National Review Gets Sued, Finally Some Good News?

Once, in the dark ages before Blogs, I took a six month subscription to The National Review with the idea that maybe something Buckley had a hand in wouldn't be intolerably stupid.  The writing was childish (you get better here, if that's saying anything) and Buckley's only contributions were some sort of "Emeritus Letters" that clearly showed the man was well past whatever prime he had.  The subscription ran out... thankfully since that meant that I didn't need to read the waste of my money.  It isn't so much that I disagreed with them (I do, pretty much unequivocably) but that I don't care to pay for and read HS Freshman thinking and writing.  At NRO the ability to string words together has improved somewhat, but the logic and thinking still approximates the three year old's, "I want this now, don't tell me about facts!" screaming.  (I've had kids and I know they don't talk like that)

Now Michael Mann, a Penn State climatologist,  is suing NR for libel and defamation of character.

filed in District of Columbia Superior Court, Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, claimed that a July 15 article not only falsely accused him of misconduct, but crossed a line by comparing him to Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State football assistant coach convicted of child molestation. He also sued the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank that ran a piece about Mann on its staff blog, OpenMarket.org.  

This place right here doesn't worry about calling somebody like Rick Santorum names or even saying Mittens is a liar.  Some of that has to do with the fact that they deserve it, but I'm sure I can get away with it because they're quite public enough in their assholery for me to be shielded.  I'm afraid that Mann has been enough of a public face on his own hook that NR could pretty much call him any damn thing they pleased, and just claim satire.  The part about accusing him of fraud may cause them a bunch of difficulty.

It seems it has:

As many of you know, National Review is not a non-profit — we are just not profitable. A lawsuit is not something we can fund with money we don’t have.

You may not know much about NR but I'm pretty sure you do know that they are great whacking bangers of the "Free Market" drum.  They are not a news magazine any more than this site is so they don't have the excuse of running a large information gathering staff eating their income.  What they have are opinion writers that the market doesn't value highly enough for them to earn a profit.  That market would be the right-wing grifting machine that has given us Newt and his plastic wife earning a fine lifestyle and Dick Morris not looking at all as if he's missing meals.  You could run down a pretty fair list of right-wing noise makers (Rush?) that don't seem to be poor, though begging is big with all of them.  Somebody/s are being over-paid, there is that little matter of deficit spending or even the Right To Work For Less.

To be sure, the profit their investors are looking for isn't from $$$$s generated under that "Masthead" but from the benefits of keeping the marks in line and on script so "not profitable" works for them.  It doesn't have a damn thing to do with the "Market" they're always on about - it has everthing to do with manipulating politics to subsidize their betters - the antithesis of their individuality fetish.  NR is essentially paid advertising for all the rest of the RW grifting and their plutocratic overlords.  They're not pointless, that machine managed to get a Mitt Romney sort of close.  You only have to think about that in relation to everything else going on for about a minute to be very frightened... or at least a bit ill.

Anyhow, it is an early Xmas gift. 

Oregon Domestic Partnership - A Go

US District Judge Michael Mosman stunned Oregon's gay community when he put the State's Domestic Partnership law on hold prior to its effective date. He has now tossed the plaintiffs' arguments and allowed it to go forward, effective Friday afternoon. The quickness of the ruling came as a surprise to many. While Mosman stated that there were issues in the suit that the SoS should find troubling and address, he noted that there is no Constitutional right to have a signature verified.

This won't lay the issue to rest. Sadly. Proponents of the ban on gay marriage stated repeatedly the they were only against marriage, not civil unions. That may have been true of some spokespersons, but evidently not exactly everybody. How about a reality check of the nonsense.

Marriage in State terms, is a civil contract. It is not in the least religious. The State magnanimously allows religious people to conduct services and finalize the agreement, but the State holds absolutely no interest in the Godly sanctimony of marriage. Their only interest is in the civil contract that subjects the parties to certain responsibilities and grants certain privileges in binding form - civil form. This is entirely an issue between the State and the involved parties, God doesn't get any play whatever, is totally ignored, is flatly pointless and irrelevant. All of the Godly part is entirely the responsibility of the parties involved in joining in contract.

There is, of course, the unfortunate similarity in the names of the institution in both civil and religious ceremonies. Marriage. Churches and religious adherents mean one thing and the State means something quite different by the same term. I've had friends suggest that all State marriages should be called civil unions to get the State out of the God business and end confusion. I object, there are plenty of words in the English language with two meanings and the State has never been in the God end of this. We don't need new words, we need a citizenry that knows its head from a hole in the ground, how about it? I am so tired of treating symptoms instead of the ailment.

