In Racine, WI, a disabled vet and her partner have been denied a loan:
Marilyn Riedel, 61, a disabled Army veteran, has trouble moving, drinking and eating. It's difficult for her to talk because her worsening Parkinson's disease makes her tongue quiver. But she's so lucky. She's lucky because a woman named Connie Guardino, 58, loves her with her whole heart. Whatever the future may offer, this couple will face it together, and they'd like to do it in a cute little two-bedroom home on Illinois Street. If they were married, they could have it. But because they are a same-sex couple, they've been rejected for a loan by the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs.
Pete Karas at Progressive Racine has more.
by TChris
As we approach the one year anniversary of Bush's Folly (a/k/a The Invasion of Iraq), take time to read this overview of disclosures that have come to light in recent months concerning the runup to the invasion. Of particular interest:
- evidence of the link between the invasion and the administration's thirst for oil;
- the administration's efforts to boot Jose Bustani out of his position as head of the UN’s Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, for fear that he would succeed in his attempt to persuade Iraq to join the Chemical Weapons Convention, which would have thwarted the administration's justification for going to war;
- the stealthy creation of the Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon (the "special plan" being the invasion of Iraq), where Bush's holy warriors overrode the judgment of career specialists in Middle East policy while publicly pretending to support a diplomatic solution; and
- enlisting the British government's assistance in spying on UN officials in New York.
The article also discusses the administration's (largely successful) efforts to delay or control any investigation into its actions, and to avoid responsibility or accountability for its decisions.
by TChris
Now that Martha Stewart's trial is over, can the government claim that its victory sends a message to corporate criminals that the time has come to mend their ways? Lee Drutman reminds us that Stewart acted as an individual investor, not as a corporate CEO. He asks us to compare Stewart's actions to the allegations of accounting fraud at Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing, and Qwest, or to conspiracies between investment bankers and brokers to steer investors into lousy stocks, or to after-hours trading in the mutual fund industry that favored wealthy investors. Will serious corporate criminals quake in fear because Stewart was convicted of lying about an alleged crime (insider trading) with which she was never charged? In Drutman's words: as if.
Drutman also points out that Stewart is likely going to lose her freedom while ten Wall Street banks recently paid fines for their transgressions.
But the fines were a slap on the wrist, barely a day's revenue for most of the firms and even partly tax-deductible. And the individual players in the scams, the executives who directed it and the employees who carried it out, were not made to feel much financial pain for leading millions of investors astray.
Punishments visited upon the mutual funds that permitted after hours trading have been similarly light.
At worst, funds have been ordered to compensate investors for what the funds stole from them and make changes to their governance structures that they should have had all along. Such prosecution is a typical approach for dealing with corporate crime: just pay back what you stole and don't let it happen again. Imagine if such logic were used on common thieves?
If the government sent a message, it's this: We will prosecute an occasional case against a high profile individual on charges that are relatively simple. Most corporate criminals will be happy to live with that message.
Via Scotus Blog:
There is a new and easy-to-use resource center for No. 03-1027, Rumsfeld v. Padilla, established by Wiggin and Dana, one of the firms acting as Padilla's counsel at the merits stage. It includes all of the appellate decisions and briefs to date (in both the Supreme Court and Second Circuit), as well as a full transcript of oral argument and selected other documents. You can access the center here.
Released today:
House of Bush, House of Saud:
The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties
by Craig Unger, who asks:
Did the Saudis buy a president? How much money has flowed from the House of Saud to the Bush family and its friends and allies over the years? No one will ever know -- but the number is at least $1.477 billion.
Posted on Tue Mar 16, 2004 at 04:59:52 PM EST
Tags: (all tags)
A bill to grant parole to sick inmates has passed the Iowa Senate:
Prison inmates who suffer from debilitating illnesses, even those serving life sentences, could be granted medical parole under a bill that cleared the Iowa Senate Monday. Supporters of the measure, approved on a 49-0 vote, argue that Iowa's Department of Corrections currently must cover the cost of treatment for inmates incapacitated by chronic or even terminal conditions. Placing them on parole would make them eligible for Medicaid and other benefits.
The Iowa Board of Parole would make the final decision on medical parole applications. Prison officials would make recommendations to the board. "Even in justice there's room for compassion," said Sen. David Miller, R-Batavia, the bill's sponsor. If an inmate's medical condition changed, under the bill, the parole board could return them to prison. Passage sends the bill to the House.
What a great line - it bears repeating: "Even in justice there's room for compassion."
