Rolleyes News of The Day

[jimzinsocal]

^^Yeah ...what kills me...because I can fully understand when the rule needs to be bent here or there...is just the obvious twist.
When republicans do it...for whatever reason, the dems authoriize overtime in the carpenters department to build crosses....and the road to calvary is cleaned up for the parade.
But when the tuna is in a democrat salad? Hush. Hush. "Its different"


powerline goes after the "Charley the tuna" angle.

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/016478.php

[jimzinsocal]

And yes. These putz's need to read the fine print.

[jimzinsocal]

More from our "elected crooks" department

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/...s/16444186.htm

[Dutchcedar]

^^^ Bein' one that only eats tuna if its fresh (meaning in a sushi bar... none of which are closer to us than 100 miles... in other words, very rarely) and one that thinks cats are far to common, I say, raise the price of your friggin' cat food that doubles as human food.

[jimzinsocal]

Oh look. Fox finally found the story we posted here days ago

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,243306,00.html

from post on the 10th

Re: Rolleyes News of The Day
Always comforting to hear...even if its bs

http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/301.htm

[jimzinsocal]

^^better coverage here

http://www.sweetness-light.com/archi...missiles-at-us


Charles is wound up about Babs Boxer this morning

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/webl..._Low_Blow&only

[Dutchcedar]

^^^ Saw that earlier. Dragon better not be single, 'cause his favorite politician doesn't cotton to single folks, or so it seems...

[jimzinsocal]

I dont think he is. Hes doing a job interview btw....I guess hes just about done with the PHd....so Ill learn to bow down to "his doctorness".
I hope he does well.

The phd types scare me. Ned Slider is another one.
All I imagine is the mad scientist like in the movie Independence Day.
The locked up nut with long hair taking care of aliens.

[jimzinsocal]

Over at NRO just now

If you're a Republican, be worried, very worried... [Rich Lowry]

...because Rahm Emanuel is very shrewd, per this Ignatius column. Emanuel is focusing on what would probably be the most politically wise way for Dems to try to stop the surge:

Rather than try to restrict funds for the troops (which he sees as a political blunder that would delight Republicans), Emanuel instead favors a proposal by Rep. John Murtha to set strict standards for readiness — which would make it hard to finance the troop surge in Iraq without beefing up the military as a whole. The idea is to position the Democrats as friends of the military, even as they denounce Bush's Iraq policy.

[jimzinsocal]

Daily Kos getting too damned hot

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/12/10433/1664

Look Markos. Lighten up. I like most of what you write just fine.
I understand how you perceive things. And for the most part? I have to applaud your "edge".
But sometimes? Give it a rest.
So you hate Lieberman's guts because he beat your guy in CT.
But for you guys to portray him as some "operative" is just plain
hysteria.
Give it a rest. You make centrist dems nervous.

Either that or rename your site. Call it "my struggle"

[smoked trout]

^^^Yeah, I agree with him... but... don't they bother to read the crap they vote on? What is it those staffs of 50 or so that work for these pukes do, besides send out leaflets and make phone calls to potential donors and lobbyists?

Now, if any of you leftists think this American Somoa exclusion wasn't done by and for your queen Pelosi, please explain who it was done by and for whom.

Culture of Corruption clean-up, my arse. Same sheet.I'm waitin' for the bloggers to crack her list of donors... I don't fall for coincidence very often.

This story bothered me too, so I used google to dig up the dirt...

The real dirt here is that the stupid jerks we have in Congress don't read their bills, not do they have a clue about existing laws. But that's not really news is it?


Text of the Bill
I can't believe the didn't even read it, let alone take the time to interpret it!

Anyway, to address a few of your points, no they don't read these things. Also, American Samoa wasn't mentioned in the bill (which the original article would haveone believe a specific exemption was written in there!), and Pelosi is slick and knows better than to have her name attached to the Bill.

What's really interesting is there's no excuses for any of these congressmen or women. American Samoan minimum wage info can be found here. Now, I might (maybe) excuse a representative for being ignorant of that info. However, half the text of the original bill pertains to minimum wage law in the Northern Marianas Islands! So no one in congress has the basic curiousity to ask the simple question: Where else does this law apply or not apply? Why extend it only to the Northern Marianas?

I submit that the current congress is just as stupid as the congress we just got rid of.

[jimzinsocal]

This idiot is so screwed.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,243364,00.html

Here is some career advice from JimZ:
Go back to school and learn a new trade.
Become a proofreader for Jimmy Carter's next "novel"

[Dutchcedar]

Interesting... I was trollin' about this morning and one place said their average wage was about $3.80 per hour and that about 75% of their workforce is in the tuna biz. Your link shows their minimum wage is about $3.15 across their industries.

Poor bastages. Slicin' and dicin' tuna for a few bucks an hour sounds like slave work.

About the new congress being as stupid as the last... no argument here. I'm absolutely unimpressed with the double-talkin' thieves politicians on the hill today. Just a quick look at what went on today with the earmark bill... what a bunch of bloviating bull dung.

[jimzinsocal]

This guy cracks me up. He gets wound up...

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/20...bush-plan.html

[jimzinsocal]

Since the Rolaids are out already....

Eugene Volokh, January 12, 2007 at 3:07pm] 0 Trackbacks / Possibly More Trackbacks
Defending Guantanamo Detainees: I too am very troubled by remarks from deputy assistant secretary of defense of detainee affairs Cully Stimson that seem to urge private businesses to pressure law firms to stop defending Guantanamo detainees:

I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out.

