Guilty!

Busy day, not much time to blog. But Spot did want to pass this along:

Judgment in Milan

An Italian court hearing criminal charges against 26 American officials and a smaller group of Italians arising out of a CIA extraordinary rendition has ruled today. The case relates to the CIA’s snatching of a Muslim cleric known as Abu Omar off the streets of Milan in 2003. He was whisked off to Egypt, where he was tortured before being released. Italian prosecutors noted that the American action botched a prosecution they had prepared against Abu Omar for participation in a terrorist conspiracy. Here’s a summary of the court’s decision from Reuters: [the Scott Horton post continues]

The guilty judgments were made “in absentia,” due to the, um, absence of the defendants. The good news for the defendants is that Italy doesn’t practice extraordinary rendition. The United States is unlikely to extradite them, either, so as long at these defendants never leave the country for the rest of their natural lives, they should be okay.

Technorati Tags: extraordinary rendition,judgment in Milan,Scott Horton,Abu Omar,in absentia

Crowing and kvetching: the Drinking Liberally edition

Drinking Liberally tomorrow night – Thursday, November 5th – will be a a post mortem on the just-conducted election. Come and tell us why your candidate won, and if your candidate lost, come and explain why the voting public was so sadly misguided. Campaign staff are especially encouraged to attend.

Six to nine at the 331 Club in Northeast Minneapolis.

Technorati Tags: Drinking Liberally,331 Club,kvetching,election results

Pirates in blue IV

In this, probably the penultimate post in the series (part one, part two, part three), we’ll address splitting the forfeiture pot.

The basic rule is 70% of the proceeds go to the local cops or other agency responsible for the bust, 20% to the prosecuting agency, and 10% to the state. That’s what supposed to happen. In practice, however, and as was pointed out in the first post in the series, it doesn’t always work out that way; here again is the City Pages description of the Metro Gang Strike Force in operation:

The looting went well beyond shaking down the occasional 15-year-old pot smoker of his/her pocket change. During searches and seizures, officers routinely confiscated, for their own personal use, highly valuable goodies that had little-to-nothing to do with the accompanying charges. The plunders included flat-screen televisions, lap tops, jewelry, and jet skis-- items "officers and their family members were permitted to purchase, at low prices," according to the findings.

So, there’s a problem right there: property seized that never finds its way on to a seized property inventory or even becomes the subject of administrative forfeiture proceedings. We have another term of art for this property: “stolen.” Related to it, though, is permitting officers and family members to purchase forfeited items at low prices.

This also frustrates one of the ostensible purposes of the forfeiture program to provide additional funds for police departments. It also creates an incentive for an officer to go shopping on duty for family and friends, or even other people in the department:

Chief, I saw this monster flat screen in an apartment today that I just had to have. Put it on 60-day lay away for me will ya’? I’ll make you an offer for it then.

It probably doesn’t happen quite that directly, even at the Metro Gang Strike Force, but it illustrates the problem. And there really isn’t anything to keep it from happening. There is nothing — nothing — in Minn. Stat. sec. 609.5315 that imposes any obligation on law enforcement as to how it may sell forfeited property, or to maximize the amount received, or even to limit the persons who may buy (well, there are for weapons, but you can read them by clicking the link).

Here’s another amazing fact: the cops can keep the property for use by the department. That’s true in the case of motor vehicles forfeited for impaired driving violations, too.

If you have seen police officers driving around in unmarked or undercover cars that seemed odd to you, the chances are excellent that they are the fruits of civil forfeiture. If they hadn’t decided to sell it on eBay, the police in Proctor could have been riding around on an undercover motorized recliner.

It ought to make you at least a little queasy to know that there is no judicial oversight of most administrative forfeitures, nor any oversight of any kind of the disposition of forfeited property, with financial incentives all along the way. The Metro Gang Strike Force is a bloated, malignant example of what the civil forfeiture statutes invite, but it would be naïve to think that some of the Strike Force’s antics haven’t ever happened elsewhere. But because the statutes are so badly written — from the perspective of the public, maybe not law enforcement’s — we’ll probably never know.

In the final installment in this series, probably Friday or over the weekend, we’ll discuss the case of suburban mom Kristin Brown and her Jeep Grand Cherokee that the Edina police wanted.

Technorati Tags: civil forfeiture,Metro Gang Strike Force,administrative forfeiture,impaired driving

Pirates in blue III

Alternate title: License to steal

This is the third post in a series. Here’s part one and part two.

I recommended that readers review the complaint prepared against the Metro Strike Force by attorneys for some of its victims: Rivera v. Metro Gang Strike Force. The Strike Force described in the complaint resembles more Fagin’s gang in Oliver Twist — only without the charm — than it does a law enforcement agency: brutal, rapacious thugs.

