Zealotry for the law! Part II

Back at the end of January, I posted about the loss of the governor's office, at the hands of the Illinois State Senate, suffered involuntarily by the Great Helmet-Haired Milorad Blagojevich. The comments that followed led me to express my hope that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald would experience an ignominous loss if the whole business ended up in court. (Since Blago has since been indicted, in court it shall be.)

A commenter on my original post, my friend Mr. Macrum from Maine, he of the bicycle repair shop that would get my business if I only lived a little closer, asked me why I felt this animosity toward Fitzgerald. Kenneth Starr was mentioned in passing, and I wrote this post on February 10th about how zealotry for the law, however nobly intentioned, often leads us to all sorts of unpleasant places, particularly the disheartening trend to criminalize politics. In the post, I focussed on Starr, with a promise to follow up at some point on Patrick Fitzgerald - he who got the topic rolling in the first place.

None dare accuse me of striking while the Teflon-coated frying pan is hot, or whatever the proverb actually says. It is now five months later and I cannot use the "I don't have time to write about this right now" excuse anymore. I still don't have the time to write about it, but truthfully, I don't have the time to write about anything. I managed to put this post together over the past few weeks (if anyone was wondering where I was). So today Patrick Fitzgerald finally gets his day in court, here in the Great Halls of Ignatian Pontification.

I know by now I should have changed my mind about Blago. The indictments sound pretty severe, and with cases like this, high-profile prosecutors avoid bringing indictments forward if their cases are not solid. But to hell with all that. As my friend Mr. Durham from South Carolina pointed out, there is no justice in seeing Blago get sent up the river when the rest of the detritus that passes for politics in Chicago remains free. I am therefore remaining on record that I hope to see Rod Blagojevich beat the rap and win acquittal on every single charge, because I think it would be a delight to see the look on Patrick Fitzgerald's face when he mugs for the cameras afterward. "If I'm on camera, even if the publicity is bad, it is a good thing," opined Fitzgerald recently. Okay, I might have made that up. Let's move on.

First of all, I have to preface my remarks by stating that I did not always think Patrick Fitzgerald was a grandstanding nincompoop. I believe he worked very diligently and courageously back in the 1990s when he prosecuted members of the New York mafia and even more so later when he was part of the team prosecuting Omar Abdel-Rahman and other terrorists who were connected with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York.

Sometimes one gets carried away with one's own success. Sometimes one gets caught up with one's ability to turn a phrase and make a good argument, and gets egged on by the echo chamber around him. (Hell, that's happened to me before.) Sometimes the approach to solving a problem works so well that the problem solver starts applying it inappropriately to other areas of life. For example, suppose the success of jailing the 1993 WTC terrorists and Omar Abdel-Rahman was achieved by zealously applying anti-racketeering, anti-conspiracy, and anti-terrorism laws. This is a useful and appropriate application of the law, because the problem is terrorism, and therefore there is a need to protect the public from a virulent and mortal physical threat. But what if some of the same laws are applied the same way to politicians who have had their hands in the till or who have lied to the FBI about political decisions they made while in public office? One should reasonably argue that these politicians, if proved guilty, should be subject to punishment. But if the laws prescribe penalties that exceed the seriousness of the crime, should they be applied with the same zeal? Some would say yes, because politicians are just pigs at the trough, and should rot in jail. Others might say no - I would say jail time is appropriate, in some cases, but if there is no threat to the public from these guys, at some point there has to be a consideration for the questions of cost and justice in keeping them incarcerated. (And let’s bear in mind that the notion of justice should not be defined by emotion.)

In other words, a big part of the problem is the law itself. The hammer hits too hard. Rod Blagojevich's predecessor, Governor George Ryan, entered federal prison (after prosecution by Patrick Fitzgerald) at age 73 to begin a six-and-a-half year prison term for corruption. Is this a just outcome? I have no problem with Fitzgerald's conduct during the Ryan trial, by the way, but I ask the question sincerely. George Ryan deserved time in prison, but is six-and-a-half years appropriate? His reputation has been irretrievably destroyed and he has been ruined financially. Why does the taxpayer have to pay for his continued incarceration? If justice is being served, that could be a good reason. If his example serves as a deterrent to others, that could be a good reason. Bear in mind, though, that Mr. Ryan faced many decades in jail - the sentence handed down was seen as lenient. Should a politician convicted of a wide range of comprehensive charges of corruption - many of which overlap one another and cover the same crime from different angles using different wording - actually face the possibility of a hundred years in jail? That is what I mean by the law being part of the problem.

If you take these laws, with their overlaps, their punitive overkill and their statutory authorization to read unproved criminal activity into arguably lawful private or political conduct, and you put them in the hands of someone who has become zealous about his role as a prosecutor and proud of his ability to articulate a sense of justice, what do you end up with? You end up with Patrick Fitzgerald.

Mr. Fitzgerald kicked off a classic display of overstep on October 28th, 2005, when he announced that the District of Columbia Grand Jury had returned a five-count indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who had been Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. It was the culmination of Fitzgerald's investigation into the now-infamous Valerie Plame case. For those who were smart enough not to pay attention, Valerie Plame, the wife of former Ambassador-to-Tiny-West-African-Nations Joseph C. Wilson, was a CIA employee whose employment with the CIA had been classified. On July 14th, 2003, she was identified in a column by Robert Novak as a CIA employee. Somewhere along the way, her status had been inappropriately or illegally divulged to Novak and possibly others, and an investigation followed. It lasted over two years.

The investigation was passed late in 2003 from the Attorney General, John Ashcroft, to the Deputy Attorney General, James Comey, who in turn gave Patrick Fitzgerald special prosecutor status. And after a very long investigation, no one was charged for illegally divulging Valerie Plame’s employment at the CIA.

But one would not know that by listening to Patrick Fitzgerald’s press conference when he indicted Libby with obstruction of justice, perjury and lying to the FBI. Let’s parse some large swaths of it:

Good afternoon. I'm Pat Fitzgerald. I'm the United States attorney in Chicago, but I'm appearing before you today as the Department of Justice special counsel in the CIA leak investigation.

Oh, oh! Did you see that? Blatant! Oh, wait a minute, I’m getting ahead of myself.

A few hours ago, a federal grand jury sitting in the District of Columbia returned a five-count indictment against I. Lewis Libby, also known as Scooter Libby, the vice president's chief of staff. The grand jury's indictment charges that Mr. Libby committed five crimes. The indictment charges one count of obstruction of justice of the federal grand jury, two counts of perjury and two counts of false statements.

So far, so good. But whether he intends to or not, Fitzgerald misleads everyone listening when he starts putting things into "context":

Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community.

Valerie Wilson's friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life.

The fact that she was a CIA officer was not well-known, for her protection or for the benefit of all us. It's important that a CIA officer's identity be protected, that it be protected not just for the officer, but for the nation's security.

Valerie Wilson's cover was blown in July 2003. The first sign of that cover being blown was when Mr. Novak published a column on July 14th, 2003.

But Mr. Novak was not the first reporter to be told that Wilson's wife, Valerie Wilson, Ambassador Wilson's wife, Valerie, worked at the CIA. Several other reporters were told.

In fact, Mr. Libby was the first official known to have told a reporter when he talked to Judith Miller in June of 2003 about Valerie Wilson.

Oops! Now, raise your hands if by this point in time you would have 1) stopped listening to the windy press statement, and changed the channel, and 2) glazed over the first mention of Scooter Libby and concluded that he was being charged with knowingly and illegally divulging Valerie Plame’s classified status.

It's critical that when an investigation is conducted by prosecutors, agents and a grand jury they learn who, what, when, where and why. And then they decide, based upon accurate facts, whether a crime has been committed, who has committed the crime, whether you can prove the crime and whether the crime should be charged.

[snip]

That's the way this investigation was conducted. It was known that a CIA officer's identity was blown, it was known that there was a leak. We needed to figure out how that happened, who did it, why, whether a crime was committed, whether we could prove it, whether we should prove it. And, given that national security was at stake, it was especially important that we find out accurate facts.

There's another thing about a grand jury investigation. One of the obligations of the prosecutors and the grand juries is to keep the information obtained in the investigation secret, not to share it with the public. And, as frustrating as that may be for the public, that is important because, the way our system of justice works, if information is gathered about people and they're not charged with a crime, we don't hold up that information for the public to look at. We either charge them with a crime or we don't.

