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Morning Links
Monday, April 11th, 2011- John Thompson, the losing half of the Connick v. Thompson SCOTUS decision, has an op-ed in the New York Times.
- Something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Maureen Dowd?
- 16 great cities in human history.
- “Her storytelling ability and word usage (coming from me, who has written many bestsellers), is not at a very high level.”
- Another regulatory ADA mess.
The Thompson piece is really something. Though it does leave out the part that the murder got away with it. Also that there is a good chance that the police informant who Thompson says sold him the murder weapon was involved.
If anybody actually still believes the birther garbage that Trump is spouting, look up Obama’s birth announcements from the Honolulu papers. If that’s not enough, I suggest metallic headwear.
Why is Trump refusing to answer the allegation that he was born on one of Jupiter moons? He still didn’t deliver a proof that he wasn’t born there.
“coming from me, who has written many bestsellers”
I’m still trying to sort through whether this is grammatically incorrect or just really, really poor phrasing. Any grammar nerds want to help me out?
I’m not sure what is scarier – the possibility Trump genuinely wants political power, or that he is cynically using a certain sub-segment of the GOP/Tea Party base for his own enrichment. Either way, keep him away from ANY political office.
(Oh, and if Gary Johnson jumps on the idiotic “birther” bandwagon also, my strong respect for him will fall to “none whatsoever”)
I have reconciled myself to the fact that the prosecutors in the John Thompson case are sociopaths who do not care what lives they destroy.
What I am wondering about is the 5 SCOTUS justices who votes to overturn.
In the Thompson case, the fact that Connick backed away from investigating this because the corruption was so widespread speaks volumes to me. This looks like he stumbled into the classic mafia move of making everyone fire into the dead body… The dead body being the citizens.
I cannot imagine the horrors this man and his family experienced because of these assholes.
RE: Maureen Dowd & Dylan…
“I’d argue Dylan made a fool of the Chinese authorities, while getting paid in the bargain. He certainly made a fool of Maureen Dowd—or she has made a fool of herself.”
That’s a good assessment. Fuck Maureen Dowd! Humorless Leftists have been giving Bob shit forever. Recall that Pete Seeger and other like-minded folkies flew into hissy fits when Dylan went electric (gasp!). Many others, from Stalinist dead-enders to “anarchists,” tried to make Bob “their guy.” And Bob had none of it. Good for Bob. The ideolouges should “not become their enemy in the instant that they preach,” as the man might suggest.
Again though, the Thompson article leaves out the fact that he did not sue the prosecutors who withheld the evidence, but their boss. It was an end run around the prosecutorial immunity.
The problem isn’t that the Supreme Court threw out this case, it’s that they have prevented people from seeking direct reparations in the first place. I actually feel they made the correct decision in Connick v Thompson, but the wrong one earlier.
As for Maureen Dowd, she’s been a overpaid talentless hack for some time now. I’m surprised she wasn’t upset that he played an electric guitar.
Birth announcements don`t cut it to get a drivers license,passport CCW permit multitudes of other government required bullshit it is required to produce a BIRTH CERT. It surely is not so onerous that that same standard be enforced to hold the office of the President ? Until Bobo show proof he is NOT my president or anyone else`s for that matter. On the issue of immunity for police or prosecutors there should be no such thing,if the law does not apply equally to ALL Americans then why bother having laws?
#9 if there wasn’t prosecutorial immunity he wouldn’t have had to sue their boss instead.
also I’d like immunity. I feel that in the course of my life there will be times when, due to my sound judgment for a higher cause, innocent people might get hurt, and I’d rather not be held responsible. After all, I am better than you.
“Until Bobo show proof he is NOT my president or anyone else`s for that matter.”
This is the most frustrating thing about the birthers, even leaving aside their Creationist-like immunity to reality. Whether Obama was born in Kenya or Hawaii, his policies are what they are. Whether he deserves your support and loyalty depends on his wisdom as a ruler and on the justice of his claims to rule over you, and the justice of those claims has nothing to do with where he was born.