Now this blog has continuously taken the same stand in this regard, as a commentary and as a political campaign site :
The same privileges and responsibilities are due to all law abiding Oregonians, and in fact all US citizens of the same description. Any failure of the government to do so, or to in fact deny such is unconscionable. It is institutionalized discrimination of the worst sort. I do not propose to interfere with anyone's religious freedom, or their ability to speak rudely or think stupidly, but I cannot support taking any of that into the arena of civil contracts. It is, flatly, none of your damn business.

I select my friendships and relationships on the basis of character, I have good friends who are gay and I have good friends who are homophobic and most who don't give a damn. I happen to be among the latter, I don't give a damn. My good friends who are gay, happen to be gay in my mind, they are not defined by that. That may disappoint them, because it is fairly central to their being, but I just don't care. I am entirely heterosexual, I don't have questions or doubts about it, so it just isn't an issue with me. It is, in fact, so basic as to be of no meaning whatever. It does not define me, I simply am that. My eyes are hazel, if yours are not, I simply don't care, mine are still hazel and I'm also not impressed that yours are also.

I do what I can to oppose stupidity and meanness, it seems to be a never ending battle. I'm glad for gays that they've gotten their civil unions, but it is thin gruel in the battle. Make no mistake, the battle isn't about gays, it is about our government acting in a proper manner. If you want to be ignorant and mean, that is your business, but I can't abide it in government.

Ex-Guantanamo Prosecutor Speaks Out

Awhile ago I noted that the Pentagon stated that lead Guantanamo prosecutor Davis' resignation would have no effect on the trials. It seems it will. The Pentagon will get to run the trials the way BushCo would like them run - screw a fair trial as long as they can make someone think they are. Davis didn't think that way.

"There was a big concern that the election of 2008 is coming up," Davis said. "People wanted to get the cases going. There was a rush to get high-interest cases into court at the expense of openness." quoted in WaPo.

Don't get the idea that Davis is a civil libertarian opposing the whole idea, he believes the military commissions could go forward as a legitimate method of trying the alleged terrorists. What he was not comfortable with was two fold, the commission chief Hartmann having free access to prosecutorial functions and the use of classified evidence - in secret would taint the trials.

Not surprisingly the Pentagon through spokesman J D Gordon takes a different view,

"We are working closely with our interagency counterparts to ensure that prosecutions by military commission result in fair and open trials while at the same time protecting sensitive information that, if revealed, could be damaging to U.S. and allied forces still conducting combat operations against al-Qaeda and their supporters."

The expression, "Oh sure," occurs to me. Apparently it occured Col. Davis as well,

Hartmann arrived as legal adviser to the convening authority last summer, and suddenly, Davis said during a lengthy interview, his office was inundated with what he called "nano-management," including requests to oversee cases that had previously been left solely to prosecutors.

Part of the new focus, Davis said, was to speed up cases that would show the public the system was working. Davis said he wanted to focus on cases that had declassified evidence, so the public could see the entire trial through news coverage. That would defuse possible allegations that the trials were stacked against defendants.

But Hartmann said he was satisfied with putting on cases that included closed sessions, because the law allows it.

"He said, the way we were going to validate the system was by getting convictions and good sentences," Davis said. "I felt I was being pressured to do something less than full, fair and open."

Maybe that's the money quote. Maybe you wouldn't find that an attractive court venue to be in. BushCo and justice in the same sentence is a contradiction in terms.

A Serial Rapist Next Door

David Prollitt was convicted of and imprisoned for the rapes of five women in five towns in the late '70s and early '80s in Connecticut. Now he has been released after 24 years and is moving into his sister's house in Southbury, Conn. He will be on Probation for five years with 24 conditions of probation including wearing a monitoring device and face an additional 15 yrs for violations.

His neighbors are very unhappy, police advised residents not to panic, to lock their doors, buy alarm systems, and look out for their neighbors. Calls to Gov. Rell lead him to ask Atty Gen Blumenthal to ask for a delay of Prollitt's release, Superior Court Judge Susan Handy refused stating that Prollitt had completed his sentence and was "entitled to release." Friday afternoon prior to Prollitt's arrival about 2 dozen neighborhood residents gathered across from his sister's house with signs and explained their points to reporters. Prollitt arrived in a caravan of cars with reporters and cameras trying for any view of him. What seems to have been lost is the presence of five sex offenders in the town of 19K and in Waterbury, pop 107K ten miles north east, 250 more. Some are advocating the type of indefinite civil commitment allowed in 20 other states, including NY & NJ.

