When the bark is heard from this side the right hon. Member for Calne (Mr. Lowe) emerges, I will not say from his cave, but, perhaps, from a more cynical habitation. He joins immediately in the chorus of reciprocal malignity— ‘And hails with horrid melody the moon.’In quotes, right? A line from a poem, apparently. But what poem, by whom?
WASHINGTON—Reports continue to pour in from around the nation today of helpless
Americans being forcibly taken from their marital unions after President Obama
dropped the Defense of Marriage Act earlier this week, leaving the institution
completely vulnerable to roving bands of homosexuals. "It was just awful—they
smashed through our living room window, one of them said 'I've had my eye on
you, Roger,' and then they dragged my husband off kicking and screaming," said
Cleveland-area homemaker Rita Ellington, one of the latest victims whose
defenseless marriage was overrun by the hordes of battle-ready gays that had
been clambering at the gates of matrimony since the DOMA went into effect in
1996. "Oh dear God, why did they remove the protection provided by this vital
piece of legislation? My children! What will I tell my children?" A video
communique was sent to the media late yesterday from what appears to be the
as-yet unidentified leader of the gay marauders, who, adorned in terrifying
warpaint, announced "Richard Dickson of Ames, Iowa. We're coming for you
next. Put on something nice."
For reasons that I'd be more than happy to discuss further in the event that anyone is interested, I'm not a huge fan of using handouts or demonstrative exhibits at an appellate oral argument.Hard to fault him there, tho I'm sure his opposing counsel has tried. No excuse for not having those documents handy a week in advance -- or for that matter, attaching them to a brief.
Moments before my en banc oral argument was to begin Wednesday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, opposing counsel handed me a collection of documents that he proposed to distribute to the judges to walk them through his presentation. That was, frankly, the first time that I had had that happen to me or seen that happen in more than 20 years of appellate work.
The representatives of the Third Circuit's clerk's office in the courtroom would not allow the handout to be distributed to the judges without my consent. I decided not to consent, because the best use of my time in the moments before the oral argument was not perusing opposing counsel's proposed handout, and there was nothing that had precluded opposing counsel from finding out earlier in advance of the oral argument that my consent was needed and then requesting my consent at that earlier time.
Because however clever it was to kidnap Qaddafi and insinuate Robert Downey, Jr. in his place, shouldn't Downey have stopped short of tanks and bombers to keep his cover? Enough is enough!
... This post reminded me to look up the fate of the greatest double agent ever, the secret policeman whose cover went SOOOOOO deep as to orchestrate the assassination of the head of the secret police. I'd always assumed he was executed, but he got away to Germany; died in Berlin in 1918. There oughta be a movie.
New York’s top court officials will bar the state’s hundreds of elected judges from hearing cases involving lawyers and others who make significant contributions to their campaigns, a move that will change the political culture of courts and transform judicial elections by removing an important incentive lawyers have for contributing.And creating a new incentive to contribute. How many defense firms would contribute $2500 a head to Tomie Green or Winston Kidd to enforce her recusal? How many plaintiff's lawyers would've given $2500 to stay out of Swan Yerger's courtroom? And wouldn't Billy Joe Landrum make out like a bandit under this system?
Few Americans have heard of Mr. Sharp. But for decades, his practical writings on nonviolent revolution — most notably “From Dictatorship to Democracy,” a 93-page guide to toppling autocrats, available for download in 24 languages — have inspired dissidents around the world, including in Burma, Bosnia, Estonia and Zimbabwe, and now Tunisia and Egypt.Presidential-Medal-of-Freedom material, one would think. Perhaps Obama's saving that for some of the CIA's torture veterans.
When Egypt’s April 6 Youth Movement was struggling to recover from a failed effort in 2005, its leaders tossed around “crazy ideas” about bringing down government, said Ahmed Maher, a leading strategist. They stumbled on Mr. Sharp while examining the Serbian movement Otpor, which he had influenced.