Obama was born in Hawaii, and he was elected president of the USFG in full accord with its established legal procedures. But he’s not my president. Or anyone else’s. Anarchism solves so many silly angels-on-pinheads issues so smoothly.
The Thompson piece makes me sick.
Any fucking retard investigating this should have picked up immediately that the other guy is the prime suspect.
Ah, but look at the details… The OTHER guy was willing to testify against the innocent one. Once you ignore all evidence of innocence, eyewitness ‘testimony’ looks pretty good. That is, if all you care about is closing cases.
Basically, every asshole working on this case just figured “Fuck trying to nail the real killer, this guy will be easier.”
Trump has been a douchetastic egomaniac since I first started hearing about him in the ’80s. I’d expect no less than a combination of whining and self-aggrandizement to any criticism that caught his attention.
#10 What Barack Obama has produced, the Certificate Of Live Birth, is the accepted proof of date and location of birth in every state in the country and according to the US Federal government. The so-called long form is not released to anyone by the state of Hawaii.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42519951
[quote]As the top Hawaiian official in charge of state health records in 2008, when the issue of Obama’s birth first arose, Fukino said she thought she had put the matter to rest. Contacted by NBC, Fukino expanded on previous public statements and made two key points when asked about Trump’s recent comments.
The first is that the original so-called “long form” birth certificate — described by Hawaiian officials as a “record of live birth” — absolutely exists, located in a bound volume in a file cabinet on the first floor of the state Department of Health. Fukimo said she has personally inspected it — twice. The first time was in late October 2008, during the closing days of the presidential campaign, when the communications director for the state’s then Republican governor, Linda Lingle (who appointed Fukino) asked if she could make a public statement in response to claims then circulating on the Internet that Obama was actually born in Kenya.
Before she would do so, Fukino said, she wanted to inspect the files — and did so, taking with her the state official in charge of vital records. She found the original birth record, properly numbered, half typed and half handwritten, and signed by the doctor who delivered Obama, located in the files. She then put out a public statement asserting to the document’s validity. She later put out another public statement in July 2009 — after reviewing the original birth record a second time. [/quote]
I had to get new official birth certificates for myself, wife, and our 2 children. The copies we received from the government office (the official ones, you know, that they need for all their government permit and benefit applications) are no more “official looking” or “long form” than whatever Obama has produced. I guess my family.. and just about everyone I have ever met.. are also illegal aliens, since we don’t have some special birth certificate that no one seems to have.
As far as records and receipts go, I have a baby book that has a register of doctor visits and their costs ( some were $2 per visit as a cash payer) and whatever stuff my mom filled out- hardly anything official. If I wanted to find the receipts from my birth, would I be able to? I don’t even have a bill from my daughter’s birth 5 years ago.
Nuts- Trump, #10, and the rest.
As far as the Constitution goes- where was Trump when every other President in his lifetime trampled on it?
Bah, wrong quote code.
#15, Yep. That’s what I was getting at. The “Certificate of Live Birth” IS the official birth certificate that is good enough for everyone else in the country to do every government related interaction.
Trump can’t even release his own birth certificate.
#4 B –
“Her storytelling ability and word usage (coming from me, who has written many bestsellers), is not at a very high level.”
I’m still trying to sort through whether this is grammatically incorrect or just really, really poor phrasing. Any grammar nerds want to help me out?”
It’s both.
Now, even though I’m an editor for an academic publication, I’m not really a stickler for strict adherence to the rules of grammar. Conveying your message to the reader is the most important aspect of writing.
That said, Trump’s sentence is pretty awful. First of all, let’s look at the basic point of this sentence: Her storytelling ability and word usage, is not at a very high level. Taking out the aside makes it pretty obvious that there is an extraneous comma. Nothing is technically wrong with the rest of the sentence, but I’m leery about the agreement between “storytelling ability,” “word usage” and “is not.” I’d probably write it like this:
Her storytelling abilities and word usage are not at a very high level.
