Without Comment

from another liberal shill - Jesse Ventura's official facebook page.

Sometime you get what you asked for ...

... and don't like it. Really don't like.

The state of Alabama has spent millions on attracting foreign auto companies to come to their state, mostly in tax incentives. It has been so successful at this that Mercedes Benz and other foreign companies hire almost 7% of the state's workforce.

So then Alabama passes one of the harshest anti-illegal immigrant law in the country.
Bingo!

An Alabama police officer snags himself a real live undocumented alien driving a rented car who is immediately hauled off to the nearest jail. He was booked for violating the new immigration law.

They had arrested a German executive of Mercedes Benz who had left his passport in his hotel room.

As the local police chief said of the arrest: "I'm not surprised at the amount of attention this has drawn. I expected it would take something like this to get attention." Keep in mind that most police forces were opposed to the new law.

But there is an upside to this story. There is now evidence that at least one Alabama state senator is not a complete fool. State Senator Slade Blackwell told the New York Times:

"The longer the bill has been out, the more unintended consequences we have found," he told the paper. "All of us realize we need to change it."


no word yet about what the Germans think of this.

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Warrants?! We don' need no stinkin' warrants!

At least not if you are ICE. And are dealing with Mexican looking folk.

So here is a question for you. Where are the folks who prate that they just want to go back to the Constitution?

This one, I mean.

Amendment 4 - Search and Seizure. Ratified 12/15/1791.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Now here, 'people' clearly means American citizens, and certainly, white, non-Mexican looking American citizens.

I mean really, that was understood back in Pat Buchanan's day.

It was Mexico that kept me out of the Draft

And that was during the Vietnam War. Ingrate that I am, I have never even written to thank them.

The Mexican drug lords are more gracious (in fact, Mexicans are generally more gracious about most things than Yankees). Here's one thanking our lawmakers:

"Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman Loera reported head of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, ranked 701st on Forbes' yearly report of the wealthiest men alive, and worth an estimated $1 billion, today officially thanked United States politicians for making sure that drugs remain illegal. According to one of his closest confidants, he said, 'I couldn't have gotten so stinking rich without George Bush, George Bush Jr., Ronald Reagan, even El Presidente Obama, none of them have the cajones to stand up to all the big money that wants to keep this stuff illegal. From the bottom of my heart, I want to say, Gracias amigos, I owe my whole empire to you.'"

You're welcome.

we'll, for a ruthless murderer and pusher, you can't say he isn't honest. Once.

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Overdue library books?

Are you one of those people who check books out and keep them... forever. Yeah, me too, but I have a contact on the inside of the local library who takes care of my fines if you know what I mean. And a good thing too. Librarians are getting a little hard nosed out there.

Anthrax

The news yesterday that Bruce Ivins, a top researcher at a government lab, was about to be indicted as the post-9/11 anthrax killer and had forestalled this by committing suicide is very disturbing on several levels. Not that it was a researcher in a government lab. That has been almost a certainty since a few months after the last death from anthrax. But consider: there could not have been in the whole world more than 50 people with access to that particular strain of anthrax with the knowledge to use it. In fact, I would guess that it couldn't be much more than 30. And it took the FBI SEVEN YEARS to build a case? After publicly naming someone else at the same lab as a "person of interest." And having to pay nearly $6 million to the poor guy as a result. Taxpayers' money, as they say (thanks, John Ashcroft).

And are we even sure that they have the right guy? Not by a long sight yet.

And there is the curious case of ABC's reporting of the incident back when it helped build up support for the invasion of Iraq. Supposedly four separate sources told them that government laboratory tests (the same lab Ivins worked at) had proven that the anthrax came from Iraq. The only problem is, it wasn't true. Now only folks at ABC know who those four 'sources' were. ABC though is keeping very quiet about who these four people were.

Despite the fact they broke security in a time of national emergency, lied, and, oh well, helped start a war we didn't need to fight.

And then there is the question: if the reports of Ivins "homicidal threats" going back to grad school, which admittedly aren't backed up at the moment by much at all, prove to be true, how did Ivins receive the top security clearance he would have needed to do the work we know he did? Wouldn't this have been handled by the FBI too?

