Kate-

Check out this investigation by Raw Story on the Alabama blogger that lost his job from writing about Martin and the Siegelman prosecution: Alabama US Attorney denies any involvement in university editor's termination.

Scott Horton, a journalist for Harper's Magazine and a professor at Columbia University who has written extensively about the US Attorney scandal, also believes Shuler's firing was politically fueled.

"Shuler's problem arose not because he blogged nor because he did so from his workplace, because it's clear he didn't," says Horton, who has been following both the Siegelman and Shuler's cases closely. "His problem came from the fact that he wrote critical, well received insights targeting a number of very powerful figures in Alabama, starting with U.S. Attorney Alice Martin and prominent Republicans with which she is aligned, and including a number of major figures in the Alabama media."

The blog is Legal Schnauzer .

Posted at July 16, 2008 6:56 PM in response to New OPR Investigation of Siegelman Prosecutor

There are lots of reasons for this, but certainly one of the main ones is that if you elect people who explicitly prophesize that government is the problem, they will fulfill that prophecy with a vengeance.

Along the same line, when did expectations about government turn to a bottom line measured by efficiency instead of effectiveness? (Except in defense spending, of course.) The President as CEO instead of leader has now managed to fail both measures, but I'm not sure even that has changed the conversation.

Isn't the conventional wisdom based on the idea that where either capitalism or democracy flourish, the other will soon follow? In the US at least, it seems like democracy dropped out of the race, leaving businesses to make the rules. Of course, they are the ones with a public conduit through which their goals can be achieved.

I have no idea how to get the democratic voices heard, but it seems reasonable that campaign finance reform would provide a start. I know, in my dreams.

Posted at July 10, 2008 12:19 AM in response to Uprisings: Bottom Up and Top Down

This is so bad it makes me think that Doug Feith had to be somewhere in the wings promoting it as a good idea.

Posted at June 22, 2008 10:13 PM in response to Comedy Treat: Head of Jewish Conference of Presidents Addresses Iranian People

Sigh. I miss preview. Working link to Lawrence v Texas, I hope.

Posted at June 13, 2008 3:25 AM in response to Do The Gitmo Detainees Have the Same Rights As, Say, OJ Simpson?

"The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today. I dissent."

I ,as a US citizen, non-attorney, agree with the above quote, which are the last two sentences of Scalia's dissenting opinion.

FB - Whatever you may think of Scalia's dissent, please be aware that he is a lousy fortune teller.

Five years ago he promised a "massive disruption of the current social order" should the laws against gay sex be overturned. [Lawrence v Texas]. Didn't happen.

Shortly before that, he failed to foresee that the man he was duck hunting with would soon mistake an elderly lawyer for a small quail. Lousy judgment.

Consider this: 85% of Americans and most of the the world do not agree with the administration's foreign policy...(and by default Scalia, in this case). Is there possibly something or some things that you have misjudged regarding terrorists or our global position? Personally, I don't see any honor in always being wrong.

Posted at June 13, 2008 3:21 AM in response to Do The Gitmo Detainees Have the Same Rights As, Say, OJ Simpson?

I believe with the attitude inside the beltway, Cheney could sodomize a pig in public at the Observatory and receive a commendation for being kind to pigs.

Well, from the GOP's point of view, at least it wouldn't have happened in a public men's restroom. They gotta give him some kind of credit for thinking outside the stall, so to speak.

Posted at June 5, 2008 1:17 PM in response to Phase II

I'm beyond confused in reading the "Report... Substantiated by Intelligence Information", aka Phase2a. Did the committee use the "intelligence" gathered in Feith's OSP (Office of Stovepiped Plans) or not?

On p.2, the report discusses the intelligence that the committee used in the analysis. These included the "major coordinated inter-agency intelligence reports, such as the NIEs, IC Assesments and Briefs and other consensus products."

On page 98 in the additional views of Hagel and Snowe, they report that they agreed with the DOD's IG report that Feith's office "did not provide the most accurate analysis of intelligence". But in the next graf they go on to say that they then decided to only use intelligence from Feith that the IG had not covered.

And when I'm reading the main report, the only way some of the lines in the speeches said by Bush/Cheney/Other Liars, could NOT be considered lies, is if the stuff from Feith's office is included, specifically the fantasies involving supposed state sponsored support of terrorism, and Iraq's major supporting role in it's involvement with Al-Qaeda and 9/11 (versus a "mutual wary relationship" (p.63), which was one of the few constant IC themes).

And if the majority, which for at least the ending phase of this report was the Democrats, let the Republicans put Feith's junk in to support statements made by the liars-in-chiefs, then I'm ready to pack for Canada.

Like I said, I'm confused.

Posted at June 5, 2008 1:13 PM in response to Phase II

Paul, thank you for 3000 of the best mucky posts ever recorded. The Pink Sugar (Katherine Harris) posts used to make my day. Who gave her the nickname, you or Justin? You will be missed.

Posted at May 17, 2008 8:14 AM in response to Signing Off

More and more, MS reminds me of how Republicans operate. Rather than making Windows so good that it can compete with Macs on merit, MS cuts a functional service to the Mac so that users are forced to stay with Windows.

See, it is political!

Posted at May 13, 2008 5:37 PM in response to Not About Politics

National banks have already successfully preempted state laws that tried to avert the sub-prime crisis by enacting legislation against predatory lending in the early 2000s. Georgia, New York, New Jersey and New Mexico had followed the basic guidelines of an AARP model state statute, the Home Loan Protection Act (HLPA), which reduced the amount of credit available for lending by imposing liabilities on downstream owners of predatory loans.

Then in 2004, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), stepped in and claimed that the National Bank Act preempted the new state laws on the grounds that they conflicted with federal law.

Other state laws not specifically listed in this final rule also would be preempted under principles of preemption developed by the U.S. Supreme Court, if they obstruct, impair, or condition a national bank’s exercise of its lending, deposit-taking, or other powers granted to it under Federal law.

I wonder if the above is where the national banks are staking their claims on preemptive foreclosures? Just because there isn't a federal law on foreclosures doesn't mean they can't find a nicely worded regulation to help them out when they need one.

Posted at May 7, 2008 1:15 PM in response to Banks: Law Can't Bother Us