We got this in an email from an esteemed Miami lawyer today--in fact the same lawyer that we got the phony Ashcroft news article from months ago. So we have strong doubts about its authenticity. But, we'll report, you decide. Here it is:

Ed Koch was the outspoken mayor of New York City for twelve years. He never minced words. The following is his New Year Commentary prepared for Bloomberg Radio (which, coincidentally, is owned by the current mayor).

Koch's 2003 Resolutions are worth heeding -- perhaps even following to the letter ourselves. Read this sobering yet in a way optimistic analysis by one of our own "elder statesmen."
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We are now going through the most virulent anti-Semitic period since Hitler and Stalin. Nearly 60 years after the end of World War II almost every country on the European continent, including England, France, Germany, Holland, Belgium and the Scandinavian countries, has seen major outbreaks of physical violence against their Jewish citizens, and against Jewish institutions, including synagogues and cemeteries. At the same time, open hostility toward the State of Israel is at an all-time high.

Only in the United States have we seen a full acceptance of Jews as citizens and the Jewish state treated as a friend and ally by an overwhelming number of fellow citizens. In the U.S., Jews have been permitted to rise and fall based on their individual talents, virtues and faults. In one elite bastion after another, Jews have been selected to head institutions heretofore seen as beyond their reach. Today the presidents of Harvard and Yale Universities are Jews, as are recent former presidents of Columbia and Princeton. Having been elected three times as mayor of the City of New York, I have been the beneficiary of this country's generosity and freedom from bigotry, and I will be eternally grateful.

Americans traditionally make New Years resolutions. Before I list my own resolutions, I want to thank President George W. Bush and his advisers, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice for their support of the State of Israel. They could easily have jettisoned Israel as a liability in their efforts to forge an international coalition against worldwide terrorism. I will be forever grateful to them, and I hope that many other supporters of the State of Israel will recognize and appreciate what they have done.

Fortunately for Jews and the State of Israel, American support of the Jewish nation has been bipartisan. Particularly helpful has been the Democratic leadership in both houses including Senator Tom Daschle, outgoing Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, as well as former President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Clinton. There are many others on both sides of the political aisle who deserve similar praise.

In the religious sector, I am grateful to the Reverends Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, both of whom have stood up time and again in support and defense of the Jewish nation. Regrettably, there have been many clergy who have unfairly attacked Israel for attempting to defend itself against near-daily terrorist acts against its citizens. We were made privy to the true thoughts of Rev. Billy Graham caught on tape telling President Nixon his real feelings about Jews and Israel. He has since apologized, but what is an apology without contrition and efforts to right the wrong done? Worthless.

Now to my personal New Years resolutions. I will avoid France as a place to vacation. France leads those countries in the Security Council who are the enemies of the State of Israel. So too is Mexico, joining as a consistent supporter of resolutions unfairly denouncing Israel at the U.N. Security Council.

I will not support National Public Radio in any way. NPR¹s reporters and management delight in unfairly attacking Israel.

I will no longer lend financial support to New York¹s Channel Thirteen public television station. That station recently showed a documentary that was blatantly biased against Israel and has refused to acknowledge the bias or to try to correct it.

I will not watch ABC¹s World News Tonight anchored by Peter Jennings. For many years, Jennings has specialized in vicious and unfair portrayals of Israel intended to injure the Jewish state and lionize Palestinians.

BBC News is horrifically anti-Israel and I will shun it completely.

Susan Sontag will occupy the Ninth Circle of Hell for her outrageous assaults on Israel. I will no longer read her works.

Regrettably, there are many others whom I could include on this list, but I will leave that for another day. I must confess I got enormous pleasure from the defeat of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and her father in the recent primary elections in Georgia. In my view, both are anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. No longer able to feed at the public trough, I doubt that either will make a comparable living in the private sector.

I must close now to get ready for my Chanukah and Christmas shopping. I enjoy celebrating those holidays with Jewish and Christian friends whose goodwill and affection I will always cherish.
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The Uncertainty Principle teaches that we can never know the results of our actions on the future of the world. Forward these messages to as many friends of the Jewish Nation as you know with the wish that they do the same. Perhaps, in some small way, it will eventually make a difference. What is certain, however, is that if you do nothing, nothing can happen.

Again, we think it's fake, but we're willing to be corrected.

