A rather bizarre scene is unfolding in Berkeley’s City Council which is considering five measures attacking Berkeley Professor John Yoo. One measure demands criminal charges of Yoo for his torture memo as a Bush official while another demands that no student be compelled to take a class from him.
Year: 2008
A Nevada judge has sentenced O.J. Simpson to up to 33 years for his role in taking property in a Las Vegas hotel that he claimed was stolen from him. While this may not be popular, I think the sentence is excessive and that the entire case was overcharged. He was convicted of armed robbery, kidnapping and assault 13 years to the day after his acquittal in the killings of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Lyle Goldman.
The video below reveals another troubling use of a taser. 54-year-old Maurizio Biasini went to a Mendocino Beach called Portuguese Beach with his two twin sons, Dario and Andriano Biasini, and fell into the water. The police and fire department refused to go into the choppy water as the father was swept further and further out to sea. When the sons screamed at the officers for not acting and one tried to go into the water, the police tasered one son twice. The father was lost.
And I thought the AMA was unreasonable on malpractice caps . . . Surgeon Naum Ciomu was operating on patient Nelu Radonescu, 36, to correct a testicular malformation when he suddenly lost his temper. He cut off Radonescu’s penis and then chopped it up into small bits on a nearby operating room table. He then ran out of the operating room. The injustice? The union objects to a court judgment imposing £100,000 in damages to pay to reconstruct the man’s penis from tissue in his arm.
Boy George appears headed to jail after a conviction for his abuse and imprisonment of Norwegian Audun Carlsen, 29, a male escort. The jury rejected ‘sGeorge O’Dowd claims of computer tampering by Carlsen.
Continue reading “Bad Boy: Boy George Found Guilty in False Imprisonment Case”
Attorney General Michael Mukasey has made new comments excusing both the unlawful surveillance program and the torture program. In his most recent statement, Mukasey dismisses the need for a pardon since “[t]here is absolutely no evidence anybody who rendered a legal opinion either with respect to surveillance or with respect to interrogation policy did so for any reason other than to protect the security of the country and in the belief that he or she was doing something lawful.” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, and Civil Liberties Subcommittee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-New York were irate and dashed off a letter demanding an explanation.
This week, the Supreme Court will likely consider whether to grant review in in a case challenging the eligibility of President-elect Barack Obama due to his alleged foreign birth or his lack of “natural born” status. In the meantime, another constitutional question of eligibility is being raised over Hillary Clinton’s nomination as Secretary of State. I will be discussing both issues tonight on MSNBC Countdown.
Continue reading “Eligibility Questions: Can Clinton Serve Obama and Can Obama Serve the Country?”
There are now formal criminal charges in the death of 8-year-old Christopher Bizilj of Ashford, Connecticut. Christopher shot himself in the head while firing an Uzi submachine gun at a gun fair. Now charged are Pelham Police Chief Edward Fleury owns the COP Firearms & Training, which sponsored the gun show last month. Also charged were the Westfield Sportsman’s Club and two other men for involuntary manslaughter charges.
Continue reading “Police Chief and Club Indicted with Others in Gun Show Death of Eight-Year-Old”
It appears that the Iranian government is not just concerned with Satanic Verses but Satanic vests and other “unIslamic” outfits. The Iranian police have arrested 49 people this week in a northern Iranian city of Qaemshahr in a crackdown on “satanic” clothes.
Continue reading “Fashion Police: Iran Arrests 49 People for “Satanic” Clothing”
Is this necessary?
There is another outrage emerging from the Iraqi legal system this week, targeting a journalist Adel Hussein. Hussien has been sentenced to six months for writing a story on homosexuality and the physical effects of homosexual sex. He was convicted of violating public decency in Sulaimaniyah, Iraq.
Continue reading “Journalist Jailed in Iraq for Writing Story on Homosexuality”
Police in Springfield, Ohio are dealing with a bit of challenging case to charge. Timothy Havens, 38, claims that he accidentally shot his estranged wife, Carolyn Havens, 42, while having sex. As the audio tape below indicates, he insists that he was reaching for something on the night stand when the gun went off. This is not the only bizarre crime involving couples this week, which serve as chilling reminders that these people are allowed to vote and driving vehicles freely in our society.
Continue reading “Home With the Havens: Man Shoots Wife During Sex in Alleged Accident”
Conservative commentator Robert Novak is back in the news. This time it is not for mowing down pedestrians in his sports car. Instead, Novak has refuted all of those defenders who insisted that he would never have intentionally blown the cover of a CIA operatives. In a new interview, Novak says that he would out CIA Valerie Plame again despite knowing that she was under cover. While he previously indicated that he should not have revealed her name, he now says that he would have knowingly blown her cover despite the violation of federal law and impact on national security. Why? Because of the bad things people have said about him.
The video below is Hollywood’s response to the passage of Proposition 8: a full-throated, star-studded musical. There is something quintessentially Hollywood in all this.
Continue reading “Proposition 8: The Musical”
The tough economic times are producing some highly questionable revenue measures by cities and states. One of the most problematic is the growing trend for towns, cities, and counties to charge citizens to use of police or fire services in emergencies. At least 24 states have such laws on the books and private contractors are pushing for every state to allow them to collect from crime and fire victims.
Continue reading “Fire Sale: Fire and Police Departments Charging Victims for Services”