SCREWING THE SICK PEOPLE

I laughed as I read this pathetic story about how the poor DEA has dozens of traumatized agents and lawyers who were rolled over by the bureaucracy above them who decided to not press for any $1 billion fine against a legal drug manufacturer and distributor. How could one not laugh at them?

‘We feel like our system was hijacked’: DEA agents say a huge opioid case ended in a whimper 

After two years of painstaking investigation, David Schiller and the rest of the Drug Enforcement Administration team he supervised were ready to move on the biggest opioid distribution case in U.S. history. 

The team, based out of the DEA’s Denver field division, had been examining the operations of the nation’s largest drug company, McKesson Corp. By 2014, investigators said they could show that the company had failed to report suspicious orders involving millions of highly addictive painkillers sent to drugstores from Sacramento, Calif., to Lakeland, Fla. Some of those went to corrupt pharmacies that supplied drug rings. 

The investigators were ready to come down hard on the fifth-largest public corporation in America, according to a joint investigation by The Washington Post and “60 Minutes.” (WT: this article is well worth the read, which includes an interview with retired DEA Agent David Schiller) 

The DEA team — nine field divisions working with 12 U.S. attorney’s offices across 11 states — wanted to revoke registrations to distribute controlled substances at some of McKesson’s 30 drug warehouses. Schiller and members of his team wanted to fine the company more than $1 billion. More than anything else, they wanted to bring the first-ever criminal case against a drug distribution company, maybe even walk an executive in handcuffs out of McKesson’s towering San Francisco headquarters to send a message to the rest of the industry. 

“This is the best case we’ve ever had against a major distributor in the history of the Drug Enforcement Administration,” said Schiller, who recently retired as assistant special agent in charge of DEA’s Denver field division after a 30-year career with the agency. “I said, ‘How do we not go after the number one organization?’”

I have a number of problems with the idiots involved and with the idiot who wrote and published the piece about their effort to levy a billion dollar fine against a company who will simply turn that fine into higher costs for buyers of their drugs and simply not even feel the breeze as that pathetic lame ass shot goes by.

The investigators were 9 DEA Field Divisions of Agents and their lackeys and minions plus 12 U.S. Attorney's offices with all their lackeys and minions and they ALL TOOK 2 YEARS to come to the conclusion that a case could be made to sue McKesson Corp after two years of detailed investigating and digging. Why would they expect McKesson to have to delve that deep into their orders and stock management system in order to comply with the law? That seems really hugely intrusive and far beyond the capabilities of a mere corporation. I mean, just look at the level of effort it took the DEA and US Attorneys to figure out that something may not be alright in Livonia.

I'm sick and tired of paying the fines for all the corporations and their lawyers who walk away uncharged and unaccused after committing massive crimes and frauds on the people. The government lawyers always settle for a handful of dollars when the guilty parties are wealthy, well known, their guilt well established and yet they pay no penalty at all for screwing and stealing from the people and the government lawyers always help them get away. That's getting old.

Some of this is allegedly reported by The Washington Post and 60 minutes and therefore doesn't pass the smell test. I prefer honest sources for my facts and information and I'll pass up any that have a long history of lying and making stuff up and pawning it off on us as actual 'news'.

And finally, I realize that the government's helping hand is meant to be extended only to women, minorities, disadvantaged folks, illegal immigrants, dreamers and lone wolf terrorists but couldn't somebody in the DEA have simply picked up the phone, called McKesson and told them the DEA was concerned about some of the drug shipments they were making and in that way solved the problem? Wouldn't that have saved the millions of manhours they and the US Attorneys blew over 2 years trying to make a case against the company?

In the end, wouldn't it have been better if the DEA stopped acting like the gestapo and tried acting like an agency concerned with the health and well-being of the citizenry of the United States?

FOAD LITTLE MAN

I don't really see law in this particular case.  People bought the property legally, fairly, in an upfront and transparent fashion and I'm not aware of any law that says some bunch of plutocrats can vote in council to just revoke it because their minions fuc'ed up and followed policy and put it up for sale like a boat, or a house, or a car, or an apartment building that the city had seized.

