I had a little notion for a video project during the primaries. It would be a montage of man-on-the-street questions about McCain with each person invited to call out his name in whatever expressive fashion would strike them. That was with the assumption that mostly, like myself, these Rep primary voters would harbor some desperate exasperation over the contradictions typifying his life, his statements and his long, long career. Think of young military types ruefully but respectfully moaning, “McCain.” Then would there be an agitated old woman in red, white and blue shaking her parasol while croaking, “McCain!” Hardhats would shake their heads in bewilderment, “McCain?” A whole, modest family would cry out plaintively, “McCa-a-a-ain….. ” And of course I would act all these folks out to whomever was willing to listen to my childish fantasy. Because the fact is, if you do ask the man on the street, and he is one of few who recognize the name and is one of the precious few with any inkling of his identity you will almost certainly find that they know him only as a military man of some past accomplishment who ran against Obama for twisted reasons best left obscure. McCain may get the historical berth he has long sought, however. He has proposed a bill that would grant the President the unreviewed power to hold citizens in custody without charge and without trial. Forever. This while he makes a weepy plea not to restore waterboarding, a proposition NO ONE has brought, because squirting market-bombers with the hose is against foundational American principles. [Read more →]

Tags: on the law, politics & government by Ken Watson
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John Yoo was a rather obscure fellow and perhaps he is still. But he is a creature from another age; an academic jurist. This used to be the sort of person who became Attorney General or a judge at some high level. Much like Kenneth Starr, he is a law geek like the armies of math geeks that launch and recover our rockets. Like Kenneth Starr, Mr Yoo found himself with a controversial task. Mr Starr’s commission would harm a sitting Democratic President. Mr Yoo’s would assist a sitting Republican President so neither controversy is surprising.

Yoo is the drafter of a series of memos from the Bush Justice Department that provided legal guidance for interrogating GWOT prisoners. Famously said memos found waterboarding was a-okay as well as a variety of other menacing actions that fell far short of anything from Hellraiser or even Shawshank. The usual quarters complained about this; the alliance of non-disbarred lawyers, media types with dreams of book deals and  ambitious Democrats that always sees America as Snidely Whiplash, and everyone else as a chick tied to a railroad track. Or they do so until there is a Democrat in office. [Read more →]

Tags: on the law, politics & government by Ken Watson
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On Sunday, TLC ran two Christmas-themed episodes of the program “Sister Wives,” which follows the polygamist Brown family. The episodes were filmed four months after the Browns “came out,” and were being investigated by the Lehigh County sheriff’s department. It was this investigation that led to the Browns leaving Utah for Nevada, which is presumably less intolerant of polygamy, at least reality television polygamy.

Intercut with a montage of the numerous Brown children dressing their Christmas tree (at a treacherously placed cabin the middle of a forbidding area of snow-covered Utah), father Kody Brown tearfully explains that families convicted of committing the “crime” of polygamy are broken up. Third wife Christine tells us that her grandparents were jailed for polygamy, with the wives separated and children sent off to various foster families, with all contact broken off.

It was about as moving a scene as you can expect from a reality show, but imagine if the Browns lived in Broward County? [Read more →]

Tags: on the law, television by Ricky Sprague
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10. He’s still too upset that he never received any endorsement money from the Coca-Cola people

9. He tried talking once, but Scalia was drinking a glass of water at the same time and Scalia’s not that talented

8. He took Thurgood Marshall’s seat, and he knows if he opens his mouth, the contrast will be too disheartening

7. He refuses to say anything until Anita Hill apologizes

6. Five years ago, Thomas and Kennedy said the word “jurisprudence” at the same time, Kennedy shouted “Jinx!”…and nobody has spoken Thomas’s name since

5. He’s studying to be a mime (though some people might be insulted if they see him wearing whiteface)

4. He’s obsessed by the pubic hairs he can spot all over that big table they sit at

3. After failing to mention on his Supreme Court financial disclosure forms that his wife earned $686,589 from the conservative Heritage Foundation, he thought, “Who am I to judge?”