In the Strib article about the joint legislative hearing on the forfeiture statutes held last week in St. Paul (briefly discussed in part one), sheriffs and police officers pleaded for the statute’s life:

"It isn't the statute that's failed," said Apple Valley police Capt. Michael Marben. "It's the lack of accountability."

It was a theme sounded by Rep. Tony Cornish, R-Good Thunder, the police chief of Lake Crystal, who advised colleagues not to overhaul the statute.

Well, not exactly, Capt. Marben. Minn. Stat. sec. 609.5314 permits the administrative forfeiture of, inter alia, all money, precious metal, and precious stones, and any “conveyance device” (that’s a vehicle to the uninitiated) found in “proximinity to” controlled substances. There’s more to it than that, but it’s enough to understand some of the more common tactics of the Metro Gang Strike Force.

Armed with the color of law of 609.5314, Strike Force Officers could go out and pick a person clean for the lowest street-level drug offense or even being in proximity to it:

Is that marijuana I smell? Gimme your wallet, your watch, and your diamond engagement ring!

But officer, I’m not smoking marijuana. I don’t have any drugs on me!

Doesn’t matter. You’re obviously in proximity to drug activity. Now hand ‘em over.

And what is “proximity” you may ask? One is tempted to answer: same zip code. From reading the complaint in the Strike Force case, and from other published media reports, it appears that a favorite Strike Force tactic was to enter an apartment, often without a warrant, detain the residents in one room while another officer or officers rifled through other rooms for cash and valuables. Sometimes they prepared an inventory of what they took, sometimes an incomplete one, and sometimes no inventory was prepared at all. And controlled substances often seemed beside the point.

Some of these characters made simple snatch and run robbers and residential burglars look positively amateurish.

But let’s return to accountability. Here’s what defendant and former Strike Force commander Ron Ryan said about his officers’ conduct, from the Rivera complaint:

Defendant Ryan was aware that MGSF Officers were committing theft of personal property and did nothing to prevent it.  When confronted by improper “forfeitures” by MGSF Officers, by the Office of the Legislative  Auditor, Ryan testified that it was known “copper mentality” to take unlawfully the property of suspects, or “mopes,” who appeared to have nicer things in their home or on their person than the police officers had.  He asserted that “coppers like to take as much as they can, that’s just the nature of the beast.”  Defendant Ryan also identified the fact that “illegal aliens” do not “ask for anything back anymore” as a reason why the MGSF was amassing so much cash and property.

Stunning, isn’t it? The Strike Force officers didn’t worry much about accountability to Commander Ryan. Ryan’s statement about the “copper mentality” is telling, too. Let’s assume he’s truthful here for a moment. If that is the “copper mentality,” then it very much is the statute that has failed, because it provides means and opportunity to cops who already have the motive to steal.

And as Rebecca Otto, the state’s top auditor pointed out in the hearing, the Treasurer’s office has limited ability to oversee the forfeiture “program.” Well none, really, when what’s going on is simple theft.

We’ll end for today with another groaner from the hearing:

At the legislative hearing, sheriffs and police defended the law, saying it provided money for law enforcement training and equipment. They portrayed the Gang Strike Force problems as isolated.

There is another word for training, certainly in the business world, and that’s what the forfeiture enterprise is beginning to resemble more and more; that word is “junket.” One question all these law enforcement leaders should have been asked at the hearing was,”How many seminars in warm places and adjacent to golf courses have you taken on forfeiture money?”

The answers would have been interesting.

There’ll be a couple of more posts before we’re done.

Technorati Tags: Metro Gang Strike Force,civil forfeiture,Commander Ron Ryan,Michael Marben,Tony Cornish,Rebecca Otto,Rivera v. Metro Gang Strike Force

Pirates in blue II

This is a follow up to the earlier post, Pirates in blue.

There are two principal kinds of civil forfeiture in Minnesota: judicial forfeiture, and administrative forfeiture, or as law enforcement probably likes to thinks of it, forfeiture lite! Less work, but the same great taste!

It was administrative forfeiture that permitted the Metro Gang Strike Force to become the impressive criminal enterprise that it did. It really shows that properly drawn, government incentives do work.

After property is seized in an alleged controlled substance violation, administrative forfeiture is commenced with this cheery missive from law enforcement:

[N]otice of the right to obtain judicial review of the forfeiture and of the procedure for obtaining that judicial review, printed in English, Hmong, and Spanish. Substantially the following language must appear conspicuously: "IF YOU DO NOT DEMAND JUDICIAL REVIEW EXACTLY AS PRESCRIBED IN MINNESOTA STATUTES, SECTION 609.5314, SUBDIVISION 3, YOU LOSE THE RIGHT TO A JUDICIAL DETERMINATION OF THIS FORFEITURE AND YOU LOSE ANY RIGHT YOU MAY HAVE TO THE ABOVE DESCRIBED PROPERTY . YOU MAY NOT HAVE TO PAY THE FILING FEE FOR THE DEMAND IF DETERMINED YOU ARE UNABLE TO AFFORD THE FEE. IF THE PROPER TY IS WORTH $7,500 OR LESS, YOU MAY FILE YOUR CLAIM IN CONCILIATION COURT . YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PAY THE CONCILIATION COURT FILING FEE IF THE PROPER TY IS WORTH LESS THAN $500."

