August 6, 2011
December 10, 2010
August 3, 2010
The National Enflatulator – With Immigration, the GOP Flogs Another Election-Year Distraction
Comments Off
May 3, 2010
April 29, 2010
McCain’s Enemy Belligerent Detention Act: Is SCOTUS keeping Richard Fine in jail for a reason?
Well, the U.S. Supreme Court just reviewed attorney Richard Fine’s habeas corpus case and gave it a pass. Poor sweet attorney Fine has been held in the slammer on a bogus contempt-of-court charge for over a year now. Further, he’s being held in the Los Angeles County Central Men’s Jail, one of the violent and most overcrowded jails in the country. This man is 70 years old, in failing health and has never committed a crime in his life. What’s wrong with this picture?
About a year ago, attorney Fine challenged Superior Judge David Yaffe’s right to rule in a southern California land-use case — after Yaffe refused to recuse himself in the matter of Marina Strand Colony II vs County of Los Angeles. Yaffe, whose salary is being augmented by $46,436 each year by the County, then ruled in favor of L.A. County. Sounds fishy to me. They shoulda automatically given Fine’s client a change of venue. But I digress.
Aside from the disgustingly unfairness of attorney Fine’s contempt charge and his subsequent brutal incarceration, however, the main problem here seems to be that if attorney Fine actually IS finally released, almost everyone who knows him (including the FBI, the CIA and other persecutorial types that we on the Left are all-too-familiar with), also knows that the number one thing that attorney Fine will do upon his release is to mount a huge campaign to stop Senator John McCain’s latest enthusiastic assault against the U.S. Constitution, S.3081 — the Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010.
S.3018 is a nasty Senate bill that hands over even more power to the powers-that-be in Washington who are already far too powerful. And this act of almost dictatorial proportion could easily backfire on the rest of us — and put ANYONE that Washington power-brokers determine to be “enemy belligerents” in jail, even patriotic Americans such as you and me; perhaps even in a cell next to attorney Fine’s.
So getting Richard Fine out of jail is of paramount importance to you and to me as well as to him.
PS: Richard Fine is a respected and well-known 70-year-old California attorney who the U.S. Supreme Court has just sentenced to what will probably prove to be a life sentence (or even death sentence) in one of the worst jails in America — just for standing up for his belief in American citizens’ rights to a fair hearing and a fair trial. But aside from the fact that every American who loves justice should be appalled by this latest SCOTUS decision (why aren’t the Teabaggers and Fox News out picketing the streets over this issue?), we also need to consider that bit in the Constitution about such type of cruel and unusual punishment being illegal.
Er, duh.
And also, why isn’t attorney Fine simply being released into a house-arrest program? We all watch “The Good Wife” on TV. We all keep up with Paris Hilton. We all know that house arrest is a definite possibility — especially if you are 70 years old, in ill health and facing a life sentence unless you sell out your principles, cry “uncle” and let Judge Yaffe get away with his apparent conflict of interest.
And what about all those old guys who have been in jail forever for committing horrendous murders and such, but who are released from jail simply because they are old and sick? Attorney Fine is old and sick. Release him too. “Attica! Attica!”
Not only that but in the past year alone, hundreds of prisoners — and we’re talking about hundreds of mean guys, evil-doers and blatant criminals here! — have been released from the same jail that attorney Fine is now being held in, in order to alleviate overcrowding. So why doesn’t Los Angeles release attorney Fine too? The jail would be far less crowded without him hogging up a cell.
And what about that time when someone in my neighborhood who committed a white-collar crime, embezzled some money and was sentenced to two years in jail? She got into a work-furlough program and only had to spend weekends in jail. Why can’t attorney Fine get released on a work-furlough program too — so that he can continue working and also not lose his home?
And, better yet, why can’t attorney Fine be released on said work-furlough program so that he can help defeat John McCain’s horrendous, scary and un-American Senate bill S-3081?