When the nonpartisan International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, which trains democracy activists, slipped into Cairo several years ago to conduct a workshop, among the papers it distributed was Mr. Sharp’s “198 Methods of Nonviolent Action,” a list of tactics that range from hunger strikes to “protest disrobing” to “disclosing identities of secret agents.”
Dalia Ziada, an Egyptian blogger and activist who attended the workshop and later organized similar sessions on her own, said trainees were active in both the Tunisia and Egypt revolts. She said that some activists translated excerpts of Mr. Sharp’s work into Arabic, and that his message of “attacking weaknesses of dictators” stuck with them. * * *
Autocrats abhor Mr. Sharp. In 2007, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela denounced him, and officials in Myanmar, according to diplomatic cables obtained by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, accused him of being part of a conspiracy to spark demonstrations intended “to bring down the government.” (A year earlier, a cable from the United States Embassy in Damascus noted that Syrian dissidents had trained in nonviolence by reading Mr. Sharp’s writings.)
In 2008, Iran featured Mr. Sharp, along with Senator John McCain of Arizona and the Democratic financier George Soros, in an animated propaganda video that accused Mr. Sharp of being the C.I.A. agent “in charge of America’s infiltration into other countries,” an assertion his fellow scholars find ludicrous.
“He is generally considered the father of the whole field of the study of strategic nonviolent action,” said Stephen Zunes, an expert in that field at the University of San Francisco. “Some of these exaggerated stories of him going around the world and starting revolutions and leading mobs, what a joke. He’s much more into doing the research and the theoretical work than he is in disseminating it.”
As Curveball watched Powell make the US case to invade Iraq, he was hiding an admission that he has not made until now: that nearly every word he had told his interrogators from Germany's secret service, the BND, was a lie.Exiles lie! Who would have thought it?
Everything he had said about the inner workings of Saddam Hussein's biological weapons programme was a flight of fantasy - one that, he now claims was aimed at ousting the Iraqi dictator. Janabi, a chemical engineering graduate who had worked in the Iraqi industry, says he looked on in shock as Powell's presentation revealed that the Bush administration's hawkish decisionmakers had swallowed the lot. Something else left him even more amazed; until that point he had not met a US official, let alone been interviewed by one.
"I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime," he told the Guardian in a series of interviews carried out in his native Arabic and German. "I and my sons are proud of that, and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy."
As to their vain hopes and promises, such is the extreme desire in them to return home, that they naturally believe many things that are false and add many others by art, so that between those they believe and those they say they believe, they fill you with hope, so that relying on them you will incur expenses in vain, or you undertake an enterprise in which you ruin yourself.-- Machiavelli, Discourses, 2:31. See, the problem with Bush and Cheney is they weren't Machiavellian enough.
Along with confirmation of Curveball's identity, however, have come fresh disclosures raising doubts about his honesty -- much of that new detail coming from friends, associates and past employers.As Charley notes, the CIA evidently was not up to the smarts of some Burger King employees.
"He was corrupt," said a family friend who once employed him.
"He always lied," said a fellow Burger King worker. * * *
In early 2002, a year before the war, he told co-workers at the Burger King that he spied for Iraqi intelligence and would report any fellow Iraqi worker who criticized Hussein's regime.
They couldn't decide if he was dangerous or crazy.
"During breaks, he told stories about what a big man he was in Baghdad," said Hamza Hamad Rashid, who remembered an odd scene with the pudgy Alwan in his too-tight Burger King uniform praising Hussein in the home of der Whopper. "But he always lied. We never believed anything he said."
Another Iraqi friend, Ghazwan Adnan, remembers laughing when he applied for a job at a local Princess Garden Chinese Restaurant and discovered Alwan washing dishes in the back while claiming to be "a big deal" in Iraq. "How could America believe such a person?"
Mississippi Supreme Court Justice James Graves says he'll feel pressure to do a good job on the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans.Finally.
In the years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, officers who committed serious mistakes that left people wrongly imprisoned or even dead have received only minor admonishments or no punishment at all, an Associated Press investigation has revealed. * * *Obama finds the torturers useful; hence they cannot be prosecuted.
