The Bush Administration repeatedly denied that there were missing emails and later insisted that any emails that were missing could not be found. Now, 22 million missing White House e-mails have been found, according to two public interest groups who reached a settlement over the records. I discussed the issue on this segment of MSNBC Countdown.
Continue reading “You’ve Got Mail . . . A Lot of Mail: 22 Million Missing E-Mails From Bush Administration Found”
Category: Constitutional Law
By last count, we were roughly 25 votes out of first place in the ABA competition. Twenty-five votes stand between us and ever-lasting glory. Who among us can now claim that we have done enough when we are mocked from across the Internet?
Continue reading “Flog the Blog: A Call to Arms for the Greatest Blogging Generation”
Brian Ross at ABC has aired the results of his investigation into the use of alleged mercenaries by the United States. I was interviewed on the story, though I was obviously not at liberty to discuss it before it aired yesterday. Ross found evidence that private contractors were being used in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq for combat missions — a role that raises very disturbing legal and policy questions.
Continue reading “Shadow Army: ABC Discloses Use of Blackwater Contractors as Possible Mercenaries”
There is an interesting fight in Minnesota where State Senator Ellen Anderson made the modest suggestion that the state repeal laws making it illegal for a married woman to cheat on her husband and another statute that makes it a crime for single women to have sex at all. The response of the powerful Minnesota Family Council is to call for the law not to be repealed but strengthened to make it a crime for men to have sex outside of marriage.
Uganda is considering a new law that would impose the death penalty for some gays and sentence family members to up to seven years in jail if they fail to report gay relatives to authorities. The law would even jail landlords for accepting gays as tenants.
Continue reading “Uganda Law Would Execute Gays and Imprison Their Families”
The one thing that you can say is that Tillmon Webb, 33, had unshakable faith. The over 500-pound man sat down in his recliner in March after an injury and waited for God — never getting up for eight months until he died.
There is an interesting controversy in Brooklyn after the city yielded to the Hasidic community in sandblasting off bike lanes on roads. Hasidic leaders complained that they are having trouble obeying their religious law forbidding them from staring at members of the opposite sex with women biking around in shorts. Bicycle advocates have been trying to repaint the lanes.
Continue reading “New York City Erases Bike Lanes to Appease Hasidic Men Who Object to Seeing Women in Bike Shorts”
John Yoo is being defended in court this month by the Administration. Not the Bush Administration. The Obama Administration. As with the lawsuits over electronic surveillance and torture, the Obama administration wants the lawsuit against Yoo dismissed and is defending the right of Justice Department officials to help establish a torture program — an established war crime. I will be discussing the issue on this segment of MSNBC Countdown.
Continue reading “Nuremberg Revisited: Obama Administration Files To Dismiss Case Against John Yoo”
D.C. Police Union Chief Kristopher Baumann joined the call from city council members for a criminal investigation into the destruction of evidence in the World bank/IMF protest case where hundreds of people were arrested without probable cause and many hogtied by police. The New York Times has also run an article on the recent report by former Judge Stan Sporkin finding that the evidence was presumptively destroyed on purpose.
Continue reading “Police Union Chief Calls For Federal Criminal Investigation in World Bank Protest Case”
The costs of prosecutorial abuse or invalid convictions are rarely explored in depth by the media (here). Canada has one case that everyone should read. As with some recent scandals involving incompetent forensic prosecution experts in the United States, Canada is dealing with the legacy of disgraced forensic pathologist Charles Smith, who sent people to jail with flawed science and false conclusions. However, few are so unsettling as what happened to Sherry Sherret-Robinson, 34.
The voting continues with the ABA. Some would say that we are outmatched in second place with 66 votes to The Legal Satyricon with 106. But every great movie from Rocky to Star Wars has the underdog struggling before a thrilling victory. Yea, that’s us. Part Rocky, Part Jedi. Worse yet, that means a planet will be destroyed (who needs to threaten kittens) if we lose. By the way, the low numbers over all are the result of a weirdly rigid and awkward voting system. The result is that it suppresses the votes overall and requires people to go through a couple of steps. Below is your weekly inspiration to get the vote out.
Continue reading “We Few, We Happy Few . . .”
For those following the World Bank/IMF litigation, the Attorney General of the District of Columbia has been repeatedly referencing the forthcoming report of his adviser, former Judge Stan Sporkin, on the allegations of the destruction of evidence in the case. Judge Sullivan has previously indicated that he is considering a criminal referral and would wait for the Sporkin Report. The District waited until after 6 p.m. on a Friday night to file the report.
Continue reading “Sporkin Report Finds the Destruction of Evidence in World Bank Case Was Presumptively Neither Innocent Nor Accidental”
Iran has continued its crackdown on critics domestically and internationally. It has sentenced protesters to death over the demonstrations contesting the presidential elections. It has also reportedly created a unit to monitor critics abroad and threatened students on Facebook. Others have been forced to surrender their access codes at airports to allow police to review their sites.
Continue reading “Big Mullah is Listening: Iran Threatening Critics on Facebook and Other Internet Sites”
Col. Van T. Barfoot, 90, is one of the nation’s oldest Medal of Honor winners but has found himself in another desperate struggle: against his neighborhood association. Barfoot put up a 21-Foot flagpole to hoist Old Glory only to be told by the Sussex Square homeowners’ association that he will be sued if he does not take down the flagpole. It appears that the flagpole is a bit too flagrant a display for the “aesthetics” of the association.
Continue reading “Barfoot and Flagrant: War Hero Fights For Right to Fly Flag”
In the Book of Genesis, the tree of knowledge was a tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:9) from which God directly forbade Adam to eat (Genesis 2:17). In Philadelphia, religious advocates would prefer that it not be seen, let alone touched. The tree of knowledge is an atheist display showing books (including the Bible) as part of secular humanist values. The tree has been vandalized and hit with a series of harassing demands. These include that the 18 foot tree be cut down to ten feet — since no display can be higher than the Christmas tree. Officials also declared that the creche won a “first come, first served” status — allowing them to move the tree to a less visible spot.