Glenn Greenwald on Salon.com has the most disturbing take on the story yet. He seems to be hinting at a government conspiracy of the type so often imagined implausibly by Hollywood.

I wish I disbelieved it a little harder than I do.

Why history is important ... or at least ironic

Here is a quote for The Atlantic Magazine found in today's 'Daily Dish:'

.... the temper of the times made it the special duty of a prosecutor and a court engaged in trying two Italian radicals before a jury of native New Englanders to keep the instruments of justice free from the infection of passion or prejudice. In the case of Sacco and Vanzetti no such restraints were respected. By systematic exploitation of the defendants' alien blood, their imperfect knowledge of English, their unpopular social views, and their opposition to the war, the District Attorney invoked against them a riot of political passion and patriotic sentiment; and the trial judge connived at—one had almost written, cooperated in—the process.

Sound familiar? A recent case? An overheated liberal law professor. No - it is Felix Frankfurter's* take on the Sacco and Vanzetti case back in 1921. We have certainly matured as a civil society since then.


*though he was a law professor at the time.

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Immigration: As Arizona goes, so goes ....?

Well, let's hope not the rest of the country. Arizona has just passed some draconian, not to say stupidly harsh, laws against illegal immigration. It is designed to hit businesses that hire illegals as well as the illegals themselves. Since illegals in Arizona represent about 14% of the workforce this could have dramatic repercussions on Arizona's economy, law enforcement, and society in general.

The Washington Post is pessimistic. Me too. Except for this: we can all watch what happens in Arizona - if it is the disaster that the WaPo thinks it will be, we will be forewarned. If not, we can take that lesson to heart also.

Though I for one would be dumbfounded.

Update on British bomb suspects

Sententiae is nothing if not timely and up to the minute (though admittedly some people do say that it is the former), so here are the latest charges filed against the foreign doctors involved in the London/Glasgow bombing attempts from a genuine Scottish e-magazine, so you know it is true, mostly.

Vindication for Korean Cleaners!

This one will shock you.

The judge who sued his Korean dry cleaners for $96 million in compensation for a ruined pair of pants has lost his case: the judge of the case said Roy 'Pantless' Pearson is entitled to nothing.

Appropriately enough, the WaPo filled this in a column entitled 'Real, Strange News.'

Next week Roy Pearson will sue Roy Pearson for defamation of character.

For myself, I can't be sure that this confirms the title of the last post or undermines it.

Writing for Law School

No - it is not an oxymoron. Lawyers can too write! The honest ones, anyway.

Here is Eugene Volokh's recommendations for what to read about writing before going to law school.

What Book Should I Read Before Going to Law School?

As I mention below, lots of people ask me this question. Please post your answers here, but for now let me mention mine: A good English usage dictionary — my favorite is Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, but Garner's A Dictionary of Modern American Usage is good, too. (Garner also has A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage, which may be worth reading as well, but it covers a different set of matters.)

My advice for writers of history?

MAKE IT CLEAR! The style can come later.

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Justice Dept - Minnesota Division

While we are all aware of the troubles of the Department of Justice in Washington where Alberto Gonzalez has become everyone's favorite piñata, dangling in the air waiting for the next whack, but now the troubles have spread to my old home town, the home of squeaky clean politics and Jesse 'the Bod' Ventura. You can read about it in the WaPo here.

It seems that three top federal attorneys resigned rather than work with the new US attorney.

"The discontent in Minnesota centers on U.S. Attorney Rachel K. Paulose, 34, who
previously worked for Gonzales and his deputy, McNulty. She is part of a wave of more than a dozen Bush administration insiders appointed as federal prosecutors over the past two years, according to government records. "

This is all very embarrassing for the DOJ given that it is trying to tamp down the situation and get it off the front pages. A local law professor at Hamline University, a school I know very well, explains:

"You never really hear political rumblings out of that [Minnesota] office, so it comes as some surprise to see three people step down like this all at once," Schultz said. "It raises the question of whether attorneys are starting to become uncomfortable about the politicization that seems to be going on at Justice."

One can only hope. Makes me homesick for Saint Paul .... it will be lovely in a month or so when winter ends.