Category: Justice

More Foreign Worker Visa Fraud

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It turns out that notorious software off shoring operation Infosys decided at some point that cheating H1b visa fraud was too damn much time and money so they have become more inventive:

In a case that threatens to scald Infosys in the North American market, from where it gets over 60% of its revenues, and intensify the debate on outsourcing in the US, Jack Palmer said the company was circumventing H-1B visa rules by sending low-level and unskilled employees to the US on B1 visas instead.

H-1B visas, which are needed to send employees to work in the US, have become more expensive and harder to get than B1 visas that are only meant for meeting, conferences and business negotiations. Palmer, who has been working with the company since 2008, further said that Infosys managers in the US were intentionally committing fraud to avoid paying taxes locally and that the company mistreated him when he filed a complaint as part of the whistleblower policy.

Outsourcing has been an inflammable issue in the US as it continues to struggle with high unemployment. The Indian IT services have often been accused of taking away American jobs to cheaper destinations. This anti-outsourcing sentiment has also resulted in visa norms becoming more stringent in the past few years.

This raises an interesting point.

My solution to H1b visa abuse, it’s largely used to bring in cheap labor and depress wages, is to raise the cost of the application and permitting process, but obviously this would tend to drive exactly this sort of fraud.

I’m beginning to think a bounty program, with people who rat out their employers getting 3 to 5 year work permits, might be the most effective way to deal with enforcing the laws.

H/t Naked Capitalism.

Crap

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A federal appeals court has overturned a lower court ruling and ruled that patents of genes are legal:

A federal appeals court affirmed the right of Myriad Genetics to patent two genes linked to breast cancer, overturning a lower court ruling that threatened a key element of the biotech business.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a ruling on Friday backed Myriad’s right to patent two “isolated” human genes — BRCA1 and BRCA2 — that account for most inherited forms of breast and ovarian cancers.

………

The appeals court said the genes isolated by the company can be patented because Myriad is testing for distinctive chemical forms of the genes, and not as they appear naturally in the body.

One member of the three-judge appellate panel dissented, saying that despite Myriad’s process of isolating a human gene it still could not be patented.

………

The appeals court also said that Myriad’s method for screening potential therapies was patentable.

The judges did, however, agree with the district court that Myriad’s method of analyzing DNA sequences did not involve sufficient transformation, and thus could not be patented

I’m not surprised. This is the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, a body that was created specifically to rule on patents, and they, under the “when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” theory, are insanely pro patent.

How insanely pro patent? They are assuming patently false facts to justify their ruling:

Bruce Wexler, a patent expert at the law firm Paul Hastings, said the ruling means the appeals court has recognized that DNA takes on a different molecular structure when it is isolated and removed from the body.

“That is a very significant result that is very important to the biotech industry,” Wexler said.

This is scientific bullsh%$. DNA is DNA is DNA is DNA, whether in vivo or in vitro.

Here’s hoping that the Supreme Court or the full appeals court (unlikely, see my hammer nail argument), and it gets slapped down.

SCOTUS has issued a number of “what are you smoking?” rebukes of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit regarding patents over the past few years, so there is some hope, but such a ruling would be highly disruptive to the industry, and the Roberts court has been very pro-industry, so I think that it is a small one.

Background here.

I Said that the Ivins AnthraxEvidence was Tenuous………

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Lawyers at the Department of Justice have concluded that, notwithstanding the FBI’s claims to the contrary, there is absolutely no evidence that accused anthrax mailer Bruce Ivins had any access to equipment that would have had to be used to weapoonize the disease:

The Justice Department has called into question a key pillar of the FBI’s case against Bruce Ivins, the Army scientist accused of mailing the anthrax-laced letters that killed five people and terrorized Congress a decade ago.

………

Now, however, Justice Department lawyers have acknowledged in court papers that the sealed area in Ivins’ lab — the so-called hot suite — didn’t contain the equipment needed to turn liquid anthrax into the refined powder that floated through congressional buildings and post offices in the fall of 2001.

The government said it continued to believe that Ivins was “more likely than not” the killer. But the filing in a Florida court didn’t explain where or how Ivins could have made the powder, saying only that his secure lab “did not have the specialized equipment . . . that would be required to prepare the dried spore preparations that were used in the letters.”