And if you cannot charge them with a particular crime, you can always hold an over-the-top press conference and put the emphasis on the part of the story that is not even the object of the indictment.

That brings us to the fall of 2003. When it was clear that Valerie Wilson's cover had been blown, investigation began. And in October 2003, the FBI interviewed Mr. Libby. Mr. Libby is the vice president's chief of staff. He's also an assistant to the president and an assistant to the vice president for national security affairs.

The focus of the interview was what it that he had known about Wilson's wife, Valerie Wilson, what he knew about Ms. Wilson, what he said to people, why he said it, and how he learned it. And, to be frank, Mr. Libby gave the FBI a compelling story.

Yikes. Fitzgerald’s “context” – while perhaps important to explain - still gives the impression that Mr. Libby was the crook behind the leak.

What he told the FBI is that essentially he was at the end of a long chain of phone calls. He spoke to reporter Tim Russert, and during the conversation Mr. Russert told him that, "Hey, do you know that all the reporters know that Mr. Wilson's wife works at the CIA?"

And he told the FBI that he learned that information as if it were new, and it struck him. So he took this information from Mr. Russert and later on he passed it on to other reporters, including reporter Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, reporter Judith Miller of The New York Times.

And he told the FBI that when he passed the information on on July 12th, 2003, two days before Mr. Novak's column, that he passed it on understanding that this was information he had gotten from a reporter, that he didn't even know if it was true.

And he told the FBI that when he passed the information on to the reporters he made clear that he didn't know if this were true. This was something that all the reporters were saying and, in fact, he just didn't know and he wanted to be clear about it.

Later, Mr. Libby went before the grand jury on two occasions in March of 2004. He took an oath and he testified. And he essentially said the same thing. He said that, in fact, he had learned from the vice president earlier in June 2003 information about Wilson's wife, but he had forgotten it, and that when he learned the information from Mr. Russert during this phone call he learned it as if it were new.

When he passed the information on to reporters Cooper and Miller late in the week, he passed it on thinking it was just information he received from reporters; that he told reporters that, in fact, he didn't even know if it were true. He was just passing gossip from one reporter to another at the long end of a chain of phone calls.

It would be a compelling story that will lead the FBI to go away, if only it were true. It is not true, according to the indictment.

In fact, Mr. Libby discussed the information about Valerie Wilson at least half a dozen times before this conversation with Mr. Russert ever took place, not to mention that when he spoke to Mr. Russert, Mr. Russert and he never discussed Valerie Wilson or Wilson's wife.

He didn't learn it from Mr. Russert. But if he had, it would not have been new at the time.

Let me talk you through what the indictment alleges.

Finally! Yes, for goodness sake, talk about what the indictment actually alleges. Up until this point, Fitzgerald is throwing around the impression that Libby is being indicted for something else – namely, the leak itself.

The indictment alleges that Mr. Libby learned the information about Valerie Wilson at least three times in June of 2003 from government officials.

Let me make clear there was nothing wrong with government officials discussing Valerie Wilson or Mr. Wilson or his wife and imparting the information to Mr. Libby. But in early June, Mr. Libby learned about Valerie Wilson and the role she was believed to play in having sent Mr. Wilson on a trip overseas from a senior CIA officer on or around June 11th, from an undersecretary of state on or around June 11th, and from the vice president on or about June 12th.

It's also clear, as set forth in the indictment, that some time prior to July 8th he also learned it from somebody else working in the Vice President's Office.

So at least four people within the government told Mr. Libby about Valerie Wilson, often referred to as Wilson's wife, working at the CIA and believed to be responsible for helping organize a trip that Mr. Wilson took overseas.

In addition to hearing it from government officials, it's also alleged in the indictment that at least three times Mr. Libby discussed this information with other government officials.

It's alleged in the indictment that on June 14th of 2003, a full month before Mr. Novak's column, Mr. Libby discussed it in a conversation with a CIA briefer in which he was complaining to the CIA briefer his belief that the CIA was leaking information about something or making critical comments, and he brought up Joe Wilson and Valerie Wilson.

It's also alleged in the indictment that Mr. Libby discussed it with the White House press secretary on July 7th, 2003, over lunch. What's important about that is that Mr. Libby, the indictment alleges, was telling Mr. Fleischer something on Monday that he claims to have learned on Thursday.

In addition to discussing it with the press secretary on July 7th, there was also a discussion on or about July 8th in which counsel for the vice president was asked a question by Mr. Libby as to what paperwork the Central Intelligence Agency would have if an employee had a spouse go on a trip.

So that at least seven discussions involving government officials prior to the day when Mr. Libby claims he learned this information as if it were new from Mr. Russert. And, in fact, when he spoke to Mr. Russert, they never discussed it.

But in addition to focusing on how it is that Mr. Libby learned this information and what he thought about it, it's important to focus on what it is that Mr. Libby said to the reporters.

In the account he gave to the FBI and to the grand jury was that he told reporters Cooper and Miller at the end of the week, on July 12th. And that what he told them was he gave them information that he got from other reporters; other reporters were saying this, and Mr. Libby did not know if it were true. And in fact, Mr. Libby testified that he told the reporters he did not even know if Mr. Wilson had a wife.

And, in fact, we now know that Mr. Libby discussed this information about Valerie Wilson at least four times prior to July 14th, 2003: on three occasions with Judith Miller of The New York Times and on one occasion with Matthew Cooper of Time magazine.

The first occasion in which Mr. Libby discussed it with Judith Miller was back in June 23rd of 2003, just days after an article appeared online in The New Republic which quoted some critical commentary from Mr. Wilson.

After that discussion with Judith Miller on June 23rd, 2003, Mr. Libby also discussed Valerie Wilson on July 8th of 2003.

During that discussion, Mr. Libby talked about Mr. Wilson in a conversation that was on background as a senior administration official. And when Mr. Libby talked about Wilson, he changed the attribution to a former Hill staffer.

During that discussion, which was to be attributed to a former Hill staffer, Mr. Libby also discussed Wilson's wife, Valerie Wilson, working at the CIA - and then, finally, again, on July 12th.

In short - and in those conversations, Mr. Libby never said, "This is something that other reporters are saying"; Mr. Libby never said, "This is something that I don't know if it's true"; Mr. Libby never said, "I don't even know if he had a wife."

At the end of the day, what appears is that Mr. Libby's story that he was at the tail end of a chain of phone calls, passing on from one reporter what he heard from another, was not true.

It was false. He was at the beginning of the chain of phone calls, the first official to disclose this information outside the government to a reporter. And then he lied about it afterwards, under oath and repeatedly.

Hang on, Patrick. If Scooter Libby was the first official to disclose this information outside the government to a reporter, why was he not charged for doing this? Why is it okay for a prosecutor to tell the press that a man is guilty of the object of a long investigation if the same man is not under indictment for this offense? I thought you were going to get to the point of the indictment, which was one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury, and two counts of uttering false statements to the FBI. Oh, wait, here’s a brief bit in the next paragraph:

But I think what we see here today, when a vice president's chief of staff is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice, it does show the world that this is a country that takes its law seriously; that all citizens are bound by the law.

That’s it?

But what we need to also show the world is that we can also apply the same safeguards to all our citizens, including high officials. Much as they must be bound by the law, they must follow the same rules.

So I ask everyone involved in this process, anyone who participates in this trial, anyone who covers this trial, anyone sitting home watching these proceedings to follow this process with an American appreciation for our values and our dignity. Let's let the process take place. Let's take a deep breath and let justice process the system.

Sniff, sniff... I’m touched. What office are you running for, Patrick? I thought prosecutors were supposed to, you know, prosecute. You know, in court. Not before the press. Save it for the jury, and stop behaving like you enjoy being a pontificating blowhard before the TV cameras.

The entire business was over the top. The press conference was over the top, and the investigation – particularly the rough way it treated the reporters – was over the top. I wonder how happy the press is that a special federal prosecutor essentially set a new precedent for coercing reporters to testify under oath about their confidential sources. And after an investigation of two years, Fitzgerald could not find evidence of a criminal leak of Valerie Plame’s status. That sure as hell didn’t stop him from giving the opposite impression when he charged Libby, though.