Next, let’s look at the aside: (coming from me, who has written many bestsellers). Again, there probably isn’t anything technically wrong with the way this is written. It is, however, an absolute train wreck. I would write it like this:
(and this is coming from someone who has written many bestsellers).
Making the edited sentence read like this:
Her storytelling abilities and word usage (and this is coming from someone who has written many bestsellers) are not at a very high level.
or preferably:
Her storytelling abilities and word usage – and this is coming from someone who has written many bestsellers – are not at a very high level.
The final product still isn’t a great sentence, but at least it doesn’t cause a migraine when one attempts to read it.
Some would argue that the aside is simply an attempt at self-promotion by Trump and should be left out entirely. However, I’d argue that it should remain in the sentence because any past success as an author does lend credence to his literary criticism of Gail Collins, even if it is completely ridiculous to consider the writing of business management self-help books to be an exercise in literary proficiency.
#16 Greg C
“I had to get new official birth certificates for myself, wife, and our 2 children. The copies we received from the government office (the official ones, you know, that they need for all their government permit and benefit applications) are no more “official looking” or “long form” than whatever Obama has produced. I guess my family.. and just about everyone I have ever met.. are also illegal aliens, since we don’t have some special birth certificate that no one seems to have.”
Amen. This whole Obama birth certificate thing is troubling to me personally, as I don’t even have as much proof as he does that I was born in this country. I have a certificate of live birth and nothing else besides the word of my family that I was born here. There isn’t even an existing paper copy of my certificate. Am I going to end up being deported someday because I can’t produce a long-form birth certificate? I am curious to know where they’d send me, since no other nation is going to have documentation on me either.
Blockquote fail. Bobo make fault.
Yeah, I have a scan of my birth certificate that my parents sent me. Turns out it’s only a Certificate of Live Birth as well. Heck, it wasn’t even registered until 2 months after my birth. Good thing I’m not running for president.
What kind of certificate is issued when zombies have babies?
Regarding Donald Trump, I believe the proper way to construct the sentence is: “The ghostwriters of my many bestsellers have informed me that her storytelling abilities and word usage are not at a very high level.”
If I were Thompson, I would spend the rest of my life shaming Connick and the rest of those corrupt fuckers who care more about winning than justice. I don’t think that repeated accusations of attempted murder would be uncalled for. Of course, I can’t hold it against him if he just wants to put this behind him and get on with his life.
You know, even if a birth certificate issued for Obama in Nairobi were to suddenly appear, be absolutely validated and Obama were forced to leave the Oval Office, how many here would want Joe Biden to be President? (Or John Boehner if the entire 2008 election were ruled invalid?)
The cities article is interesting, but numbers for the modern cities haven’t been very well gathered. London is given as having nearly 14m people while New York is given at 8.5 and Tokyo 35m.
They’ve used the stats from Wikipedia but have taken the strict City number for New York while using the wider ‘metro’ areas for London and Tokyo. Using the same number would put New York at 20m. It’s much bigger than London.
You know, I think it was Radley who suggested that Cheye Calvo run against Sheriff Jackson in Prince George’s County, MD. It would make for terrific political debates: “I pledge never to shoot your pets. Can my opponent make the same pledge?” He’d win on sympathy vote alone.
Wouldn’t Obama be a natural born citizen even if he was born in Kenya? There are two ways to become a citizen: be born one (natural born) or be made one (naturalized). His mother was an American citizen, therefore he is.
The folks who invest so much in the Obama birth certificate conspiracy are the same folks who believe every Machiavellian conspiracy ever told about the Clintons. Don’t they think that if there was any truth to it that the Clintons would have brought this up in the Democratic primaries?
Trump is like the Kim Jong Il of the business world: an expert at everything, overseeing a failing empire.