Update: We may stand corrected immediately, we just came across this and this.

Second Update: Instapundit reports that one of his readers heard the radio show and former Mayor Koch did make the comments.

From the Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web, which linked to us today, causing our hits to soar.

"When a drug dealer murders a family by burning down its house, who's responsible? According to lawyer Johnnie Cochran of O.J. Simpson fame, it's the city of Baltimore, because, the Baltimore Sun reports, "the anti-drug 'Baltimore Believe' campaign encouraged residents to speak out against dealers."

The case involves alleged retaliation by a drug dealer against someone who ratted. "Part of the claim will focus on the "Believe" campaign, which encourages residents to take back their city from drug dealers in a number of ways, including reporting dealers to police."

And if a citizen listens to the city's campaign on the evils of drugs and burns down the house of a drug dealer, thinking he is being a righteous part of the war on drugs, and the fire kills the drug dealer's family, the city would be equally liable, right?

Either way, our money's on Johnnie.

Thanks to Dan Dodson, Media Director for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) for passing this along:

Couldn't get this on line, but The Reliable Source in this morning's Post reports a coffee shop selling a Trent Lotte, which is "separate but equal parts of coffee and milk," served in separate containers, so intergration is left up to the customer. The report says their call to Lott's office was met by "grim silence."

Update: Another thanks to Jason Rylander for posting in the comments that the column is on line, here. Here's the actual bite:

"THIS JUST IN . . .

Bitter brew? For the past couple of weeks, those wags at Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe in Dupont Circle have been marketing a beverage called the "Trent Lotte." The menu describes the $3.25 item as "separate but equal parts of coffee and milk" – a not too veiled reference to Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott's career-damaging 100th-birthday praise of fellow Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond's segregationist 1948 presidential campaign. Yesterday bartender Mark Kutcher told us that the coffee and steamed milk are served in two different containers, and it's up to customers to integrate them. "We think it's really funny," Kutcher said. "That's why we do it." But we seriously doubt if Lott is laughing. Our call to the deposed Senate Republican leader's press office yesterday was greeted by grim silence."

The 4th Circuit ruled American Born Yaser Hamdi is being lawfully held by the Administration as an enemy combatent. 54 page opinion is here. We haven't read it yet, we're at work for several more hours yet, but we understand the Court ruled he had the right to judicial review of his detention and his status as an enemy combatent--but that the Court will give great deference to the Executive branch's decision.

"The court ruled that as an American citizen, Hamdi had the right to a judicial review of his detention and his status as an enemy combatant. But because the Constitution affords the executive branch the responsibility to wage war, the courts must show great deference to the military in making such determinations."

Update: Reader Stan K. astutely comments that "Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson just got himself some extra brownie points with the White House Re: the Supreme Court."

Last week we reported that TalkLeft was being censored--at least at a few law firms that use filtering programs, including the firm of Howard Bashman who writes the excellent law blog How Appealing. He provided us with the name of the company that provides the filtering service to them, we contacted them and they have fixed the problem.

Apparently we were sharing an IP address with another site in the same database, causing an "accidental overblock." The company has moved us to the "news and media" category and modified their database so we are no longer subject to a "sex" block.

We're impressed, they responded quickly and corrected the problem. The company is Websense.

Thanks to Jennifer at Klyjen who has already noted the change and posted it.

If anyone else experiences a block when trying to access TalkLeft, please let us know.

We saw red when we read the USA article about those misguided professors who erroneously describe the cases of known wrongfuly convicted people and then make, what are to us, spurious arguments against the death penalty. We certainly have no intention of linking to the article. But we will link to Kevin over at Calpundit who so effectively rebuts it:

The death penalty has always been a curiosity to me. I don't really have a philosophical objection to it, but let's face it: the risk of killing innocent people is a really big practical objection. If you imprison someone and later find he's innocent, at least you can free him and make restitution. You can't do that after you've executed someone. But the real curiosity is this: why are there so many people who are passionate about keeping the death penalty? What's the emotional appeal? A life sentence without possibility of keeps murderers off the street just as effectively, but death penalty advocates are dead set against accepting this as a substitute. Even the risk of killing the occasional innocent person doesn't keep them from demanding an eye for an eye.