San Francisco Insists that this is theirs!!!

A couple of people buy a road in Baghdad on the Bay that was offered for sale by the city of San Francisco. They paid the money and they got the property almost a year ago. The Illuminati who live on the street are outraged and do what the Illuminati do and told their lickspittles in city hall to "DO SOMETHING! YOU MORONS!@!!!"

I'm not exactly sure how the City/County of Stu[id Fulx can obviate and neuter and transgender a transfer of deed/title, just because of the 'eewwwww it smells' in it.

I enjoy watching the pant suited velociraptors going after the entrepreneur. As you know, in the movies? They mostly win.

I will leave it as an exercise for the student to determine who I mean by "they". Good luck.

NEVER THREATEN A MAN WHO HAS A GUN

They came to knock down his house because he built without permission. What happened then was exactly what I would expect if the same sort of bureaucrat came to knock down a citizen's house here. 

I remember reading about this back when it happened. I can't believe that they all just stood around after he pulled a gun and threatened them after they threatened him. You can see the reporters practically snuggle up to him after he pulls out the gun.

Derwentside District Council - abolished in County Durham's local government shake-up two years ago - refused to approve the development in a rural area made up of conventional farms. The council, which was keen to create an environment conducive to tourism, was also worried the bungalow represented a precedent that would unlock the door to other housing on land where it would not normally be permitted. 

Dryden lost his planning appeal to keep the bungalow, although the Government inspector who chaired the hearing said some of the other buildings could stay because of the time they had been there. 

The wrangle dragged on for several months with the council attempting to reach a compromise that would avoid the need to bulldoze the bungalow. The last suggestion was that Dryden modify the building and use it for keeping livestock, but he rejected this. 

Finally, councillors decided there was no option but demolition, and the date was set for Thursday June 20 1991. On the day media gathered with Dryden on the land with his friends and supporters. 

Dryden had a letter from the Planning Inspectorate, which he had fixed to his gate, indicating no action could be taken until an appeal had been heard. The letter had given Dryden the belief the council was breaking the law, even though there were no grounds for an appeal. 

Harry Collinson came to the gate, looked at the letter and told him it contained nothing to prevent the demolition. Dryden replied that 'you might not be around to see the outcome of this disaster'. 

Mr Collinson told Dryden he could have time to move things out of the building and he moved to a point in the fence where the bulldozer was to come through.
Dryden went to his caravan and picked up a First World War revolver, strode back to the fence and drew the weapon on Mr Collinson, whose last words were to the TV crew: 'Can you get a shot of this gun?' 

Dryden then fired at the fleeing crowd, hoping to get the council's solicitor, Mike Dunstan, but instead hitting TV reporter Tony Belmont in the arm and PC Stephen Campbell in the backside. 

Dryden had denied murder but was convicted after a trial and jailed for life at Newcastle Crown Court in 1992. He was denied parole in 2001 after it was felt he showed little evidence of remorse.

There is nothing worse than petty tyrants. I became familiar with them in school and later, after I bought my first house in a neighborhood with an HOA that could have given the NKVD tips on how to make friends and influence people. They all have this fatal character flaw. They don't ever think that somebody will resist their petty demands and take it to the limit if they think they have to. As I looked at Dryden pull the gun, I knew that he had reached his limit and was going to open fire.

TEXAS, MY KIND OF JUSTICE

It would be nice to have a man like Don Willett on the Supreme Court so, anytime Suiter or RBG, please feel free to step down and retire.

LAWFARE AND RESISTANCE

I read over at Ace of Spades that there is some concern that NYC is not following the law and complying with ICE detention The NYPD's process of verifying warrants against a defendant involves contacting relevant law enforcement, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, so the agency is alerted to an illegal immigrant's upcoming appearance in a city courtroom, the New York Daily News reported Sunday night.