The government’s statements deepen the questions about the case against Ivins, who killed himself before he was charged with a crime. Searches of his car and home in 2007 found no anthrax spores, and the FBI’s eight-year, $100 million investigation never provided direct evidence that he mailed the letters or identified another location where he might have secretly dried the anthrax into an easily inhaled powder.

Earlier this year, a report by the National Academy of Sciences questioned the genetic analysis that had linked a flask of anthrax stored in Ivins’ office to the anthrax in the letters.

I’ve always felt that the FBI was more interested in finding some guy than they were interested in finding the guy, and from that perspective.

In fact I think that Ivins’ suicide was an implicit goal of their tactics, which appears to have been a desired outcome for the FBI (they went out of their way to, for example, alienate and terrify his therapist), because dead men don’t defend themselves.

It makes it easier to close the case.

Background here.

Two More Heads Roll at Newscorp

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Rebckah Brooks and Les Hinton are the last to to exit:

Two key lieutenants in Rupert Murdoch’s media empire resigned Friday as a widening scandal involving illegal phone hacking by Murdoch’s British newspaper journalists continued to engulf his company.

Leslie “Les” Hinton, head of Dow Jones & Co., the division of Murdoch’s News Corp. that owns the Wall Street Journal, resigned late in the day, providing a bookend to the morning resignation of Rebekah Brooks, the executive in charge of the company’s British newspaper unit.

Hinton, who had been in Murdoch’s employ for more than 50 years, and Brooks are key figures in the still-unfolding scandal. Hinton oversaw News Corp.’s British newspapers when one of its papers, the News of the World, began to pry into the phone accounts of hundreds of British celebrities, politicians and ordinary citizens. Brooks was editor of the News of the World at the time and succeeded Hinton as chief of the British unit, News International.

Murdoch, and his family are out at Newscorp, they just don’t know it yet.

Basically what is going on is, to paraphrase Norman Schwarzkopf, is that, “First we’re going to cut it off, and then we’re going to kill it.”

We are seeing the systematic removal their support structure, and they will be removed from the running of the media conglomerate.

Not a Good Day for Murdoch

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A Bit of Fry and Laurie have Murdoch pegged

First, he and his son try to blow off a summons to testify before Parliament, only to back down when threatened with jail time:

A threat of imprisonment by parliament forced Rupert Murdoch and his son James to perform a volte face and agree to give evidence next week to a Commons committee investigating why News International executives provided false information to MPs.

Hours after the parliamentary authorities delivered a summons by hand to the two Murdochs, News International announced that father and son would accept an invitation to appear before the Commons culture select committee next Tuesday.

Additionally, the FBI has initiated an investigation of potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act as possibly hacking the phones of 911 victim’s families.

It couldn’t be happening to a more deserving group of people.

The Newscorp Scandal is Exploding

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It’s not just News of the World it’s the Times of London, specifically the Sunday Times, which hacked personal records of Gordon Brown, including financial records, legal records, and the medical records of his child with Cystic Fibrosis:

Journalists from across News International repeatedly targeted the former prime minister Gordon Brown, attempting to access his voicemail and obtaining information from his bank account and legal file as well as his family’s medical records.

There is also evidence that a private investigator used a serving police officer to trawl the police national computer for information about him. That investigator also targeted another Labour MP who was the subject of hostile inquiries by the News of the World, but it is not confirmed whether News International was specifically involved in trawling police computers for information on Brown.

Separately, Brown’s tax paperwork was taken from his accountant’s office apparently by hacking into the firm’s computer. This was passed to another newspaper.

Additionally, we now have a retired New York City Police officer who has, “alleged he was contacted by News of the World journalists who said they would pay him to retrieve the private phone records of the dead.”

Much of Murdoch’s power comes from the fear that he inspires in authorities, and now that seems to be falling away, and the next few weeks should get very interesting.

When Liberal Policies Save Money

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Philadelphia, PA effectively decriminalized possession of small quantities of marijuana and saved big bucks in the process:

Just over a year ago, the powers that be in Philadelphia effectively decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana by offering offenders the chance to enroll in a three-hour class that would expunge the offense from their records. Not only did this give Philadelphia police more time and energy to focus on more serious crimes, it has also saved the city a pretty sizable Ziploc bag of green stuff.

