Category: Justice

New Mayor in Baltimore

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Sheila Dixon’s resignation as Mayor of Baltimore became effective yesterday, and she was sentenced to probation by the judge, while she was replaced by City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake as mayor.

As to my take on this: Dixon appeared to be an effective mayor, but she was always small scale corrupt, it seemed that every 2-3 years, you had her getting caught putting relatives on the payroll or steering work to firms that employed her friends and relatives.

As to Ms. Rawlings-Blake, she has always seemed kind of a non-entity, somebody who is where she was because her father, the late Howard “Pete” Rawlings, was a major power in Maryland politics.

Well, seeing as how we have what could be one of the largest blizzards on record for the area rolling in on us, she gets a baptism by fire.

Andrew Cuomo Sues Ken Lewis and Bank of America for Fraud

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Now that the SEC has settled with Bank of America over its misrepresentations, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is going after the bank for the same thing:

Former Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis was sued by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for defrauding investors and the government when buying Merrill Lynch & Co. The bank agreed to pay $150 million to settle a related lawsuit by U.S. regulators.

Cuomo also sued the bank’s former chief financial officer Joe Price and the bank itself for not disclosing about $16 billion in losses Merrill had incurred before it was bought by Bank of America in an effort to get the merger approved. Afterwards, Lewis demanded government bailout funds, Cuomo said.

“We believe the bank management understated the Merrill Lynch losses to shareholders, then they overstated their ability to terminate their agreement to secure $20 billion of TARP money, and that is just a fraud,” Cuomo said today at a telephone press conference. “Bank of America and its officials defrauded the government and the taxpayers at a very difficult time.”

Of note is the fact that Bank of America performed its due diligence on Merrill Lynch in only 25 yours, which, along with their firing of their general counsel when he suggested that there might be issues, does appear to indicate that something stinks here.

Another bit of weirdness is that while BoA had intended to buy a brokerage for some time, it wasn’t Merrill, at the board meeting in which the proposal was mooted, most of the board members thought that they would be purchasing Lehman:

When Bank of America Corp.’s board met to approve the acquisition of an investment bank on Sept. 15, 2008, members thought they were going to buy Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., not Merrill Lynch & Co., according to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

The bank bought Merrill after examining its books for just 25 hours, Cuomo claimed. Shareholders approved the deal Dec. 5, 2008. The acquisition closed Jan. 1, 2009, after Merrill losses had increased by billions of dollars, a change the bank didn’t disclose before the shareholder vote, Cuomo said.

“It’s the way we approved acquisitions that ticks me off the most!!!” director Chad Gifford later wrote in an e-mail about the last-minute switch, according to a securities-fraud complaint Cuomo filed today in New York against the bank, former Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis and ex-Chief Financial Officer Joe Price over their handling of the Merrill deal.

E-mails and written notes that were gathered by Cuomo for his investigation of the matter show personal reactions of executives as they learned of Merrill’s rising losses, which reached $16 billion before taxes by December 2008. They also show Merrill kept Price informed of the losses as they grew, yet he resisted pressure from his lawyers to disclose them to shareholders.

“Read and weep,” wrote Bank of America accounting officer Neil Cotty to Price on Nov. 4, 2008, when Merrill’s financial reporting unit forwarded preliminary October results with a loss of $6 billion. The merger documents had already gone out to shareholders. Five days later, the October loss was put at $7.5 billion before taxes.

I think that this was a deliberate scheme to get some more taxpayer money to do the deal, and I hope that Cuomo goes where the SEC did not, and throws Ken Lewis’ sorry ass in jail.

H/t Huffpo for the full complaint (90 pages, scrollable PDF window) after the break.


BoA_Complaint –

Formal Charges of Child Kidnapping in Haiti

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Let’s be clear about this: There is sufficient evidence for formal charges to be filed against these “missionaries” attempting to “rescue” the children.

Now that they have been officially charged with a crime that can result in 5-15 years in prison, we can see some truth seeking.

As I have said before, I think that they were kidnapping the children with the goal of raising them as Evangelical Christians, and so I welcome the fact that they have been charged.

There has been all to much in the way of prosecutorial discretion cutting in favor extremist religious fundamentalists, and the realization that they can charged, tried, and sent to jail when convicted makes for a good deterrent.

Much of the problem with violent religious extremists throughout the world has been an outgrowth of authorities ignoring the “little things”, because it is seen that their hearts are in the “right place”.

Anti-Abortion Terrorist Convicted of Murder

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The Jury deliberated only 37 minutes before convicting him of 1st degree murder, which means that they basically voted to convict while waiting to get into the jury room:

In a trial that never became the referendum on abortion that some abortion foes wanted, Scott Roeder, a 51-year-old airport shuttle driver, was convicted today of murdering George Tiller, one the nation’s few physicians who performed late-term abortions.