Today I had also heard from notorious fake news organization, National Public Radio, that there was some real concern that obeying ICE detention requests violated federal law on illegal restraint. I had to double check that myself since NPR lies about or shades everything. In this case, google search turned up nothing but piffle. I had to search using yandex.ru.  How's that? I have to use a Russian search engine to get around google's ridiculous algorithms that make sure only one side of any issue is ever presented in response to any RFI.

The Free Beacon had an interesting article on how NYC police actually play with ICE. It seems fair to me and it doesn't involve locking people up or failing to let them go when a judge orders them released or after they have served their time. It does require ICE to do its actual job, interface with the police officers and SEND agents to detain their suspects immediately, not whenever they get around to it.

The NYPD's process of verifying warrants against a defendant involves contacting relevant law enforcement, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, so the agency is alerted to an illegal immigrant's upcoming appearance in a city courtroom, the New York Daily News reported Sunday night. 

Immigration advocates have accused the NYPD of "colluding" with federal agents and going against de Blasio's vow that New York will remain a sanctuary city during Donald Trump's presidency. 

As a sanctuary city, New York City does not fully cooperate with federal authorities to hand over undocumented immigrants in its jurisdiction. Since 2014, the city only complies with ICE orders to detain undocumented individuals until federal agents can take custody if the individual committed a violent or serious crime.

I think it is hilarious that the SJWs are freaking out that the police are not following "policy" as if that was some sort of mandate from heaven that they must obey at peril of their immortal souls. It's certainly funny listening to freaks like that who claim that there is no requirement to obey any law they dislike. Must obey mayor but screw the actual laws of the country they live in. Only liberals...

JUSTICE INVESTIGATES FBI

Justice in this country has departed. It will surely end with show trials and the triumph of New Speak, but the comedy is just beginning as the DOJ finds a towering pillar of probity, honesty and integrity who will investigate the FBI over its handling of Hillary Clinton's wanton and knowing release of Top Secret, SCI and Special Access Program information to any  hacker worth his or her salt who bothered to look at her unsecured and unclassified network and servers. I don't actually think such men exist in the DOJ anymore. The last man of integrity to work there left many years ago and now writes interesting columns about the shameful misdeeds and injustice enacted by those he left behind in the vasty halls of darkness known to us as the Department of Justice.

It looks from the Bloomberg article like all the people that are accountable to the people are planning to recuse themselves from any involvement in the new witch hunt and let the unimportant dogsbodies do the digging, rooting around, and investigating before everything is once again stitched up as beyond mortal ken and best left alone and misremembered much the way that jackass Walter Cronkite screwed up the true meaning of the Tet Offensive and the utter destruction of the Viet Cong.

I almost hate to write this but what we appear to need now is our own Court of the Star Chamber. It seems that our DOJ makes deals with powerful and rich crooks and thieves and fines their banks and investors billions for the misdeeds of men who are NEVER held accountable, fined and sent to prison for a few decades after looting the country because their business/bank is "too big to fail." I'm tired of it.

Shakespeare had the right of it back when the Star Chamber was just getting off to a good start in England when he wrote,  ''The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.'' You really can't go wrong with that kind of start. It was them and those like them that wrote things like civil forfeiture laws and implemented them on a society that wrote these words into their Constitution:

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

 Our police turned into thieves overnight because they are the law and the law allows them/encourages them, to loot the populace in the gentle name of the people. Likewise, the layering of courts and jurisdictions that mean that a man found not guilty of the crime of murder may then face the same penalties if the same case is retried as a violation of civil rights. That was a pernicious evil that should not have been allowed.

People comment on spirit of the law and the written physical meaning of the law and then they go well outside any normal barrier to reason in order to find penumbras or shadows or bright lines and lose sight of the clear and concise meaning of the English language as written into the highest law in the United States of America.

If one simply put the facts and the law, as it stands, before any group of 8th graders I think they would all find that Hillary violated the laws and should be punished. I'd make it a blind test and present the case without reference to any names or parties. I'd simply put it to them that a person knowingly violated national security laws and then tried to destroy all the evidence even after it had been subpoenaed by lawfully empowered investigators.