PPS: I’m not the only one that’s pissed off on attorney Fine’s behalf. Here’s what the National Review has to say about this case:
On April 23, 2010, the Supreme Court of the United States denied the petition for “stay of execution” (of coercive confinement for civil contempt of court) by attorney Richard I. Fine in the case of Richard Fine v. Leroy Baca, Sheriff of Los Angeles County (09-1250). In doing so, the highest court of the land has refused to rectify a clear-cut case of judicial corruption in the state of California.
So who’s Richard Fine and how did he run afoul of the law? A distinguished attorney with a doctor of law degree from the University of Chicago Law School and a Ph.D. in international law from the London School of Economics, Mr. Fine has practiced law in government service and private practice for 42 years and achieved considerable distinction in both. He has served in the antitrust division of the Justice Department, founded the Anti-Trust Division in the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office and was awarded the prestigious “Lawyer of the Decades” award in 2006. He has also won numerous cases on behalf of California taxpayers in state courts, including a 2003 California Supreme Court lawsuit that stopped salary payments to the governor and the legislators if they were unable to pass the budget.
Yet this distinguished 70-year-old attorney in poor health has been sitting in solitary confinement in “coercive incarceration” in the notorious Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail without being charged, tried, or convicted of anything since March 4, 2009. In effect, he was thrown in jail for an indefinite period with no bail or hearing set for blowing the whistle on judicial corruption in California.
The chain of events that led to his incarceration was set in motion in 2000, when Richard Fine became aware that L.A. superior court judges were receiving illegal “judicial benefits” payments from Los Angeles County, despite the fact that lawsuits against that county were often adjudicated by these same judges, thus creating clear conflict of interest problems. By 2007 these payments amounted to $46,436 per year on top of their state salary of $172,000, making L.A. superior court judges among the highest paid in the country. Not only was this a blatant conflict of interest but also unconstitutional, insofar as the California constitution states clearly (in Article VI, Section 19) that “the legislature shall prescribe compensation for judges of courts of record.”
In Richard Fine’s opinion, these payments were illegal if not criminal, and in 2000 he began challenging them in various appellate briefs and lawsuits against several judges, thus making himself extremely unpopular with the superior court bench and also with the county supervisors who had authorized the payments. The usual justification the supervisors give for extending these payments to the judges is the ostensible need to attract qualified jurists in a high-cost-of-living area like Los Angeles. Less well publicized is the possibility that by granting the judges such payments, the supervisors may be voting themselves a pay increase as well. Article II, Section 4 of the Los Angeles County Charter states that the supervisors’ compensation “shall be the same as that now or hereafter prescribed by law for a judge of the Superior Court in and for the County of Los Angeles.”
Not surprisingly, since the initiation of these “judicial benefits” in 1988 — at a cost to L.A. taxpayers of some $300 million to date — the county is reported to have seldom lost a lawsuit in superior court. It also appears to be the case that Los Angeles County is not the only California county which provides such payments and, according to one estimate, 1,500 out of a total of 2,000 superior court judges in the state are allegedly implicated in receiving the illegal payments, as are five of the state’s Supreme Court justices.
Mr. Fine’s current misfortunes stem from his demand at a contempt hearing on March 4, 2009, that Judge David P. Yaffe of the Los Angeles Superior Court, a recipient of such illegal payments, recuse himself from the case in front of him, in which L.A. County was a party. Judge Yaffe had Mr. Fine handcuffed and thrown in jail for civil contempt of court for an indefinite period. Judge Yaffe was later to explain that “the intent of the (non-criminal) solitary confinement was to coerce Richard Fine into submission.”