The jury of seven men and five women deliberated for only 37 minutes. Roeder faces life in prison after being convicted of first-degree murder.

Roeder also was convicted on two counts of aggravated assault for threatening to shoot church ushers Keith Martin and Gary Hoepner as he fled Reformation Lutheran Church after murdering Tiller.

This guy needs to be prosecuted under federal statutes too, and locked up under the most severe restrictions possible at the SuperMax until he breaks, and gives up his accomplices, because it’s clear that they wound him up, and pointed him at tiller.

More College Republican Bull Sh%$

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Remember James O’Keefe, he dressed up like a pimp, and got those videos of ACORN helping him and his “Ho” buying a whore house.

I believe that at the time, I thought that I didn’t have much to add, and besides, College Republican guerrilla theater bullsh%$ just wasn’t particularly interest, so I limited my self to the bill of attainder that Congress passed.

Well, James O’Keefe has now taken College Republican antics straight to the felony level, by attempting to wiretap the office of Senator Mary Landrieu with three friends, Joseph Basel, Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan.

They pretended to be phone repair guys, and they tried to tap phones, so it appears to be a clear case of, “entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony,” which can get you 10 years, and if they have more evidence of tapping equipment, then the jail time can go to 20 years.

Oops! It’s all fun and games until someone puts an eye out, I guess.

The kicker on all this, Robert Flanagan is, “the son of William Flanagan, who is the acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana.”

Any wonder what political discussions are like in the Flanagan house?

Do you wonder, just a little bit, if maybe Flanagan the elder might be inclined to make politically motivated prosecutions? Do you wonder even a little?

This is why the decision not to review the illegal political hirings at the DoJ was a bad idea.

It sounds hopey-changey to let bygones to be bygones, but what this means is that the legal toxic waste that are Bush DoJ hires remains on site.

I Can’t Believe That I am Saying This

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This is Cindy McCain In a Pro-Gay Marriage Ad

But, I offer my support and congratulations to Cindy McCain, yes, that Cindy McCain, John McCain’s wife:

Sen. John McCain’s wife Cindy McCain is the newest face of a pro-gay marriage campaign.

Posing with tape over her mouth and a “NOH8” logo on her face, Cindy McCain was photographed for the NOH8 Campaign, which protests Proposition 8, the California proposition passed in 2008 banning same-sex marriage. The proposition is currently being challenged in federal court.

McCain approached the campaign herself about her participation, the NOH8 Web site says. She has spoken out on behalf of gay rights before, though this is perhaps her most prominent show of support for the issue.

Now that she realizes that John McCain will never be President, she’s doing the right thing.

Better late than never.

(A big of meta: I am not using my “John Sidney McCain III” tag because Cindy is more than just an extension of her husband.)

Supreme Court Eviscerates Campaign Finance Reform

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Basically, the Supreme Court just said that corporations can run any sort of ad that they want:

A divided U.S. Supreme Court struck down decades-old restrictions on corporate campaign spending, reversing two of its precedents and freeing companies to conduct advertising campaigns that explicitly try to sway voters.

The 5-4 majority, invoking the Constitution’s free-speech clause, said the government lacks a legitimate basis to restrict independent campaign expenditures by companies. The ruling went well beyond the circumstances in the case before the justices, a dispute over a documentary film attacking then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

“When government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. “This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.”

They have just deliberately created a “Wild West” for campaign finance, and they did it because they bought into the myth of Obama small donors (he out-raised from Wall Street fat cats against both Clinton and McCain).

About the only bright spot on this is that Sotomayor has given indications that she opposes she is dubious of the according of “person” status to corporations, which was done by a court clerk in the footnotes (no, I am not joking) in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. (see Sotomayor’s comments here)

There is a decent chance that Obama will get another opportunity to appoint another Supreme Court justice before 2012, and it’s very important to counterbalance the nut-jobs that Bush put in.

They Who Must Not Be Named

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Let us add Washington Wizards star Gilbert Arenas, as well as any other moron who decides that celebrity justifies their carrying a firearm in violation of the local laws:

Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas, who was suspended from professional basketball, pleaded guilty to a felony count of carrying a handgun without a license.

Arenas, 28, entered the plea today before District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Robert Morin in Washington. Under a plea agreement, Arenas admitted violating a District of Columbia law on carrying an unlicensed handgun.

Under the agreement, he likely will receive a sentence much lighter than the five years he might otherwise face. The agreement calls for prosecutors to recommend a sentence of six months when Arenas is sentenced on March 26.

When the prosecution asks for 6 months, can they please also ask for the sentence to be served at the same time as the NBA season?

Well, This Has Fail Written All Over It

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It appears that Yemen, under US pressure is looking to arrest Anwar al Awlaki, the Imam tied to both the Fort Hood shooter and the Underoos bomber.

