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Recent Blog Posts
Whew.
Now that that's behind us, we can get back to the business of defending people.No, I'm not happy with the result, but I know that:
The planet will survive the next four years;
The human race will most likely survive the next four years;
The republic will probably survive the next four years; and
The consitution will likely survive the next four years.
Meanwhile, John Ashcroft is stepping down, and the administration didn't have to turn over many rocks to find a replacement: White House counsel Albert Gonzalez who, when he was advising Bush while Bush was governor of Texas, never saw a retarded inmate who didn't deserve to die. (Incidentally, 70% of Texans think Texas has put an innocent person to death, and 78% support the death penalty.)Gonzalez is an alumnus of Rice University. That appears to be the only thing he has going for him. Well, that, and he's not technically anglo. We'll see how he continues the war on brown people (euphemistically known as the "war on drugs") prosecuted by his predecessors.So, enough wallowing in miserable anticipation of what the cryptofascist "neoconservatives" have in store for us.Back to court.People need me.
A Response to a Reader
An anonymous reader posted this in the comments to my "Burying the Truth" blog. It is important, so I post it in its entirety:
I initially began reading your website because I was interested in the Blakely v. Washington opinion. I believe now that I regret wasting my time. I deeply resent your flippant attitude regarding both the issue of Iraq and politics. My beloved nephew is a black ops Green Beret for some 19 years now. It has been HIS honor to fight and defend this great nation of ours to ensure that YOU and others like you have the right to make ignorant statements. If you should believe for one moment that the same intelligence provided to the armed forces AND the Hill is provided to you... you have a fantastically inflated opinion of yourself. You initially appeared to be a deep thinker, but upon reading further; I believe that perhaps you are only interested in bashing (AND, only from your perspective) some one or some thing. If you are truly, the wonderful attorney that your website touts you to be, you do yourself a great injustice. AND, you insult all the soldiers and their families who have placed their lives on the line daily for YOU. Please don't think that I am upset because you are an attorney (albeit one that gives other attorneys a bad name)... my son is an attorney.
Taking Responsibility
The last question of the second presidential debate was this (asked by Linda Grabel):
GRABEL: President Bush, during the last four years, you have made thousands of decisions that have affected millions of lives. Please give three instances in which you came to realize you had made a wrong decision, and what you did to correct it. Thank you.
Bush saw in the question an attack on decisions he had made, and responded to that attack:
That's really what you're - when they ask about the mistakes, that's what they're talking about. They're trying to say, "Did you make a mistake going into Iraq?" And the answer is, "Absolutely not." It was the right decision.
He went on to give a vague account of the only mistakes he would own:
Now, you asked what mistakes. I made some mistakes in appointing people, but I'm not going to name them. I don't want to hurt their feelings on national TV.
He never answered the question.
I don't know Ms. Grabel, but I think she asked a very, very important question. I've been asking my friends who are Bush supporters for one example of his admitting a mistake; I'm glad to see Bush being asked the question.
The Emperor's Clothes
At the Newark airport yesterday, I was discussing the election with a lady from Arkansas and a guy with a Hornets cap on. I told them that more Americans had been killed by international terrorists (excluding 9-11 and combatants) in the first three years of Bush's administration than in the last three years of Clinton's.Hornets Cap refused to believe it: "It's not true," he said. "If it was true, it'd be on CNN and Fox."(Incidentally, he also told me there's "more evidence every day" that Saddam was responsible for 9-11.)
"Make No Mistake"
For some reason the use of the phrase "make no mistake" by Bush and his cohort has always rubbed me the wrong way. (I have wondered how a jury might respond to my telling them in closing argument, "Make no mistake...")
I suspected that what bothered me was the arrogance of a person who makes mistakes (we all make mistakes) commanding others not to make a mistake. Maybe it was the arrogance of telling people (who generally try not to make mistakes) not to make a mistake.
Timothy Noah, writing for Slate, says he hates the expression because it's "the words not merely of a bully, but of a bully who lacks panache."
That works for me.
To my Republican Friends
Even if you take 9/11 out of the picture, 50% more Americans were killed by terrorists in the first three years of Bush's presidency than in the last three years of Clinton's:
(The 2001 figure includes eight U.S. citizens killed that year in acts of terrorism other than the 9/11 attacks, according to the U.S. Department of State's 2001 Patterns of Global Terrorism report.)