Though Obama has sought to put the CIA's interrogation program behind him, the result of a decade of haphazard accountability is that many officers who made significant missteps are now the senior managers fighting the president's spy wars.
The AP investigation of the CIA's actions revealed a disciplinary system that takes years to make decisions, hands down reprimands inconsistently and is viewed inside the agency as prone to favoritism and manipulation. When people are disciplined, the punishment seems to roll downhill, sparing senior managers even when they were directly involved in operations that go awry.
Two officers involved in the death of a prisoner in Afghanistan, for instance, received no discipline and have advanced into Middle East leadership positions. Other officers were punished after participating in a mock execution in Poland and playing a role in the death of a prisoner in Iraq. Those officers retired, then rejoined the intelligence community as contractors.
As Masri wasted away, being fed rotten chicken bones and suffering from chronic diarrhea, the chief of station in Kabul was saying, "I want this guy out" -- but in Washington, the head of the Al-Qaeda Unit kept insisting she had "a gut feeling he's bad. She can't admit a mistake," a former colleague said. [After his passport checked out,] The head of the Al-Qaeda Unit still wanted Masri held. "She just looked in her crystal ball and it said he was bad," said another former colleague at the CIA in disgust. "If you're going to unleash the beast," he said of the CIA's terrible powers, "you better be damn sure of your target."Do you, Gentle Reader, have phone calls to people who know people who are bad?
After this had gone on for several months, some of those in the Agency who knew that Masri's passport was legitimate started to lobby for his release. One CIA official said he came in every morning and asked, "Is that guy still locked up in the Salt Pit?"
But the Al Qaeda Unit leader was still saying she had suspicions about him. She argued, a source said, that Masri "had phone calls to people who were bad. Or to people who knew people who were bad."
"But is he a terrorist?" the others were asked.Two CIA officers in Europe planned a "reverse rendition" to bring Masri home, but even after months without any evidence that he was a terrorist, this CIA official would not budge: she
was still arguing that he was a terrorist. She had an unusual amount of clout in the Agency. She was smart and tough. And her trump card was that she sometimes personally briefed President Bush.Finally the matter went up to Tenet, who could see the political downside, and Masri was released. "Seven or eight other cases like Masri" have been investigated by the CIA inspector general.
Hosni Mubarak is hated in Egypt, but reluctant to give up power. Meanwhile, the Republican Party is desperate for a credible presidential candidate. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Yes: Mubarak should cut a deal to step down as president of Egypt, take exile in the United States where he'll be granted citizenship, and immediately jump into the Republican primary field.Plus his record on taxes, the liberal media, and antipathy to Obama are all very strong indeed.
The more I think about this, the more sense it makes. The GOP field is torn between candidates with executive experience but no foreign policy experience (i.e., governors like Mitt Romney or Mitch Daniels) and candidates with foreign policy experience but no executive experience. Mubarak has both!
You want a candidate who's tough on Islamists? The other Republicans can talk all they want about doubling Gitmo, but only Mubarak has imprisoned and tortured Islamists. You can't possibly get to the right of him on this issue. And he's extremely pro-Israel.
You can talk o' coffee spoonsClearly, the entire history of modernism has now to be rewritten.
When you're sittin' in your rooms
Or wanderin' dark streets wi' bad intent
But when comin' down the stairs
You 'ad better all bewares
O' our Michelangel-wallah, Alfred 'Frock!
The arguments 'e made
Very seldom would dissuade
The colonel from decidin' what was what,
But the way 'e tied 'is tie
Made the lads shout "Harry By!"
When 'e brought the mermaids to the sentry 'ut.
An' it's 'Frock, 'Frock, 'Frock!
Why you bugger, what's that 'idden in your smock?
You go risposta fosse
Wi' your senza piu scosse!
Why's a peach stuck in your pocket, Alfred 'Frock?
The uniform 'e wore
Was 'is trousers rolled before
An' 'is hair combed down a little bit behind.
When the fog was blowin' yellow
You'd go lookin' for the fellow
An' some novels an' some teacups you would find.
