Sedgwick County District Judge Warren Wilbert was correct in ruling Tuesday that alleged killer Scott Roeder will be tried in Wichita and won’t be allowed to argue a “necessity defense” in the case of the slaying of abortion doctor George Tiller. If impartial juries could be assembled in Sedgwick County to handle other high-profile cases, including the one that ended last spring with Tiller’s acquittal of misdemeanor charges, an impartial jury can be seated here for Roeder. And the defendant’s anti-abortion views can be aired without letting Roeder plow new legal ground arguing that Tiller’s occupation, which was lawful, somehow justified his murder.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans want the federal government to regulate the release of greenhouse gases from sources such as power plants, cars and factories, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. But when it comes to the science behind global warming, those surveyed split sharply along partisan lines. Only 20 percent of Republicans think most scientists agree that global warming in happening, compared with 55 percent of Democrats. And 58 percent of Republican put little or no faith in what scientists say about the environment, while only 23 percent of Democrats have such doubts.
More signs that the Senate really needs to adjourn and go home: Sen. Roland Burris (in photo), D-Ill., went to the mike to offer a version of “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” about health reform, rhyming “raucous” with “caucus” and concluding, “Democrats exclaimed as they drove out of sight, ‘Better coverage for all. Even our friends on the right.’” Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., offered his own YouTube version, starring his dogs, in which he declared, “Away to the sink I flew like a flash. Threw up in the basin o’er the loss of our cash.”