I think Martha Stewart might have appreciated a hearing in the Star Chamber. I doubt they would have found her guilty of any crime. I don't think Hillary Clinton can say the same. If she went before the Court of the Star Chamber, she'd be escorted to Tower Hill and her head would be lopped off. On the other hand, to use the delightful phrase she seemed to find so potent and powerful as Secretary of State, Senator and First Lady, "at this point, what does it really matter anyway?"

Exactly. This evil barnacle of spite and hate has finally fallen from the body politic and will have to live or semi-live the remainder of her life knowing that she had the presidency in her very grasp and lost it all because she could not, even once, bring herself to behave in an honorable and upright fashion. Future generations will write scholarly articles about the loathsome critter and wonder that any sane person could vote for such a foul creature. To this day, those that voted for her cannot point to a single achievement she ever accomplished whether as Mrs. Governor of Arkansas, Mrs. First Lady, Senator from New York, or as Secretary of State. She was, at the end, a big fat nothingburger.

BIG BROTHER

I'm pretty sure that Big Brother is smiling in Franklin County. It's OK for everybody else to film crimes in action but not you. Filming a crime, is a crime says Franklin County's District Attorney.

Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien said, "People need to know and understand that the use of a smartphone to video events can constitute serious felony crimes. They should think twice before they use their smartphones to either photograph or video anything.

Where would the people be if they didn't film anything? This prosecutor just declared it a crime to film a crime. What a weird place he lives in.

TURBULENTS

There isn't a shadow of a crime but the infinitely deep pockets of the State's Attorneys General are investigating ExxonMobil and will go to any lengths to force them to go out of business. I mean, that's not what they say but it's pretty clear that'w what they intend.

Top law enforcement officers in several states are joining with the Chicken Littles of green activism to weaponize the scientifically dubious argument that human activity is not only changing the earth's climate but that unprecedented world catastrophe awaits unless draconian, economy-killing carbon emission controls are imposed more or less immediately.

The litigation offensive has nothing to do with justice. It is aimed at forcing those few remaining holdouts in the business community who stubbornly cling to science to confess their thought crimes and submit to the know-nothing Left's climate superstitions. It is part of modern-day environmentalism's ongoing assault on knowledge, human progress, markets, and the rule of law.

Repent and embrace the true green faith or else you'll be investigated and denounced as a climate criminal, is the message of “Inspector Gotcha,” New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman.

“It’s too early to say what we’re going to find,” he said of the five-month-old witch hunt aimed at his current target, the gigantic ExxonMobil, at a press conference this week in Lower Manhattan. “We intend to work as aggressively as possible, but also as carefully as possible.”

One can certainly gain an appreciation for Henry II as we watch the legal theater use naked power against witches, orcs and angevins. As usual, I can't help but wonder if ExxonMobile decided to terminate all business in New York to first put out the light, and then put out the light and rid themselves of this turbulent pipsqueak.

It's all pretty theater and I'm sure the Attorney General of Pennsylvania would be in it up to her eyebrows if not for her own long fall from grace.

I wonder if these people understand why more and more people are preparing for turbulent times. It's like they expect some kind of massive breakdown of law and order.

WHAT MADNESS IS THIS?

I have been overhearing conversation by talking heads about a possible Obama veto that would somehow be employed by him if a majority of the Senate voted no about whatever kind of surrender document he signed with Iran. I don't understand what these idiots are talking about. There's a bunch of them talking about it right now on the Diane Reims Show and each of them says that if the majority vote no then the President will simply override the will of the majority with a veto. They seem to think that he can do that safely because somehow, in this weird universe, if the Senate votes no and the President stamps it with a veto, it all adds up to yes. But it doesn't!

How the hell does that work? He can veto a bill but that only means one thing. It means the bill does not become a law. Is the Kerry surrender document a treaty which requires the consent of the Senate? It doesn't sound like it because they're talking about the House voting too and their advice and consent is neither sought nor required for Treaties which, when APPROVED by the Senate become the law of the land.

Have I gone mad? What are these people talking about?

