We have just returned from court and the continuance of the trial for our client Dr. Sami Al-Arian. During the hearing, the prosecution objected to this blog and specifically the comments left by visitors to the site. We have used this site to make filings available to reduce the calls to our staff from the media and the public. While attorney blogs are allowed under local and federal rules to give updates on filings, we have decided to remove the Al-Arian entries to avoid this issue from being cited in the future as a distraction from the important issues in the case. Documents can still be obtained on the court site and various Al-Arian blog sites.
Posted 11:50 a.m. Friday, August 8, 2008
It’s really too bad that something as useful as this site’s filings on the Al-Arian case had to be taken down. But better safe than sorry I suppose.
To the idiot who repeatedly posted lists of Jews in important positions and other drivel on this site, thanks a lot. You ruined it for everybody.
JT:
Well I agree with your prudence. I have no idea why a blog would be cited in a contempt proceeding, but I hope my comments were not the basis of any support whatsoever for this prosecutor or his dubious “mission.” I can stand up for myself. I surely don’t want someone answering for me or my actions.
“To the idiot who repeatedly posted lists of Jews in important positions and other drivel on this site, thanks a lot. You ruined it for everybody.”
Jonathan,
He only gets to ruin it if we let him. I’m now at the point of ignoring him as being someone unable to engage in honest discourse.
As for the Court’s order it seems peculiar, but Prof. Turley’s prudence
is warranted.
Appears the prosecutor wants to dampen public scrutiny.
Sorry, JT. Sometimes ‘WoooooooooHooooooooo’ just doesn’t say it for me!
We’re interested and supportive of all you do on behalf of the ‘US’ Constitution and ‘us’. Good luck.
Mespo, you can speak for me! Especially with respect to the recipes
Patty C:
That’s me: recipe lawyer. I think it’s another revenue stream. Maybe on the Food Channel!
You should figure out how to broadcast/record ‘Is that Legal’ from your ‘home studio’.
Maybe do a Cooking Segment ‘On the Side’ – in your spare time.
Bobby Flay may show up and challenge you to Key lime pie Throwdown.
Here’s one for the beach!
from Food and Wine
Grilled Whole Fish with Curried Yogurt Marinade
* healthy HEALTHY
ACTIVE TIME: 30 MIN
TOTAL TIME: 1 HR 35 MIN
SERVES: 4
Western coast cooks are masters of the fish braai (barbecue). At the Strandkombuis restaurant in Yzerfontein, the meal is a bit like a clambake in that chef and owner Marie van der Merwe grills all kinds of seafood over wood coals on the beach. This recipe, with its marinade and sweet spices, reflects the Cape Malay cooking style.
ingredients
* 1 1/2 cups plain whole milk yogurt
* 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
* 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
* 1 tablespoon curry powder
* 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
* 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
* Four 1 1/4-pound sea bass or pompano, pan-dressed
* Salt and freshly ground pepper
directions
1. In a medium bowl, mix the yogurt with the cilantro, lime juice, curry powder, ginger and olive oil.
2. Make 3 crosswise slashes on both sides of each fish, cutting down to the bone. Transfer the fish to a large rimmed baking sheet and coat all over with the yogurt marinade. Cover and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours.
3. Light a grill. Oil the grate. Remove the fish from the marinade, leaving on a light coating; reserve the marinade. Season the fish with salt and pepper and grill over a medium-hot fire, basting with the marinade, until lightly charred and just cooked through, about 10 minutes per side. Serve right away.
wine recommendation An assertive Stellenbosch Sauvignon Blanc with acidity, such as the 2003 Delaire or the 2003 Thelema, will stand up to the fish’s smoky grilled flavors.
Search for easy-to-find dry, mineral-flavored chenin blanc
Cook It!
Recipe by Marie van der Merwe
From A Food Safari in South Africa
This recipe originally appeared in May, 2004.
Patty C:
Maybe I need to stream or podcast the show. I am working on some Mahi tonight and I am using my remaining key limes to make key lime mayonnaise. How’s that fro an efficient kitchen?
Ingredients
100ml (½ cup) macadamia nut oil
45g (3 tablespoons) wild lime confit (using my key limes)
15ml (1 tablespoons) white wine vinegar
5g (1 teaspoon) lemon myrtle
pinch of salt
3 large egg yolks
Cooking instruction
Add the lemon myrtle to the egg yolks and beat with a whisk until slightly thickened, then slowly drizzle the macadamia nut oil into the egg mix. As it thickens you maybe required to add a little white wine vinegar to thin out the mix, then continue until all the oil has been taken up. Finely chop the wild lime confit, then add to the base mayonnaise.