International terrorism casualties are up in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Western Europe (steady at 0 in North America, not counting 9/11):
Attacks are down in all regions but the Middle East:
Thirty-five U.S. citizens (excluding combatants) died in international terrorist attacks in 2003:
• Michael Rene Pouliot was killed on 21 January in Kuwait when a gunman fired at his vehicle that had halted at a stoplight. • Thomas Janis was murdered by Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) terrorists on 13 February in Colombia. Mr. Janis was the pilot of a plane that crashed in the jungle. He and a Colombian service member were wounded in the crash; the terrorists shot them when they were discovered. Three U.S. citizen passengers on the plane - Keith Stansell, Marc D. Gonsalves, and Thomas R. Howes - were kidnapped and are still being held hostage as of June 2004 by the FARC. • William Hyde was killed on 4 March in Davao, Philippines, when a bomb hidden in a backpack exploded in a crowded airline terminal. Twenty other persons died, and 149 were wounded. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) denies any connection to the suspected bomber, who claimed he was a MILF member. • Abigail Elizabeth Litle was killed on 5 March when a suicide bomber boarded a bus in Haifa, Israel, and detonated an explosive device. • Rabbi Elnatan Eli Horowitz and his wife, Debra Ruth Horowitz, were killed on 7 March when a Palestinian gunman opened fire on them as they were eating dinner in the settlement of Kiryat Arba. • The deadliest anti-U.S. attack occurred in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on 12 May when suicide bombers in booby-trapped cars filled with explosives drove into the Vinnell, Jadewel and Al-Hamra housing compounds, killing nine U.S. citizens. Killed at the Vinnell compound were: Obaidah Yusuf Abdullah, Todd Michael Blair, Jason Eric Bentley, James Lee Carpenter II, Herman Diaz, Alex Jackson, Quincy Lee Knox, and Clifford J. Lawson. Mohammed Atef Al Kayyaly was killed at the Al-Hamra compound. • Alan Beer and Bertin Joseph Tita were killed on 11 June in a bus bombing near Klal Center on Jaffa Road near Jerusalem. • Howard Craig Goldstein was killed in a shooting attack near the West Bank settlement of Ofra on 20 June. • Fred Bryant, a civilian contractor, was killed on 5 August in Tikrit, Iraq, when his car ran over an improvised explosive device. • Three U.S. citizens were among the victims of a deadly truck bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad's Canal Hotel on 19 August. They were Arthur Helton, Richard Hooper, and Martha Teas. UN Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello was also among the 23 fatalities. • Five U.S. citizens were killed in Jerusalem on 19 August when a suicide bomber riding on a bus detonated explosives attached to his body. They were Goldy Zarkowsky, Eli Zarkowsky, Mordechai Reinitz, Yessucher Dov Reinitz, and Tehilla Nathansen. Fifteen other persons were killed and 140 wounded in the attack. • Dr. David Applebaum and his daughter, Naava Applebaum, were killed on 9 September in a bombing at the Cafe Hillel in Jerusalem. • Three U.S. citizens were killed on 15 October in the Gaza Strip as their U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv motorcade was struck by a roadside bomb. They were John Branchizio, Mark T. Parson, and John Martin Linde, Jr. All three were security contractors to the U.S. Embassy. • Lt. Col. Charles H. Buehring was killed on 26 October in Baghdad during a rocket-propelled grenade attack on the Al-Rasheed Hotel. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz was staying at the hotel at the time of the attack. • Two U.S. citizens, William Carlson and Christopher Glenn Mueller, were killed in an ambush by armed militants in Shkin, Afghanistan, on 27 October. Both were U.S. Government contract workers.
Who's a Rat?
In the federal criminal system, snitches are rewarded with freedom, money, and sometimes even drugs and sex. I've felt for years that there was something wrong with a system that rewarded people for providing evidence against other people. (See my "snitches" page on bennettandbennett.com.) But what can we do about it?
Sean Bucci of Massachusetts has one idea. His new site, Who's a Rat?, allows people to share information on government informants. As more people learn about the site, I expect fewer people will sign on to be government informants because they will realize that the government often cannot keep their identities secret.
Sean has chalked up a win for the First Amendment. For freedom, too.
Attaboy, Sean.
While We're on the Topic of the Bill of Rights...
The current sorry state of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments has brought the Second Amendment into a clearer light for me. I used to think the Second Amendment was ill-written to the point of obscurity:
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
I couldn't tell what the amendment meant, with those unusually-placed commas (don't blame James Madison; the amendment gathered commas like lint as it passed through the Senate on its way to ratification). I suspected that the right of the people to keep and bear arms might be conditioned on the people belonging to a well-regulated militia (to protect the state), and that "well regulated" must refer to state regulation.
Now, though, I'm convinced that the right of the people to keep and bear arms was not meant to be conditioned on anything. The Bill of Rights was written to limit the government's power and preserve the people's freedom. The founders didn't trust government. The idea of violently overthrowing a government was not far-fetched to them; they had just accomplished that very thing.
Free Speech?
While poking around the web looking for information on "free-speech zones" (trying to figure out how on earth they pass muster under the First Amendment), I happened upon numerous references to this:
In May of 2003, the Department of Homeland Security issued a terrorist advisory to local police departments warning them to be on the lookout for people who "expressed dislike of attitudes and decisions of the US government."
There doesn't seem to have been any mention of this advisory from the major media outlets. On the one hand, I haven't seen the advisory (I'll see if I can track down a copy). On the other, it does seem consistent with the Bush administration's approach to the freedom of speech.
Keyesian Voting
If Alan Keyes can move to Illinois from Maryland just to run for senate, can I move to Illinois from Texas just to vote against him?
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