2. He finds all that power a turn-on, and he’s afraid, if he talks, people might notice his robe is tenting

1. He’s saving all his best rhetoric for the scheduled Supreme Court obscenity case U. S. v. Long Dong Silver
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, ends & odd, on the law, politics & government by Bob Sullivan
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The rats have fled. In Wisconsin and now in Indiana, Democrats who have been shellacked into a piddling minority have screwed up their little faces in rage, taken their balls and gone home. Well, they have not gone home, but they have gone. Evidence indicates that they favor the Land of Lincoln for their refuge for reasons unknown except that here they are beyond the reach of state troopers set on their trail. But their solidarity cracks. One Wisconsin Senator is heavily pregnant. Her needs threaten her resolve. Another declares that the legislated end to direct deposit (a brutal Republican maneuver) puts his escape in jeopardy since his means are slight and life on the lam, expensive. One Tim Cullen has publicly flirted with surrender but been talked out of it. He exists now in a state of quantum ambiguity across State lines, like Schrodinger’s Cat, neither here nor there, neither alive nor dead. In any case the cowardice, dereliction and pure stubborn depravity of these traitors has thrown a broomstick into the spokes of democracy. We should thank them.

Democracy was held in low regard by the bright, drunken fellows who founded our country and drafted our earliest laws. [Read more →]

Tags: on the law, politics & government by Ken Watson
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What do Lara Logan and Hozni Mubarak have in common? What unifies the Egyptian protesters with those granola hikers that “wandered” into Iran? Vultures and sharks, even AIDS and syphilis bugs along with numberless Copts, Kurds, turkomen and other ethno-religious also-rans are all swept into one morally homogenous category of enemy where also sits nearly every nation or at least powerful interests within those nations. Israel herself is the Little Satan. The Great Satan? Look in a mirror. We are all tools, perhaps unknowing, of the hellish Zionist Entity that has quite literally conspired even to shrink the genitals of the faithful. [Read more →]

Tags: on the law, race & culture by Ken Watson
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Healthcare is in peril. Whether it is from spiraling costs, the effort to curb same; a vicious program of exclusion or a dunderheaded attempt to baby-proof the globe we can all agree, the benefits of our current system and whatever medical promises held in the future all hang by a thread. Here agreement ends, however. The concept of polarization doesn’t begin to describe it. The Arctic and Antarctic have more in common than the warring factions that promote and oppose the thing we are not supposed to call Obamacare. [Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, on the law, politics & government by Ken Watson
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There has been a lot of talk lately, mostly on the political right, about the U.S. Constitution. You may recall that the entire document was read in Congress a few weeks ago, a few sentences per member, like schoolchildren at an assembly proving their patriotism. It seems the Constitution is especially popular these days with conservatives and Tea Partiers. I’m not sure why. [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, on the law, politics & government by Jeff Scheuer
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There is a blog called Law and the Multiverse, in which two lawyers write entertaining and earnest posts that are occasionally mind-bending in their level of detail about how existing laws would be applied to superheroes. The blog started in November 2010, and they’ve already been written up by BoingBoing, Volokh Conspiracy, and the New York Times.

It’s a fun way to look at the law, I guess, and an interesting (if not completely original) take on superheroes, whose absurdity is often too easy to take for granted. However, there is one major, Mjolnir-sized hole in the logic underlying the blog.

All of the laws that Law and the Multiverse examines would not exist in a world inhabited by superheroes. [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, on the law by Ricky Sprague
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 Congress passed a law. A biggun. I won’t indict the methods employed, the simple fact is they got it passed. But this was an unusual critter. First off titanic in size and scope. Also as opaque as a public document could be. As Nancy Pelosi informed us so elegantly, we would have to pass it to see what was in it. Weeks after the vote the first reports from Reality returned. They were bad. Oh, so bad. [Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, on the law, politics & government by Ken Watson
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So, a cat in Boston has been summoned for jury duty and the court has ruled that he must attend.

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Tags: animals, on the law by Dan Sterlace
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There was a new development this week in the historic incident of DEA agent Lee Paige, who accidentally shot himself in the foot during a youth presentation in 2004.