“We were spending thousands of dollars for when someone possessed $10 or $15 worth of weed,” District Attorney Seth Williams tells the Philadelphia Daily News. “It just didn’t make any sense.”

Under the program, being caught with up to 30 grams of marijuana is no longer a misdemeanor but a summary offense. By simply paying $200 to attend the three-hour class on the ills of drug use and abuse, the arrestee’s record is wiped clean of the offense.

Before this change, offenders faced up to $500 in fines and possible, though unlikely jail time. If the suspect fought the charges, this meant expenses for the city — prosecutors, judges, lab tests, public defenders, etc. By all but decriminalizing pot, Williams estimates that the city has saved $2 million in the last 12 months.

Additionally, police tell the News that there has been no noticeable impact on the quality of life in Philadelphia since the program went into effect.

No big surprise.

When the DA notes that, “The current way most U.S. authorities treat drug possession is shortsighted,” he ain’t kidding.

If I were a governor, this would be the first place that I would balance the budget.

Which Murdoch Is Going to Jail

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Because it has been discovered that Newscorp systematically wiped its email archives of everything relating to their phone hacking activities, which pretty much had to had the assent of James, and probably Rupert, Murdoch:

Police are investigating evidence that a News International executive may have deleted millions of emails from an internal archive in an apparent attempt to obstruct Scotland Yard’s inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal.

The archive is believed to have reached back to January 2005, revealing daily contact between News of the World editors, reporters and outsiders, including private investigators. The messages are potentially highly valuable both for the police and for the numerous public figures who are suing News International (NI).

According to legal sources close to the police inquiry, a senior executive is believed to have deleted “massive quantities” of the archive on two separate occasions, leaving only a fraction to be disclosed. One of the alleged deletions is said to have been made at the end of January, just as Scotland Yard was launching Operation Weeting, its new inquiry into the affair. The allegation directly contradicts NI claims that it is co-operating fully with police in order to expose its history of illegal newsgathering.

The alleged deletion of emails will be of particular interest to the media regulator Ofcom, which said it had asked to be “kept abreast” of developments in the Met’s hacking investigation, so it can assess whether News Corp would pass the “fit and proper” test that all owners of UK television channels have to meet.

So now we have a fairly clear case of obstruction of justice and most, if not all, of the information that was deleted is still likely squirreled away in the system where it can be found with a extensive investigation.

I cannot imagine that this did not go on without the explicit approval of one of the Murdochs.

Rupert Murdoch Craps His Pants

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H/t Calculated Risk for the vid which puts everything in context nicely

In response to revalations that his one of Newscorp’s paper, News of the World, had hacked voice mails of dead soldiers’ families and a missing girl (later found to be murdered), Rupert Murdoch has decided to shutter the 168 year old tabloid:

Beset by a widening phone-hacking scandal, media mogul Rupert Murdoch pulled the plug Thursday on his News of the World, Britain’s best-selling weekly tabloid newspaper, which will shut down after publishing Sunday’s issue.

In a surprise announcement to the paper’s staff, James Murdoch, a top executive of the tabloid’s parent company and son of Rupert Murdoch, said the July 10 paper “will be the last issue of the News of the World.”

The feisty, hugely profitable paper, which has been continuously published for 168 years, “has a proud history of fighting crime, exposing wrong-doing and regularly setting the news agenda for the nation,” James Murdoch said. But those attributes “have been sullied by behavior that was wrong,” he said. “Indeed, if recent allegations are true, it was inhuman and has no place in our company. The News of the World is in the business of holding others to account. But it failed when it came to itself.”

Referring to the phone-hacking scandal, the younger Murdoch, deputy chief operating officer of his father’s News Corp., said the newspaper “failed to get to the bottom of repeated wrongdoing that occurred without conscience or legitimate purpose.” He added, “Wrongdoers turned a good newsroom bad and this was not fully understood or adequately pursued.” He pledged that “those who acted wrongly will have to face the consequences.”