Season if required.
Thanks to Chef Benjamin Christie
Apologies to Professor Turley if we are tying up his blog with our recipes but we can’t be erudite on an empty stomach!
Patty C:
PS I think my cooking segment should be called “side bar.”
Sounds good!
I concur. I thought of ‘on the side – bar’ afterward, too.
Or how about ‘The Defense Rests’
This is a kind of govt. blackmail. An attorney must protect their client and removing the posts is the correct thing to do. The govt. is using its position to silence speech and the dissemination of knowledge. Suppose the govt. said they didn’t like a story a paper was printing and further they were offended by the letters to the editor. Suppose this newspaper owned a Cable company as well. (Yah-like that ever happens!) The govt. could mention they were going to see someone at the FCC about the Cable franchise. Effectively, that is what the prosceution has done here. They have told an attorney not to release information and allow comments on that information or they’ll be consequences to their client. An ethical attorney will always protect their client. The govt. has a big hammer and they used it.
Jill, I think it was probably JT’s judgment call – his decision to remove the blog entries as a possible future ‘issue’ to be raised.
He’s busy enough as it is, and unless I miss my guess, ’somebody’
struck a nerve…
Jill,
I agree with you about what happened here. It was the correct decision by Prof. Turley to do what ever is prudent to protect his client’s case. Can we go anywhere to hear what happened at the hearing today or do we have to be satisfied with the official site information? Does anybody have any links to “the various al-Arian blog sites” that Prof. Turley mentioned?
International Herald Tribune intl version of NYT
International Herald Tribune global version of NYT
Here’s a good site, you can also sign a petition and/or make a donation there.
http://www.freesamialarian.com/home.htm
Thanks Zakimar. I will check it out.
We (should be EVERY American) ask that the plea bargain concluded between the government and Dr. Al-Arian, and allow him to be released on April 7th as scheduled. We also ask the Judge to respect the terms of the plea bargain which stipulate that Dr. Al-Arian shall not be obligated to testify at any other grand jury, and therefore exempt him from testifying before the third grand jury to which he was recently summoned. This is an obvious perjury trap, given that the prosecutor Gordon Kromberg has repeatedly made outrageously bigoted statements against Muslims publicly supported the principle of punishing those who he finds guilty but who are acquitted in court, and indeed has successfully engineered the perjury conviction of another Muslim acquitted of terrorism charges who now faces ten years in prison.
I think the above is a very accurate assesment of the case AND that Kromberg should be disbarred and if US law permits, have civil suits brought against him. The ACLU or similar groups should be all over Kromberg for his conduct.
We think Zakimar should just post to his compatriots in Iran and leave the rest of us alone.
Again, one of the “original three” crybabies. I’ll just refer to you as o3 from now on. If you support the likes of Kromberg more than justice and human dignity, Fox and CNN are waiting for you, no need to waste our time.
My apologizes to you Dr. Turley; I wasn’t sure if we shouldn’t be making posts about this case any longer before I posted that link above at 7:08PM today. If you need to remove the post(s), I will not post on this topic again and continue to monitor the case on the above mentioned site. Thank you for this excellent blog and my apologizes once again.
rafflaw:
Interesting article in the Chicago Tribune today about the case. Apparently the Judge Brinkema granted the continuance and chastised our favorite AUSA for his activities which appeared to some courtroom observers as “overzealous.” One of those observers may have been the Judge. She also questioned whether Al-Arian could be held in contempt while the appeal to SCOTUS was pending. The reference to this blog likely came in the form of an escalation in rhetoric by Mike Gravel against Kromberg and his “over the top” reference to Kromberg’s family. The Judge wants both sides to cool down and this may have motivated Professor’s Turley’s prudent decision to remove the postings about the case. Truth and pointed opinion, it seems, is painful to some at DOJ, and one man’s excess may have served as the pretext for the “poor, poor pitiful me whine” so prevalent among the neo-cons and their underlings. You can read more at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-attacks-professor,0,6628923.story
BTW Professor Turley has my full authority to edit or delete this post in the interest of his client, but I thought some of our regular posters should know more about what is going on.
P.S.–
I suggest care and caution in your rhetoric in deference to our host and definitely NOT because Big Brother is watching. Gaze on oh watchman as we wonder who will watch you.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Mespo,
thanks for the link to the Trib. It was an interesting read, but it seemed to be tilted towards the prosecution, which doesn’t surprise me from the Trib.
same article in the International Herald Tribune global version of NYT
- as suggested above. I thought it was pretty straightforward.