We was standin' in the hall
When Prince 'Amlet came to call
An' a lord was what we needed an' right quick
So we started in to shout,
"Is there any lord about?"
When up an' came a-trottin' Alfred 'Frock
An' it's 'Frock! 'Frock! 'Frock!
Would you leave off watchin' that thrice-blessed clock?
If you don't tornass' al mondo
You can just di questo fondo
You bleedin' literary Alfred 'Frock!
'E was tellin' 'is one joke,
'Bout a showgirl an' a bloke,
When the prince 'e keeled over wi' ennui
In the midst o' some digression
'Bout the claws an' their procession
That didn't make a lick o' sense to me.
So 'e took a slice o' toast,
An' a piece o' a cold roast,
Then 'e looked for just a spot o' marmalade.
Wi' a smile a little bent
'E said, "That's not what I meant,"
An' that is 'ow 'e ended 'is tirade.
An' it's 'Frock! 'Frock! 'Frock!
You're listenin' to a string quartet by Bach!
Wi' your stream o' conscious' blather
An' an angsty long palaver
You're an influential poet, Alfred 'Frock!
Are Judges “Employees” Covered by State Antidiscrimination Law?The question then becomes, is "Mississippi antidiscrimination law" anything more than a punch line? Haven't time to look right now, but it's a good question.
Howard v. Kansas City (Mo. Jan. 25) says “yes,” as to state antidiscrimination law, and notes the difference of opinion among different states’ courts on the subject. Judges are not covered by federal antidiscrimination law, and it’s not clear whether the Equal Protection Clause bars discrimination in the appointment of high-level officials (a category that might well include judges).
In this case, plaintiff was awarded “$633,333 in compensatory damages and $1.5 million in punitive damages” (plus attorney fees and prejudgment interest), because the jury found that she was denied a judicial appointment because she was white ....
Cherif Bassiouni, a law professor at DePaul University in Chicago, was one of the key authors of the Convention Against Torture and is one of the world’s preeminent experts in international criminal law, particularly from the prosecutor’s perspective. He has just published The Institutionalization of Torture by the Bush Administration: Is Anyone Responsible?, a scholarly work that documents the development of torture policy in the Bush Administration and presents a roadmap for the use of future prosecutors. I put six questions to Professor Bassiouni about his book.-- Scott Horton, continuing to do yeoman's work to remind people about our government's unpunished crimes.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, perhaps not aware that she was taking a firm position on an issue not yet before the Supreme Court, has suggested that the attempt to appeal immediately in a constitutional challenge to the new health reform law will fail. It was not the typically cautious Ginsburg who spoke out on the subject before an audience of students at George Washington University in Washington last week.That is of course usual practice, and I don't think such a procedural comment is exactly impeachment material, but I wouldn't be happy with Scalia making such a remark, so I don't see any reason to give Ginsburg a pass either. "No comment" is often the voice of wisdom.
Although a story in the University’s student newspaper did not provide the full context of the Justice’s remarks, it quoted her as saying without qualification on Thursday evening that the health care issue would have to reach the Court through “the ordinary route” — that is, after decisions on it by the federal appeals courts.
She went on to say, according to the report: ”The court itself is a reactive institution. We don’t decide, ‘We better get this or that case sooner rather than later.’ ‘” Further, the story said that, while some cases like those involving disclosure of the secret Pentagon Papers do get swift review, ”Ginsburg said the court benefits from reading opinions from lower courts when it decides whether or not to hear an appeal. ‘We have a range of views before us and can make a better informed decision.’ ”
"I know brothers -- and I'm talking about black guys -- they are not going to do the dirty work at Boeing, to do that hauling and all that building, that dirty work... A brother is going to find ways to take a break."Ford is himself a "black guy," though inquiries as to whether he is also a "brother" were not returned by press time.
-- South Carolina state Sen. Robert Ford (D), quoted by the Charleston Post & Courier, arguing against a new immigration law because "brothers" don't work as hard as "Mexicans."