BTW, it’s not just 1 dead girl, it appears that they hacked the phones of parents of some other missing girls.

People have already been arrested, specifically Andy Coulson, former editor in chief of News of the World, and former communications director for British Prime Minister David Cameron, as well as Clive Goodman, their former royal editor, who has been arrested on this matter before.

Additionally, it appears that this scandal has queered the deal that Murdoch had to buy satellite TV provider BSkyB, for the near term at least.


Pass the Popcorn

That being said I don’t think that it’s the business repercussions that have Murdoch running scared, it’s the possibility that he finds it likely that he, son James, could shortly be working in the prison laundry next to Conrad Black.

Heh.

Appellate Court Reinstates Injunction Against “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”

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This is a good thing, since it appears that the Obama, in another example of moral cowardice, is slow walking this process.  What I like is the fact that they use the Obama DoJ’s words against them:

The government must stop enforcing the law that prohibits openly gay men, lesbians and bisexuals from serving in the military, a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday.

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a two-page order against the policy known as “don’t ask, don’t tell” in a case brought by the group Log Cabin Republicans.

…

Judges Alex Kozinski, Kim McLane Wardlaw and Richard A. Paez stated in their order that “circumstances and balance of hardships had changed” since their initial ruling: the Obama administration had informed the court that repeal of the policy was “well under way,” and in a filing in another case on July 1, the Department of Justice took the position that discrimination based on sexual orientation should be subjected to tough scrutiny. The government, the judges wrote, “can no longer satisfy the demanding standard for issuance of a stay.”

The fact that the most conflicted Republicans in the nation are more proactive in pushing basic civil rights than the Obama administration.

Finally, a Lawsuit

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Two Michigan counties have filed lawsuits against many the GSEs accusing them of defrauding them of title transfer fees:

Two Michigan counties, Oakland and Ingham, are suing some of the biggest players in the mortgage industry for what one official called a “fraudulent conspiracy” to avoid paying state and county property transfer taxes.

Oakland County Treasurer Andy Meisner is suing mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in the nation’s first federal lawsuit seeking to recoup tax payments never paid on properties that were transferred several times during the height of and during the foreclosure crisis that has gripped the nation over the last few years,

“I do think it’s fraudulent and I do think there is strong evidence to suggest there has been fraud. I do think it is a fraudulent conspiracy,” Meisner said. “We are identfying the people involved and we are systematically working to hold them accountable.”

While Ingham County Register of Deeds Curtis Hertel Jr. would not go so far as to allege a “fraudulent conspiracy” he says that the aim of his lawsuit is to find out just how deep the malfeasance went.

“This is about getting to the truth,” Hertel said Wednesday, standing in front of one of the many foreclosed and empty houses in the city of Lansing. “I believe the crisis has been further exacerbated by a systematic attempt to avoid state transfer taxes in my office.”

Gee, you think?

Not that this lawsuit is only against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and does not reference the fraudulent (at least on a transfer tax basis) conveyances that were done through MERS, which should be at the top of the list, because, as Willie Sutton said, “It’s where the money is.”

In the case of Fannie and Freddie, they are claiming that they are exempt because they are government agencies (they are not), and because there is statute exempting them (I cannot find one).

H/t Naked Capitalism.

And the Wisconsin Supreme Court Gets Weirder and Weirder………

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This is technically assault

Now it appears that Republicans on the court wanted to proceed with an official photograph session before reporting anything to the capitol police:

In the wake of a physical altercation between two state Supreme Court justices, several of the judges discussed whether a planned photo session for the court should take priority over a meeting with the Capitol police chief.

The email exchange among all the justices came late in the afternoon on June 14, one day after the incident between Justices Ann Walsh Bradley and David Prosser. The emails were released to the Journal Sentinel first by Prosser and then by Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson after a request was made to each justice under the open records law.
The response to the request for Abrahamson’s emails also suggests that she had considered putting out a public statement in response to the incident but did not release it.
Bradley told the Journal Sentinel that in the June 13 incident Prosser put his hands around her neck in what she called a “chokehold.” Prosser has said other accounts quoting anonymous sources would be proved false, but he has not directly responded to Bradley’s description of the incident.