There is a similar notice for administrative forfeitures of motor vehicles in certain moving violations offenses, such as impaired driving.

Other than referring to a single statute as guidance for how to proceed, the notice says nothing to the recipient about what to do, not even how long s/he has to do it. The answer, by the way, is sixty days.

The property owner must file a lawsuit and in most instances pay the new case filing fee, which is currently $252.00 $322.00. As the plaintiff in such a suit, the property owner has the burden of showing that the property was improperly seized; since it’s a civil matter, none of the rights of accused persons are applicable. In fact, if you’re a criminal defendant, you sue to get your property back at some hazard to your personal freedom.

At least the notice is brutally honest about what happens to your property if you don’t file: you lose it. It doesn’t matter what ultimately happens to any criminal charge.

Because there is a homework assignment, I’ll end this post here. Please read for tomorrow the complaint in Rivera v. Metro Gang Strike Force.

Technorati Tags: administrative forfeiture,Metro Gang Strike Force

Read Doug Tice

Doug Tice had a front page op-ed section piece in the Strib today. When you’re the editor of the opinion page — at least Spot recalls that’s what Tice is up to these days — you can do that once in a while, shoving lesser mortals aside for a spot in the sun.

The thing is, Spot likes the piece. It’s about how politicians on both sides of the fence use the dangerous person sexual predator lock-up as a political football. It’s been in the news lately, of course, because of the flap over large screen televisions being installed at the facility. The inmates patients who are incarcerated locked up detained housed in the facility have served their time, so it does seem a little churlish to deny a decent teevee to someone being detained against his will.

The point of Tice’s piece, though, is a little different and it is a good one. Politicians bray about public safety from sexual predators, and then bray about its cost, trying to score political points all along the way.

It is almost worth a Spotty™.

Why doesn’t he get one, because he’s Doug Tice?

No, grasshopper, that’s not the reason. Okay, maybe a little. But the real reason is because after a good exposition of the issue, Tice stops. He has no more solutions than the politicians. Spot has to agree a bit with one of the commenters to the article who said essentially, “What’s you point?”

Technorati Tags: Doug Tice,sexual predators,flat screen televisions

Pirates in blue

Alternate title: Cops on commission

Most conservatives have a concern about about arbitrary and overreaching government; most liberals worry about unbridled entrepreneurialism. Here’s a story that features both at the same time.

It’s about a thing called civil forfeiture. To people who are unfamiliar with it, it sounds bizarre and like something that couldn’t possibly even exist, at least in the United States. But it does, and it’s a thriving, er, industry, including here in Minnesota.

You’ve probably read about the Metro Gang Strike Force, a blot that will stain the escutcheon of Twin Cities’ law enforcement for a long time. The Strike Force stands accused of improperly seizing property claimed to have been used in gang and drug activity, but it seems that the Strike Force kept dismal or no records of what was seized, what happened to the seized property, and misappropriated some of the seized property for the private use of the Strike Force members. From City Pages:

The looting went well beyond shaking down the occasional 15-year-old pot smoker of his/her pocket change. During searches and seizures, officers routinely confiscated, for their own personal use, highly valuable goodies that had little-to-nothing to do with the accompanying charges. The plunders included flat-screen televisions, lap tops, jewelry, and jet skis-- items "officers and their family members were permitted to purchase, at low prices," according to the findings.

There is an investigator on the case of the missing property now, and he has his job cut out for him:

With no officers on its payroll anymore, the Strike Force board has hired a private detective -- retired South St. Paul officer David Vujovich -- to itemize seized vehicles, which sit in a storage lot. He's also been asked to track down case files as individuals seek to reclaim seized funds or property, said Manila (Bud) Shaver, the board chair. The League of Minnesota Cities, the force's insurance agency, has agreed to reimburse the board for Vujovich's services, said Kori Land, the Strike Force attorney.

It's not known how many unclaimed vehicles are in storage. The Minnesota Legislative Auditor concluded in a report in May that many were improperly forfeited.

The Strike Force is hardly alone in using civil forfeiture, however, and it’s a process that’s ripe for abuse.

A property seizure and forfeiture is what lawyers’ call an in rem proceeding; it’s against the “guilty property.” That’s the really neat thing about it from a law enforcement standpoint: property doesn’t have much in the way of due process rights. It turns out that the owners of the property don’t, either.

Property is subject to seizure and forfeiture for a variety of specified crimes. Under the forfeiture laws, if property was used in the commission of a crime, or represents the proceeds of a crime, it is subject to forfeiture. In some cases, it seems sensible and obvious, like the forfeiture of a gun used to commit a hunting violation or if it’s carried in a public place illegally (although that’s getting harder to do!).

