attorney General. On counts 2, 3, 4and 7, the Court sentences you to 20 years in prison on each count, the sentence on each count to run consecutively. (That’s 80 years.)
On count 8 the Court sentences you to the mandatory 30 years again, to be served consecutively to the 80 years just imposed. The Court imposes upon you for each of the eight counts a fine of $250,000 that’s an aggregate fine of $2 million. The Court accepts the government’s recommendation with respect to restitution and orders restitution in the amount of $298.17 to Andre Bousquet and $5,784 to American Airlines.
The Court imposes upon you an $800 special assessment. The Court imposes upon you five years supervised release simply because the law requires it. But the life sentences are real life sentences so I need go no further.
This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes. It is a fair and just sentence. It is a righteous sentence.
Now, let me explain this to you. We are not afraid of you or any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before. There is too much war talk here and I say that to everyone with the utmost respect. Here in this court, we deal with individuals as individuals and care for individuals as individuals. As human beings, we reach out for justice.
You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a soldier, gives you far too much stature. Whether the officers of government do it or your attorney does it, or if you think you are a soldier, you are not … you are a terrorist. And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not meet with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.
So war talk is way out of line in this court. You are a big fellow but you are not that big. You’re no warrior. I’ve known warriors. You are a terrorist. A species of criminal that is guilty of multiple attempted murders. In a very real sense, State Trooper Santiago had it right when you first were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press and the TV crews were and he said, “You’re no big deal.”
You are no big deal.
What your able counsel and what the equally able United States attorneys have grappled with and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple with, is why you did something so horrific. What was it that led you here to this courtroom today?
I have listened respectfully to what you have to say. And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing? And, I have an answer for you. It may not satisfy you, but as I search this entire record, it comes as close to understanding as I know.
It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most precious. You hate our freedom … our individual freedom; our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose. Here, in this society, the very wind carries freedom. It carries it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom, so that everyone can see, truly see, that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely. It is for freedom’s sake that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf, have filed appeals, will go on in their representation of you before other judges.
We Americans are all about freedom. Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties. Make no mistake though. It is yet true that we will bear any burden; pay any price, to preserve our freedoms. Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. The day after tomorrow, it will be forgotten, but this, however, will long endure.
Here in this courtroom and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done. The very President of the United States through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.
See that flag, Mr. Reid? That’s the flag of the United States of America. That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag stands for freedom. And it always will.
Mr. Custody Officer. Stand him down!”
Wow … do we need more magistrates like Judge William Young! I figured you probably hadn’t seen this on T.V. or read it in any paper, so I’m just proud you were able to read it here.
R.S.F.
If the primary job of our government is to protect the people of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic, what happens when the government itself becomes the adversary? When the president swears to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution then proceeds to trample it, what course of action can be taken to keep the ship of state from running aground?
Hey sports fans, it’s April 22nd … Earth Day! It’s time to commemorate all the sorry sots that actually buy into the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind. Be a good steward? Of course … but the rest of that over-the-top radical nonsense has, of course, been fully documented by those intercepted e-mails as phony.
Woe is me! I climbed into bed with thugs, used deception and crooked deals to cram expensive, illegal legislation down America’s throat … now, somebody really got torqued-off! Oh-h-h, woe is me! Does the phrase, ‘duck’ suddenly take on meaning for you?
Freedom suffered a damaging blow last night as Amerika was pushed, punched and finally kicked into Socialism by a third-world president and a Communistic Congress, which turned a deaf ear to nearly 75 percent of the American people in favor of their own self-interests. The government now wields the power of life and death over the rest of us. Their so-called healthkare bill was passed in a Soviet style session of Madam Pelosi’s House [if the shoe fits ...] by a vote of 219 to 212.
Flag Day
In years gone by, brave men have chosen to carry her into battle instead of a gun and have died trying to keep her from so much as touching the ground. Yet, in their infinite buffoonery, our own Supreme Court has ruled that it is okay to burn this great symbol in protest, as a form of expression. What happened to the expression of saying The Pledge of Allegiance every morning in school or at public meetings? Oh that’s right, someone might be offended…especially since it mentions God. Remember?
Just in case you graduated after 1960-something and were no longer taught such things in school, did you know that Betsy Ross told her grandson, William J. Canby, that she sewed the first American flag in 1776? Because there is no formal documentation of the creation of the first flag, many historians doubt that her story is true. It’s a Betsy Ross flag replica that flies in the corner of this article. I believe her.
The Flag Act of 1818 stipulated that each state be represented by a star and that any new stars be added on Independence Day and the U.S. Flag Code of 1923 established proper etiquette for the care and respect of ’Old Glory’. Since the Flag Act of 1777, there have been 27 different national flags. The current flag was adopted on July 4, 1960 when the 50th star was added to represent, of all cruel ironies, Hawaii.
One of my favorite emails that has been making its way around the Internet says,
WE LIVE IN THE LAND OF THE FREE, ONLY BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE!
It just seems to me that we’re advancing to the rear in this country simply because a few radical ideologues don’t like the concept of American exceptionalism. If they don’t like it here, instead of destroying it for the rest of us with their collectivist crap, would they please allow me to buy them a one way ticket to anywhere else they’d like to go? They’re costing me money anyway and we all might as well get some benefit from their use of it!
Let us honor our flag today and everyday … for, despite the onslaught of evil forces from both inside and out, she is still the stirring symbol of the greatest nation on the face of the earth!
R.S.F.