“During the hearing, the prosecution objected to this blog and specifically the comments left by visitors to the site. ”
It is noted that the “prosecution objected” (not the Judge.)
One wonders which “comments” the Prosecutor found objectionable?
A blog on an attorney’s site- and the Attorney of record at that- is a worry for everyone. Opinion makers are likely to read it or be referred to it. Senators and Congressmen are likely to read it or be referred to it. Ditto members of the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, City Council, Church Congregation, and the Golf Club. Representatives of international organisations may read it.
It is well known in legal circles that if you really want to make someone suffer you can entangle them in a maze of motions, indictments, subpoenas, continuances, re-trials, each one building upon the previous, becoming ever more complicated and embroiled, until in the end there is no way out- except death.
With each additional proceeding one is drawn away from substance and made to focus on what I have already referred to as the “minutiae”- often nothing more than hearsay built upon hearsay- “I want you now to explain why X said in 1998 that he thought that everyone knew in 1999 that Y said that you were thought to be associated with the ABC organisation in 1997. If you refuse to answer that question you are not co-operating and that is contempt.”
This stuff is like that sticky weed that gets attached to your legs when walking through the forest. Every time you bed down to pull it off, you find some more has stuck to your arms.
That of course is the name of the game.
I am not saying this prosecutor is in any way adopting such tactics in this case.
However, because of the way the case has dragged on, the concern must be that it APPEARS (and I always emphasise that because unless one is the Attorney of record one never knows for sure) this case could be in danger of appearing to be moving into Sticky Weed territory.
My guess is that no self-respecting prosecutor, with a long career ahead of him or her, wants people who matter to think he would ever be involved in Sticky Weed tactics.
However it plays out, it will be Win Win for Justice because the eyes of the world are now firmly fixed on this case, and the more anyone tries to stifle general discussion or awareness, the more attention will become focused on what is being done in the name of Justice.
I for one applaud Mr. Turley. He epitomises the finest qualities of the American legal profession- defending the unpopular, the downtrodden, the weak, and the oppressed, with nothing more than the rule of law and balls.
Copy this blog if you want to read it next week- who knows what objections the prosecutor will be making on Monday.
I understand that STeve Emerson may have first complained about the comments at this site & that this may’ve caught the prosecutor’s eye. If anyone has any links to statements Emerson may’ve made about this I’d appreciate them.
MICHAEL DARWYNE
“It is well known in legal circles that if you really want to make someone suffer you can entangle them in a maze of motions, indictments, subpoenas, continuances, re-trials, each one building upon the previous, becoming ever more complicated and embroiled, until in the end there is no way out- except death.”
*********************
I am not aware of this belief in the legal circles I frequent. Maybe you mean in the nine circles of hell this is “well-known.”
Richard Silverstein:
Emerson’s involvement makes sense. Regarded as “poison” by many investigative journalists according to Seymour Hersch, Emerson has apparently launched a one man anti-Islamic crusade. Likely for profit, this crusade seems to know no bounds with incredibly thin evidence serving as the platform for sensational claims about rampant fifth columnists in our midst or fantastic claims of responsibility for terrorist acts, thus promoting the atmosphere of fear about this topic. One would have thought Emerson would have been relegated to the pages of the National Inquirer after such colossal goofs as claiming the Islamists were involved in the Oklahoma City bombing; claiming Iran was behind the Lockerbie Crash;and finally, claiming initially that Yugoslavs was responsible for the WTC attacks. His suspicious “borrowing” (apparently without attribution) of material from the Syracuse Post-Standard’s coverage of the Lockerbie bombing also brought him considerable scorn from the Columbia Journalism Review. Even his successful book “Terrorist” was challenged by the NYT as being “marred with factual errors… and displaying a “pervasive anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian bias.”
He also apparently fancies himself a master of failure analysis opining that TWA flight 800’s crash was the result of a bombing. The NTSB laid that claim to rest saying :”…none of the damage characteristics typically associated with a high-energy explosion of a bomb or missile warhead (such as severe pitting, cratering, petalling, or hot gas washing) were found on any portion of the recovered airplane structure”.
Amusingly a Google search results in a “hit” for his site listing him as “Steve Emerson-Terrorism Expert.” With these doosies in his background, I think a more accurate description may be “Steve Emerson–Don Quixote of Terrorism.”
To read more about our “DAJAJA QASIR,” [Arabic for "Chicken Little."]I suggest you read FAIR’s analysis from which I “borrowed” heavily for this comment. You can find it at:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1443
mespo727272
“I am not aware of this belief in the legal circles I frequent. Maybe you mean in the nine circles of hell this is “well-known.”