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Tags: on the law by Kevin R. Breen
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Check this out. A guy inherits his wife’s mom’s assets, after he kills her (the mom). The guy robs his wife’s mom, the mom catches him in the act, so he kills her. Her substantial fortune goes to her daughter, who might have been in on the heist and the cover up. The daughter kills herself in a potential suicide/drug overdose a short time later, and her money is willed to her jailed husband. When he is released in a dozen or so years, he stands to get the cash!???

Talk about coming out on top. This guy must be an inspiration to every guy on his cell block — and to every man outside of prison that wishes he could kill his mother-in-law. It sounds like this thing will be contested. Could we see something like this go to the Supreme Court? I mean there has to be a strong conflict between the integrity of posthumous rights (those of the daughter) and what is just plain wrong. You could make the argument that the mom should have been more careful with willing money to her delinquent daughter. What does the Coliseum think? Also, is this guy a PWSBKTW candidate?

Tags: on the law by Robert O'Hara
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This past Wednesday, a Salem, Oregon jury sentenced a father and son to death for a bombing that killed two police officers. Regardless of how you feel about capital punishment–in general or in this particular case–there’s a part of the prosecutor’s argument that should worry you. [Read more →]

Tags: on the law by Mark Draughn
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TMZ is reporting that GQ magazine’s recent “racy” photographs of some of the performers from the television show “Glee” has drawn the ire of a group called the Parents Television Council. They have made the provocative claim that the images border on pedophilia:

The Parents Television Council has released a statement thrashing producers for allowing Dianna Agron, Cory Monteith and Lea Michele to participate in a “hyper-sexualized” photo shoot for the November issue of GQ — despite the fact that both actresses are 24 years old and Corey is 28.

The PTC declares, “It is disturbing that GQ, which is explicitly written for adult men, is sexualizing the actresses who play high school-aged characters on ‘Glee’ in this way. It borders on pedophilia.”

Here is one of the images:

[Read more →]

Tags: on the law, television by Ricky Sprague
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That’s right! It happened. And I didn’t do it! James Jones boarded his daughter’s school bus in an attempt to put an end to the bullying his daughter suffered at the hands of some snot nose punks. Check out the video, it’s crazy. Now listen, we all know this isn’t appropriate behavior but let’s be honest — we’ve all wanted to do it. My daughter is only 4 and I’ve already experienced this feeling. This poor guy’s daughter is fifteen and has cerebral palsy. These little douche bag bullies put an open condom on her head, smacked her in the back of the head, twisted her ears and shouted rude comments at her, multiple times. All I’d be thinking is, “those kids are fucking dead!” But see that’s the difference. I’d be thinking it. James Jones went out and did something about it. Dude’s got brass ones. [Read more →]

Tags: going parental, on the law by Jaclyn Roth
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As I’m sure many of you have heard, the courts have ruled that the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is unconstitutional.  In a move which can be both a relief (Someone finally stood up to activist judges!) and a nightmare (Is the military really above the law?), the Pentagon told the country that they can just bugger off.

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Tags: on the law, politics & government by Mike McGowan
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According to Nancy Pelosi and plenty of other Democrats who get their paychecks signed by Tim Geithner, the source of all this consternation, or at least that which pulsates within their own party, is due to the glacial slowness the Progressive Reform Agenda has taken. Why, we have gone nearly a week without an unread thirty-pound piece of legislation being passed without debate so they do have a point. But when you consult the tea leaves, meaning the polls, there is scant interest in what the Dems are actually proposing. Their hoped for hot buttons have cooled, even among their own electoral base. The time is ripe then to toss a hand grenade, an incendiary, into their tent. I propose here a program based on stated Republican principles addressing the thorny topic of cash reparations to our african-american citizens for slavery. [Read more →]

Tags: money, on the law by Ken Watson
4 Comments »

After an overlong absence, I’m back to ruin your day with the most heinous act of police brutality that you’ve seen since the days of Rodney King.

And (gasp!) it’s from Canada …

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Tags: on the law by Neil Verma
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We’re still having internet connection difficulties out here, so I can’t write as much as I wish, but I’ve got to try to chime in on the Oil Spill fiasco at least one more time.  I’m particularly distressed about the idea of retroactively raising BP’s liability cap to cover damages beyond what the law calls for.

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Tags: on the law by Mike McGowan
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