The torts bar lost a hero this week. Washington personal injury lawyer Charles Schulze, 73, of Schulze & Pederson died in his rescue of two drowning boys off Pompano Beach, Florida.
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Sheik Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, the brother of the Crown Prince of the United Arab Emirates, Prince Mohammed, has been caught torturing a man that he accused of cheating him in a grain deal. Issa is shown shooting at the man who is bound in the sand and, with the help of a police officer, beating the man and forcing him to eat sand. The torture occurred at the royal ranch and was over a $5000 disagreement — for one of the world’s wealthiest individuals.
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The West appears undeterred in its rush to embrace prosecutions for criticizing religion. This week Ireland is considering creating its own blasphemy law to allow for criminal prosecution — the same week as Finland began prosecuting a politician for blasphemy.
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A memo has surfaced showing that the Administration expected some New Yorkers would panic at the low-level fly-over of a 747 and F16 in New York. However, they still barred the public release of the “classified” information. It also turns out that the photo op cost the taxpayers $328,835, though no one seems particularly upset about the costs of such a frivolous project at a time when people are being crushed by a recession. President Obama has said that he is furious and has demanded an investigation.
Faced with dim prospects for reelection in Pennsylvania, Sen. Arlen Specter has announced that he will switch parties. The question is how democrats in Pennsylvania will feel about Specter who supported Bush on critical issues. After eight years under George W. Bush, Specter has come to the conclusion that he is really a Democrat and does not share the same GOP values as his former party.
Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission is considering disbarment of attorney Loren E. Friedman, a 2003 graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, who is accused of whiting out his C grades to increase his GPA. Friedman worked at Sidley Austin for a summer and the hearing board recommended a three-year suspension.
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There is an interesting lawsuit by Phillies reliever J.C. Romero who was suspended after testing positive for a banned substance. Romero is suing the manufacturer of 6-OXO Extreme supplement because it did not specify that it included androstenedione, which is prohibited by the Major League Baseball. He is suing Proviant Technologies and Ergopharm.
The “No Fly” list of the Transportation Security Administration has long been ridiculed for showing little sense or scrutiny in putting people on the list. Despite years of criticism, the TSA shows little concern about the use of the list for arbitrary or capricious actions. That seems to be the case in a story this week of how the TSA allegedly refused to allow a French flight to pass through (not land but pass through) U.S. airspace on the way to Nicaragua because one of its passengers was Hernando Calvo Ospina, who is an author and journalist critical of the past policies of the U.S. in Latin America. He is not the first journalist to find himself on the list.
There is an interesting copy of George W. Bush’s speech to the nation where he gave the position of the United States on the prosecution of war crimes — before Americans were accused of war crimes. Back then, Bush gave a standard that showed that he and his Administration knew that there is no “good faith defense” in committing war crimes. He insisted “War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say, “I was just following orders.”
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In one of the most uniquely stupid acts committed recently by our government, Louis Caldera, Obama’s Director of the White House Military Office, approved an operation where a 747 flew low over New York and the Statue of Liberty with a fighter jet in pursuit. New Yorkers panicked, fleeing buildings and running in the streets — only to be told it was a White House photo op stunt. What they succeeded in getting was pictures of New Yorkers fleeing and screaming what they believed was another attack.
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On Face the Nation this morning, Sen. John McCain became the latest figure to publicly state that the Bush Administration violated the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention Against Torture. It is not clear how many international and domestic figures will have to publicly acknowledge these crimes before Attorney General Eric Holder will appoint a special prosecutor. I discussed the torture issue last night on this segment of MSNBC Countdown.
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It appears that women in Saudi Arabia will soon be denied the right to work out in athletic clubs. Saudi officials have decided that there is only authority for men’s clubs to be operated and regulated in the Kingdom. Due to the strict separation of men and women, various clubs have started to tailor to women and those clubs now appear close to a shutdown.
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In a true sign of the apocalypse, civil libertarians have something to agree on with Doug Feith (the former Bush Under Secretary of Defense for Policy) who is universally ridiculed for his role on some of the most disastrous policies of the Bush Administration. The Wall Street Journal ran an opinion editorial from Feith virtually daring the Obama Administration to investigate and prosecute any crimes related to the torture program. Obviously, Feith is widely viewed as a bit of a clown, but it is time for Holder to stop trying to find a way out and call the bluff of Cheney, Feith and others. He needs to appoint a special prosecutor to allow a neutral prosecutor to determine if crimes were committed.
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The citizens of Berlin rejected calls from the Pope, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and others to allow religious classes to be substituted for compulsory ethics classes. It is a victory for those of us who have decried the loss of civics education and the increasing integration of religious training in public education. The campaign was led by a group called Pro Reli — “Reli” is the street name for religious classes.
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Criminal cases have often involved a modern problem for killers: the ability of pacemakers to keep victims alive. In Manchester, Iowa, Jesse Fierstine, 32, seems to have realized this when he allegedly beat his sixty-three year old father with a flashlight and firewood — and then cut out Charles Fierstine’s pacemaker out of his chest with a pocketknife.
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