The Judicial Conference of the United States is composed of 27 federal judges presided over by Chief Justice William Rehnquist of the Supreme Court. The executive committee of the Judicial Conference is headed by 5th Circuit Appeals Court Judge Carolyn Dineen King. Tuesday, Judge King said:
Federal courts are swamped, partly because of Bush administration get-tough-on-crime policies that lead to more trials....[she] singled out drug and immigration prosecutions along the U.S.-Mexican border and Attorney General John Ashcroft's order last year that federal prosecutors should seek the severest charges and penalties.....Federal spending has not come close to keeping pace with the increase in caseloads prompted by decisions like those.
...Already, the courts are leaving jobs unfilled and will eliminate hundreds of other positions through buyout programs, court administrators said. "We're at the point this year and next year where we are talking about cutting bone," King said.
by TChris
Why did so many media outlets uncritically report the charges that Saddam Hussein "was in league with Osama bin Laden, was developing nuclear weapons and was hiding biological and chemical weapons"? Because they got played by the Iraqi National Congress.
As TalkLeft has noted, the Bush administration continues to pay for intelligence from the INC despite its self-interest and its demonstrated history of providing intelligence that isn't all that accurate. Now a Knight Ridder investigation reveals that the INC didn't just lie to the Bush administration. It lied to the media, as well, and much of the media bought into it.
A June 26, 2002, letter from the Iraqi National Congress to the Senate Appropriations Committee listed 108 articles based on information provided by the Iraqi National Congress's Information Collection Program, a U.S.-funded effort to collect intelligence in Iraq.
The letter said that the INC provided information to Arab and Western news media and to officials in the offices of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
Feeding the information to the news media, as well as to selected administration officials and members of Congress, helped foster an impression that there were multiple sources of intelligence on Iraq's illicit weapons programs and links to bin Laden. In fact, many of the allegations came from the same half-dozen defectors, were not confirmed by other intelligence and were hotly disputed by intelligence professionals at the CIA, the Defense Department and the State Department.
The strategy paid off. The media reports of IRC propoganda helped sway public opinion in support of the invasion of Iraq.
by TChris
Support for the death penalty has eroded as voters have grown increasingly concerned about the execution of the innocent. Legislators in Michigan, however, are moving toward ending a 158 year old ban on the death penalty in that state.
The House Regulatory Reform Committee voted 6-4 Tuesday to send the House a resolution that would ask voters this fall whether they want to change the state constitution to allow the death penalty to be considered for first-degree murder cases where there is no doubt about a defendant's guilt.
Imposing death when there is "no doubt" about guilt is an interesting standard. If proof beyond a reasonable doubt doesn't prevent the conviction of the innocent, there is little reason to think that requiring proof "beyond any doubt" will assure that the innocent are never put to death. Conversely, if proof beyond a reasonable doubt isn't good enough to justify a death sentence, should it be good enough to justify a lifetime of imprisonment?
This is hilarious--Police Auctions online at StealItBack.Com. It's the Ebay of law enforcement confiscation. Need gardening supplies? Buy them from the cops who took them away from another gardener. Check out this available grow light. Or this sales pitch:
Thinking about growing some exotic plants and flowers? Then you will need this Sunlight Supply grow light ballast. It is a 430 watt ballast and is for use with sodium bulbs.
Actually, some of the electronic deals aren't bad, although if the item doesn't work, it's your tough luck. Then again, imagine what you might find in the back of an old stereo that doesn't work. Consider the lawsuit if you buy something here and then get arrested for possession of stolen property.
[comments now closed due to spammer attack]
Posted on Tue Mar 16, 2004 at 10:59:06 AM EST
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What a giant leap forward! Lexis/Nexis has signed contracts with prisons to make computerized legal research available to prisoners. For these prisoners, it means an end to outdated lawbooks, often with missing pages. Lexis is up to the minute, and for a non-lawyer, much easier to use than a law book. The prisoner can type in a subject to search for rather than leafing through volumes whose organizational framework is a mystery. This also saves prisons a lot of money as books are more expensive.
[comments now closed due to spammer]
Posted on Mon Mar 15, 2004 at 08:41:21 PM EST
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Former S.D. Congressman Bill Janklow lost his bid for an appeal bond and must serve his 100 day jail sentence before his appeal is heard. He's in jail now, and his sentence is expected to be up in May.
In an unusual twist, at the request of the U.S. Attorney, the Government is seeking to replace Janklow as the defendant in the civil suit brought by the victim's family--which would make the U.S. --i.e., the taxpayers--and not Janklow responsible for the damages.
The U.S. Attorney says Janklow was on official government business. Apparently, he was giving a political speech at the time. That's official government business? Why would the U.S. want to step up to the plate in this case?
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