Once again, one has to wonder where we find some of the bureaucrats who run agencies like child protective services. University of Michigan Christopher Ratte, 47, made an innocent and understandable mistake at a Detroit Tiger’s game at Comerica Park. He bought his 7-year-old son a lemonade without understanding that it had alcohol. The result? The boy was taken from his parents for two days and Ratte had to move out of the home as subintelligent bureaucrats debated the matter.
At issue in the controversy is the most obvious mistake — indeed one made by hundreds if not thousands of people each week. Ratte bought Mike’s Lemonade without knowing that it was not simply lemonade sold at a baseball park. A security guard spotted the boy drinking the hard lemonade and confronted Ratte. Ratte was shocked and said that he didn’t know. That was not good enough for the police and child protective services.
The question now is whether anyone will be fired over this outrage. Obviously, CPS could have continued to investigate without taking away this child from his family. The harm to the boy and the family was the meaningless actions of CPS. If a father loses his son to a foster home and has to move out of his home, what happens to the CPS officials responsible for this thoughtless act?
For the full story, click here.
Dagnabit M., I was hoarding that quote for my own use in case you threw the nomination back at me!
From the same era: James G Blaine (the “plumed knight”): “When I want something, I want it terribly!”
Like an honest Florida recount.
DW:
I appreciate the thought, but that would be like Wally Pipp coming back in for Lou Gehrig. Like William Tecumseh Sherman, I say “[i]f drafted, I will not run; if nominated, I will not accept; if elected, I will not serve.”
Mespo,
I nominate YOU, JT-ProTem! Someone has to impose discipline on us rabble!
DW:
“What I wonder about is the absence of our Leader. I haven’t seen any of his posts in a while….”
*************************************
Take a look at the Crooks and Liars website. Our own JT has been on the talk show circuit taking on Bill O, conversing with Keith O, and having some commentary moments on Dan Abrams. He’ s been busy so we’ll just have to amuse ourselves.
Why don’t we ask JT what his dream job would be?
Not much doubt he’s already on everybody’s short-list for something.
DW:
If you know who gets you know what, I’ll gladly carry his bag into any court he says. Where do I sign up?
Patty C, just between you and me and the lamppost (and this is not buttering up JT, cause I don’t think he is monitoring posts all that closely of late): if we get a Democrat administration, and I think we will, I will write letters (yes the paper kind)re a short list of nominees for you-know-what and I think there are some good reasons our good host should be on it.
Last week I challenged him (and his crew of mini-sous chefs)
to a gourmet pizza Throwdown. Maybe he’s busy in the Virginia
Test Kitchen.
I missed his appearance on Abrams – I’ll have to watch the video tomorrow.
What I wonder about is the absence of our Leader. I haven’t seen any of his posts in a while….
Patty C,
Well at least you tried….
I have been doing my usual DW’esque blend of biting commentary and offbeat humor. Mespo is providing the backup firepower (if needed) and you are trying to return us to the status quo ante Niblet et al and generally provide a sanity check on the wilder of us. Between the three of us here alone I’d say the salon at least has a chance! Not to mention rafflaw, rc, vc, ms, jill, susan, amd all the rest of the merry band!
This thread has gone amok! Weren’t we originally talking about a CPS case?
Oh well…….
_____________
Well, I tried three times to move the Scalia portion of the Michigan Professor/CPS thread to the Yoo thread and kept getting moderated.
I was already pretty disgusted and then I had to leave for an appointment.
Sorry for any confusion.
DW:
Could you see if you have one that resembles Spiro Agnew. That would be quite the collectors item. If it has green money sticking out of the pocket, I suggest an appearance on Antique Roadshow!
Yes! And some of them are even fair replicas of thought processes going on!
Aberrant, subConstitutional, transparently partisan, inhumanely cruel….. but thought processes nonetheless.
We have to give him that.
I was going to dust off my Justice Antonin Scalia and the Conservative Revival book to give some suitable quotes, but it is buried under a pile of bisque statuettes!
Here’s one that looks just like John Bellinger!