And before anyone jumps on me for defending Scooter Libby, I’m not. He was convicted of four of the five counts in the indictment, and they were serious matters. I am glad he did not go to jail, because as I mentioned above, the sentences handed out for political crimes are very heavy. I have gone on record here in the past as being somewhat (but not completely) unsympathetic when a government official goes to jail. It goes with the territory when you wander the halls of power. You may overstep your role and break the law, either intentionally or unintentionally. Your boss’s political enemies may find a way to paint you into a corner with trumped up charges. It is shitty, but it is a risk that should be assessed by anyone asked to serve at high levels of political power.

I do admit a high level of unsympathy for Joe Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame. Here’s a bit of advice for other Washington power couples:

Do not write an op-ed for the New York Times talking about your trip to Africa, if your being asked by the US government to make the trip depended on your wife’s employment with the CIA, and your wife’s employment with the CIA is supposed to be secret.

* * * * * * * *

And now the same Patrick Fitzgerald has Rod Blagojevich in his sights.

Blago is in very deep crap. The indictment has 19 counts, of which I believe 16 apply to Blago, and they’re going to be harder than hell, if not impossible, to beat in court. The indictment was announced on April 2nd, 2009. The accusations against Blago, as enumerated in an Associated Press story on April 3rd:

• Directing billions of dollars in bond business to a company whose lobbyist secretly agreed to give them hundreds of thousands of dollars.



• Having convicted developer Tony Rezko give the governor's wife, Patti Blagojevich, tens of thousands of dollars in real estate fees and salaries that she didn't really earn.



• Arranging job interviews for Patti Blagojevich with financial institutions doing business with the state. When no jobs materialized, the governor allegedly said he didn't want the companies to get any further state business.



• Handing out a high-level state job in exchange for $50,000 in donations to Blagojevich's campaign.



• Telling a lobbyist that it would take a $50,000 donation to get his client on the list of recommended investment funds for the Teachers' Retirement System.



• Threatening to block a $220 million TRS investment with Capri Capital unless Capri's owner arranged substantial donations to Blagojevich.



• Threatening to withhold a $2 million state grant to a public school unless a U.S. congressman arranged a political fundraiser for Blagojevich.



• Demanding a $50,000 donation from the head of Children's Memorial Hospital in return for approving increased state support children's health care.



• Extorting $100,000 in donations from two horse racing tracks and a racing executive in exchange for quick approval of legislation the tracks wanted.



• Extorting $500,000 in donations from a construction-materials company and a company executive in return for action benefiting the road construction industry.



• Withholding state aid sought by the Tribune Co. unless the company fired unfriendly editorial writers at the Chicago Tribune.



• Scheming to get personal benefits, such as a Cabinet post or a lucrative union job, in exchange for Blagojevich's decision on who would replace Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate.



• Soliciting help from national fundraiser Joseph Cari in exchange for state business and contracts.



• Using improper influence to block efforts to consolidate several retirement funds.



• Discussing the possibility of getting U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald removed in an effort to block his investigation.



• Lying to the FBI.

The second to last one sounds like reasonable behaviour to me. (All right, I’m kidding!) But the issue I have with Patrick Fitzgerald again stems from his comments to the press. And in this case, the comments made to the press were made fully four months prior to the indictment. Not the date of the indictment, but four months prior.

Quick now: how many of you reading this would like a United States Attorney to make accusations against you in public regarding alleged offenses for which you have not even been charged? And if you think it’s okay because Blago is a politician, why do you think this is okay? If a politician’s reputation or his chance for a fair trial later on can be destroyed by the words of a prosecutor who is not yet ready to indict but is yapping anyway, why not yours too? And if you think it’s okay because Blago is clearly guilty, ask yourself if you think you would like to live in a country where what the acceptability of what the government says about you is based on a presumption of guilt prior to the same damn government even having its charges ready to file against you. Against you. First they came for the sleazy douchebag politician with the helmet hair....

Don’t think it’s any big deal? Well, let's see what Fitzgerald said back in December 2008, when Governor Blagojevich was arrested – the arrest was necessary, I assume, because Fitzgerald could not simply pick up the telephone and inform the governor or the governor’s lawyer that he was under investigation. Sometimes those damn telephones do not work well, and an arrest is the only way to go.

Oh, wait – there was a compelling public interest at stake here. The public ought to have the right to know that the governor is under investigation. If that’s the case, then perhaps a less political and more reasonable approach would be to release a statement informing the public that the governor is under investigation, and outline – in broad, general terms – what the investigation is all about.

Sorry for the lengthy buildup. Here is what Patrick Fitzgerald actually said:

This is a sad day for government. It's a very sad day for Illinois government. Governor Blagojevich has taken us to a truly new low. Governor Blagojevich has been arrested in the middle of what we can only describe as a political corruption crime spree. We acted to stop that crime spree.

Hold on a second, Pat. You’re not the dang jury. You’re the prosecutor. You prosecute in court, and you prove your case. And before you even get there, you indict. Am I the only one who finds it a little unseemly that a federal prosecutor is accusing a politician of taking “us to a truly new low” via a “crime spree” months before he is ready to file charges?

The most appalling conduct Governor Blagojevich engaged in, according to the complaint filed today or unsealed today, is that he attempted to sell the Senate seat -- the Senate seat he had the sole right, under Illinois law, to appoint to replace President-elect Obama.

I am not excusing this if it is true, but I seriously doubt it is the first instance of a state governor doing something like this.

Let me take you back eight weeks ago to set the allegations in context. Back eight weeks ago, we had the following environment. There was a known investigation of the Blagojevich administration that had been going on for years, involving allegations of pay-to-play conduct and corruption. There had been a recent trial of an associate of Governor Blagojevich in which allegations were aired where people testified that government -- Blagojevich was involved in corrupt conduct. And there was an Ethics in Government Act that was pending, that would go in effect January 1 of 2009, that would bar certain contributions from people doing business with the state of Illinois. You might have thought in that environment that pay to play would slow down. The opposite happened. It sped up. Government -- Blagojevich and others were working feverishly to get as much money from contractors, shaking them down, pay to play, before the end of the year.

Does this sound like a prosecutor to you? Or does this sound like a political opponent?

[snip]

After being aware that actually the pay-to-play scheme had taken up greater steam and greater urgency, back eight weeks ago, after careful review, decision was made that more extraordinary means of investigation needed to be used. After that point, a bug was placed in the campaign offices of Governor Blagojevich and a tap was placed on his home telephone. And that tap and that bug bore out what those allegations were.

Why would a prosecutor say all of these things in public before he is ready to indict? Is it because he feels he has to justify an unnecessary arrest?

I'll give you two examples set forth in the 76-page complaint. One involves Children's Memorial Hospital, a hospital that obviously takes care of children. At one point, the governor awarded funding -- reimbursement funding to that hospital to the tune of $8 million, but he also indicated privately that what he wanted to get was a $50,000 personal contribution from the chief executive officer of that hospital. In the ensuing weeks, that contribution never came, and Governor Blagojevich was intercepted on the telephone, checking to see whether or not he could pull back the funding for Children's Memorial Hospital.

Shame! It was for the children! Won’t someone please think of the children?

A second example is legislation that is pending concerning horse racing. There is a bill that, I believe, sits on the governor's desk that would take money from casino revenues and divert a percentage of it to horse-racing tracks. While this was pending, the interceptions show that the governor was told that one person who he is seeking to have -- raise $100,000 also was working with a person who was seeking that money to have a -- a bill pending. And the governor was told that the person who wanted that bill, from whom they wanted money, was told the following, that he needed to get his contribution in.

And the quote was, "Look, there is a concern that there is going to be some skittishness if your bill gets signed because of the timeliness of the commitment," close quote. Then the person told the contributor, the money, quote, "got to be in now," close quote.

And when the governor was told this part of the conversation, his response was, "Good."

Shortly thereafter, the person who was trying to get the contribution from the person who had the bill pending suggested that the governor call the person directly, that it would be better to get the call personally from the governor, quote, "from a pressure point of view," close quote. And the governor agreed.

As we sit here now, as far as we know, that bill sits on the governor's desk. That $8 million in funding is still pending.

In addition to the pay-to-play allegations which are described in greater detail in the complaint, we also were surprised to learn of an extortionate attempt against the Chicago Tribune newspaper. The Chicago Tribune had not been kind to Governor Blagojevich, had written editorials that called for his impeachment. And Governor Blagojevich and defendant Jonathan -- John Harris, his chief of staff, schemed to send a message to the Chicago Tribune that if the Tribune company wanted to sell its ball field, Wrigley Field, in order to complete a business venture, the price of doing so was to fire certain editors, including one editor by name.