“No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”
This has always been interpreted to mean that a person not only has to have been a citizen from birth, they must also have been born in the United States. People born on American military bases in foreign countries also count, since those bases are technically American soil.
I suspect there are three parts to the birther phenomenon:
a. A set of folks who’ve bought so far into the conspiracy theory that they have constructed an evidence-proof shell around their brains.
b. A much larger set of people who don’t take it seriously, but sort-of halfheartedly pretend to, the way adults and older kids will sometimes do w.r.t. professional wrestling. It makes for funny in-jokes, references in conversations, etc.
c. A very small set of people who take it about as seriously as promoters take professional wrestling–which is to say, they piously pretend to take it seriously because it’s their job to do so.
Further, my sense is that this is a pattern you see with any number of weird beliefs, conspiracy theories, and popular delusions that become politically/socially important.
One interesting irony in the birther discussion is that in 2008, there really was a serious candidate for the Democratic nomination who was standing on a landmine, waiting to blow up his candidacy and hand the election to the Republicans. That landmine wasn’t Obama’s secret Indonesian or Kenyan birth, but rather Edwards’ love child being raised by his ex-staffer.
And of course, there were probably other landmines waiting for some of the other nominees. For example, Richardson apparently ran into some kind of corruption scandal after the election (which kept him out of the cabinet), but I don’t know how big a deal this really was.
@#30 Jay: I looked into this and found that if one parent is a citizen and the other has never been a resident (prior to the birth of the child) the child is not a natural born citizen. Feel free to correct or comment, but this is my understanding thus far.
@#33 DarkEFang: I find your argument compelling with the exception that Sen. McCain would like military bases to be US soil (for the purposes of being a natural born citizen so one can run for president) and at the same time NOT US soil (for the purposes of torturing “enemy combatants” in Cuba). This dichotomy is interesting.
I believe the discrepancy between McCain’s claims re: military bases can be explained by by the fact that he is a dickhole.
@#36 CRNewsom: The constitution doesn’t define “natural born citizen” and it’s still not clearly defined if it means “born to Americans abroad” is eligible. I’d say it would; John McCain was born in Panama, probably on-base. The naturalization law passed in 1790 suggests at least some understood it more expansively.
There are a lot of reasons to criticize any president. To me, focusing on conspiratorial birth certificate shenanigans demonstrates a profound laziness and inability to challenge policies from the myriad other avenues.
I’ve now officially given up on addressing birth certificate garbage and will not devote any more time to it, online or off.
Woo! I have 2!
A “Certificate of Live Birth”. Imagine my relief to discover I wasn’t still born! Whew! Dodged THAT bullet!
And a “Notification of Birth Registration”.
Huh! My father’s occupation is listed as “Apprentice Plumber.” instead of “Deadbeat”.
Trump won’t spend a dime of his money on a campaign. This is all show.
Snookie is a best selling author.
The Obama birth certificate thing is such a dumb distraction. If I were a conspiracy nut, I would be more willing to believe that Obama supporters created the birther nonsense to make birthers look bad than I would be to believe that Obama’s claim on citizenship is invalid. And, heck, I am not even saying that both theories can’t be true; I’m saying the first seems more likely than the second.
Either the Constitution is written so broadly that the document essentially means nothing (including the issue of where the Presidential umbilical cord was cut), or it does mean something and most of what the fed does is unconstitutional. One way or the other, the birther problem seems pretty small in the overall scheme of things.
Regarding the Thompson case, I have to agree with Leonson that the SCOTUS ruling seems unfortunate but pretty well reasoned, at least on the grounds brought before the Court. The problem is that Thompson even had to try the “failure to train” angle. It’s going to be hard to show that training was inadequate when there should be no training needed for any criminal lawyer (prosecution or defense) to understand the need to reveal exculpatory evidence. The problem is clearly that the prosecution deliberately withheld evidence. Get rid of immunity and punish them instead of having to concoct this end-run around immunity via inadequate training.
http://www.myspace.com//naafa/blog/542632980
Chicago school forbids students from bringing lunch– the article also lists various other school lunch restrictions.