DW:
Well he’s no Red Skelton, but he certainly says funny things when in costume!
I was thinking of interjecting my favorite topic: my bisque Sad Clown statuettes collection!!! There’s one that looks a little like Scalia…..
DW:
I do love stream of consciousness. It makes one think of things you could not possible have anticipated at the start. Very Faulkner!
This thread has gone amok! Weren’t we originally talking about a CPS case?
Oh well…….
rafflaw,
“I was wondering while watching Lord Scalia on the TV, that if he is so inclined to declare that it is legal to torture a suspect or detainee because it is not a form of punishment because they are trying to get information out of him/her and not punishing them; doesn’t his penchant for speaking out in public on issues that may be in front of him and the Supreme Court in the near future, put to rest the idea that Congress can’t insist on answers to issue questions during confirmation hearings?”
First, Hugh Gilpatric’s comment about Scalia’s flawed thinking is correct. Scalia’s use of text is much like Mephistopheles’ in the legend of Faust.
Mephistopheles:
To sum up all—To words hold fast!
Then the safe gate securely pass’d,
You’ll reach the fane of certainty at last.
STUDENT:
But then some meaning must the words convey.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Right! But o’er-anxious thought, you’ll find of no avail,
For there precisely where ideas fail,
A word comes opportunely into play
Most admirable weapons words are found,
On words a system we securely ground,
In words we can conveniently believe,
Nor of a single jot can we a word bereave.
“And shouldn’t he now have to disqualify himself from any torture litigation that makes it to the Supreme Court? I am sorry to change the topic a bit, but this has been bugging me since I heard/saw Scalia spout off about torture.”
Far as Scalia telegraphing to the world what he’s going to decide on a future case; need I remind you of his concurrence in the issuance of the Stay of Decamber 9, 2000?
It prompted one of the best paragraphs ever written by Vincent Bugliosi.
Regards,
Bob
Patty C,
“Also, as a personal aside, as far as I am concerned, from his very first post here, Bob Esq. is a blow-hard”
Doc Holiday: “Why [Patty C], what an ugly thing to say. I do abhor ugliness; does this mean we’re not friends anymore? Cause if you weren’t my friend, I just don’t think I could bear it.”
“and I stril say he never went to law school nor, unless I miss my guess, does he own German Shepards.”
St. John’s; class of 97. Rienzi, Gunny & Quint are the names of those German Shepherds that never fail to find new and unique ways of reminding me when it’s time to feed them. BTW, my grandmother, now deceased, did in fact raise the most prize-winning line of German Shepherds in New York. She lived in Riverdale and apparently her breed was so well known that Beverly Sills purchased a puppy from her back in the 1970’s.
Apparently “guessing” is not your forte.
“I also don’t believe he is a serious student of philosophy.”
If you mean that I tend to pick and choose my philosophers based on rational appeal, avoiding entire fields such as deconstructivism and the like because I deemed it a waste of time; then you’re right. I was never a “serious student of philosophy.” Then again, what ‘serious’ student of philosophy would bother reading Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason three times?
“At best, my guess is he is an English major who likes to read,”
Actually, I despised English Lit in college. Never could quite answer that pompous question “Which is the better story; the one with the hidden meaning or the one without?”
“but hwo holds no advanced degrees whatsoever”
You mean all those student loans were for nothing? Boy was I a chump.
“and is content with two little white fluffy mutts who are very sweet and who also think they are big dogs-just like all little doggies do.”
Actually, unlike my sister, I don’t like small dogs. Any dog that you can punt like a football is pretty much useless.
Quint is the smallest of the three Shepherds; turned out to be a bit of a runt actually compared to Rienzi & Gunny (from other lines). But we love him anyway because he’s, how shall we say, the most ‘character-driven’ and outspoken of the three. He’s quite funny when he’s trying to make a point.
Come to think of it, when he’s loud, verbose and determined, I’d say he probably sounds a bit like you.
But I guess that’s just the “blow-hard” in me talking.