A TRIFLING THING

Abortion is indeed of no account in the United States. You have to look at State laws on the sales of beer, wine and hard liquor to discern the founder's intent when it comes to the real meaning of the laboratory of democracy and State's rights. I went to school in Pennsylvania. It is an odd state. It has the most ridiculous liquor laws I've ever seen and these days I live in MetroParkCentralis where a teenager cashier is forced to call for adults to actually physically lay hands on any wine or beer that passes through the cashier's lane, so that's saying something.

I moved here from California where they'll sell anything that doesn't move without any wriggle room at all in the law. They still have counties that won't let you carry a gun legally but you can certainly buy them everywhere.

How do such arcane and arrantly stupid laws remain on the books while the courts loftily overturn State laws on gayness and abortion and other words that weld people to their convictions about what is right and lawful? Even guns, ammo and concealed carry get a more reasoned and rational debate about why one state is allowed to set/make/enforce different laws than other states. Yeah, New York, I'm looking at you.

We have a day to reflect on the meaning of independence before heading back to work. It's certainly worth thinking about. You guys in Pennsylvania and New York might right a letter to your legislators and ask them why they are so stuck on stupid on these topics.

NATIONAL REVIEW SLINKS INTO DISGRACE

I took a look at the current state of Michael Mann's lawsuit against Mark Steyn, National Review, et al and left with great contempt for National Review. Steyn puts it best.

There are times when I wish I had the same kind of co-defendants I had in my free-speech wars in Canada: Maclean's, unlike National Review, is a dentist's waiting-room mag not an ideological mission, but they and I were as one in our fight not just against the Canadian Islamic Congress but against the now repealed Section 13. By contrast, National Review, for whom I wrote for a decade and a half, are offering the curious and fainthearted defense that they were never my publisher but merely an "interactive computer service provider" to which I had the access code (see page 49 of their most recent brief). They're a court filing or two from claiming they're Lufthansa and I'm Andreas Lubitz - just some crazy guy who locked himself in the NR cockpit. 

Oh, well. For all that, I've never felt more optimistic about how this case is going. If there is a "97 per cent consensus" on the science, all 97 per cent decided to steer well clear of Michael E Mann: Last fall, not a single amicus brief was filed on his behalf, not one. He claims he's "taking a stand for science", but evidently science is disinclined to take a stand for him.

On the other hand, and somewhat to my surprise, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Reporters Committee for Press Freedom, the American Society of News Editors, the Association of American Publishers, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia (The Village Voice et al), NBC Universal, Bloomberg News, the publishers of USA Today, Time, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The Detroit Free Press, The Seattle Times, The Arizona Republic and The Bergen County Record have all filed amici briefs against his attempted shredding of the First Amendment. They're in no way fans of mine, but they recognize that this is the most consequential free-speech case before the US courts since New York Times vs Sullivan, and if Mann wins it would be a catastrophic defeat for the First Amendment. That said, on global warming and "climate change", they largely agree with him. But I've also been heartened to learn how many scientists across the spectrum want nothing to do with Mann (scroll down here), and regard a defeat for him in court as a victory for genuine science.

It's funny how the science of man made global warming is collapsing all around except in the dim-witted minds of alarmists and governments hell bent on screwing the tax payer out of more money in order to fix a global climate scare that all rational beings admit simply cannot be fixed. All they talk about is slowing the rate of increase by forcing the first world to join the third world in grinding poverty and starvation but there is never any talk about reversing the global effects of solar infall variation that has, over the eons, caused the world to warm and cool. Their insane shrieks of doom fall on ears increasingly deaf to people who so obviously manipulate the data and then lie about it.

They make laughing stocks of real scientists and researchers and have thoroughly trashed the time honored process of peer review. They have also, with the help of its own lawyers, destroyed the reputation of National Review.

READ THE LATEST FATWA

There is a bit of a dustup going on at the Northwestern University gulag and it is interesting to me on several fronts. It concerns an outright attack on intellectual freedom, freedom of speech and what used to pass for civility. A wannabe member of the senior cult clergy had this to say about what was written by a professor in response to her own concerns about the use of the cult religion in the persecution and a sordid attempt to fire another professor at the gulag using Title IX as their weapon.