So, one side says that Prosser put her in a choke hold, and the other says that she attacked his hands with her throat. (Which one sounds more credible to you, particularly since Prosser called the Chief Justice a “bitch” whom he would “destroy”)

It gets weirder, because Prosser assaulted a reporter asking him about the matter, by grabbing a microphone out of his hands (yes, it is assault). (See vid)

Prosser is not presenting the image of a person who is in control of his behavior.

H/t TPM (also here) .

Well, the DoJ is Saying that it Might Investigate Torturing People to Death

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Of the 101 cases that special prosecutor John Durham investigated, he referred just 2 to be considered for further investigation.

Both of them were murder by torture, out of the dozens of cases of murder by torture, and the hundreds (probably thousands) of cases of torture without a death being involved.

As Glenn Greenwald observes, it doesn’t matter, because the Obama administration has ruled out prosecuting anyone who authorized torture but did not actually physically conduct it themselves:

In August, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder — under continuous, aggressive prodding by the Obama White House — announced that three categories of individuals responsible for Bush-era torture crimes would be fully immunized from any form of criminal investigation and prosecution: (1) Bush officials who ordered the torture (Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld); (2) Bush lawyers who legally approved it (Yoo, Bybee, Levin), and (3) those in the CIA and the military who tortured within the confines of the permission slips they were given by those officials and lawyers (i.e., “good-faith” torturers). The one exception to this sweeping immunity was that low-level CIA agents and servicemembers who went so far beyond the torture permission slips as to basically commit brutal, unauthorized murder would be subject to a “preliminary review” to determine if a full investigation was warranted — in other words, the Abu Ghraib model of justice was being applied, where only low-ranking scapegoats would be subject to possible punishment while high-level officials would be protected.

Adam Serwer makes the obvious conclusion, that absent prosecution of those who authorized torture, it will happen again.

In the matter of crimes against humanity, of which torture is one, the cover-up is a crime as well, and it is ongoing, and so not (yet) subject to the statute of limitations, so I hope that some future Justice Department will take the time to criminally investigate the Obama administration on this.  (Unfortunately, this would almost certainly involve a Republican President)

Otherwise, torture is the law of the land right now.

Things are About to Get Interesting in Lebanon

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The UN Tribunal investigating the assassination of Rafik Hariri in 2005 has indicted 4 people, including 2 senior Hezbollah members:

A United Nations-backed tribunal investigating the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister delivered indictments to prosecutors here on Thursday, naming four men, including two suspected members of Hezbollah, in a six-year-old case that remade the country’s politics and unleashed years of discord.

The naming of members of Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim movement that is the most powerful actor here, was expected for months. But the indictments marked the beginning of a judicial process that could bring unprecedented pressure on the group and its ally Syria, which faces growing isolation over its crackdown on a nearly four-month uprising.

Although the statements of Lebanese leaders were restrained, details of the indictment could prove inflammatory in a country still deeply divided between Hezbollah and its allies, on the one hand, and a disparate group of its critics and opponents. Only the names were leaked; the details of the indictment, so far, remain secret.

“It’s the beginning of something big, not small,” said Paul Salem, the director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. But, he added: “Names without a story doesn’t have much impact. If the public comes to see there’s massive evidence of a terrible story, that will have a big public impact by itself, but that hasn’t happened yet.”

According to legal experts, Lebanon has 30 days to serve the arrest warrants. If the suspects are not arrested in that time, the tribunal will make the indictments public and summon the suspects to court.

The facts of the case are no surprise, Hezbollah, and Syria’s, finger prints are all over this, but the formal indictment certainly complicates things.

I’m Calling a Political Hit By Sarko

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As you may have heard, Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been released on his own recognizance for the rape charges against him:

The sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn is on the verge of collapse as investigators have uncovered major holes in the credibility of the housekeeper who charged that he attacked her in his Manhattan hotel suite in May, according to two well-placed law enforcement officials.

Although forensic tests found unambiguous evidence of a sexual encounter between Mr. Strauss-Kahn, a French politician, and the woman, prosecutors now do not believe much of what the accuser has told them about the circumstances or about herself.

Since her initial allegation on May 14, the accuser has repeatedly lied, one of the law enforcement officials said.