Have a nice day,
Bob
I have taken the proverbial Bull sh*t by the horns and moving part of this thread here from:
2008/04/29/michigan-professor-temporarily-lose-custody-of-son-over-oversigh-at-baseball-game/#comment-12157
Further, I would invite others to join me in a pact to keep thoughts and conversations with regard to JT’s articles along logical. rational lines, as well, instead of allowing people like ‘his nibs’ et al to commandeer the blog with offensive off-topic nonsense.
Also, as a personal aside, as far as I am concerned, from his very first post here, Bob Esq. is a blow-hard and I stril say he never went to law school nor, unless I miss my guess, does he own German Shepards.
I also don’t believe he is a serious student of philosophy.
At best, my guess is he is an English major who likes to read, but hwo holds no advanced degrees whatsoever and is content with two little white fluffy mutts who are very sweet and who also think they are big dogs-just like all little doggies do.
2008/04/26/professor-john-yoo-refuses-to-testify-on-torture-memos/#comment-12163
11. niblet 1, April 29, 2008 at 9:57 pm
MSNBC’s ‘Verdict’ Guest Jonathan Turley says Gore Won Florida in 2000
By D. S. Hube | April 29, 2008 – 17:27 ET
On last night’s “Verdict” with Dan Abrams, Dan and guest [Constitutional Law Professor] Jonathan Turley dissected Sunday’s “60 Minutes” interview with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. After dissenting with Scalia’s claim that it was Al Gore “who brought it (election 2000) into the Florida courts,” Turley then made the following claim:
Look, both sides were challenging this question. The funny thing of course is that Al Gore appears to have won Florida. And so, when Justice Scalia says he brought this trouble upon himself, that‘s not exactly fair since he apparently won the state, did not get credit for the state and ultimately lost the presidency over that failure.
Gore … apparently “won Florida?”
Not according to a Miami Herald/USA Today study in early 2001. They say George Bush won Florida. The National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago did a six month study and said the same thing. Ditto the Washington Post. And did I mention the New York Times?
Granted, some of the studies above do note that in a few certain defined circumstances, Gore could have eeked out the most slender of victories. But these are clearly in the minority. Perhaps most noteworthy is that a recount with the standard the Gore camp desired would have still made Bush the victor. So, on what basis does Turley make his claim? Was it that now-infamous [Democrat-designed] “butterfly ballot” in Palm Beach which [supposedly] caused thousands to mistakenly vote for Pat Buchanan? Who knows. Turley doesn’t say.
Turley gets a bit more leeway later when he states the following:
Well, it is a serious business. And first of all, I don‘t know of any law professor, I certainly have never talked to one who thought that this decision was handled well. The court fractured, came up with a decision in which many of the justices took a position that seemed wholly at odds with their prior positions, then they insisted that no one should ever cite them for what they just said as precedent and then they prevented any other court from taking any other action.
While Turley is nebulous by saying “many of the justices,” I think it’s clear he means the conservative bloc on the court — since he then notes that Bush v. Gore shouldn’t be used as precedent (which was what the majority stated). But what Turley (and many others, for that matter) seem to forget is that the liberal bloc of the court also took a position that was ” wholly at odds with their prior positions.” In other words, while the conservatives sided with federal [court] intervention in the Florida matter (against their traditional positions), the liberals favored a states rights position — against their traditional positions.
Video of Turley’s appearance on “Verdict.”
(h/t to NB reader Jeff F.)
—D. S. Hube is an educator and a member of the National Association of Scholars. He blogs regularly at The Colossus of Rhodey.
12. 12 mespo727272 1, April 29, 2008 at 10:34 pm
nibbles:
If the referee ends the game as the football is whizzing toward the goalpost and representing the winning field goal, does anyone really care if the ball goes over the crossbar or not, or are they more concerned about why the ref decided to pick the winner himself?
13. 13 deeply worried 1, April 30, 2008 at 12:08 am
JR: 🙂 Yes, that’s exactly my point! We subintelligent bureaucrats certainly work overtime for our true clients: the Public! I need to look up your history in my Terminal Report on Terminated Committees Terminal Reports. Perhaps we did have a subcommittee on subcommittees!