It is the seizures in controlled substance and DWI cases where the most potential for abuse exists. The Strike Force is the obvious example here. Property can be and is seized and forfeited when there is no conviction for the predicate crime for the seizure. That seems entirely bizarre, but it’s true. On top of that, your property can be forfeited if somebody else used your property to commit a crime. We’ll discuss these things in more detail in a subsequent post.

There were a couple of items in the news in Strib recently that give this issue fresh relevance, even here in Spot’s burg, Edina.

But back to the two issues mentioned at the top of the post, and In conclusion, at least for now, consider this: the local gendarmes get to keep over two thirds of the proceeds of forfeited merchandise.

We’ve put the local cops on a fat commission. It’s like we’ve issued the chiefs of police a letter of marque, giving them a considerable financial incentive, without any oversight, to go out and seize property entirely beyond the scope of the police role to enforce criminal law.

Technorati Tags: civil forfeiture,Metro Gang Strike Force,due process

Fox News and the people who watch it

Jon Stewart on Fox “News”:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
For Fox Sake!
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Stewart has a good example of how the Fox “news” and “opinion” sides actually work hand in glove. A lecture delivered in Stewart’s inimitable style.

A thump of the tail to Jason Barnett.

Technorati Tags: Fox News,Jon Stewart,What the Fox

The two most unwinnable wars in human history

Have come charmingly together:

The war in Afghanistan and the war on drugs. We’ve fought the former for eight years now — as long as the Soviets were in Afghanistan, and with similar results — and the latter for decades. But now we have a two-fer. This is just great.

McClatchy reports:

As the Obama administration ramps up the Drug Enforcement Administration's presence in Afghanistan, some special-agent pilots contend that they're being illegally forced to go to a combat zone, while others who've volunteered say they're not being properly equipped. [It is probably safe to assume that DEA aircraft are not F-18s or heavily-armored Blackhawks.]

In interviews with McClatchy, more than a dozen DEA agents describe a badly managed system in which some pilots have been sent to Afghanistan under duress or as punishment for bucking their superiors.

Such complaints, so far mostly arising from the DEA's Aviation Division, could complicate the Obama administration's efforts to send dozens of additional DEA agents to Afghanistan as part of a civilian and military personnel "surge" that aims to stabilize the country.

About Afghanistan specifically, Professor A.E. Bacevich of Boston University, an Army officer from 1969 to 1992, wrote:

Fixing Afghanistan is not only unnecessary, it's also likely to prove impossible. Not for nothing has the place acquired the nickname Graveyard of Empires. Americans, insistent that the dominion over which they preside does not meet the definition of empire, evince little interest in how the British, Russians, or others have fared in attempting to impose their will on the Afghans. As General David McKiernan, until recently the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, put it, "There's always an inclination to relate what we're doing now with previous nations," adding, "I think that's a very unhealthy comparison." McKiernan was expressing a view common among the ranks of the political and military elite: We're Americans. We're different. Therefore, the experience of others does not apply.

Bacevich, A.E., The War We Can’t Win, Harper’s Magazine, November, 2009.

Yup, we’re the ‘Mericuns; we make our own reality, remember?

Bacevich continues, using Iraq (pay special attention here, Dave) as exhibit A for why Afghanistan is going to come a cropper:

Of course, Americans like McKiernan who reject as irrelevant the experience of others might at least be willing to contemplate the experience of the United States itself. Take the case of Iraq, now bizarrely trumpeted in some quarters as a “success” and even more bizarrely seen as offering a template for how to turn Afghanistan around. Much has been made of the United States Army’s rediscovery of (and growing infatuation with) counterinsurgency doctrine, applied in Iraq beginning in early 2007 when President Bush launched his so-called surge and anointed General David Petraeus as the senior U.S. commander in Baghdad. Yet technique is no substitute for strategy. Violence in Iraq may be down, but evidence of the promised political reconciliation that the surge was intended to produce remains elusive. America’s Mesopotamian misadventure continues. Pretending that the surge has redeemed the Iraq war is akin to claiming that when Andy Jackson “caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans” he thereby enabled the United States to emerge victorious from the War of 1812. Such a judgment works well as folklore but ignores an abundance of contrary evidence.

More than six years after it began, Operation Iraqi Freedom has consumed something like a trillion dollars—with the meter still running—and has taken the lives of more than 4,300 American soldiers. Meanwhile, in Baghdad and other major Iraqi cities, car bombs continue to detonate at regular intervals, killing and maiming dozens. Anyone inclined to put Iraq in the nation’s rearview mirror is simply deluded. Not long ago, General Raymond Odierno, Petraeus’s successor and the fifth U.S. commander in Baghdad, expressed the view that the insurgency in Iraq is likely to drag on for another five, ten, or fifteen years. Events may well show that Odierno is an optimist.