Alabama state Sen. Scott Beason (R) said that Alabama lawmakers "are behind in enacting tough immigration laws -- but that more Republican control throughout the state will allow immigration legislation to take precedent," the Cullman Times reports.Okay, sure. Because what more common, innocuous metaphor is there than "empty the clip, and do what has to be done"? I'm sure it sounded even more innocent in the original German.
He ended his speech advising Republicans to "empty the clip, and do what has to be done."
After being flooded with angry phone calls over his remarks, Beason told the Birmingham News that his comment "was completely taken out of context" and in "no way was I urging anyone to do harm to Hispanics or illegal immigrants. I would never do that."
Fox Nation that claims Obama "misquoted a familiar Bible verse" during his address yesterday:The links are taken from the MM post.President Obama misquoted a familiar Bible verse during a faith-based address at the National Prayer Breakfast.Somewhat ironically, while Fox Nation appears to be positioning themselves as the arbiters of authentic Christianity, they seem unfamiliar with the fact that there is more than one version of the Bible.
"Those who wait on the Lord will soar on wings like eagles, and they will run and not be weary, and they will walk and not faint," the president said during a speech to several thousand people at the breakfast.
But the actual passage, from Isaiah 40:31, states: "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."
Obama was quoting from the New International Version, while Fox Nation was pointing to the King James Version to "debunk" him.
This would be funny if it weren't so pathetic.
Actually, the statute required “the trier of fact [to] determine the percentage of fault for each party alleged to be at fault.” Miss. Code Ann. § 85-5-7(7) (Rev. 1999) (emphasis added). The term “party” appeared nowhere else in the statute. It is susceptible to more than one interpretation. If it means a party in the sense of named parties to a lawsuit, then Harris’s fault could not be taken into account. The appellant did not raise this issue, however, and it is not before the Court at this time.Uh, hello? Estate of Hunter? This question has been resolved for 20+ years, in a case I didn't think you could pass the bar exam without knowing. If the MSSC can write that, then someone is poorly serving the Court.
It has become increasingly clear that the political will is lacking to conduct either prosecutions or congressional hearings on torture. Outside of the United States is another matter, and it may well be the case that figures such as Donald Rumsfeld and John Yoo, and perhaps those even higher up in the chain of command, will have to think twice about traveling abroad, where they might be arrested and put on trial for war crimes.Ain't it though.
That would be a terrible situation for the United States, not only because it would be a diplomatic disaster, but also because it would underline the fact that we as a nation have been unable, by ourselves, to come to terms with this departure from our long-standing traditions in law and in principle. At a time in our history when we are conducting military occupations to bring democracy to previously autocratic regimes, this would be a sad irony indeed.
¶ 15. We recognize the following exception to the Ferrara v. Walters rule:Justice Jess Dickinson, for the Court in Bluewater Logistics, LLC v. Williford, Jan. 27, 2011:Where the chancellor adopts, verbatim, findings of fact and conclusions of law prepared by a party to the litigation, this Court analyzes such findings with greater care, and the evidence is subjected to heightened scrutiny. Because the chancellor erred in adopting FN3 the litigant's findings of facts and conclusions of law in the case sub judice, the deference normally afforded a chancellor's findings of fact is lessened.[FN4]¶ 16. The FFCL proposed by the Joels and the one eventually entered by the court were essentially the same. So we must apply the Brooks v. Brooks heightened-scrutiny standard of review.
¶ 17. Heightened scrutiny requires that “the deference afforded the findings of fact is lessened ...,” and we “must view the challenged findings and the record as a whole ‘with a more critical eye to ensure that the trial court has adequately performed its judicial function.’ ”
¶ 26. When a chancellor adopts verbatim, or nearly verbatim, a party's proposed findings of fact, our precedent provides that we should apply “heightened scrutiny” FN4 to the chancellor's findings of fact. This rule is fairly well-settled and accepted. Yet our precedent provides little guidance as to how we are to comply with our duty to “heighten” our scrutiny--which could be read to require us to review a case more carefully or, perhaps, to apply a different, more stringent standard to our review of the facts.So the question is, I guess, what did Justice Dickinson -- and the majority -- do in Joel that they had forgotten how to do in Williford?