To which we can only add: An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind. Mahatma Gandhi

From Ross over at Bloviator, a new study shows there may be a link between lead exposure and juvenile delinquency:

Researchers tested the lead bone concentrations of 194 youths aged 12 to 18 convicted in the Allegheny County Juvenile Court in Pennsylvania and 146 students in regular high schools in Pittsburgh who did not have behavioral problems.

The study found delinquent children were four times as likely to have elevated concentrations of lead in their bones. The mean concentration of lead in the convicted youths was 11.0 parts per million, compared to only 1.5 parts per million among other high schoolers. Based on their findings, researchers attribute an estimated 11 percent to 38 percent of juvenile delinquency in Allegheny County to lead exposure.

"This study suggests a substantial proportion of delinquent behavior is due to a preventable cause -- lead," says Dr. Herbert Needleman, lead author of the study and a University of Pittsburgh professor of child psychiatry and pediatrics. "Very small amounts of lead are associated with toxicity."

The study appears in today's issue of Neurotoxicity and Teratology.

Ross has more on this.

Pete Karas of the Progressive Racine Blog sends us the good news that Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, who introduced 11 bills in Congress on its first day yesterday, plans to introduce these two pieces of legislation in the next few weeks: Federal Death Penalty Act which would abolish the federal death penalty, and the National Death Penalty Moratorium Act, which
would place a moratorium on executions by the federal government and encourage the states to do the same while a national blue ribbon commission reviews the fairness of the administration of the death penalty.

Yesterday we posted part of a press release from People for American Way sharply rebuking the Bush Administration for renominating Judges who failed to survive the confirmation process--particularly, Priscilla Owens and Charles Pickering who were defeated in Committee. We agree with Neas.

Nan Aron of Alliance for Justice astutely wrote the following when she was guest-blogging for Eric Alterman's Altercation a few months ago.

In light of the election results, there has been some speculation that the president will renominate those already defeated by the Committee. This would be an insult to the institution of the Senate, which has already performed its constitutional duty. The president has insisted he wants to work in a bipartisan fashion for the good of the country. The morning after the election, President Bush continued to reinforce his “uniter” message by saying, “I’ve talked to leaders of both parties and assured them I want to work with them.” We take him at his word; however, we will most certainly watch his deeds. To force the Senate to reconsider these nominees after it has done its work would be an ultimate politicization of the process.

We also think the New York Times proposed a good plan of action for the Democrats, a portion of which bears repeating:

Senate Democrats must insist on two things going forward: consultation and consensus. Senator Patrick Leahy, who will be the ranking minority member of the Judiciary Committee, should ask to meet with the administration in advance to head off unacceptable candidates before they are nominated. Consultation of this kind occurred in the Clinton years, and it should be the norm for judicial selections, no matter which party holds the White House.

Senate Democrats should also make it clear that they will not accept extremist nominees. They must draw a line in the sand and say that those whose politics cross it will not be confirmed.

Democrats in the Senate no longer control the Judiciary Committee, which has until now been screening out the worst nominees, and cannot win party-line votes. But they should reach out to moderate Republican senators and build a mainstream coalition. And when a judicial nominee is unacceptable, they should not be afraid to mount a filibuster, which Republicans would need 60 votes to overcome.

Rumors have been swirling around Washington that there could be one or more Supreme Court vacancies in the next few months, making the stakes as high as can be. With the White House representing the far right in the nominating process, it remains up to the Senate — even in its new configuration — to represent the rest of the country.

We maintain, as we have said before, that the President does not have a right to flood the judiciary with far right-wing ideologists, particularly if there is any indication that they will become judicial activists--deciding cases based upon their conservative views rather than the law. What's so bad about a conservative judiciary? As we explained here, in response to a Fox News column Instapundit wrote on the subject:

We cannot support a right-wing, conservative judiciary. They are more of a menace than a positive force. Anyone concerned with criminal justice issues cannot realistically view a conservative court in a positive light, even though, in addition to the issues set out by Glenn, we appreciate conservative judges' support of privacy rights, opposition to laws providing increased punishment for hate crimes, and views on matters pertaining to asset forfeiture.