Niblet: Gore won Florida, its not a theory. Its a fact, like gravity is a fact. The election was judicially stolen by five republican partisan justices. There was no irreparable harm to Mr. Bush. Gore v Bush is one of the worst decisions in the 20th century. Get over it.
Mespo: Quite right.
14. 14 Bob, Esq. 1, April 30, 2008 at 5:11 am
Hey niblet, or Jolly Green Sprout or whatever,
“While Turley is nebulous by saying “many of the justices,” I think it’s clear he means the conservative bloc on the court — since he then notes that Bush v. Gore shouldn’t be used as precedent (which was what the majority stated). But what Turley (and many others, for that matter) seem to forget is that the liberal bloc of the court also took a position that was ” wholly at odds with their prior positions.” In other words, while the conservatives sided with federal [court] intervention in the Florida matter (against their traditional positions), the liberals favored a states rights position — against their traditional positions.”
Your Lord Scalia Dissenting:
“That is what this suit is about. Power. The allocation of power among Congress, the President, and the courts in such fashion as to preserve the equilibrium the Constitution sought to establish – so that “a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department,” Federalist No. 51, p. 321 (J. Madison), can effectively be resisted. Frequently an issue of this sort will come before the Court clad, so to speak, in sheep’s clothing: the potential of the asserted principle to effect important change in the equilibrium of power is not immediately evident, and must be discerned by a careful and perceptive analysis. But this wolf comes as a wolf.”
MORRISON v. OLSON, 487 U.S. 654 (198 8)
You have no idea what that means in light of Bush v. Gore; do you?
For starters…
Apparently you don’t know what a republican form of government is; you don’t know what Article of the Constitution relies on the separation of powers doctrine to carry out its purpose; you don’t know the relationship between the Declaration and the Constitution — i.e. the social compact and the distinction between tyranny and usurpation; you’ve never read the 12th Amendment; you don’t know what subject matter jurisdiction is; you don’t know that Article III contains no “TEXTUAL BASIS” for your Lord Scalia’s ANTI-JOHN MARSHALL exercise of judicial review of a State held election; hell, you probably don’t even know the first thing about Scalia’s jurisprudence much less his penchant for hypocrisy, intellectual dishonesty and moral bankruptcy; you don’t know the rules of justiciability and you apparently suffer from the delusion that the Constitution can be amended by any or all three branches of the Fed, especially by a UNITARY EXECUTIVE (a/k/a Fuhrer) via signing statements and executive orders — Article V be damned.
And that’s just for starters.
But most importantly, you wouldn’t know an act of tyranny, as ALL THE FOUNDERS KNEW THE TERM, if it bit you in the ass. And you have the temerity to even hint that you’re some sort of American?
In all honesty, I’d prefer to attack your argument, in lieu of attacking you, but you’re obviously incapable of forming so much as a simple syllogism.
CONSERVATIVELY SPEAKING, you’re not only a perfidious little imbecile; but you should have your tubes tied ala Buck v. Bell and thence be stripped of your citizenship and deported to any country willing to take you — if only to safeguard the gene pool of this nation.
Go and scare the people of your new country into running for the hills & giving up all their rights — try and make them feel and act like the chicken shi+ moron you really are; cause it ain’t selling here.
Maybe it’s apocryphal that George Washington once crucified a soldier for desertion, but I’m sure if he & Hamilton and Patton rose from the grave, he and Hamilton would have no problem watching Patton pistol whip you and your ilk.
But I digress…
Righty-o; I needed to get that off my chest.
15. 15 rafflaw 1, April 30, 2008 at 7:56 am
Bob, Esq.,
I wish you would say what you really think!(I feel the same way!) I couldn’t have said it any better… I was wondering while watching Lord Scalia on the TV, that if he is so inclined to declare that it is legal to torture a suspect or detainee because it is not a form of punishment because they are trying to get information out of him/her and not punishing them; doesn’t his penchant for speaking out in public on issues that may be in front of him and the Supreme Court in the near future, put to rest the idea that Congress can’t insist on answers to issue questions during confirmation hearings? And shouldn’t he now have to disqualify himself from any torture litigation that makes it to the Supreme Court? I am sorry to change the topic a bit, but this has been bugging me since I heard/saw Scalia spout off about torture.