Senior prosecutors met with lawyers for Mr. Strauss-Kahn on Thursday and provided details about their findings, and the parties are discussing whether to dismiss the felony charges. Among the discoveries, one of the officials said, are issues involving the asylum application of the 32-year-old housekeeper, who is Guinean, and possible links to people involved in criminal activities, including drug dealing and money laundering.

What prosecutors have discovered is that:

  • She had a phone conversation with a friend, who is in prison pending drug dealing charges, discussing the financial benefits of pursuing the case.
  • She appears to have lied about a gang rape on her asylum application.
  • She appears to have been used in, or participated in, some manner to launder cash and cell phones for her fiance’s operations. 

Seeing as how DSK was the leading Socialist candidate for the French presidency, and Nicolas Sarkosy is as about as popular as a case of the clap, I’m wondering if this wasn’t some sort of setup arranged by Sarkosy or his allies.

I don’t think that Sarko can make himself popular, but he could create a situation in which a contested primary by the Socialists could create disarray in the party* which could be used to his electoral advantage.

Google™ Analytics™ says that I do have an occasional reader from France, and I would love to hear their take on this.

*In fact, one could consider disarray to be the natural state of the Socialist party.

Judge Enjoins Kansas Defacto Abortion Ban

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Maddow has been on this like white on rice

Kansas just passed a series of regulations that closed down the 3 abortion clinics in the state.

Following the adoption of the regulations, which included things like the size of janitors closets (!), the clinics had about a week to comply:

After deliberating about an hour, U.S District Judge Carlos Murguia issued an order late this afternoon blocking new Kansas licensing regulations for abortion clinics.

The temporary restraining order was sought by two Kansas City area abortion clinics that had been denied licenses under rules that took effect today. It will be in effect until a later court decision on the issue.

…

They contend that the licensing process was an organized and deliberate attempt by Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration to shut down abortion clinics in Kansas.

…

Brownback, a staunch abortion opponent, signed the new licensing requirements into law along with three other new abortion restrictions approved by the Legislature this year.

Providers said the state didn’t send out the rules until after the close of business June 17, less than two weeks before the new licensing was scheduled to start. They said they didn’t receive the new regulations until the following Monday, June 20.

The compressed licensing process, coupled with the strict requirements, made it impossible to meet the law, they argued in their legal filings.

Six days after Aid for Women applied for a license, the state said it wouldn’t grant one based on its application alone, the clinic’s complaint said. At no point, the clinic contends, did regulators discuss why they denied the license or what corrective measures might be undertaken.

The clinic argued that the Kansas Department of Health and Environment had no factual basis for the denial because it hadn’t even inspected the clinic.

One of the things that the above article does not mention, and Rachel Maddow does, (at about 5:30 in the video) is that, in addition to banning abortion clinics, the new regulations allow Kansas authorities do have access to people’s medical records without a warrant.

So they take the records, and they will use those records to harass the patients.

We really need to understand that those who would criminalize abortion folks with a minor political difference whose feelings we should try to accommodate.

These are people who offer open and enthusiastic support to assassination and other forms of terrorism, and if we are to use material support statutes against Islamists, we should use them against them as well.

This is Weird, But Not Unexpected

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Wisconsin Supreme Court Judge David Prosser, after having admitted calling the Chief Justice of the court a “bitch”, and threatening to “destroy” her, with his excuse being that she was, after all a bitch”, and now he is alleged to have choked a fellow justice:

Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley late Saturday accused fellow Justice David Prosser of putting her in a chokehold during a dispute in her office earlier this month.

“The facts are that I was demanding that he get out of my office and he put his hands around my neck in anger in a chokehold,” Bradley told the Journal Sentinel.

Sources told the Journal Sentinel two very different stories Saturday about what occurred. Some confirmed Bradley’s version. According to others, Bradley charged Prosser, who raised his hands to defend himself and made contact with her neck.

………

The conversation grew heated, and Bradley asked Prosser to leave. Bradley was bothered by disparaging remarks Prosser had made about Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, a source said.

Bradley felt Prosser “was attacking the chief justice,” the source said.