Yaffe’s unusually confrontational behavior was preceded by events that must have given him and his colleagues assurance that they had nothing to fear on account of these illegal payments. The first such event, paradoxically, was a decision by the California Court of Appeals for the Fourth Appelate District in Sturgeon v. County of Los Angeles (BC351286, filed 10/10/2008) that payments to the judges were not permissible and that the legislation’s responsibility to prescribe compensation “is not delegable.” Alarmed by this decision’s implication of potential criminal liability for judges and politicians alike, California’s political and judicial powers that be moved quickly and quietly to rectify the situation legislatively. As California grappled with the huge budget-deficit crisis afflicting the state in early 2009, the Judicial Council of California, chaired by the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, quietly drafted, the legislature approved, and the governor signed a senate bill (SBX2-11, enacted February 20, 2009) giving retroactive immunity from criminal prosecution, civil liability, and disciplinary action to “judges that had received payments from a governmental entity prior to the bill’s effective date.” In doing so, the legislature and the governor essentially admitted that the payments had indeed been illegal and very likely criminal.
Emboldened by the granted immunity, the judicial machine moved to get rid of Fine once and for all by having the California State Bar disbar him for “moral turpitude,” a course of action reminiscent of the Soviet Communist regime’s practice of declaring political dissidents criminally insane and locking them up in psychiatric wards.
In the meantime, Mr. Fine’s jailer, L.A. county sheriff Lee Baca, has started releasing hundreds of convicted criminals from Men’s Central Jail because of overcrowding. Overcrowding is evidently not an issue for Richard I. Fine, now serving his second year of an indefinite solitary confinement term as an American prisoner of conscience.
— Alex Alexiev is a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. The views expressed here are his own. http://bench.nationalreview.com/
Comments Off
April 18, 2010
April 6, 2010
March 26, 2010
February 16, 2010
December 24, 2009
November 6, 2008
The Tattlesnake – Tying Up Loose Ends Edition
As your Tattler tries to absorb and process through his thickened skull the startling and emotional events of Election Day, and the elevation of an intelligent, articulate and capable man to the presidency by a landslide – something he hoped for but can still barely believe occurred in Junior Bush’s America For Dummies – it seems prudent to turn to lesser trivia while the brain pan simmers.
Laugh-a-Bull Uno: The ambitious yet intellectually deprived Sarah Palin thinks she has a political future. Note to the Pundits mulling this fast melting ice cube: Alaskans are taking a second, more skeptical, look at their Gov, and she is in for several investigations and probable indictments Way Up North for padding her state expense accounts and Troopergate. (No, that hasn’t gone away.) Until recently, she was attached-at-the-hip to convicted felon Sen. Ted Stevens as well, and that connection may soon sprout legs as she was a strong supporter of the Corrupt Old Codpiece and nobody believes she paid for construction work on her own house. (Plus she’s made plenty of enemies from both parties in her home state.) Also, McCain’s campaign staff, blaming her for Mac’s massive drubbing, are about to begin talking on the record; already we’ve read that this Consignment Shop Maverick spent tens of thousands more than initially reported on fancy new duds for her and her family of grasping ‘Wasilla Hillbillies,’ and that Governor Whack Job was something of a pain-in-the-patoot to handle – bringing up Bill Ayers without the official McCain go-ahead and such. The raw reality is the GOP is going to have to change stripes in this new age or be ‘left behind’ to ponder the Rapture as a permanent minority party. Keener classic-conservative intellects among the Republicos realize this, and Palin’s winky-dink Christopublican ‘You betcha’ hokum is not part of their plans. The secular Goldwaterites were willing to tolerate the risible Jesus-of-Betty-Bowers freaks as long as the party was winning, but now it’s been humiliatingly buried under a pile of blue votes, and they’re pinning the tail on Moose-Huntin’ Mom and her extremist ilk for scaring off centrist voters. Milder theocrats such as Mike Huckabee will carry on, if they tone down the creepy ecumenical hellfire, but the Armageddon-minded Palinolithics will be purged, even if the GOP has to lose a couple of elections. Sarah will likely run for reelection as governor of the National Ice Box again, get tromped, and retire to dictate her memoirs that will have a hard time finding a publisher. Either that or she’ll get her own reality show on Bravo – “Life with the Palins” – a mixture of “Hee Haw,” “Queen For a Day” and “The Osbournes” that will go off the air after 13 episodes. (It’s also been rumored that, what with her photogenic face and advanced skill at reading teleprompters, Palin would be a good fit as a game show host – how about something like “Here’s Your Boot and Pour” as a vehicle for her talents?) In two years, the answer to “Remember Sarah Palin?” will be “Who?”