16. 16 Hugh Gilpatric 1, April 30, 2008 at 9:38 am
rafflaw:
Scalia’s thinking is flawed here any way. He says that torture isn’t a form of punishment (therefor it cannot be cruel and unusual punishment). He is wrong; the torturer tortures to punish the victim for not giving him the information he wants. I wonder when we will have a case that comes before SCOTUS where a similar argument could be made?
*********************************
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23373-2004Jun7.html
Memo Offered Justification for Use of Torture
Justice Dept. Gave Advice in 2002
By Dana Priest and R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, June 8, 2004; Page A01
In August 2002, the Justice Department advised the White House that torturing al Qaeda terrorists in captivity abroad “may be justified,” and that international laws against torture “may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations” conducted in President Bush’s war on terrorism, according to a newly obtained memo.
If a government employee were to torture a suspect in captivity, “he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the Al Qaeda terrorist network,” said the memo, from the Justice Department’s office of legal counsel, written in response to a CIA request for legal guidance. It added that arguments centering on “necessity and self-defense could provide justifications that would eliminate any criminal liability” later.
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The memo seems to counter the pre-Sept. 11, 2001, assumption that U.S. government personnel would never be permitted to torture captives. It was offered after the CIA began detaining and interrogating suspected al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the wake of the attacks, according to government officials familiar with the document.
The legal reasoning in the 2002 memo, which covered treatment of al Qaeda detainees in CIA custody, was later used in a March 2003 report by Pentagon lawyers assessing interrogation rules governing the Defense Department’s detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. At that time, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had asked the lawyers to examine the logistical, policy and legal issues associated with interrogation techniques.
Bush administration officials say flatly that, despite the discussion of legal issues in the two memos, it has abided by international conventions barring torture, and that detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere have been treated humanely, except in the cases of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq for which seven military police soldiers have been charged.
Still, the 2002 and 2003 memos reflect the Bush administration’s desire to explore the limits on how far it could legally go in aggressively interrogating foreigners suspected of terrorism or of having information that could thwart future attacks.
In the 2002 memo, written for the CIA and addressed to White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, the Justice Department defined torture in a much narrower way, for example, than does the U.S. Army, which has historically carried out most wartime interrogations.
In the Justice Department’s view — contained in a 50-page document signed by Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee and obtained by The Washington Post — inflicting moderate or fleeting pain does not necessarily constitute torture. Torture, the memo says, “must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.”
By contrast, the Army’s Field Manual 34-52, titled “Intelligence Interrogations,” sets more restrictive rules. For example, the Army prohibits pain induced by chemicals or bondage; forcing an individual to stand, sit or kneel in abnormal positions for prolonged periods of time; and food deprivation. Under mental torture, the Army prohibits mock executions, sleep deprivation and chemically induced psychosis.
Human rights groups expressed dismay at the Justice Department’s legal reasoning yesterday.
“It is by leaps and bounds the worst thing I’ve seen since this whole Abu Ghraib scandal broke,” said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch. “It appears that what they were contemplating was the commission of war crimes and looking for ways to avoid legal accountability. The effect is to throw out years of military doctrine and standards on interrogations.”
But a spokesman for the White House counsel’s office said, “The president directed the military to treat al Qaeda and Taliban humanely and consistent with the Geneva Conventions.”
Mark Corallo, the Justice Department’s chief spokesman, said “the department does not comment on specific legal advice it has provided confidentially within the executive branch.” But he added: “It is the policy of the United States to comply with all U.S. laws in the treatment of detainees — including the Constitution, federal statutes and treaties.” The CIA declined to comment.
The Justice Department’s interpretation for the CIA sought to provide guidance on what sorts of aggressive treatments might not fall within the legal definition of torture.