Given the embarrassing yet indisputable fact that this was an utterly needless war—no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction found, no ties between Saddam Hussein and the jihadists established, no democratic transformation of the Islamic world set in motion, no road to peace in Jerusalem discovered in downtown Baghdad—to describe Iraq as a success, and as a model for application elsewhere, is nothing short of obscene. The great unacknowledged lesson of Iraq is the one that Norman Mailer identified decades ago: “Fighting a war to fix something works about as good as going to a whorehouse to get rid of a clap.”

Spot is tempted to end for now on that pithy note, and will, save to say that our invasion and occupation — well, maybe occupation is a little optimistic in describing the situation there now — has hardly solved the opium poppy growing problem in Afghanistan. It’s much worse.

More to follow.

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan,Iraq,General David McKiernan,Drug Enforcement Agency,opium poppies

The mephitic vapors

Is what conservatives have got over ACORN, an organization that does a lot of good things, had a few — yes, a few — employees and agents make some serious mistakes, but Spot is tired of liberals and progressives, including members of Congress, running away from the organization. The indefatigable Robert Greenwald did a little video of the smear on ACORN. It’s worth a watch.

Technorati Tags: ACORN,mephitic vapors,Robert Greenwald

Drinking Liberally on October 29th (tomorrow night)

Don’t forget DL tomorrow night: six to nine at the 331 Club in Northeast Minneapolis. We don’t have a guest scheduled, but you can wear your Halloween finery if you like.

Technorati Tags: Drinking Liberally,331 Club

Isn’t that Five Mile Rock dead ahead, sir?

Never mind, sailor; steady as she goes.

Captain Fishsticks has a new command, guiding the H.M.S. Pat Anderson through the media shoals in her quest for the Republican endorsement for governor. The Captain’s unwavering adherence to libertarian principle, like a course line laid out on a chart, and irrespective of where the ship is really going, will serve the Anderson well.

Technorati Tags: Craig Westover,Pat Anderson,dead reckoning

Civil liberties 1, Katie 0, part two

In a comment to Spot’s earlier post on the subject of the settlement of the flying imams’ lawsuit against the MAC and Katherine Kersten’s bilious reaction to it, MNO wrote about the procedural posture of the case at the time of the settlement. The “procedural posture” of a case sounds arcane and boring, but as MNO points out, it is critical in understanding what a judge’s ruling means: its context.

The ruling that Katie is so exercised about was a ruling on the defendants’ motion for a summary judgment, arguing, in effect, that the flying imams didn’t have a case worthy of taking to trial. You can read Judge Montgomery’s 47 page “arrogance,” to use Katie’s term, at the link. Here’s Eric Black’s description of the import of the judge’s ruling, a description that Spot cannot improve upon, so he will just quote:

The big break that led to the settlement was probably the opinion, written by federal Judge Ann Montgomery of Minneapolis in July, rejecting the MAC's motion for summary judgment. Summary judgment (which is a way of getting a lawsuit dismissed) is often rejected. Turning down a summary judgment motion only means that the case can proceed toward trial. So losing a summary judgment motion didn't mean that the Imams were going to win their case.

But the strength and clarity of Montgomery's opinion surely alerted the defendants that they were in a world of trouble if the case reached trial. So I'm basing my analysis of the case heavily on the Montgomery ruling, which has the advantage of being based on actual sworn depositions of witnesses, and filtering a lot of things that turned out not to be true. [italics are Spot’s]

It really is a shame that the judge made her decision based on that voluminous record that Katie refers to, instead of wild accusations and rumors propagated by people like, well, Katie. Katie refers specifically to the judges “47 page opinion” in her column Sunday, so we can presume that it was available to her to read. You are encouraged to read the opinion, boys and girls, but let’s look at the claims made by Katie on Sunday and Eric Black’s discussion of them (although he was not writing in at least direct rebuttal to Katie):

“unnecessarily requesting seat-belt extenders that could be used as weapons”

But Montgomery found -- based on undisputed testimony -- that only two of the imams had requested the extenders, and both of them were large men for whom the request should not have seemed particularly strange.

“changing seats into a so-called 9/11 pattern”

Once they boarded, the imams mostly did not sit together. One of the imams was blind, and one of the others asked a passenger to trade seats so he could accompany the blind man. The rest of them were seated all around the plane, one in first class, the rest in coach.

In the early news reports, this seating pattern was listed as another ground for suspicion. I recall reading that the imams were occupying the exit rows (which, I recall, was another moment when I wondered whether there was something suspicious going on).

But the evidence showed that only one of the six men was seated in an exit row, which had been assigned to him by the airline. Except for the one who had traded to sit with his blind colleague, all of them were sitting in the seats they had been assigned by the airline. The one in first class was up there because of his frequent flier status. The airline, of course, had all this information. Again, the "suspicious" seating pattern kind of goes away once you know these facts.