The problem here is that, absent any information that he’s actually involved with al Qaeda, he’s just someone who speaks in support of them.

That makes him a bad person, but we are in the process of making him a martyr, and the counter-terrorism forces will use his sermons, convincing Muslims even more thoroughly that this is a war on Islam.

Really, I think that anyone involved in counter-terrorism should read Wasp by Eric Frank Russell, or at least the first chapter:

The title of Wasp comes from the idea that the main character’s actions and central purpose mimic that particular insect; just as something as small as a wasp can terrorize a much larger creature in control of a car to the point of causing a crash and killing the occupants, so the defeat of an enemy may be wrought via psychological and guerrilla warfare by a small, but deadly, protagonist in their midst.

The point is, pedants arguing about anaphylaxis notwithstanding, is that the wasp cannot kill us, it can only induce us to kill ourselves.

Barack Obama is Scared

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That’s why he’s going to be campaigning for Martha Coakley in the US Senate special election this Sunday:

President Barack Obama will campaign Sunday in Massachusetts for the Democratic candidate in a close race to fill the seat held by the late Senator Edward Kennedy.

State Attorney General Martha Coakley is trying to hold off a surge by Republican state Senator Scott Brown in recent opinion polls before the Jan. 19 vote. The campaign, in a state dominated by Democrats, will affect Obama’s ability to move legislation through the Senate and is becoming an early test of his party’s prospects in November’s congressional elections.

Let me be clear, if Coakly loses in what is one of the three bluest states in the nation it is a disaster, and her failure will rest firmly on the head of “no
gutsdrama Obama”.

Barack Obama has, for reasons that appear unclear to me, decided that the way to govern with the largest legislative majorities in something like 30 years, is to campaign against his base, and try to make nice with the
VisigothsRepublicans, who are having none of it.

Fundamentally, the problem is that he campaigned on “change”, and he is remarkably supportive of the status quo, and it’s pissing off Republicans and demoralizing Democrats.

I think that she is going to lose, though my prognostic abilities have been shown to be lacking.

That’s not a good thing, though, off the top of my head, but if you want to look at silver linings there are a few:

  • Obama might realize that maybe he was elected to be a Democrat who changes things, and better that he learn it now, as opposed to November when the whole House and 1/3 of the Senate is up for reelection.
    • Of course, the “very serious people” in DC will use it as an excuse to tell Obama that he needs to go on a Jihad against the DFH’s*, and Obama, being Obama, will likely believe the Beltway Boyz.
  • Martha Coakley is a deeply and profoundly bad person (though better than any Republican who might be a Senator because her policy won’t quite be flat out primeval). She has always been an amazingly overzealous prosecutor, who will do her best to continue to overcrowd prisons as a legislator.
    • Just look at her prosecution of Louise Woodward, Ray and Shirley Souza, and her actions with regard to the Amirault case, where prosecutors basically coerced testimony out of children in yet another of those “false memory” cases of counselor malpractice.
  • Something gets passed through reconciliation, which cuts Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, and Blanch Lincoln out of the loop.
    • Of course, Barack Obama will try to bring Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, and Blanch Lincoln back into the process, so it may not turn out well either.

I hope I’m wrong, but I fear that I am right about the election.

*Dirty F%$#ing Hippies.

Kansas Judge Declares Open Season on Gynecologists

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Sedgwick County Judge Warren Wilbert has ruled that Scott Roeder may present to the jury a defense that his actions were “justifiable homicide”, which carries a 5 year sentence:

”This judge has basically announced a death sentence for all of us who help women,” said Dr. Warren Hern of Boulder, Colo., a longtime friend of Tiller who also performs late-term abortions. ”That is the effect of the ruling.”

Dr. Hern is 100% correct

The facts of the case are not in dispute: On a balmy Sunday morning, Roeder got up from a pew at Wichita’s Reformation Lutheran Church at the start of services and walked to the foyer, where Tiller and a fellow usher were chatting around a table. Wordlessly, he pressed the barrel of a .22-caliber handgun to Tiller’s forehead and pulled the trigger.

Prosecutors charged Roeder with first-degree murder, and the 51-year-old from Kansas City, Mo., later admitted to reporters and in a court filing that he killed Tiller. The prosecution stands ready with more than 250 prospective witnesses to prove it.

But what had been expected to be a simple trial was altered Friday when Sedgwick County Judge Warren Wilbert decided he would allow Roeder to build a defense case calling for a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter because he sincerely believed the May 31 slaying would save unborn children.

This is bullsh#@, and my guess is that this is an artifact of one of two things:

  • The anti-abortion terrorists have one of their own on the bench in Sedgwick County, Kansas.
  • This judge thinks that he’s going to be able to clarify things properly to a jury, which would make them understand the Kansas statute’s concept of, “”an unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force.”

In either case this is not a clusterf%$#, but we won’t see the Obama DoJ getting involved in the Civil Rights area, they have already, “declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation.”