Looking at the big picture, a conservative court will not issue an opinion requiring: the repeal of mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses; a moratorium on the death penalty; abolition of the death penalty; the elimination of racial disparities in sentencing; fair procedures (as exist in many states) regarding discovery, guilty plea colloquy, jury selection, and judicial disqualification; grand jury reform; adequate funding for indigent defense; restoration of full habeas corpus rights that were taken away by the "The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996"; meaningful checks and balances and oversight of law enforcement powers through increased scrutiny of requests for even more powers and resources; fair treatment of juveniles as juveniles, not adults; fair treatment of immigrants and restoration of discretionary relief from deportation.

Conservative judges only support some constitutional rights for some people. By and large they do not support constitutional rights for the citizen accused or convicted of crime. Thus, while Prof. Reynolds is correct that we should appreciate a conservative judiciary for the positive effect it will have on issues involving intrusions into privacy and federalism, we think any such benefit is far outweighed by the detrimental effect it will have on our principles of justice and on what until now has been the best and fairest criminal justice system in the world

Our advice to the Democrats, therefore, is different from that of Professor Reynolds and Mr. Benning.Instead of capitulate and embrace, and hold the conservative jurists to their promise of more great rulings restricting Congress and the federal courts, we advise the democrats to filibuster, early, loud and often. The only way to prevent these right wing jurists from imposing their narrow and unjust views on the rest of us is to keep them from attaining the bench in the first place. Take note of political action alerts, write your elected officials and tell them to oppose the nomination, and remember, grass roots efforts can be successful. A Senator can serve his or her constitutents only if he or she knows their position on issues. By writing to them, you become heard, and your opinion counts. We neither need nor want another Scalia, Kennedy or Clarence Thomas. Do you?

The Chicago Tribune ran a very complimentary article about Instapundit Glenn Reynolds Tuesday. It's a good read--

Reynolds runs the Weblog InstaPundit.com, which is becoming a must-see for better known opinion-makers trying to stay informed on current events.

For the zillions unfamiliar with the concept of a Weblog -- commonly called a blog -- it's a personal Web site where anybody with the energy and/or ego can comment on anything, anytime, anywhere.

Reynolds, a congenial and entertaining fellow, does have opinions on a wide range of subjects, which he posts with almost fanatic regularity on InstaPundit. Equally, if not more important, he gobbles up other info on the Internet and provides Web addresses -- links -- enabling readers to click onto sites Reynolds has located for them.

A University of Tennessee undergrad with a Yale law degree, Reynolds insists in a phone interview, that, contrary to appearances, he has a life -- with a wife, a forensic psychologist specializing in murder, and a 7-year-old daughter"We're a household of media geeks here," he concedes.

He also teaches, has written three books, produces regular columns for the Fox News Web site and techcentralstation.com, gets $1 apiece from T-shirts he sells on his Web site, produces techno music under the name Mobius Dick -- and does go on vacation....

For his part, Reynolds explains his success this way: "People are hard-wired to gossip and what's going on the world, and I think blogs are a reflection of that. They're most like 18th Century coffee houses where people got together to talk about the latest news."

..."I get more attention than I deserve. Some bloggers deserve more than they get. I'm happy to have it. Nobody becomes a law professor without a big ego. But, I encourage you to scroll down on my Web site and look at some of the other Weblogs."

There's more. It's great to see blogs getting attention in print from mainstream media and mainstream pundits.

The New York Commission on Judicial Conduct Tuesday ruled that a Judge should be dismissed for exhibiting "an impermissible bias toward authorities and against criminal defendants by his statements and campaign literature in 1999.

''A judge's election is tarnished when the judge's campaign activity flouts not only the ethical rules, but fundamental standards of honesty and fairness,'' the commission said."

In Watson's case, the commission said he intentionally used misleading local arrest figures to try to show that his predecessor was soft on crime. He also made several statements during the campaign such as promising to ''work with the police'' to help them in ''cleaning up our city streets.''

Judicial candidates are not supposed to say how they would rule on cases that might come before them as judges, nor are they allowed to show biases, such as against defendants and in favor of police.

The Commission also found that the Judge showed no remorse--until he realized his job was on the line. The Judge is Lockport City Court Judge William Watson of Niagara County.

"Hollywood didn't get its happy ending Tuesday when a Norwegian court acquitted a teen-ager of digital burglary charges for creating and circulating online a program that cracks the security codes on DVDs. The ruling, a blow to the entertainment industry's drive to curtail illegal copying of its movies, was a key test in how far copyright holders can go in preventing duplication of their intellectual property."