“chanting "Allah, Allah" when boarding was called”

In keeping with the religious requirements of devout Muslims, three of the imams prayed in the airport, in the empty gate next to the departure gate. They knelt, prostrated themselves and chanted. It was mentioned by those who reported the imams to the flight crew that they prayed "loudly" and were heard to chant "Allah, Allah."

This clearly was a key point at which some of the non-Muslim passengers began to notice the men and to get nervous. But ask yourself whether Muslims praying to Allah, loudly or softly, could be taken as evidence that they were planning to commit a crime. Wrote Montgomery:

Plaintiffs’ Middle Eastern descent does not change the analysis. Similar behavior by Russian Orthodox priests or Franciscan monks would likely not have elicited this response."

“cursing the United States and its conflict with Saddam Hussein”

The last basis for the suspicions was the claim of one passenger that "the men talked about Saddam Hussein, U.S. involvement in Iraq, and cursed about the United States." The imams have denied that they made any such remarks. [italics are Spot’s] So that's the only key evidentiary point in dispute. Under the rules for a summary judgment motion, Montgomery had to assume the truth of the facts most favorable to the non-moving party -- that is, to the imams (since this was a motion for summary judgment brought by the defendants in the case. But she found that it really made little difference whether the imams had made the remarks or not. In her ruling, Montgomery wrote:

Commenting on current events, and even criticizing governmental policy is protected speech under the First Amendment. It cannot be taken as a crime and should not be used as probable cause for an arrest.

There was no evidence at all in the record for three of the four allegations that Katie made. None. There was disputed evidence for the fourth, not that it really matters.

Remember, Katie wrote her poison last week; the judge’s decision has been available for at least a few months. You may be absolutely sure, boys and girls, that if there was any evidence supporting the claims that Katie makes, it would have been in the record. The defendants beat the bushes for a couple of years trying to come up with evidence to justify their conduct.

Katherine Kersten’s column last Sunday stands as monumental irresponsibility for a columnist, a journalist, or a former member of the bar.

Update: Almost forgot; a thump of the tail to Mark Gislason at Norwegianity for the Eric Black link.

Technorati Tags: Katherine Kersten,flying imams,Eric Black,Judge Ann Mongtomery,summary judgment motions,probable cause,reasonable suspicion

Riding the train to Damascus

Alternate title: Gettin’ your ticket from Saul

George Will’s puff piece in the Strib about Michele Bachmann contains all the stuff we’ve heard before: the accidental politician who went to a caucus on the spur of the moment and was drafted to run for office, raising a gaggle of foster kids, being Gretchen Carlson’s nanny, etc. But there was one thing that Spot hadn’t heard before:

Born in Iowa but a Minnesotan by age 12, Bachmann acquired what she calls "her family's Hubert Humphrey knee-jerk liberalism." She and her husband danced at Jimmy Carter's inauguration. Shortly thereafter, however, she was riding on a train and reading Gore Vidal's novel "Burr," which is suffused with that author's jaundiced view of America. "I set the book down on my lap, looked out the window and thought: That's not the America I know." She volunteered for Reagan in 1980.

Takin’ the train to conservatism

Bachmann says she read a novel about early nineteenth-century America and concludes it’s not the American she knows? And it turns her on her head politically?

Pray for the Republic, boys and girls. If this is how the avatar for the Republican base determines her political philosophy, we’re all in a helluva lot of trouble.

George Will’s well known antipathy toward Gore Vidal is really the only explanation for why that story could possibly ring true to Will.

Technorati Tags: Michele Bachmann,George Will,Saul,road to Damascus,conservatism,Gore Vidal,Burr

The top of the heap, indeed

Sally Jo Sorensen at Bluestem Prairie has been doing some digging on a guy named Samuel Johnson and the neo-Nazi group he heads in Austin, Minnesota. Apparently, Johnson’s trying to use anti-immigration sentiment in southern Minnesota to gain a foothold for other issues of the so-called “National Socialist Movement.” Among other things, he wants all non-whites to leave — or be “escorted” out — of the country, or at least just live in their own sanctioned ghettos. Kind of like the Jews in Warsaw. It’s much easier to keep track of ‘em that way.

It is undoubtedly an irony lost on Herr Oberführer Johnson that a lot of non-whites have an American history a lot longer than perhaps his probable early-twentieth century Swedish immigrant ancestors.

The thing that absolute astonishes Spot, though, is that guys who think they are the crème de la crème, humankind’s zenith, the top of the heap genetically, so often look like this:

Technorati Tags: neo-Nazi Samuel Johnson,National Socialist Movement,anti-immigration,Bluestem Prairie,Sally Jo Sorensen

Civil liberties 1, Katie 0

Alternate title: The taste of crow, unsalted

Ken Avidor graphic

In a column that Spot hopes was therapeutic for Katherine Kersten, she bellows and roars about the vindication of the flying imams where it really matters, in court:

The "flying imams" and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) are declaring victory in their legal war against law-enforcement personnel and safety procedures at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Their "victory" -- aided and abetted by a judge arrogantly dismissive of law-enforcement realities -- is a major setback for transportation safety.