In the governor words -- governor's words, quote, "Fire all those bleeping people. Get them the bleep out of there and get us some editorial support," close quote. And the bleeps are not really bleeps.

The defendant Harris tried to frame the message more subtly to get the point across to the Tribune that firing the editorial board members would be a good thing in terms of getting financing to allow the sale to go forward.

But the most cynical behavior in all this, the most appalling is the fact that Governor Blagojevich tried to sell the appointment to the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Obama.

The conduct would make Lincoln roll over in his grave.

This may seem like no big deal, fans and friends, but I think it is. This is Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. Attorney, talking. He is not in court, trying for a bit of dramatic flair to impress the pretty girl with the nice brown eyes sitting on the jury. He is in public. The guy he is talking about had not even yet been charged when he said this. Fitzgerald is doing this only to impress the reporters covering his statement, and to impress the grannies sitting home watching the news. And that’s not what a federal prosecutor is supposed to do. He is supposed to know the law, describe the law to the jury, and argue how the facts of someone’s conduct transgress the law. His role is not to engage in dramatic political speech on television.

The governor's own words describing this Senate seat, quote: "It's a bleeping valuable thing, thing. You just don't give it away for nothing," close quote.

Another quote: "I've got this thing. And it's bleeping golden. I'm just not giving it up for bleeping nothing. I'm not going to do it. I can always use it. I can parachute me there," quote.

Those are his words, not our characterization, other than with regards to the bleeps. The tapes reveal the Governor Blagojevich wanted a number of things, in exchange, for making the appointment to the Senate seat -- an appointment as secretary of Health and Human Services or an ambassadorship, an appointment to a private foundation, a higher-paying job for his wife or campaign contributions.

At one point, he proposed a three-way deal, that a cushy union job would be given to him at a higher rate of pay, where he could make money. In exchange, he thought that the union might get benefits from the president-elect. And therefore the president-elect might get the candidate of his choice.

I should make clear, the complaint makes no allegations about the president-elect whatsoever, his conduct. This part of the scheme lost steam when the person that the governor thought was the president- elect's choice of senator took herself out of the running. But after the deal never happened, this is the governor's reaction, quote, "They're not willing to give me anything but appreciation. Bleep them," close quote. And again, the bleep is a redaction.

I bet – I just bet – Rod Blagojevich is the first governor in the history of the United States to use off-colour language.

What I should also talk about is that, in another event, somebody else approached the governor. And the governor's understanding of this approach was that in exchange for an appointment, to the Senate seat, he would receive campaign contributions. And the governor's view of what was told, to him, through intermediaries was that, quote, "We were approached pay-to-play that, you know, he raised me 500 grand. Then the other guy would raise a million if I made him senator," close quote.

This is a conversation where the senator is describing how he perceived a message that came through multiple hands. His concern: Was he offended that, he thought, campaign contributions were being offered in exchange for a Senate seat? No. He was worried that the campaign contributions would actually be paid. He wasn't against the corrupt deal. He was against being stiffed in the corrupt deal.

His quote was, he wanted the money, quote, "tangible, up front," close quote. He told someone who was his intermediary, quote, "Some of this stuff has got to start happening now, right now. And we've got to see it," close quote.

Just last week, he was saying this to someone, to make sure that the money was going to be up front. And he said, quote, "You've got to be careful how you express that and assume everybody's listening. The whole world is listening. I would do it in person. I would not do it on the phone," close quote. That's the governor of Illinois.

After an article appeared in the Tribune, last week, indicating a belief that Mr. Blagojevich had been taped, then a message was sent for him to undo contact with the intermediary on that campaign contribution deal.

And finally we should also note that the governor talked about appointing himself to the Senate seat, for reasons not having to do with the better welfare of the citizens of Illinois.

He wanted to do it to avoid impeachment in the Illinois legislature for his conduct. He wanted to do it to have access to greater financial resources if he were indicted. He wanted to do it to see if he could help his wife work as a lobbyist. He wanted to do it to remake his image, to run for office in 2016. And he wanted to do it to see if he could generate speaking fees.

I am dreadfully sorry if I do not see how the conduct in the previous paragraph is criminal, or how it is any of Patrick Fitzgerald’s business. All of the allegations here are purely political in nature. A governor wants to get a new job before the legislature tries and fires him? No wonder. A governor wants to get a higher-paying job because he anticipates he shall fall under indictment, and find himself in need of money for legal fees? No damn wonder. The government has unlimited resources to prosecute. A governor wants to see if he could get a lobbying job for his wife? Politically, you may not like it, but it is not criminal. A governor wants a change of venue to try to repair his damaged public image? No wonder. A governor thinks a certain political move may, in the future, generate higher speaking fees? So bloody what? How is this the business of a federal prosecutor?

At the end of the day, the conduct we have before us is appalling.

What I do want to note is that, at the end of the day, it's very, very important that how we proceed from here be the right way to proceed. We have a lot of information gained from a number of interviews and investigation over the years. We have a tremendous amount of information gained from the wiretap and the bugs that occurred over the last month and a half or so.

What we also know is that some of these schemes went pretty far, and some did not go far at all, but they had discussions about what they would do, who they would approach, and how they would phrase it. And we need to do the investigation, now that the investigation is overt, to find out from other people what happened: what they were told, how explicitly, what they understood, and what happened. That part of the investigation we intend to conduct responsibly.

We hope that people out there understand that this complaint only charges two individuals. These two individuals are presumed innocent. But we make no charges about any of the other people who are referenced in the complaint, most not by name. And people should not cast aspersions on people who are discussed on the wiretap or bug tapes for conduct when other people are scheming to figure out how to approach them for different things. We hope you'll bear that in mind and not cast aspersions on people for being named or being discussed, or if you learn they're being interviewed.

"These two individuals are presumed innocent." What? Is Fitzgerald kidding? After all the accusations, hyperbole, drama and grandstanding, Patrick Fitzgerald has the audacity to say, “Oh, yeah, it is my duty to mention that these two people are presumed innocent, and I have to proceed the right way, and prove my case in court, etc. etc.” What a bunch of nonsense.

The other part is that I think this is a moment of truth for Illinois. In all seriousness, we have times when people decry corruption; and yet, here we have a situation where there appeared to be wide-ranging schemes where people were seeking to make people pay contributions to get contracts or appointments or do other stuff.

The FBI and their sister agencies at Postal, IRS and the Department of Labor have done a magnanimous -- a magnificent job. They will continue to work very, very hard. But what we really need is cooperation from people who are not in law enforcement, the people outside who heard or saw things or were approached in ways that felt uncomfortable. If they felt uncomfortable and they think, "This is not how you run a government," they ought to come forward and give us that information. It's very, very important that we get that information, so we can make the right decisions about where to proceed from here.

Translation: “Uh, some of what I’m saying is me talking through my ass. I have suspicions only but cannot prove them all. Someone please come forward and help me.”

I can tell you we've been conducting interviews during the day, and we're already quite heartened to hear that there are a number of people out there who were appalled by this conduct who are willing to come forward and talk to us. So we encourage people to talk to us. We encourage people to work with us, to let us get to the bottom of what has happened here.

We remind people that there's a lot we don't know and need to know. We remind people that we -- there's an awful lot we do know, and we'll be able to verify what people tell us. But we ask that the press, in particular, recognize that we're not casting aspersions on people other than the two people we charged, and bear that in mind and be responsible.

Getting to the bottom of things shall hopefully include the discovery that much of what went on in Rod Blagojevich’s tenure was of a political, not a criminal, nature. I actually do believe that the governor broke the law and I also believe he is going to pay dearly for it. In fact, he already has.

But Patrick Fitzgerald continues to colour outside the lines because of his zealotry for the law. He continues the unhappy American trend known as the criminalization of politics. He has become a grandstanding blowhard who presents the appearance of a man obsessed with enhancing his small acre of fame.

And I appear to be the only person in Christendom calling him on it.

Things done differ'nt down south

Too funny: this slice of Southern culture, via Robert Stacy McCain:

Was Dan's parting... amicable? Or was it one of those some-bastard's-gonna-get-his-car-keyed situations that make sensible men think twice before dating any woman who lives in a trailer park? Down home, we never heard of a "friendly divorce." No divorce in Georgia is final until somebody's in the emergency room or under a restraining order.