But Kipnis' op-ed was alarmingly inaccurate. And immediately after its publication, several individuals reached out to her directly to correct the myriad misrepresentations of fact that she harmfully published as gospel. Kipnis acknowledged these emails, but refused to correct the record, suggesting instead that folks simply agree to disagree. That's a strange response, a bit like telling a math tutor that you "agree to disagree," or a civil engineer who's concerned about the integrity of your bridge, or... you get the point. When someone in a position to know reaches out to let you know that you're off base, one tends to think the appropriate response is anything but Kipnis'.

...because faith is their only guide and the cult is their only true path to salvation and so deviationists will be placed on their knees and dealt with in a manner consistent with all tyrannies that despise intellectuals and disbelievers.

How the hell did America end up with gulags?

ANOTHER MODEST PROPOSAL

In view of this, I would like to put forward another modest proposal. Ordinarily I would say it might require a Constitutional Amendment but with all the powers that we seem to have encumbered our various Executive Branch agencies, Legislative Branch non-watchdogs and Judicial Branch ignorers of the actual law, it shouldn't take more than a Memo for the Record:

The losing political party's Vice Presidential nominee must be appointed Attorney General and no power on earth can shift him out of that office unless the President is impeached or resigns.

Wouldn't something like that clean up the corruption that masquerades as the Justice Department?

I think so.

ME AND MIKE

I might have written about him before but, you can take it. We had a great meal out with scientists and engineers so I am reminded again of Mike. He was going to work for me. He was going to be late reporting, on account of surgery. He wrote a letter to the Captain and said that due to testicular cancer he would be late and one ball short.

When he finally showed up, he was enormous. Huge. Youngest of 14 in his family. Nice young man.

As it happens, shortly later, we went to the Tanker War for a bit and looked for mines. Mike was my DCA on both ships. As it happens, we were both sipping coffee in the wardroom as the ship prepared to get underway from BASREC, Bahrain when the Captain's voice came over all the speakers on the ship and demanded to know, who peed in his coffee cup. The voice assured us that there would never ever be any liberty again and life would surely dry up and blow away if the man who peed in his coffee cup did not immediately reveal himself.

Srsly, it was a timeless moment. I kind of nodded and said, "you" and he kind of nodded and said, yep.

NEW STATEMENT

Just happened to buy a 150 rounds of .45 on the way home. Just saying.

FAIL TO GROKK

I honestly don't understand what is going on anymore at colleges and universities in America. What happened to the application of justice which was based on a single fundamental principle, if you are the victim of a crime, call the police. When did the police stop investigating rape allegations? Who died and made some university bureaucrat the sole arbiter of a citizen's fate and dismantled all aspects of a legal case and used every means to exclude the law from appearing at the rape hearing?

Glenn Reynolds, the instapundit, has been bringing these stories to my attention. He's been doing that now for over a year which I find incredible. Rape is a serious crime and it is not investigated by empowered university bureaucrats but by police and if the allegations are merited it is tried in a court of law using all the tools that we, as citizens, are allowed and if a man is found guilty, he goes to jail is not merely expelled and branded a sex criminal.

I'd love to know how empowered people somehow decided that there is no longer any presumption to the rule of law in this country. Don't they know it invites a serious backlash? And no, that's no veiled threat about the consequences to coeds from this misapplication of law, it is simple economics. There's a million hungry shark type predators known colloquially as lawyers roaming this country and every single one of them will take a case to sue the endless deep pockets of universities and colleges who really cannot defend themselves in a court of law.

They literally cannot lose in a court of law. I think the universities and the DOJ have done the unforgivable and let the stupid and energetic morons set policy. They're going to rue the day. We wrote the laws that protect the accused for damned good reasons.