Thank you for this correction- yes, of course I mean that.
Mr Turley,
Why did you cave in to Kromberg ? I have been using your postings
as the basis for an international civil lawsuit againt Kromberg
across 5 continents.
What happened to Freedom of Speech that you Americans love to
preach to the rest of the planet ?
What happened to the adversary process that Kromberg prides
himself in and lectured me personally in his office ? Kromberg
has no balls to go Rocky in a ring, he is cowardly Princenton
bagel boy
Kromberg now faces multi-millions dollar civil lawsuits across
5 continents. Kromberg has been identified as a radical
Israeli Zionist, a member of a radical Israeli Kibbutz prior
to entering Princenton, the basis of his racism towards
Arabs and Muslims
Don’t be afraid Turley, continue the postings and don’t allow them
to intimidate you. Rocky stood his ground, stand yours !
Anti-Kromberg:
I would not presume to speak for Professor Turley, but I suspect his concern is avoiding any prejudice to his client. There is plenty of time to dissect Kromberg’s actions after the case is resolved.
Mespo,
Its a civil lawsuit against Kromberg in 5 continents for what
he did to my Arab Muslim family, it does not concern Turley’s
client but the filings by Turley allowed us to formulate a
legal theory for Kromberg across 5 continents in order to hold
Kromberg legally accountable for his radical racist
Zionist actions.
One can track Attorney Kromberg’s career, by listing with Westlaw,
a subscription research/reference service, among others – also available in law libraries found in Court houses, Law schools, AND online.
http://pview.findlaw.com/view/1444725_1?noconfirm=0&channel=LP
********
The actual court filings JT conveniently posted, before, are still available on the presiding Court sites – for instance from
USCOURTS.GOV: click ‘ SUPREME COURT ‘…
uscourts.gov/redirects/supremecourtus.html
SEARCH: ‘ al_Arian’ …
Searching for al-Arian.
tadaaaa…
Found: 2 Showing: 1 – 2
Docket for 07A1022
No. 07A1022 Title: Sami Al-Arian, Applicant v. United States Docketed: Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Case Nos.: (06-16008) ~~~Date~~~ ~~~~~~~Proceedings and Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jun 19 2008 Application
[8/9/2008] (3k)
Docket for 08-137
No. 08-137 Title: Sami Amin Al-Arian, Petitioner v. United States Docketed: August 1, 2008 Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Case Nos.: (06-16008) Decision Date: January 25, 2008 Rehearing Denied: April 1, 2008
[8/9/2008] (3k)
Found: 2 Showing: 1 – 2
Like that!
It’s simple. You can look it up yourself and leave JT’s ball sack ‘intact’!
It’s a win/win
P.S I must add, there was a notice that I saw on a blog site that was advertising a now cancelled meeting in anticipation of the now postponed August 13 Court date, whereby a bus from Tampa was due to arrive in DC the day before to hold a Civil Rights rally, open to the Public, featuring spwaker whihc would have included notable legal professors and former counsel, complete with family, friends, and supporters of Sami al-Arian to be held at, no less, THE Washington Historical Society – at 801 K street!!!
Personally, I thought that was a really nice touch…
Perhaps they should release al-Arian and then the CIA can pick him up and take him to Guantanamo where we can get some answers once and for all. Enough of these obamanations of the earth.
Julia <<<<<<<<< pssst, mespo, THEY are ‘on’ to us…
I am on a mussel kick this week – Summer Olympics and all..
as in:
olive oil
minced garlic
dry white wine
fresh herbs – basil, oregano, and thyme
fresh bermuda or vadalia onion, finely chopped
fresh green or red pepper finely chopped
sea salt and
fresh ground pepper, to taste
2lbs mussels checked for cracks etc clear through – rinsed and debearded…
Steamed in a pot 6-7 minutes or so – until the shells open.
Nothin to it… Yum!
After all that- what does it mean???
Coconut Curry Mussels
Same deal as above (ie steam 6-7 minutes until shells open)
with wine, garlic and herbs, except with added:
Coconut milk
Curry powder
Fresh ginger
Fresh cilantro
Fresh Key lime juice
Fresh ground sea salt and Fresh ground black pepper
Served with or without cellophane noodles
JT – have you heard from DW? If I called your office might you have info?
BTW, I responded to a question on bio – hope that was OK.
Lemme know – you have my email!
Best,
PC
This is such an important civil rights case. I hope Mr. Turley is victorious. It is a shame that the forces of oppression can present such a challenge in the United States, but I supposed fascist elements can exist in any country.