Actually, things are not so different down south after all. That sounds a lot like the practice in these here parts.

Who doesn't love harness racing?

Particularly the 2008 Paul Bunyan Invitational:

The Elephant in the Room Inquiry

I think they're calling it the Oliphant Inquiry, but that's just the Government of Canada. By now, anyone following the sorry proceedings grinding out in Ottawa would be aware of a few things; one thing in particular stands out, and no matter how it gets whitewashed, twisted, explained away, or excused, there is no getting away from it:

A former Prime Minister of Canada, Brian Mulroney, comes off looking like a dirty rotten grafter.

The Globe and Mail today:

Former prime minister Brian Mulroney refused to budge yesterday when faced with repeated and piercing questions about sworn testimony he gave in 1996, where he was asked about his relationship with Karlheinz Schreiber but neglected to mention that he took cash in hotel rooms from the German-born lobbyist.

[snip]

In 1995, Mr. Mulroney sued the federal government when the RCMP stated, in a letter to the Swiss government, that he had collected millions of dollars in kickbacks from Mr. Schreiber.

But once on the stand, he never explained that he had met with Mr. Schreiber in hotels in Montreal and New York in 1993 and 1994 and accepted at least $225,000 in cash.

I have already gone on record in this hallowed space with advice for Karlheinz Schreiber as to what he can do with any cash he wishes to unload. Jokes aside, I cannot see what Mulroney was thinking, and I wish to associate myself with comments made by Andrew Coyne yesterday:

Here was a former prime minister of Canada trying, with a straight face, in front of a judge, to maintain that when he said that he’d had a cup of coffee, once or twice, with Schreiber, without mentioning the cash payments, that he was fully and accurately describing his relationship with him after he left office.

There’s a reason why, as a witness, you swear an oath to tell, not just “the truth,” but “the whole truth.” That is, you can’t mislead the court by selectively omitting pertinent facts. That’s an obligation on any witness. It’s especially required of a former prime minister, and a member of the bar — both of whose ethical codes require him to act at all times in a manner that would withstand the highest scrutiny. That is, not to hide within the letter of the law or hairsplitting evasions, but to act in a wholly ethical fashion.

So Mulroney’s position is not just that he was acting legally, but ethically. To buttress his case, he also claims that he “would have” provided the full story if the government had accepted his offer, before the letter of request became public knowledge, to meet with his lawyers.

In other words, Mulroney wants us to believe two things: that he was justified in telling a highly selective truth, and that he was willing to tell the whole truth. Neither stands up to examination.

His “justification” — I was fighting for my life, the government had nine lawyers etc — is simply that had he told the whole truth, it might have hurt his case: that if he’d told the court about the cash he was taking from Schreiber, it might have made it harder to sue the government for accusing him of taking bribes from Schreiber. But that’s not a justification. It’s a motive.

It isn’t just that Mulroney didn’t tell the whole truth. He didn’t even tell a partial truth: ie. I met him for a cup of coffee, once or twice, full stop. Because, as Wolson pointed out, he then went on his testimony to describe in some detail the nature of their conversation, including that Schreiber had hired Lalonde to represent him. And he concludes with “that was it.” So this was a partial truth, masquerading as the whole truth. The clear impression was that he had given a full description of what went on at their meetings.

As for Mulroney’s pledge that he “would have” told them the whole truth, of what value is that? He says he’d have told his interrogators about the cash if they’d asked: but there was no way anyone else could have known about it. He says he would have given the police all of his documents — his bank accounts, and his income tax returns, the works. But the bank accounts would have had no record of the payments, since he kept them all in cash. And he didn’t declare it on his income tax until 1999. There are no documents anywhere that show any trace of the payments. So his retroactive hypothetical promise that he “would have” come clean is a crock.

Then there’s the business of the cash itself, and why he kept it in cash. Wolson only touched on this, but we saw Mulroney’s modus operandi again: when he’s cornered, when he can’t deny, or forget, or dismiss, or otherwise explain away incriminating bits of evidence, when we get right down to the rock bottom fact that he took the cash, he just says it was “a mistake,” an “error of judgment.” One that he repeated three times. That is simply not a plausible statement. Mulroney is a man of the world, in every sense of the phrase. There is simply no reasonable construction of events that can present him as the naive dupe of Schreiber the “international businessman.”

Even Mulroney’s semi-mea culpa was telling. He says that when Schreiber plopped that wad of $1000 bills on the table, “I should have said, could you write me a cheque?” But that’s not what most people would say, in the face of such dubious behaviour. They wouldn’t say, could you write me a cheque. They would say: This meeting is at an end — I’m not doing business with you, ever. They would sense at that moment they were dealing with a shady character. All of their alarm bells would be ringing. That’s even if they knew nothing further about the person. Whereas in fact Mulroney knew plenty about Schreiber. [All emphasis in original - Ig.]

Coyne called the testimony "two of the saddest hours I have ever witnessed." No wonder.

I need some advice from my readers

I have offered a modest amount of IT expertise (i.e., some help with a database) to a local school on a pro bono basis. How much free time is appropriate?
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More SCTV

If you have the time to watch them, here are Parts 1 and 2 of an episode of "The Fishin' Musician" on SCTV, starring John Candy. Guesting on his show are Joe Walsh and his bandmates. This dates from about 1983:




I always loved SCTV, particularly segments like The Fishin' Musician. The running joke of the show was that the host, Gil Fisher (John Candy), didn't know much about fishing and actually hated the taste and smell of fish. In addition to that, I never saw him play any music - although I stand to be corrected if anyone remembers differently - it was always his guests who were the musicians.

My favourite episode of The Fishin' Musician, for which I regret I cannot find a video, was the time Carl Perkins and his band were on the show. Here is the synopsis from the SCTV Program Guide:

Gil chats with Carl and his band. They show clips of the fishing trip for Arctic Char in the Northwest Territories. Gil does all the driving. They stop at a rough bar. Gil's been up for four days driving, and he gets real hammered and obnoxious. He taunts cops, hassles the waitress and gets beaten up by a small guy. Carl then does a number ("Matchbox").

Gil Fisher (Candy) agreed to do all the driving because that was the only way Perkins and his mates would make the trip to the Northwest Territories. Gil: "Boy, I must have had about 36 cups of coffee a day to stay awake." (Film clip shows Gil falling asleep at the wheel of his crammed full, fast-moving, low-riding limo, with Perkins' band literally pouring the coffee down his throat.) Gil: "Well, we'd been on the road four days and we weren't even halfway there. Carl said he only had a week off, so we had to turn around and go back." (It was on the ride back that they stopped at the rough bar, and a film clip shows Gil smashing his arm - for no reason - against a wall, finally explaining to the viewers why we see him, back at the Scuttle Butt Lodge, with his forearm in a cast.)

Oh, man. Good times, good times. We miss you, John Candy.

SCTV segment

The somewhat arcane reference to a television show in my last post can be explained a little better by clicking here. The semi-regular SCTV segment was called the Farm Film Report, and it starred the late lamented John Candy, and our Big-Mac-at-the-local-McDonald's guy Joe Flaherty.

I would love to embed the video, but the pinhead video's YouTube poster thought, for some reason, that embedding it on a blog would be a bad idea, and viciously prevented this.

Problems with large rodents?

Get some dynamite, and blow the little bastards up. Dude in government used to do it:

“Yep,” added Brown. “We used to spend a couple of days a week going out and blowing up beaver dams.”

They blow'd up good, they blow'd up real good!

Gray Lady Smackdown

My post about the impending demise of the USA's major newspapers, particularly the New York Times and the Boston Globe, drew a few responses which echo both my own personal observations and the pronouncement of some of the more prominent online commentators. A summary:

- Most major newspapers have liberal agendas or biases
- Newspapers are following bad business models
- People prefer to read news on the Internet and blogs
- Fewer people are interested in gathering information via reading
- Technology will continue to make the delivery of written material so easy that all forms of paper-based writing and reading will continue to decline

With respect to the bias complaint, I personally have less of a problem with left-wing bias among journalists than I do with the fact that most of them are lazy beyond belief. Most stories written in newspapers are a regurgitation of clichés and conventional wisdom, untainted by original investigation, angle or thought. Take away independent inquiry and thinking, and the only thing to report shall be unavoidably coloured by one's own biases or the biases of they whom one is plagiarizing. If you think I am exaggerating, try running for public office, even once.