The 2002 memo, for example, included the interpretation that “it is difficult to take a specific act out of context and conclude that the act in isolation would constitute torture.” The memo named seven techniques that courts have considered torture, including severe beatings with truncheons and clubs, threats of imminent death, burning with cigarettes, electric shocks to genitalia, rape or sexual assault, and forcing a prisoner to watch the torture of another person.
“While we cannot say with certainty that acts falling short of these seven would not constitute torture,” the memo advised, “. . . we believe that interrogation techniques would have to be similar to these in their extreme nature and in the type of harm caused to violate law.”
“For purely mental pain or suffering to amount to torture,” the memo said, “it must result in significant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g., lasting for months or even years.” Examples include the development of mental disorders, drug-induced dementia, “post traumatic stress disorder which can last months or even years, or even chronic depression.”
Of mental torture, however, an interrogator could show he acted in good faith by “taking such steps as surveying professional literature, consulting with experts or reviewing evidence gained in past experience” to show he or she did not intend to cause severe mental pain and that the conduct, therefore, “would not amount to the acts prohibited by the statute.”
In 2003, the Defense Department conducted its own review of the limits that govern torture, in consultation with experts at the Justice Department and other agencies. The aim of the March 6, 2003, review, conducted by a working group that included representatives of the military services, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the intelligence community, was to provide a legal basis for what the group’s report called “exceptional interrogations.”
Much of the reasoning in the group’s report and in the Justice Department’s 2002 memo overlap. The documents, which address treatment of al Qaeda and Taliban detainees, were not written to apply to detainees held in Iraq.
In a draft of the working group’s report, for example, Pentagon lawyers approvingly cited the Justice Department’s 2002 position that domestic and international laws prohibiting torture could be trumped by the president’s wartime authority and any directives he issued.
At the time, the Justice Department’s legal analysis, however, shocked some of the military lawyers who were involved in crafting the new guidelines, said senior defense officials and military lawyers.
“Every flag JAG lodged complaints,” said one senior Pentagon official involved in the process, referring to the judge advocate generals who are military lawyers of each service.
“It’s really unprecedented. For almost 30 years we’ve taught the Geneva Convention one way,” said a senior military attorney. “Once you start telling people it’s okay to break the law, there’s no telling where they might stop.”
A U.S. law enacted in 1994 bars torture by U.S. military personnel anywhere in the world. But the Pentagon group’s report, prepared under the supervision of General Counsel William J. Haynes II, said that “in order to respect the President’s inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign . . . [the prohibition against torture] must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his Commander-in-Chief authority.”
The Pentagon group’s report, divulged yesterday by the Wall Street Journal and obtained by The Post, said further that the 1994 law barring torture “does not apply to the conduct of U.S. personnel” at Guantanamo Bay.
It also said the anti-torture law did apply to U.S. military interrogations that occurred outside U.S. “maritime and territorial jurisdiction,” such as in Iraq or Afghanistan. But it said both Congress and the Justice Department would have difficulty enforcing the law if U.S. military personnel could be shown to be acting as a result of presidential orders.
The report then parsed at length the definition of torture under domestic and international law, with an eye toward guiding military personnel about legal defenses.
The Pentagon report uses language very similar to that in the 2002 Justice Department memo written in response to the CIA’s request: “If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network,” the draft states. “In that case, DOJ [Department of Justice] believes that he could argue that the executive branch’s constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions.”
The draft goes on to assert that a soldier’s claim that he was following “superior orders” would be available for those engaged in “exceptional interrogations except where the conduct goes so far as to be patently unlawful.” It asserts, as does the Justice view expressed for the CIA, that the mere infliction of pain and suffering is not unlawful; the pain or suffering must be severe.
A Defense Department spokesman said last night that the March 2003 memo represented “a scholarly effort to define the perimeters of the law” but added: “What is legal and what is put into practice is a different story.” Pentagon officials said the group examined at least 35 interrogation techniques, and Rumsfeld later approved using 24 of them in a classified directive on April 16, 2003, that governed all activities at Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon has refused to make public the 24 interrogation procedures.
Staff writer Josh White contributed to this report.