Obama has always been lukewarm on abortion rights, and now we get to see just how lukewarm he is.

The underoos bomber was not being soft on terrorists, but if the DoJ stays out of this, it’s giving aid and comfort to terrorists.

Tobacco Regulations Largely Upheld By Court

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Big tobacco had a minor win, the judge said that the FDA could not the use of color and graphics in their advertisements, which is pretty much in line with the law as I understand it for “corporate free speech,” but allowed a ban on using merchandise and sponsorships to stand:

The judge struck down some modest restrictions on color and graphics in tobacco and on labels that tobacco companies said violated their free speech rights.

U.S. District Judge Joseph McKinley approved bans on sponsorships of athletic, cultural and social events and the use of tobacco imagery on such things as caps and T-shirts, rejecting the companies’ argument that the ban was too broad and failed to differentiate between adults and children.

He also upheld a requirement that warning labels cover half of the front and back of the packaging of tobacco products.

So, their package will be dominated by warning labels, and they cannot sponsor events or hand out ball caps, but they can use pictures and color on the labels.

Pretty much a win for the government.

Let Me Get This Straight………

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Investors are suing Bank of America, charging that the bank (and I use the term loosely) deceived investors over the terms of bonuses to Merrill Lynch executives prior to the vote to acquire the brokerage.

Well, it appears that much BoA’s defense appears to be that if its investors ignored what they said, and read the financial press, they would have known anyway, but the judge just shot down that argument:

Bank of America Corp. suffered a setback in its defense to civil claims that it misled investors after a judge ruled that it may not introduce at a trial testimony about media reports predicting it would pay bonuses.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued the lender on Aug. 3 claiming it misled investors about bonus payments while buying Merrill Lynch & Co. Bank of America said in a November 2008 proxy statement that Merrill agreed not to pay year-end bonuses when the bank had already agreed to Merrill’s paying as much as $5.8 billion, the SEC claims. A trial is scheduled for March in New York.

As part of its defense, Bank of America has argued that shareholders already knew, as a result of media reports, that Merrill would likely pay billions of dollars in bonuses. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan today barred the bank from offering testimony about such reports because the proxy statement itself told shareholders to ignore them.

“In effect, the bank is arguing that, even though it expressly warned its shareholders to disregard the media, it can now defend itself by asserting that a reasonable shareholder would have disregarded these warnings and, by consulting the media, perceived that the bank’s alleged lies were immaterial,” Rakoff wrote in a six-page opinion. “Even a zealous advocate might perceive that such an argument hints at hypocrisy.”

(emphasis mine)

So your argument is that you were telling a baldfaced lie, and everyone knew that you were lying?

Well, good luck with that.

When your defense against fraud charges is that the newspapers had shown that they were lying sacks of s%$#, I think that you are missing this whole “how to win the case” thing.

The State Department Cover-Up of Blackwater Succeeds

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Basically, the State Department used the Oliver North option, so by immunizing and debriefing them, they made a trial almost impossible, and the judge, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina, was forced to dismiss the case.

Obviously, part of the problem is that the prosecution screwed up, though they can refile, but the real crux of the matter here is that the Bushies in the State Department intended this result. They wanted to protect Bush supporter Eric Prince and his company, now called Xe.

Republican Congressmen did this at the Iran-Contra hearings, because they feared that North would rat out Reagan if he actually ended up in prison.

Remember the Judges Who Took Kick-Backs to Lock Up Kids?

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Well, they are also mobbed up:

Reputed mobster William “Big Billy” D’Elia and former Luzerne County President Judge Michael T. Conahan were longtime friends who partied together, used courthouse employees as personal couriers and met frequently to talk court cases over ham and cheese omelets at a Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, witnesses testified Wednesday at a hearing over allegations the men conspired to fix a $3.5 million defamation verdict against The Citizens’ Voice newspaper.

Background here.

Slavery is Legal in the United States Again

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The Supreme Court has refused to rule on an appellate case that not only declared that, “torture and religious humiliation are permissible tools for a government to use,” but also ruled that anyone unilaterally declared an enemy combatant is not a “person” under the legal definition of the law.

This is quite literally the identical legal reasoning behind the Dredd Scott case:

“Another set of claims are dismissed because Guantanamo detainees are not ‘persons’ within the scope of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act – an argument that was too close to Dred Scott v. Sanford for one of the judges on the court of appeals to swallow,” he added.

The Dred Scott case was a decision by the United States Supreme Court in 1857. It ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves, or their descendants — whether or not they were slaves — were not protected by the Constitution and could never be citizens of the United States.

And still, Obama is appointing sane conservatives to the bench, only to see them filibustered and delayed by the ‘Phants, because sanity has a known liberal bias.

Not feeling hopey changey right now.

H/t naked capitalism.