My daughter will be starting in the Chicago Public Schools in the fall. If our local school tries this I look forward to filing my first lawsuit ever.
It’s amazing how the media allows itself to be used by Trump. They know he’s only doing this for publicity, yet they continue to allow it to happen.
Ironically, I just watched an episode of Law & Order : UK where a prosecutor had to stand trial for withholding exculpatory evidence.
The charge was “Perverting the course of justice.”
Apparently prosecutors have more immunity here than in the UK.
There’s a Law & Order UK?
The Thompson piece is just scalding to read. But he mentions one thing that I’ve always been curious about but almost never see referenced in coverage of exonerations: according to Thompson, there are no ethics charges pending against the prosecutors who wrongfully convicted him. Why not? In Louisiana, the Attorney Disciplinary Board accepts complaints against Louisiana lawyers including prosecutors and has jurisdiction to recommend discipline up to and including disbarment. Mr. Thompson can file a complaint.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a lawyer in a state that has a woeful record of disciplining prosecutors, and I would be shocked if Louisiana isn’t the same way. But one of the reasons there are so few disciplinary actions is that there are so few complaints. I can think of some reasons for this. One big one that I suspect in the case of Mr. Thompson is that having made the complaint, the complainant cannot use it as a bargaining chip in a civil case. I wouldn’t be surprised if his civil lawyers advised him not to complain in the hope of reaching a settlement with Orleans Parish. But if the SCt has closed the door on civil liability, which I believe it has, then the only real avenue left to the wrongfully convicted is disciplinary complaints.
It’s true that lawyer discipline is cold comfort to an exoneree as it provides no avenue to monetary recovery, but if it’s the only option left, it would make a powerful demonstration if all wrongfully convicted people would file and pursue complaints. It’s entirely possible that the disciplinary bodies of the various states would cover for prosecutors or otherwise frustrate those complaints, but if that happens, I politely suggest that that is a perfect assignment for an intrepid reporter.
there IS a law and order UK. It even has the same music.
@ 44, Black Market – don’t be quite so sympathetic to the media. I’m pretty certain that they are benefiting in their own way as well. Trump and the media use each other and the main losers are the rest of us (because all this time wasted on Trump could have been used to inform us about actual significant news).
TomG:
Yeah, this is the usual pattern.
Though it’s not like those media sources are preventing people from informing themselves. Most people can afford a good newspaper or two, NPR and PBS are available most places and seem to do better than the MSM on putting some news into their news, and with an Internet connection and a browser, there’s more high quality material than you can read. ProPublica, BBC, El Pais, and many excellent blogs and podcasts are there for the using.
Mostly, people don’t want to be informed, so much as entertained and reassured in their starting beliefs, especially the ones that make them feel good. The MSM do that pretty well, while also trying to stay on the good side of the powerful.
@46 If you have BBCAmerica on cable or sat dish, Friday 9PM EDT.
From what I remember [correct me if I'm wrong] Obama’s Kenyan relatives have insisted he was born on Kenyan soil. Perhaps they would make that claim to share in the glory of a famous half brother, or are outright lying. Or telling the truth. Who knows….. it doesn’t change the fact that the US is up shits creek without a paddle.
How many presidents have there been who could not truthfully answer “no” to the question “Have you ever been considered anything other than a U.S. citizen?” Regardless of where he was born, I would think that Barack Obama’s adoption by an Indonesian Lolo Soetoro would mean that, at least until his mother divorced and moved back to the U.S., he would have been considered an Indonesian citizen. While it is true that he would have been eligible to reclaim U.S. citizenship until some time after his eighteenth birthday (and he probably did so) that does not mean he was a U.S. citizen while he was in Indonesia with is stepfather.