The case made news three years ago when the six imams were removed from a U.S. Airways jet after passengers and airline employees reported that the six were engaging in suspicious behavior, including changing seats into a so-called 9/11 pattern; cursing the United States and its conflict with Saddam Hussein; chanting "Allah, Allah" when boarding was called, and unnecessarily requesting seat-belt extenders that could be used as weapons.

Katie was “all imams all the time” for months after the incident occurred.

This is remarkable writing, boys and girls. In the span of two short paragraphs, Katie manages to defame a federal judge and make misleading statements about the law so as to confuse some of the dimmer bulbs who read the Strib even further about the case. Doubt it? Just read some of the comments to Katie’s column about “liberal” and “Clinton” judges.

Every search, seizure, or arrest without a warrant that ends in litigation has a judge passing on the conduct of law enforcement authorities that took place at the time. There is no way to avoid that unless you are willing to cede unlimited authority to the police. Spot doesn’t know about you, boys and girls, but he doesn’t think that’s a very good idea.

If you don’t have the courts cutting through whatever hysteria is afoot at the moment, what do you get? Well, you might get police officers citing motorists for not speaking English as was done in Dallas. Come to think of it, some of Katie’s commenters are probably okay with that, too. But probable cause or suspicion justifying a stop has to be in the eyes of reasonable people, not the xenophobics.

In passing on the conduct of law enforcement officers, though, the court does not Monday-morning quarterback or operate on the basis of hindsight. In determining whether a stop or an arrest was justified, the court focuses solely on what the officer knew, or should have reasonably known, at the time of the incident.

Of course there was a substantial record amassed in discovery proceedings: there were lots of witnesses, but it was all directed to the issue of what was the picture presented to the officers at the time to determine whether their warrantless action was justified by exigent circumstances. Katie’s remarks are either contemptibly disingenuous or remarkably ignorant on this point.

The same can be said of her remarks about Judge Ann Montgomery. Spot assures you, boys and girls, that Judge Montgomery is not arrogant. Certainly not compared to some wing nut columnists that we might mention.

Technorati Tags: Katherine Kersten,flying imams,probable cause,reasonable suspicion,xenophobics,Judge Ann Mongtomery,warrantless arrests

Pray, but watch the capital reserves!

From the Strib:

Riverview Community Bank, an Otsego firm that attracted national media attention several years ago for espousing prayer in the workplace, has been shut down by state regulators.

The six-year-old bank, which has $108 million in assets and branches in Otsego and Anoka, was an aggressive real estate lender, once boasting the fourth-highest concentration of real estate loans-to-capital among community banks in the state. The bank was hard hit by the wave of foreclosures that began hitting Wright County in mid-2007.

The photo, incidentally, is of a painting that hung in the bank. (Can’t find the TwitterPic link at the moment.) It will be interesting to see what the bank’s new owners will do with the painting. Look for it on eBay; it may have value some day as a piece of painful early twenty-first century kitsch.

No word yet on whether Katherine Kersten will claim that the act of the FDIC in shuttering the bank was a denial of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause rights of the bank owners.

There is religion, and then there is creepy magical thinking. Jesus shaking hands in a bank office falls on the creepy magical thinking end of the spectrum, that’s for sure. On a par with basketball Jesus or karate Jesus. Or, sweet Jesus, NASCAR Jesus.

A thump of the tail to NIck Coleman for calling Spot’s attention to the painting.

Technorati Tags: Riverside Community Bank,creepy magical thinking

Pssst! Admiral!

Congratulations! You came up with yesterday's most unintentional hilarious headline of the day:

Former Nixon Staffer Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) Warns Obama About An ‘Enemies List’

More on the Nixon enemies list - one that actually existed - here.

Technorati Tags: Nixon elemies list,Sen. Lamar Alexander

They can dish it out, but they can’t take it

Fox “News” that is. That band of pikers, scrubs, and mokes apparently thought they could slander and pander for the entire Obama Administration and not suffer any blowback. Remember, the First Amendment says we’ll have a free press, not a free shot press.

The rest of this post will rely some on Driftglass, who wrote recently the following about Chris Wallace and the Fox sack cloth and ashes routine over some payback from the Obama Administration:

Then came 15 minutes of ominous organ music and inconsolable weeping as Karl Fucking Rove whined about how unfair the White House was being to po' po' Fox News, and how Nixonian it was for a White House to target members of the press:
Of course...