But that is the business of reporting as it is currently taught and practiced. What of opinion journalism? I have less trouble with that, for sure, since it is obviously opinion-based. The only pitfall is that the newspaper's opinion writer might be wracked by equivocation, empty verbosity or illogic.

Which brings me to David Brooks of the New York Times. I have no trouble with the guy's hot air, because I just assume that's what I'm going to get in the first place.

But try telling that to Stacy McCain. If you enjoy the scene of an intellectual blowhard getting taken to the woodshed, make sure to read the latest installment of Mr. McCain's favourite hobby; namely, stomping all over David Brooks.

Exile's End

Up until a couple of weeks ago, an older fellow named Lloyd rented a home from my employer. He was one of our longer-term clients, having resided at the same place for about 20 years. A few years ago, he told me a very interesting story.

Lloyd recounted a near-death experience he had had in his early 40's. "You may not believe what I'm going to tell you. Back in 1976, I passed away in my bed."

"You did what?" I asked.

"You heard me right," he confirmed. "I passed away, lying in bed. I knew that I had passed away, and I got up out of my bed, out of my body, and looked back saw myself lying there.

"I left the bedroom and went out into the hall. And you may not believe this, either, but standing there before me was Jesus himself."

I recall that at this point of the story I must have reacted in some manner, because Lloyd stared at me hard as if to say, Yes, it's true, sonny. Take me seriously. So I kept listening.

"Well, I stopped in my tracks," Lloyd continued. "And then Jesus said to me, 'Lloyd, you have to go back. You cannot come now.' Now, to this day I don't know where I got the nerve or the boldness to question the Lord Himself. But do you know what I said? I asked, 'Why not?' And Jesus told me, 'It isn't time yet.'"

"Then what happened?" I asked.

"Well, at that moment I was back in my bed, and it was like I had been hit by lightning. I jumped about three feet off the bed, and then fell back. And it was not long after that we learned we were expecting a baby - in fact, at the time this happened, my wife was already pregnant." Lloyd nodded emphatically. "I guess there's a purpose to everything, isn't there?"

I have to confess that when Lloyd first told me this story, I wanted very much to believe that he had had a vision of Christ. I still want to believe that. But there was no way to verify it other than his own version of the story, and there still isn't. But Lloyd was positive that he had come face to face with Jesus, and he told it was such sincerity that I knew he had not made the story up. After a while I adopted the view that even if there was no way of knowing for sure, it was still quite a story. Even if the whole thing had only been a very vivid dream, one still has to admit that it was an amazing, Earth-shattering dream.

Just over two weeks ago, Lloyd died suddenly at his home at the age of 74. He had not been feeling well, he told me during a visit to my office just one day before he died. His ulcer had been acting up and he had landed in the hospital a few days before. But he said he thought he was on the road to recovery. Still, I was bothered by his use of a cane. Lloyd had no car and he walked all over town when he had to go somewhere, despite the fact that a bout with polio as a child had left him with an odd gait. He only used the cane when he was feeling weak.

Over the last seven years, I had many conversations with Lloyd. Some were about mundane things, and others were deeper - several times we talked about death. Lloyd described himself as a God-fearing man, and from what I could see of him, he was very faithful to God and his family. I think he would have liked the idea of dying suddenly at home on Holy Thursday. And although there is no way of knowing how it all went, I like to think that when Lloyd got up and walked into the hallway after falling dead in his bathroom, the Lord was waiting to greet him with a grin and this mischevious line:

"Okay, Lloyd. Now it's time."

The Venerable Father Solanus Casey once observed, "Life here in the exile seems so short and uncertain, that it seems like it ought to have another name." I know Lloyd would have agreed.

Gray Lady Down

I refer not to the excellent 1978 movie starring numerous actors of renown. I refer to the New York Times.

Like many newspapers around the globe, the Gray Lady is bleeding red ink, although if the chatter is to be believed, the New York Times Company is putting the blame and the pressure on the Boston Globe. Excerpt:

One day after The New York Times received five Pulitzer Prizes, The New York Times Company said in its 2009 First-Quarter conference call that total revenue had declined 18.6 percent. The company's debt at the end of the quarter totaled $1.3 billion.

According to the Times Company's press release this morning, the company suffered an "operating loss of $61.6 million compared with operating profit of $6.2 million in the first quarter of 2008."

[snip]

"At the current rate of cash consumption, assuming no one-time expenses (highly unlikely), we estimate that the company will max out its current borrowing capacity in 4 quarters," Mr. Blodget wrote this morning. "At that point, it will owe about $1.2 billion in debt."

Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch. This is unbelievable. Never mind the Boston Globe's difficulties - even if the Globe turns things around, there is no way a newspaper company can crawl out from under $1,200,000,000 in debt, at least not in this day and age. I do not see how it could be done.

I think about our two local papers in this small, anonymous town. A few years ago, there were three or four pages of classified advertisements in each. Today, they fill not more than one page. This trend is ongoing and ubiquitous.

Gloomy prediction: within five years, our local newspapers will be bust. And so will most of the major papers across North America, including the New York Times and the Boston Globe. (The only positive element of this coming crash is the possible disappearance of the Toronto Star, the worst newspaper in Canada. The Star is so bad I refuse even to link to it.)

And for what? So we can get our news online? People are already practically living online, barricaded behind their doors with all their drapes shut. We pay our bills online, order pizza online, converse with our friends online, rent our movies online, watch them online, and vent our spleens anonymously and online. (Yes, guilty as charged.) Folks on the train or bus in the morning are not going to be reading the paper as they ride. They're going to be buried in whatever electronic device gets them the same information. And for some reason, the former seems natural, and the latter seems offputting and offensive.

My point is - at what point is progress no longer progress? Where is all this going?

The Ole Prefrontal Cortex

The brain is a wonderful thing, innit? It has this really cool mechanism for helping us to control our tendency to say the wrong thing. It does not always work - sometimes the wrong thing escapes our lips anyway - but you really have to admire the way the prefrontal cortex helps us to interact socially.

A fine example of this occurred today. During a meeting this morning with some folks who may be interested in purchasing some software I developed last year, I was actually able to monitor the intervention of the restraint function of the brain as it was happening, overriding my desire to respond to the people - actually, one person - with inappropriate comments.

I will first give the background. I arrived for the meeting on time at 9:00 a.m. Within seconds, two other people arrived, one of whom I know well (M), and the other whom (N) I had met about seven years ago in a professional capacity. I remembered her immediately because of her unique name, and I recalled that she had been, back then, a friendly and intelligent sort. Introductions followed. From here, the things I felt most compelled to say (but thankfully did not) will appear in italics, followed by what I actually said in normal type.

N: How do you do, Ig. Nice to meet you.

Ig: She's aged badly and she seems not to remember me. Hi, N. Nice to meet you.

N: How are you today?

Ig: Clearly better than you. Fine, thank you. By the way, we met back in 2002, when I did a few days' work for __________.

N: [Blank stare] Oh.

Ig: Did we mistakenly down a whole bottle of Valium with breakfast this morning? [Smiling] It's okay, I don't expect you to remember. It was prior to your pre-frontal lobotomy. It was quite a long time ago.

M: Shall we sit down?

N: Thank you.

[Everyone sits down.]

M: So, your children attend _________ School, don't they? I think my daughter knows your daughter.

N: Mm. Yes. [Trailing off, nodding] Yes, yes...

Ig: Shall I call an ambulance? You appear to have stopped breathing. So, you work for __________ these days, N?

N: Yes, yes... [Slow nodding continues, followed by awkward silence.]

Ig: Okay, please tell your alien overlords that the next time they replace a human on Earth with an android double, not to forget every single bloody social interaction subroutine in the program. Capiche? Uh, so, who else is joining us?

M: Well, B from ________ will be here, along with C, who works with N.

N: Yes. [Still nodding.] Yes, yes...

Ig: I hope to $#!%!&* they're here soon, or the ambulance may be called for me instead. Well, I'm sure they'll be along shortly.

[Awkward silence ensues, as Ig and M wonder what in tarnation they ought to say next.]