Listen to the radio interview yourself, starting at 3:00 into the file. It seems to me quite clear from the interview that the Secretary isn't merely predicting such an action by the law firms, but also saying that such an action would be good. A few thoughts:
(1) Just to avoid misunderstanding, I am not claiming that it is illegal for businesses to pressure their lawyers to stop taking certain other cases, or to boycott lawyers who do take such cases. Businesses, like other clients, are entitled to choose the lawyers they want. Nor am I claiming that it is unconstitutional for government officials to urge businesses to do this, so long as the urging stops short of threat of governmental retaliation (whether through legal punishment or through withdrawal of government contracts). I think Mr. Stimson's urging is improper, not that it's unconstitutional.
(2) I also do not want to claim that it's categorically improper for clients to avoid lawyers who are embarked on legal campaigns of which the client disapproves. In particular, I do think that clients may rightly turn away from lawyers and law firms whose motivations the client finds to be repugnant. If a lawyer or law firm's genuine goal is to try to help jihadists (or racists or Communists or whoever else) avoid legal liability in all circumstances, simply because they back jihadists/racists/Communists, a client may reasonably conclude that he does not want to have doings with that organization.
I think this tracks our common sensibilities in social life as well. I may be sad that a public defender gets a factually guilty rapist released, but he's doing his job, it's an important job, and he's supposed to his job as well as possible; I won't cut off social or business connections with him. But if I learned that a public defender defends rapists because he thinks rape is good, I would have a very different view.
(3) But it seems extremely unlikely that those lawyers who represent Guantanamo detainees do so because they support jihad against America. Rather, I take it that they are doing this chiefly because they think that their actions may (a) reduce the risk of factual error (continued detention of detainees who aren't really guilty), (b) reduce the risk of legal and constitutional violations (deprivation of what the lawyer thinks are important due process norms), or (c) reduce the possible indirect harm that such erosion of due process norms can cause to others in the future. And they believe that, when a legal process is available — as the Supreme Court has held that it is — the legal system is benefited by having trained, qualified lawyers involved on both sides of the process, so that courts and other tribunals see an adversarial presentation with the best cases made for both sides.
Now one might thing that, despite the lawyers' good intentions, their actions will yield bad results. One might, for instance, think that the Court was wrong in holding that courts should consider detainees' habeas claims, and that getting more lawyers involved in the process will hurt national security. That's fine. But surely this is an area on which reasonable, decent, thoughtful Americans can differ.
Again, let's return to the analogy of political belief and expression, in social and professional life. As I said, I'd have no qualms with people's refusing to invite Communists, Nazis, Klansmen, and the like to dinner, or even refusing to do business with them. (I would act the same myself.) But if someone refuses to do business with someone because he disagrees with his stand on global warming, social security reform, the war in Iraq, affirmative action, and the like, that person is being intolerant. He's undermining social norms that are vital to a working democracy — norms that maintain connections across political aisles, that allow people to disagree without rancor or hatred, that eventually allow compromise, and that help make possible unity in the face of common threats. And, if his goal is to try to change others' speech, he's improperly trying to do this through financial and social threats rather than through persuasion. The lines here are not crisp, and since we're talking about propriety rather than law, they neither can be crisp nor need to be crisp.
Likewise when we shift back from a lawyer's political expression to the lawyer's legal representation. In extreme cases, where the lawyer's goal is really to have the jihadists win, or to have rapists rape with impunity, I too wouldn't do business with the lawyer. But when lawyers defend Guantanamo detainees out of the motives I describe above, it seems to me that they are well within the zone of that which should be tolerated, without social or professional retaliation, even if we think that on balance the lawyers' actions end up being harmful. To do otherwise would likewise undermine important social norms of encouraging lawyers to provide the legal system with services that the legal system sees as necessary for its most effective operation.
(4) So far I've spoken just of what businesses should do; now to the government official's statements. The detainees' lawyers are, in court, the government's adversaries. But the premise of our legal system is that you can be the adversary and not the enemy, and that in fact your representation can help the legal system run by the very same government that you are opposing.
It strikes me as especially wrong for the government to try to drum up financial pressure that would deter lawyers from playing this role. Again, the premise of our legal system is that the courts, and not just litigants, are benefited from quality legal advocacy. If the government frightens away lawyers who are on the other side, it will get an unfair advantage in the judicial process, shortchange the judiciary, and (when it comes to decisions that set precedents) potentially yield legal rules that will give too little protection for the rest of us, and not just the Guantanamo detainees.
(5) Finally, quite aside from the argument that businesses should pressure law firms to stop representing detainees, isn't there something troubling with the motivation that Stimson is urging? He's not even saying that corporate CEOs should pressure firms because the CEOs are patriots, or because they hate terrorists, or because they want to prevent future terrorist attacks. It's because the terrorists hit their bottom line.
Is he really appealing not to the CEOs' patriotism, or anger over mass murder, but to their anger that terrorists cost business money? To look at the flip side, should construction and security contractors who made money (perfectly honorably, I should stress) as a result of the terrorist attacks start giving more business to law firms who are representing detainees, on the theory that "those firms are representing the very terrorists who [benefited] their bottom line back in 2001"? Yes, CEOs should surely look out for the bottom line; that's their job. But this strikes me as a context in which the concerns about past impacts on the bottom line should be the least relevant.

* * *
Disclosure: I am affiliated on a part-part-part-time basis with Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw, one of the firms correctly named by Stimson as representing some of the detainees. I am not personally involved in those cases.