Comments Off
October 14, 2008
The Tattlesnake – The Old Man and the She Edition
Sarah the Terror is a Sideshow Attraction Pushing the Wretched McCain to the Background of His Own Campaign
“You’re starting to feel real frustration because we are running out of time. Our message, the campaign’s message, isn’t connecting.”
– Saul Anuzis, Michigan Republican Party Chairman, as quoted by the NY Times, Oct. 11, 2008.
Who is McPalin appealing to these days? Not Joe Sixpack, nor Hockey Moms and Dads – they roundly booed the Alaska Governor at the Philadelphia Flyers opener last Saturday; not ‘Lunch Bucket’ Workers; not ‘Reagan Democrats’ (the last two categories joining the liberal Rockefeller Republican in extinction long ago). Nope, all of the voters who fit those media-hyped pigeon holes have been suffering the pain and remorse of living in King Junior’s Politics for Profit United States of Katrina for the last couple of years.
These days, aside from the Party Hacks – that random collection of reliable bobbleheads: GOP office-seekers, low-level local staff, other small fry and their kin — it seems the only faction of American humanity — and I use that term advisedly — showing up in large numbers to see Gov. Snow Job and her doddering Grandpa running mate are a type not much discussed but well-known by the Punditrocracy and the Big Media — let’s call them Mr. and Mrs. Screwloose. These are not just Low Information Voters — they are that, to be sure — but the Lowest Common Denominator loonies and Hate-for-Jesus Christians who spend their lives forwarding brainless emails assuring the reader that prayer is what the troops in Iraq really desire more than anything else; who want the Ten Commandments hanging off every government building; who believe we were founded as a Christian theocracy regardless of the evidence to the contrary; who violently oppose the idea of someone they don’t know marrying someone else they don’t know of the same sex because it’s written in the Bible, yet still chow down on pork and shellfish; who equate ‘liberal’ with ‘traitor’ because comic geniuses like Ann Coulter told them so; who perpetually mistake actors who play cowboys for real cowboys; who go to check when someone calls asking if their refrigerator is running; who want more war with those they perceive as terrorists, even after being told to turn the other cheek by the founder of their faith; who know nothing about Islam, yet believe it is an ‘evil’ religion; who resist scientific proof of anything unless it comports with their bizarre, pre-fabulated religious beliefs; who focus on abortion as state-sanctioned murder while they applaud the death penalty and celebrate the carnage of war; who wallow with Rebel Yell pride in their ignorance and let themselves be suckered by slick Republican hucksters to vote against their own interests; who viscerally believe in an End Times scenario and subsequent Rapture that never appeared in the Bible; who think Serial Liar Sarah Palin is ready to be president since she’s just like them: a card-carrying member of the rusty-truck-up-on-blocks, fuckin’ redneck, hootin’-and-hollerin’ Kallikaks ‘ignorati’; a goofball fundamentalist Christian yahoo who shares their demented white-trash-wet-dream ‘values’ which include a spiteful racism that would make Joseph Goebbels grin and a preposterous gullibility that has made a creepy Messiah pimp like Pat Robertson rich.
Palin’s singular talent is that she can deliver her pre-scripted message competently: It’s acceptable for you to vent your hateful bigotry on McCain’s black opponent since he’s conveniently a friend of terrorists.