M: Nice day, isn't it? Finally we seem to be seeing spring.

N: [Nods. Stares and smiles vacantly.]

[B and C enter the room to join the meeting.]

Ig: Thank heavens you're here! I was about to die of boredom, and goodness knows nothing throws a meeting into disarray like a dead body on the floor, eh? Not to mention that you'd all be detained a while the coroner conducts interviews. Hello! How do you do?

M: Please come in and sit down.

[B and C sit down and meeting begins.]

---------

I've condensed this a bit, as the awkward part actually lasted two or three minutes. And I suppose I shouldn't have felt so uncomfortable by the awkwardness, but this was just completely not the same person I remember from seven years ago.

Anyway, my point is that despite my tendency to say the wrong thing from time to time, I am pleased to report that this morning, my brain actually intervened and held me back.

Are you an extremist?

Apparently, I am.

Until yesterday or so, I did not believe I was an extremist, worthy of additional attention, surveillance and caution due to my dangerous political beliefs. But the United States Department of Homeland Security's Office of "Intelligence" and Analysis Report, recently released, entitled Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment, puts the lie to my delusion.

From the second page of the nine-page Sovietesque screed work of art:

Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.

I do not want to make the argument that there exist no crazies out there who want to blow things up and kill people because of their hatred of the government or the people running it. We have all heard of Timothy McVeigh. This report, though, released under the direction of DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano with, I assume, the support of the White House, is absolutely beyond the pale in its scope of stupidity, bigotry and disrespect for those that disagree with the prevalent worldview of the political classes.

Memo to Janet "Reno" Napolitano: Watch out for me. I don't even live in the United States, but keep an eye on me anyway. I am an extremely dangerous foreigner. All of the following apply to me:

• I am in favour of decentralization of government power. If I am not mistaken, the United States Constitution severely limits the power and scope of the federal government. If I lived in America, I would be one of those who "[rejects] federal authority in favor of state or local authority." You know, just like much of the Constitution. The extreme Constitution, a document obviously given to the encouragement of terrorism and insurrection.



• I "reject government authority entirely" with respect to free speech. Now, here I do not single out the Democratic Party. The previous administration of George W. Bush, recently fired by the voters, also egregiously trod upon this right, not for national security purposes, but for political purposes. (Yes, I know Bush left under the two-term limit of the presidency, but you know what I mean.) Free speech is under assault in my country, too - directly so by quasi-judicial bodies in the various provinces and at the federal level known as "Human Rights Commissions", with the approbation of the federal government and with the acquiescance of the vile left-wing masses that make up the majority of Canada's citizens greater portion of the citizenry, either through ignorance of the situation or because of willful blindness to the truth.
  
  Free speech is free speech is free speech. There is no "but" or "except".



• I do not oppose immigration per se, but I certainly oppose illegal immigration, or a claim to refugee status where the claim is bogus. And - here is the opinion which I am sure readers will find outside the bounds of respectability - I am opposed to immigration that results in a change in the culture and character of my country. The fruits of Official Multiculturalism are mostly rotten. Why is it that every country not located in Western Europe or the Anglosphere has a right to maintain its original culture and traditions as defined by its people, but Canada, the United States, Great Britain, Australia, and all of Europe do not? The proof that they do not is that we are constantly told that our traditional culture is oppressive and requires the kind of change that can only be brought about by importing cultures from abroad. In Canada, this is official public policy, for goodness sake - the Minister in charge of immigration is actually called the Minister of Immigration and Multiculturalism. So, folks - including the American DHS Secretary - why the double-standard? Could someone please answer this question?



• I am opposed to abortion, too. Lest anyone think this is only the product of unthinking, knee-jerk obedience to my Church, I would like to point out that I have been pro-life all my life, including when I was in high school, a period of time during which, for all practical purposes, I was agnostic. I should not have to point this out, but here goes - I am also opposed to blowing up abortion clinics and I am opposed to harming abortion-performing doctors. But I doubt this disclaimer will help.
  
  But tell me - what label would one reasonably apply to a legislator who opposed legislation that would require a hospital to respect the right to life of a baby that has survived a botched abortion, has been born alive and is breathing on its own? Does this not strike anyone as the more extreme position?

Anyway, there it all is - I am putting it on the line, knowing that disclosure of my opinions may result in my being placed on some sort of list, or at least may attract criticism from those that dabble in the art of "nuance". Because I'm not a conservative with honest disagreements with left-liberals whose opinions differ from my own. I'm an extremist.

Michigan J. Frog

The classic cartoon from 1955:

My children and I saw part of this cartoon on Monday morning in the waiting room at the dentists' office. Still great after all these years.

Passover

Today is Holy Thursday for Roman Catholics and other Western Christian churches, but it is Passover for Jews. The first Passover occurred immediately prior to the Israelites' flight from Egypt, as told in the Book of Exodus.

What if the story had been chronicled on Facebook? Click here. It's a guffaw and then some.

(H/t: Steven Waldman.)

Fun with the Taxman

Prior to departing for Florida last month, Marie and I made a point of completing our tax returns and mailing them in. We were expecting tax refunds and figured that some of the wait time should pass more quickly if it coincided with vacation time.

Part of our somewhat different (read: complicating) tax situation stems from the fact that we sold a rental property in Nova Scotia last year. We made a few dollars on the sale, but not enough to get excited about. We lost a few dollars on the rental operation, but not enough to get excited about. The fun aspect of the sale is that we converted a fixed asset (real estate equity) into a nice liquid asset (also known as "cash") - but not enough to get excited about. But we ended up with a lot more of the liquid stuff than we put into the purchase in 2004, because we had spent the four years in between paying down the debt as fast as we could. Another fun part was unloading a property that had become a pain in the arse, but that's another chapter.

So - long story short - along with our tax return and the usual schedules, forms and receipts that had to be enclosed, we had to file a statement of real estate rentals (our last!), known by the Canada Revenue Agency as Form T776. (Note to my American readers: when you see Canada Revenue Agency, or CRA, as we call it, simply think "IRS" and you'll be more or less on the right track.**) The amount of rental income (or loss) shown on the bottom line of Form T776 has to match the amount reported on the main copy of the tax return (known as form T1), and it is reported on Line 126, or somesuch.

As Marie and I were the only two owners of the property, we were required to split any revenue or loss from the rental operation on a 50/50 basis. So, when I mailed my tax return, it showed an amount on Line 126 (I'm changing the details a bit) representing half the loss. Let's say it was $(456.93). I showed the amount in brackets, to indicate a negative. I enclosed a copy of Form T776, showing a corresponding amount. Marie did the same, except on Line 126 of her return, she used a negative sign, instead of brackets.

Well, the pinhead induhvidual at CRA who processed her return entered the amount as a positive, instead of a negative, which had the effect of raising her income by twice the absolute value of the rental loss (or $913.86, in this example), which in turn reduced Marie's tax refund and would negatively affect our Child Tax Credit, beginning in July of this year. We discovered this when CRA processed our refunds and deposited the money in our chequing account - always a happy day, certainly, but we did notice that Marie's refund was a little lower than what we calculated. Then, our Notices of Assessment arrived in the mail the following day (yesterday), and we saw Marie's income a fair sight higher than what she reported. When I calculated the difference, I saw right away that the amount was twice the absolute value of the rental loss, and I knew right away what CRA had done.

After stewing about this for a few minutes last night, Marie called CRA. At first I thought there would be no one to talk to, as it was past 8:30 p.m., but Marie was right - they have 24 hour coverage during Tax Season. After a short wait, Marie was connected to a live person (maybe it helps to ask for service in French - perhaps the wait times are shorter) and she was asked the usual series of security questions, so that the operator would be assured that he had accurately identified the taxpayer. Marie explained the problem and the pinhead operator verified that yes, the problem was on Line 126. Specifically, we learned, CRA likes negative numbers to be in parenthesis. Negative signs are a no-no. Now, instead of looking up Marie's copy of Form T776, which had the correct amount on it, and making the change over the telephone, this employee of the taxpayers asked my wife to file another form, called T1 ADJ, requesting adjustment of this particular line, along with another copy of Form T776 to corroborate the amount.

Let me get this straight:

• A pinhead data-entry employee of the federal government received my wife's tax return and in the process of keying the information into the CRA's supercomputer, made a keying error, costing us money.