I do not have an answer for the problem of released criminals, most criminals will be released short of the draconian solution of life or death sentences for a vastly expanded list of crimes. California has tried expanded sentences and the result is a prison system that is broken, broke, and eating an unconscionable portion of the state's budget, shortly it will take a larger percentage than all education. We need to face the fact that people who have committed crimes are going to be released back into the community and pose whatever threat they still pose.

The threat that they pose depends on what their psychology at release is and their opportunities on release, both to re-offend and to create a legal life. It seems that fear of jail time does not do the job, so another alternative is required. This is not some "soft on crime" issue, it is about the safety of the citizenry and the economic costs of crime and imprisonment. We need to address this, we have a huge prison population which means we have a huge number of releases coming. Harsh sentences for re-offending do are an after the fact solution, someone has been victimized at that point. Emotional baggage will not deal with this, it will require pragmatism and real research and an investment.

...And With Justice For Some

If you were taking the Pledge of Allegiance seriously, maybe you should re-think. Reflect on your station in life, are you a big political player or maybe rich? If you belong to a political party that makes a big deal out of law and order, and personal responsibility it's OK to perjure yourself and obstruct justice as long as you're a part of a corrupt secretive administration. You see, what counts is who your friends are and who you work for.

Five hours after the appeals court refused to intervene in Scooter's case, the President did, George II said 2 1/2 years was too severe. That Republican prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said, "It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals." For the critics of the sentencing and even prosecution it is worth pointing out that darn near everybody professionally involved - prosecution, judge, appeals were Republican appointees and they agreed he should go to jail. But... Scooter has friends.

I suggest that my readers do not try this course, you are neither important enough nor well connected enough to stay out of jail. Now Scooter will have to pay his fines and do his probation and his reputation is "ruined." The "s are deliberate and meaningful, because his reputation is just exactly as good as the rest of his cohorts and now proven so. Politicians sometimes exaggerate their capabilities but they seldom engage in outright lies and this bunch seldom seems to avoid them.

I'll bet that if you paid any attention to the Paris Hilton junk, the one thing that struck you was that a little rich girl actually got spanked and maybe in the run up to this commutation you thought this might hold. Not in this administration, connections are all, you make fortunes, save corporations, stay out of jail, ad nauseum if you're hooked up. Of course, wealth, power, and connections have always been valuable and of great usefulness, but there was at least a pretense that the rest of us were in the game to some extent.

You had better understand that this is the natural outgrowth of "conservatism" as practised today. The "conservatives" will squeal, "not so," and try to make the point that this isn't conservatism while it actually is. It is the practice of unfettered greed with the government augmenting it while following practices that constrict working wages. It is called keeping the government out of the way, it's called "personal responsibility" (providing it only applies to the powerless), privatization of governmental services (providing you're hooked-up), the abdication of governance because it isn't important. If you follow each and every tenet of the Republican Party as enunciated over the past dozen years you will find its practice in effect today and of benefit to 0.1% of the population, the absolutely incredibly wealthy. Republicans are wont to call these kinds of statements "class warfare," and they'd be right, what they miss is that they are the ones waging it.

4th US Circuit Says No to BushCo

Remember a time when a Republican complaint about criminals was that they just get to appeal and appeal and appeal? They certainly seem to think Scooter ought to appeal unless the President pardons first. Now it would be remiss to forget that BushCo went to the Supreme Court to get their military trials program thrown out - and replaced by the Republican abortion Military Commissions Act. A few days before the Supreme Court deadline for handing in their briefs George II tacked Jose Padilla's case onto an existing one. Apparently they do like to appeal.

Not to be left holding a bag of kaakaa the Administration now wants the entire panel of the US 4th Circuit to hear their appeal of the dismissal of their detention of Ali al-Marri, a legal US resident, held in solitary confinement at the Charleston SC Navy brig since June 2003. That would be four years in solitary without charges or hearings.

As AP reports, the 4th's decision was split 2-1 with the dissent of Bush appointee Judge Henry Hudson:



"Although al-Marri was not personally engaged in armed conflict with U.S. forces, he is the type of stealth warrior used by al-Qaeda to perpetrate terrorist acts against the United States," since BushCo said so and everybody knows they always know what they're doing and certainly wouldn't lie...



The majority opinion:

'Such detention "would have disastrous consequences for the Constitution _ and the country," Judge Diana G. Motz wrote in the majority opinion, which was joined by Judge Roger Gregory.'



"Put simply, the Constitution does not allow the President to order the military to seize civilians residing within the United States and then detain them indefinitely without criminal process, and this is so even if he calls them 'enemy combatants.'"



So what are we to make of this string of defeats? Maybe it's not a problem when bad guys appeal...