That said, it appears the McCainiacs running the Palin traveling carnival have misunderstood why so many people turn up at her events — she’s now a cultural phenomenon, a Britney Spears freak of nature slathered over by the supermarket tabloids, as well their big brothers in the MSM. Many Gawkers of the American Idiocracy show up not because they endorse her message, but just to get a look at the Two-Headed Geek in person. She’s a sideshow attraction now more than a serious candidate for political office. In a campaign rally last week, a good portion of the crowd started leaving after Palin was done speaking, giving the hapless McCain a view of their departing backs. It’s Palin and McCain these days, from the same lineage as Barnum and Bailey.
October 10, 2008
THE McPALIN EFFECT!
Keep The N*gger Out Of Office”
After a week of McCain supporters being incited to shout “kill him!” and “terrorist!” and “treason!“, a man in Louisiana was arrested for threatening to kill election officials. The Smoking Gun has his arrest report and mug shots. It seems his voter registration card was delayed, and he was insistent that he would bring his shotgun to their office and kill them if they didn’t hurry up because he needed to “keep the n*gger out of office.”Look at the photo.
October 8, 2008
September 25, 2008
The Tattlesnake – October and Other McCain Surprises Edition
Or, St. John and His Cowardly Lyin’
“Presidents have to deal with more than one thing at a time.”
– Barack Obama, Sept. 23, 2008, as quoted by Business Week.
All politicians lie to some degree; it’s a gloomy fact of national politics in America, and the higher the office sought, the more likely and frequent the infractions of the truth.
Some self-servingly shade reality intermittently, others cross their fingers behind their backs and deliver the quasi-whopper occasionally, and then there are the full-out Nixonian scoundrels who’ll tell a lie at the drop of a hat in the ring.
John McCain, in his conduct since becoming the Republican nominee, has crossed the Nixon threshold of deceit, most recently by calling David Letterman at the last minute and telling him he couldn’t appear on his show September 24th because he had to urgently drop everything and fly to Washington to delve into the bailout crisis.
McCain’s prevarication to Letterman blew up in his face when the talk show host discovered McCain was still in New York City for many hours after that phone call; indeed, McCain was being interviewed by CBS’ Katie Couric not far from the theater where Letterman tapes his show and could easily have stopped in and kept his commitment to Letterman. As Dave said sarcastically, showing a live feed of McCain talking to Couric, “Need a ride to the airport, Senator?”
This is self-destructive blowback of the first order: Letterman reaches tens of millions of viewers across the land, many of them the politically semi-literate that McCain is trying to reach with his over-simplified messages of ‘maverick reformer,’ ‘reliable leader’ and comfortable ‘regular guy,’ and Letterman spent most of the show last night, including his notorious Top Ten list, savaging McCain for his absence, his suspension of his campaign, and asking the pointedly mocking question of why Palin couldn’t simply step in and take McCain’s place. He even had McCain’s harshest Big Media critic Keith Olbermann on to further pound the stake into the Republican candidate. Presidential campaigns in America are really won or lost in the comedy sketches of the late night TV hosts and viewers form their opinions of the candidates’ characters based on the kinds of jokes disseminated – by that measure, millions of late night TV viewers now know that McCain is a bald-faced liar; a treacherous old codpiece willing to deceive their trusted TV friend Dave. Hmmm, what else might he lie about as president? Not only was this a nuclear one-night hit, but McCain has now made a foe of David Letterman, an enmity that will carry on until the election – it could very well make the difference in November.
Something else that will make a difference, and also presents McCain as a perpetual dispenser of falsehoods and humbug, is his bizarre abandonment of his former friends in the Big Media and Punditrocracy. McCain’s campaign has lately made it a badge of honor to snub and treat with contempt the very same ‘Guys and Gals on the Bus’ who protectively guarded and excused McCain for his gaffes and deceptions in the past. Once heralded for his access to the media, now only pre-tested loyalists are invited to speak with the coddled candidate on his campaign jet, and the rest are shuttled off like cattle to stand behind a shield of sour-faced campaign staff. The turning of opinion amongst the press corps is growing obvious.
The Drill, Baby, Drill Swill Team