STAGGERING ALONG WITH FADING MEMORY

I guess a few people are appalled that Vernon Jordan suffered from near total memory failure during his testimony to the grand jury investigating Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. The Washington Examiner's Byron York appears to think that Mr. Jordan did something wrong by declaring that he could not remember the details of something in the past.

That is strange considering what happened to poor Scooter Libby who went to jail and was fined because his memories did not coincide perfectly with meetings and statements in the past about who was responsible for "outing" the odious CIA analyst Valerie Plame Wilson which then resulted in his  destruction by the utterly vile and contemptible Patrick Fitzgerald. Libby had nothing to do with the case and Fitzgerald knew that at the time but Fitzgerald tied him up based on faulty memories during testimony.

This was how the Independent Prosecutor appointed to investigate who leaked information about Plame was handled using the politics of personal destruction:

In January 2004, the Justice Department chose prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald to investigate the leak of Valerie Plame's identity. From the outset, he was made fully aware that the leaker was Armitage, who resigned from the State Department in November 2004 but remained a subject of the inquiry until February 2006 when Fitzgerald told him in a letter that he would not be charged. The New York Times reported on Sept. 2, 2006:

Only a complete idiot would ever testify to anything based on memory alone. That whole Perry Mason schtick where the witness is asked to testify as to where he was on the night in question several months in the past would get an, "I don't know," from me.

Such an honest answer should not have worked for somebody like the Secretary of State since she had an appointment book kept for every minute of the day which details who she met with and a precis of the purpose of each meeting.. The topics actually discussed may be different from the schedule, but where she was, and who she was with is, a matter of official record.

The problem this country now faces is that vile attack on Libby rendered moot the idea that any official would ever attempt to answer an investigator's questions honestly, ever again. The penalty for an imperfect memory is much worse than any penalty for actually committing the crime in question. One no longer takes refuge in the 5th Amendment, one merely doesn't recall.

Way to go Patrick Fitzgerald! You screwed government accountability forever! Scumbag.

A DESCENT OF ODIOUS

I have, like Patterico, been waiting for this decision. It looks like the Courts have found against the odious Obamacare act and have ruled that insurance purchased through the National Obamacare website is not eligible for government/IRS subsidy because it is not recognized by the odious law itself.

The decision will be reviewed several more times as it is challenged to a full Bench vote and then appeal, as necessary. I have been waiting for the Law to catch up with the sleazy way that this administration administers the law.

MY KIND OF LAWYER

Had this up at his place. I swiped it. It is not the kind of language one expects from an esquire.

I wonder what happened to the story 3 months ago. It must have been dire because I think almost any competent lawyer could have taken that video and turned it into gold. The thing I object to is that this goes on and on and the only feeble barrier laid out anywhere against such police misconduct is when a lawsuit succeeds against the city and the tax payers who pay for those abusive police. The law breakers are never prosecuted, never go to jail, don't get fired and show up at work and your house the next day.

A FASCINATING PROSPECT

From Patterico, a possibility that the law we could not see coming, may be hoisted by its own petard.

To review from my original post on the matter: The law’s plain language says subsidies are available only when a health plan is purchased on an exchange “established by the state under section 1311.” 34 states refused to establish an exchange, after which the HHS Secretary invoked her authority to set up federal exchanges under a different section: section 1321. Then the IRS promulgated a rule that said exchanges set up by the Secretary under section 1321 were actually exchanges “established by the state under section 1311.”

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit say: “state” does not mean “federal government.” The exchanges established by the HHS Secretary under section 1321 are not “established by the state under section 1311.” Making the point even clearer: a “state” is defined in the ACA as “each of the 50 States and the District of Columbia,” they note, and not the federal government.

The Obama lawyers say: oh, come on. Don’t look at the plain language of that one provision. You gotta look at the whole law and the intent of Congress.

When a cast of thousands write a fiendishly complex bit of evil, one has to accept that room for error is made, and into error space creep the dissenters, and from there, they take it to the courts, and the same people that rejoice as the courts strike down laws enacted by clear pluralities and majorities at referendums are left feeling mightily abused when the same process is used by their enemies.