A. Fox is not the press. Fox is a wingnut whorehouse. And,
B. My what short memories the droolers have. From 2003, Slate:

At his televised news conference last week, President George W. Bush deliberately snubbed several reporters he ordinarily calls upon, including journos from the Washington Post, Newsweek, and USA Today. But the most conspicuous recipient of the 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. freeze-out was longtime UPI reporter Helen Thomas, who has barbed and grilled every president since John F. Kennedy and almost always gets to ask a question. Bush pointedly ignored her.

Bush then dealt Thomas a second slight. By custom, Thomas concludes White House press conferences at the president's signal by saying, "Thank you, Mr. President." Bush denied her that supporting role, ending the conference with his own sign off, "Thank you for your questions," and flushing a decades-old White House custom.

Bush's slaps at Thomas are consistent with the psy-ops his information wranglers conduct day-in and day-out on the White House press corps. Bush's news conferences have become increasingly scripted, with the president calling on reporters from a preset list and refusing the follow-up questions that might trick him into saying something substantive. Press Secretary Ari Fleischer has lobotomized the White House press corps in official briefings by jawing more and more and saying less and less. (The smarter reporters play hooky these days rather than endure Fleischer obfuscations.) Last October, Fleischer maliciously tampered with the corps' self-esteem by reassigning seats in the briefing room. The new chart demoted scribes from Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report from the Park Place of the second row to the Siberia of the sixth. (Pressies live for their little perks, and the White House reporters revealed their Ted Baxterian pettiness for all to see when they bellyached about the reshuffle.)
...

Rove and Chris Wallace were joined in their quarter hour of mutual self-pitying masturbation about Barack Hussein Obama not bending a knee to the House of Murdoch by Former Democratic National Committee Chairman and political wind-sock, the ever-flexible Terry McAuliffe.

Rove: Obama called Fox News an enemy. He’s just like Nixon!
McAuliffe: Glenn Beck called this President a racist.

Chris Wallace tugs McAuliffe’s leash.

McAuliffe: Fox does opinion stuff. President Obama gets that.

Nice that McAuliffe is now an official confidante of the President.

Wallace: But last year, during the primary, you kissed Fox News’ ass. Lets roll the video.

Video of McAuliffe sucking hard on Roger Ailes’ wizened swizzle thanking Fox News for cozying up to Hillary Clinton.

McAuliffe: But you have to remember, Chris, that I am a huge whore. I’ll knob anybody who pays me.
Wallace: ABC went after Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky happy-fun time, so just because we call Barack Obama an uppity Commie Negro usurper, don’t you think its unfair that he won’t come on our little teevee tree fort?
McAuliffe: It was a different time back then. Mastodons walked the Earth. Nightline didn’t suck.
Wallace: With all due respect, you’re not an administration official.
McAuliffe: Obama’ll come on Fox. He’ll be on your show.
McAuliffe: Karl?
Rove: I’d rather not interrupt Terry as he wallows in his own shit begging to fill the Fox News Susan Estrich Boozy Fake Liberal Chair.
Wallace: What about House? House is on Fox? And Homer Simpson? Are you calling House and Homer Simpson un-American?
McAuliffe: Please can I have my wine now?

Driftglass also said this about the Fox New effect in an earlier post:

There is virtually no problem in American politics that does not trace its origins to the fact that the frontal lobes of the Land of the Free have spent the last 13 years being bludgeoned by Rupert Murdoch's Fox New.

Driftglass quotes Jacob Weisberg in Newsweek:

Any news organization that took its responsibilities seriously would take pains to cover presidential criticism fairly. It would regard doing so as itself a test of integrity. At Fox, by contrast, complaints of unfairness prompt only hoots of derision and demands for "evidence" that, when presented, is brushed off and ignored.

There is no need to get bogged down in this phony debate, which itself constitutes an abuse of the fair-mindedness of the rest of the media. One glance at Fox's Web site or five minutes' random viewing of the channel at any hour of the day demonstrates its all-pervasive slant. The lefty documentary Outfoxed spent a lot of time mustering evidence that Fox managers order reporters to take the Republican side. But after 13 years under Roger Ailes, Fox employees skew news right as instinctively as fish swim.

Boys and girls, if you need any further evidence that Fox is strictly bush league [Spot hesitates for a moment, trying to decide whether to work the pun, then moves on], consider that the network’s premiere baseball announcing team is Joe Buck (Joe Buck is to Jack Buck as Chris Wallace is to Mike Wallace) and Tim McCarver.

Technorati Tags: Fox News,Barack Obama,Chris Wallace,Karl Rove,Driftglass,Jacob Weisberg,Joe Buck,Tim McCarver

No guest scheduled for DL: come and drink

We don’t have a guest scheduled tonight, the 22nd, so if you like quiet conversation and libation, tonight’s the night for you. There will be lots of things to talk about.

We meet six to nine or so at the 331 Club in Northeast Minneapolis.

Technorati Tags: Drinking Liberally,331 Club