¶ 27. But our duty already requires us carefully to scrutinize every case, so we reject the former. And as to the latter, if “heightened scrutiny” requires us to abandon the reasonable-chancellor standard and apply a different, higher standard, we find no caselaw or other authority explaining that different standard, or suggesting how it should be applied.
Bluewater asserted on appeal in Issue I that this Court does not have to give deference to the chancellor's factual findings as the chancellor had adopted verbatim Williford's proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law. The discussion need go no further, as whatever Williford submitted to the trial court is not in the record. Notwithstanding the procedural bar, the majority then goes on to disregard our precedent on the “heightened-scrutiny” standard of review for certain limited decisions that are appealed to this Court. Bluewater did not provide the part of the record needed for us to determine whether a less deferential standard of review would be more appropriate. Miss. R.App. P. 28. All that we have is speculation that the chancellor did something (adopted Williford's findings verbatim) that is not supported in the appellate record before this Court. Therefore, we should find no merit in its argument without further discussion on the subtleties of standards of review.Regardless, Waller manages to remember how this standard works:
Heightened scrutiny refers to appellate review with a heightened “sensitivity to the possibility of error....” In re Estate of Grubbs, 753 So. 2d 1043, 1048 (Miss. 2000). In other words, the Court still defers to the chancellor's findings but with a closer examination of the record. See id.Factual findings by a chancellor are given extremely deferential review -- the chancellor was there and the appellate court was not. But it should not be so mysterious to the Williford Court that where those findings are drafted by one party, it's reading not the chancellor's findings, but one party's view of what the chancellor should have seen. That draft may look right to the chancellor -- weeks or months after the hearing -- and it should not be dismissed out of hand, but the "jaundiced eye" referred to in some case law is appropriate.
¶ 81. I agree with the majority that we must carefully review cases and remain sensitive to errors. Maj. Op. ¶ 27. No one disputes that. However, the issue is what deference chancellors should be afforded in their factual decisions when the record calls into question the independent findings our trial judges are obligated to make. Deferring to a chancellor's factual findings does not mean that we intend to neglect our judicial function. See Ralph Walker, Inc. v. Gallagher, 926 So. 2d 890, 893 (Miss. 2006).
VAN SUSTEREN: How is President Obama doing on Egypt?This reminds Yglesias of "What Would Brian Boitano Do?", but Gingrich's wayside "some are going to want to complain" is hysterically awful. Our Afghanistan policy in the 1980s was not the work of someone who had "studied radical Islam" and "had a strategy." And I'm sorry, but you are not allowed to be president of the United States and have just "one foreign policy goal." It's a big world.
NEWT GINGRICH: I don’t think they have a clue. I think it is very frightening to watch this administration.
VAN SUSTEREN: Would anybody?
NEWT GINGRICH: Reagan would have. Reagan would have had — Reagan would have thought about and studied radical Islam and Reagan would have had a strategy and would have pursued it. He didn’t do that in the 80s some are going to want to complain for a practical reason. Reagan had one foreign policy goal in the 1980s, defeat the Soviet Union. He didn’t divert himself because he wanted to defeat the Soviet Union.
Tell me about your involvement in the development of the individual mandate.See, and the GOP thinks David Souter was the most demoniacal spawn of the Poppa Bush administration.
I was involved in developing a plan for the George H.W. Bush administration. I wasn't a member of the administration, but part of a team of academics who believe the administration needed good proposals to look at. We did it because we were concerned about the specter of single payer insurance, which isn't market-oriented, and we didn't think was a good idea. One feature was the individual mandate. The purpose of it was to round up the stragglers who wouldn’t be brought in by subsidies. We weren’t focused on bringing in high risks, which is what they're focused on now. We published the plan in Health Affairs in 1991. The Heritage Foundation was working on something similar at the time.
What was the reaction like after you released it?
There was some interest from Republicans. I don’t recall whether they formally wrote a bill or just floated it as an idea [It did make it into a bill -- Ezra], but Democrats in Congress said it was "dead on arrival." So that was the end of my 15 minutes.
