Eric Holder claims the people who approved the wiretaps for Fast and Furious never actually read them, and just signed them. How sad is it when your excuse is gross incompetence and negligence? Because both of those things are better than the likely truth of the matter.
Month: June 2012
Blogger Day of Silence
Today is supposed to be a blogger day of silence, to raise awareness of the threats bloggers face to free speech. I am not participating, because being silent to raise awareness seems like a contradiction to me, I’m just really busy today. But consider your awareness raised. People can file lawsuits in an attempt to silence bloggers, then get them arrested when they run across a senile old judge who’s lost his mind.
I’ll be back with some posts in a bit.
Philly: The Condescension Without the Culture
Philadelphia has played second fiddle to New York since the early republic, and its political leaders following in the shadow of those of the Big Apple, but incompetently, is a long, fine tradition int he City of Brotherly Love. Michael Nutter is doing his level best to continue that tradition. Even when it comes to busybodying and lording over the little people, Philly politicians are still poseurs.
Angela Corey Goes Off on Critics
It would appear that questioning the quality of the job a prosecutor does during a case is unacceptable according to Angela Corey.
State Attorney Angela Corey, the prosecutor in the George Zimmerman case, recently called the Dean of Harvard Law School to complain about my criticism of some of her actions.
She was transferred to the Office of Communications and proceeded to engage in a 40-minute rant, during which she threatened to sue Harvard Law School, to try to get me disciplined by the Bar Association and to file charges against me for libel and slander.
When Harvard disputed this, she apparently emphasized that because they hire him as a professor, they can be sued for anything he says, even his personal opinions outside of the classroom. It would seem that if the woman has time to rant to a communications staffer for 40 minutes about the horrors of freedom of expression, she would have the time to review her cases a little more thoroughly to avoid the kinds of criticism that have been heaped on her by legal professionals.
Of course, this also leaves one to wonder if Corey is threatening other critics through their employers, but they don’t have the protection of tenure and academic institutions. If she has not done so yet, there will likely be plenty of time for her to do so, and likely many reasons for critics to speak up if her track record of submitting only facts that support her case continues.
Beyond the simple issue of trying to suppress speech against government actions, Legal Insurrection points out that she may be digging herself into a hole.
Corey now has made the prosecution a personal issue. Will she conduct the prosecution in such a way as to achieve justice, or to set herself up for a personal lawsuit against Dershowitz and Harvard?
Corey certainly has a right to protect and defend her reputation in civil actions, but she cannot interject those concerns into a prosecution. By threatening suit against a critic in the middle of the case, Corey has put her own financial interests at stake in the outcome and conduct of the prosecution.
So now, according to Corey’s own claims, she plans to seek financial gain from her prosecution of George Zimmerman. But we wouldn’t want to criticize her for such unprofessional behavior or she might threaten to sue us. Because who wants to live in a country where we are allowed to question the state’s prosecution of citizens? Freedom is just so overrated.
Competitive Shooting
SayUncle ponders whether those who can’t shoot, blog after getting beat by a law professor. There may be truth to this. I haven’t really been shooting since the job situation went crazy about two years ago, but even when I was quite active, and practicing and shooting regularly, the most I could muster was the middle of the pack in competition. To be a competent shooter doesn’t take a whole lot of practice. A trip to the range once a month or so will keep you competent. To be a good shooter, you’re looking at once a week. In my experience, to be a great shooter, you really have to live shooting, or just have a natural talent for is, which some people do. I can generally stay good without a whole lot of work, but I’ve never been willing, or had the time, to put in the work to be great, nor do I have the natural talent to get to the head of the pack without a lot of work to do it.
And so I blog.
What’s your experience in regards to the amount of work to go from just a good shooter, to a great shooter?
Interesting Post about Anti-SLAPP Laws
For those who have never heard of SLAPP, look here. Looks like the California Legislature actually got something right. A few other states seems to have decent laws in this regard as well. Pennsylvania’s anti-SLAPP statute looks very narrow, however. We should fix that.
Victory in Kentucky
The are repealing the requirement to have a concealed weapons permit to carry in a business or a home. Pretty ridiculous for a state like Kentucky that was ever a requirement. But clearly we are reeling under the newfound momentum of our opponents. They have stopped the “gun lobby” in its tracks. Florida was their Battle of Midway.
Registration Gone Wrong
Apparently criminals can get a hold of gun owner registries, and use them to target residences for theft. This is one thing that’s always kind of annoyed me about our opponents proposals. If you enacted drastic measures to cut down on criminal access to firearms from the primary, legal market (by limiting or frustrating everyone’s access to firearms, like Chicago or D.C.), there would be a greater incentive to engage in theft of firearms to keep the black market supplied. Especially if, as many of our opponents want, the registries were made public information. I don’t see that shifting criminal sources of guns more heavily to theft is a net public good.
Quote of the Day: Mike Bloomberg Edition
From Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit:
Let me be clear. These people are not well-meaning do-gooders who have just gone a bit too far. They don’t actually “mean well†at all. They don’t mean well, they mean to be in control. They are power-fetishists, drunk on the joys of bossing the little people around. They are not good people. They are evil. They should be ashamed of themselves, but shame — like taxes — is for the little people.
And I think we have to get into the habit of telling them that more often. It’s much the same with many (not all) of our opponents.
An Important Anniversary
Given that the people who risked their lives and livelihoods, to defeat one of the greatest evils the mind of mankind has ever concocted, are quickly succumbing to old age, it’s important to continue to remember what they did:
today on the anniversary of the Invasion of Europe, June 6, 1944. Here we are now, 68 years later.