Before leaving, Prosser “put his hands around her neck in what (Bradley) described as a chokehold,” the source said.

“He did not exert any pressure, but his hands were around her neck,” the source said.

The source said the act “was in no way playful.”

But another source told the Journal Sentinel that Bradley attacked Prosser.

“She charged him with fists raised,” the source said.

Prosser “put his hands in a defensive posture,” the source said. “He blocked her.”

In doing so, the source said, he made contact with Bradley’s neck.

It’s telling that Bradley has public with her statements, and Prosser is using proxies to put forward his story, which is pretty much of a repeat of his “the bitch had it coming” defense.

I know, yadda yadda yadda, innocent until proven guilty, but his defense seems particularly lame, particularly given his admittedly unprofessional and abusive behavior, I’m disinclined do believe the report that he choked her in self defense, though I’m sure we’ll be seeing that all through the right wing media.

I Know That I Should Not Feel Good About This, But I Do

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Corporate crook and right wing newspaper magnate Conrad Black has been sent back to prison:

After nearly a year of fighting to remain free, Conrad M. Black is going back to prison.

Mr. Black, the onetime newspaper baron, received a new jail sentence on Friday from a federal judge in Chicago for his remaining convictions on charges that he defrauded his investors. Judge Amy St. Eve imposed a three-and-a-half-year sentence on Mr. Black, although prosecutors say he will get credit for the more than two years that he has already served in federal prison.

The resentencing of Mr. Black stems from a federal appeals court decision in October that upheld two of Mr. Black’s 2007 convictions, for mail fraud and obstruction of justice, even though it reversed two other convictions for fraud. Mr. Black had been out on bail since last summer pending the appeal.

You have to understand, this guy was not just a right winger with a chain of newspapers, he also strip mined the papers, axing reporters and journalistic quality, when he ran them, so I imagine that the only people out there happier about this than I am are current and former employees of the publications he used to manage.

Fortas Was Forced to Resign for Less Than Thomas Did

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Of course, the Nixon justice department was willing to threaten to file a bogus prosecution against his wife to grease the skids, but Clarence Thomas relationship with right wing real-estate developer, who bankrolled his charities and his wife’s lobbying job:

Clarence Thomas was here promoting his memoir a few years ago when he bumped into Algernon Varn, whose grandfather once ran a seafood cannery that employed Justice Thomas’s mother as a crab picker.

Mr. Varn lived at the old cannery site, a collection of crumbling buildings on a salt marsh just down the road from a sign heralding this remote coastal community outside Savannah as Justice Thomas’s birthplace. The justice asked about plans for the property, and Mr. Varn said he hoped it could be preserved.

“And Clarence said, ‘Well, I’ve got a friend I’m going to put you in touch with,’ ” Mr. Varn recalled, adding that he was later told by others not to identify the friend.

The publicity-shy friend turned out to be Harlan Crow, a Dallas real estate magnate and a major contributor to conservative causes. Mr. Crow stepped in to finance the multimillion-dollar purchase and restoration of the cannery, featuring a museum about the culture and history of Pin Point that has become a pet project of Justice Thomas’s.

The two men met in the mid-1990s, a few years after Justice Thomas joined the court. Since then, Mr. Crow has done many favors for the justice and his wife, Virginia, helping finance a Savannah library project dedicated to Justice Thomas, presenting him with a Bible that belonged to Frederick Douglass and reportedly providing $500,000 for Ms. Thomas to start a Tea Party-related group. They have also spent time together at gatherings of prominent Republicans and businesspeople at Mr. Crow’s Adirondacks estate and his camp in East Texas.

So he paid Thomas’ wife’s salary, set up a museum that is an homage to Clarence Thomas, and gave free access to his private jet, as well as gifting him a $19,000 bible, and putting him up at “retreats” (Want some more caviar with your Dom Perignon?) ……… Nothing to see here, move along.

And then there was a $15,000 gift from the American Enterprise Institute, a frequent amicus filer in Supreme Court cases ……… America, what a country.

BTW, some background on comparisons between Clarence Thomas and Abe Fortas here.

BTW, the point person in the House of Representatives on Thomas’ethical lapses was Anthony Weiner ……… Imagine that.