There was a shooting just outside the Pentagon today, at a security checkpoint. Two cops were injured; breaking reports say the suspect, J. Patrick Bedell, has died.

The suspect, believed to be a U.S. citizen, walked up to a security checkpoint at the Pentagon in an apparent attempt to get inside the massively fortified Defense Department headquarters, at about 6:40 p.m. local time. “He just reached in his pocket, pulled out a gun and started shooting” at point-blank range, Keevill said. “He walked up very cool. He had no real emotion on his face.” The Pentagon officers returned fire with semiautomatic weapons.

And Internet research shows that the guy was a 9/11 Truther and an anti-Bush nut case.

Via Charles Johnson comes this link to some crazy ranting from the guy. It was recorded in November 2006 — when Bush was president, to belabor the obvious. I transcribed this part, in which he is speaking of criminal organizations working within the U.S. Government:

This criminal organization would use its powers to convert military, intelligence, and law enforcement bureaucracies into instruments for political control, and the domination and subjection of society, while discrediting, destroying, and murdering honest individuals within those services, that work to root out corruption, and faithfully serve their fellow citizens. This organization, like so many murderous governments throughout history, would see the sacrifice of thousands of its citizens in an event such as the September 11 attacks, as a small cost in order to perpetuate its barbaric control. This collection of gangsters would find it in their interest to foment conflict and initiate wars throughout the world, in order to divert attention from their misconduct and criminality. The true nature of such a regime would find its clearest expression in the satanic violence currently ongoing in Iraq.

There is also plenty of creepily nerdy/calm ranting about government control of the economy. As a correspondent wrote to me: “If he thought Bush was out to get private property, just imagine what he thought after Obama’s first year.”

That same correspondent sends a link to his Amazon profile:

And let’s get a nice close-up of that wish list:

Save this link when Big Media tries to portray him as a Tea Partier or right-winger.

UPDATE: More 9/11 Truther evidence against this guy here. And a full transcript of the rant excerpted above, here.

UPDATE 3/5/2010 — Michelle Malkin says Bedell was a registered Democrat:

“www.Electorates.us has 180 million registered voter records available online (thanks to Anne Horrigan). Thirty-six-year-old John Patrick Bedell’s voter registration records in Hollister, CA are available for any journalist before he/she goes off and labels him a “right-wing extremist.”

Guess which party he registered under in 2005 and was actively registered under as of 2008?

DEMOCRAT.”

The Washington Post reports:

President Obama’s advisers are nearing a recommendation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, be prosecuted in a military tribunal, administration officials said, a step that would reverse Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s plan to try him in civilian court in New York City.

The president’s advisers feel increasingly hemmed in by bipartisan opposition to a federal trial in New York and demands, mainly from Republicans, that Mohammed and his accused co-conspirators remain under military jurisdiction, officials said. While Obama has favored trying some alleged terrorists in civilian courts as a symbol of U.S. commitment to the rule of law, critics have said military tribunals are the appropriate venue for those accused of attacking the United States.

I’m happy to see that they’re going to do the right thing, but distressed that they consider this a political decision rather than a decision based on what is legal and appropriate.

[Guest post by DRJ]

James Taranto quotes CNN political analyst Gloria Borger’s take-away from a White House briefing:

GLORIA BORGER: “I was talking with a senior White House adviser today, Wolf, who put it to me this way. He said, “This is the last helicopter out of Saigon,” meaning they have made a political decision that they’re going to use their Democrats to get this through, because what they need, this aide says, is they need an accomplishment. And they believe that once this passes, people will begin to see the benefits of it, and it will not ricochet against them, but will work for them.”

Taranto sees two meanings:

“Mark Mardell, North American editor of the BBC, was watching and he blogged in response: “Fleeing a lost war is not the most optimistic metaphor for an adviser to adopt. And it still may go down in flames.”

But could Mardell have misunderstood the analogy? Maybe the point of comparison is that the fall of Saigon was a communist takeover.”

Sadly, they both could be right.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

Labor Pains posts video of an SEIU member chatting up health care workers in Garden Grove, California.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

President Obama promised the most transparent Administration ever and he’s delivered on that promise in the past week. First he held a televised health care summit and now he’s handing out federal judgeships as favors for voting for his health care reform. It’s not pretty but it’s transparent.

How’s that for change, Obama voters?

H/T Instapundit.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

California Democratic Representative Pete Stark was forced out as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee after only one day. The report says he will be replaced by Michigan’s Sander Levin.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

ABC News’ Jake Tapper questioned Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about President Obama’s 50+1 health care reform strategy:

TAPPER: And then another question. The president, when he was running for president, told the Concord Monitor that you have to break out of the 50-plus-one pattern of presidential politics; we’re not going to pass health-care reform with a 50-plus-one strategy. He was talking more about building consensus. And I understand that the health-care reform bill, the first iteration of it passed the Senate with 60 votes, with a supermajority. But is he not pursuing a 51 – 50-plus-one strategy for this final step?

GIBBS: No, because — he’s talking about electoral strategy, not vote-counting in the House —

TAPPER: But he did say “we’re not going to pass health-care reform with a 50-plus-one strategy.”

GIBBS: We’re not going to — we’re not going to get it through — we’re — you’re not going to get legislation through Congress if only 50 percent plus one in the country think it’s a good idea. That’s why, if you look at poll after poll, people want — people want health-care reform and the debate on health-care reform to continue. They want to see progress made. They want to see Democrats and Republicans work together to get something done. That’s what the —

TAPPER: Well, Robert, the polls indicates that the American people are very divided about this bill. In fact, pluralities disagree with it, this bill.

GIBBS: And majorities believe we have to keep going. And if you break out individual concepts of what’s contained in the president’s plan, some of which are Republican ideas, they poll in the upper 60s, so —

TAPPER: Right. But on this specific bill, can you say anything other than the president is doing anything other than pursuing the 50- plus-one strategy?

GIBBS: I don’t believe he’s pursuing that strategy. I think there are far more than 50 percent of the people that live in this country know and understand that we have to change, for them, the cost of health care. Yes.

TAPPER: They don’t support this bill.

GIBBS: Well, we’re working on that Jake.

— DRJ

Dave Surls reminds me of something I noticed when I read the Brooklyn D.A.’s statement finding no state law criminality by ACORN in New York:

The three had been secretly videotaped by two people posing as a pimp and prostitute, who came to ACORN’S Brooklyn office, seeking advice about how to purchase a house with money generated by their ‘business.’

Wow. They viewed the unedited video and said that O’Keefe posed as a pimp?

Boehlert’s and Friedman’s heads must be spinning.

Speaking of Friedman, he has repeatedly said that a Congressional Research Service report (which was released by that bastion of even-handedness, John Conyers) found no criminal wrongdoing by ACORN with respect to their actions on the O’Keefe/Giles videos. For example, Friedman states:

[T]hree investigations (one from the Congressional Research Service, one from MA’s former Attorney General, and the latest, just this week from the Brooklyn, NY District Attorney) have all found no criminal wrongdoing by the low-level ACORN employees caught on secret video . . .

I’m having trouble finding this exculpation in the report. Admittedly, I have only scanned it and have not yet read every word, so maybe I missed it. Can someone help me out?

Surely Friedman isn’t lying again . . .

UPDATE: I added the words “state law” to the post. The D.A. made no determination regarding possible federal crimes. Thanks to PCD.