• This same pinhead CRA employee failed to look at the accompanying schedules, like Form T776, in the tax return to verify the amounts on the T1.



• No other pinhead CRA employee was charged with the task of verifying the information on the T1, or the information keyed into their system.



• The Notice of Assessment sent to us did not break down the components of our income, leaving us - smarter than average taxpayers, for sure, but still - leaving us to try to figure out why there was a difference in my wife's total income, tax payable, and amount refunded.



• When we discovered the problem, and called CRA to tell the pinheads them about the error they had made in keying the information in, we were unapologetically told that we shouldn't use negative signs, and should stick to parentheses, even though this rather important (to them only) requirement is not apparent in any instruction on the T1 or the T776.



• The burden is now on us to file a request for adjustment, along with a new T776, even though they have two copies of our T776 for 2008 on file or imaged somewhere. (Thankfully, all of CRA's forms are on the web and are easily downloaded.)



• To top it all off, the estimated time required to process this correction is two-and-a-half months.

I suppose I should be relieved that CRA isn't going over everyone's tax returns with a fine-tooth comb, looking for ways to make life hard for the taxpayer, but still. This is just silly.

But it's the Taxman. What is a person to do? Our T1 ADJ and another copy of the T776 are going out in the mail today.

**Despite my issues with the no-common-sense types at CRA, I'm not really being fair to them by comparing them to the IRS. The IRS, from what I hear, is much stricter, much lower in terms of common sense, much more sadistic, and not much interested in the rights of the taxpayer. I think we have it pretty good in Canada with our tax system and with CRA overall, and we have a pretty good Taxpayer's Bill of Rights.

Beer Barrel Polka

Let this happy tune lift your spirits over the weekend. From the Lawrence Welk Show (1976), starring Myron Floren and the Semonski Sisters!

Good times, good times.

Captain Merrill Stubing of Starfleet Command

What if the U.S.S. Enterprise were The Love Boat?

BREAKING: Bad news for Blago

Oh, no: The former governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, has just been indicted on 16 felony counts related to allegations of misuse of his (former) office. Among the allegations are that Blago tried to sell the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama to the highest bidder.

I'm so sorry, Blago. I wish you the very best of luck and hope Patrick Fitzgerald goes down in flames. Well, not literally, but I hope he loses. Go get 'em.

Darth Vader, oil magnate

What if Star Wars were like Dallas?

Six Random Things

I don't know about any of you, but I find it absolutely fascinating, in an annoying way, that the times I have the most to talk about on this blog coincide with the times I am struck with writer's block.

Not kidding. I have started a couple of posts since getting home from Florida last week and I haven't advanced further than six or eight words before giving up. It's very strange. It's like my mind blanks when I start to type.

Add to that the fact that I have a pile of things to work on at the office and at home. Maybe the writer's block is caused by the dull feeling of guilt I have by trying to write when I have other things to do. Could be that. But usually, I have to be facing catastrophe before I feel any guilt over my clinical procrastination. And I'm not facing catastrophe. At least I don't think so.

And so you now have the background as I attempt to break the logjam and complete my lastest assignment from Mr. Macrum, the Greatest Bicycle Repairman in the history of the World, or at least in the history of York County. I have been tagged for Six Random Things. Apparently, the six random things must be random things about me. And there must be six.

"Random" is just such a slippery term. If only there were some way to empty my brain of all things (Editor's note: This has obviously already been done) and then randomly draw six of them, then I could write this post more honestly. Actually, knowing all the Dark Matter that's in there, that's probably not a good idea. So I'll just have to pretend they're random, and offer the following:

1. Like the song by Three Dog Night says, I have never been to Spain, but I've been to Oklahoma. A trip to Spain would be nice, but I've never been anywhere but Canada and the USA. We usually visit the same old places, and actually, I'm quite happy with that for the time being. The Oklahoma visit was actually more of a "drive across" on Interstate 40 back on August 10th, 1988, when gas was still 88 cents a gallon, I was 20 pounds lighter, and the car I drove - a magnificent 1983 Chevette - screamed in pain at speeds over 50 m.p.h. Good times, good times.

2. Like a former Prime Minister of Canada, I am an Irishman who speaks French. So therefore you cannot count me out. Do you know who said that? Richard Nixon, that's who. (Hmm... best not get carried away with the random thing.) As to the French language - I am very proud of having become as fluent as I am, but at the same time, I am not happy with it. I have arrived at a glass ceiling. The only way to improve my French at this point would be to live in a totally French environment for a while. And we have no plans to do that.

3. I am prematurely turning into one of those annoying, scowling fussy old men that every single one of us knew when we were kids. The number of items on the list entitled "Things I Am Not Willing to Put Up With Anymore" has become a little too high for my own good. And most of the things on the list are trivial. I'm not vocal about my pet peeves, but I find there are more and more things (and people) that get on my nerves these days. I'm working on it.

4. The car I own right now is only the fourth one I've ever owned. It is a 2004 Chevrolet Venture, nicknamed Chloe. (Exciting, isn't it? Hey, try trucking around four kids and a bunch of cargo without a minivan.) Marie and I tend to buy a car and keep it for quite a number of years. My automobile ownership dates: 1) 1986 to 1994; 2) 1994 to 1998; 3) 1997 to 2007; 4) 2006 to present. Yes, there is some overlap between #2 and #3, and between #3 and #4, during which times we owned two cars. But we own just one at a time, as a rule, because it's all we need and it's much cheaper.

5. The longest I have ever worked for any organization is eight years. In June, I will have been in my present job for seven years. I do not know if this is significant, but there it is.

6. I am reading, for the first time, the Harry Potter series that my two eldest daughters love so much. I am mid-way through the third book, Le Prisonnier d'Azkaban. Yes, it's in French, as were the first two books I read. The girls assure me that the first three books are better in French, and that books #4 through #7 are better in English. I'm only following their recommendations. And I must say I'm quite enjoying the books.

The Rules of the Six Random Things tagging game:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
Done.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
Never! I'm a rulebreaker. I'll not list them.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
Done.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
A huge waste of time, because everyone reading this can consider themselves tagged. I know they'll rush to comply and keep the thing going.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
This post will have to suffice.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.
Shall do so shortly.

And with that, another assignment is done, and another month is up in smoke.

Snow again

Six to eight inches of heavy, wet snow falling today. Krankor, make it stop. Please. This was all supposed to be over already. Heck, the weekend was beautiful and spring-like. Someone help.

The snow was supposed to be removed by now

...and it isn't.

Our day started at 5:10 a.m. EDT yesterday, when we left our place in Spring Hill to bring our rental car back to Alamo in Tampa. It finished at 12:30 a.m. ADT this morning, when we finally pulled in the driveway at our home in Zanzibar North. There was some stuff in between, but I can't remember much of it right now.

I'm back in the office today in a near comatose state, with about 18 million pieces of paper on my desk requesting my immediate attention.

The important things are that we're home, after an exhausting travel day yesterday, and that a great time was had by all in Florida, where 12 of the 14 days of our visit had near-perfect weather.

Someone wake me when it's the end of June.

Fleeing for a couple of weeks

Well, my vast coterie of readers [**CRICKETS CHIRPING**] shall be dreadfully disappointed to learn this, but my family and I are taking off for a couple of weeks. Yes, we are wimping out again and escaping to Florida. I have had it up to here with winter. Too much snow, too many days of school cancelled, too many backbreaking sessions with the shovel in the driveway. Enough, enough.

We are leaving on Tuesday morning to drive to Portland, Maine, from where we are catching a flying machine to Newark and then on to Tampa. This will be our first use of the Jetport in Portland. Looking forward to it - and chopping a couple of hours off the drive, by not having to continue to Manchester, N.H., as we have each of the past three years, will be a nice part of the trip.

Anyway. We will do some visiting with my sister and her family, and this year for the first time we are visiting Busch Gardens. I will wait and see before committing to riding any roller coasters. I loved them in my younger days, but it has been a while and stomach trouble that started about five years ago may prevent me from being too brave. I just don't like nausea. The kiddies are jazzed, though.

We will be flying back to Portland on March 25th, and home late the same evening if planes are on time and if the weather cooperates.

Stay safe, everyone, and for goodness sake, someone please do something about all this snow while we're away.

Mortgages twisted until they crack

Regular readers know by now what I think of Obamanomics and Bailout Mania. (The answer: not much.) I do not accuse the president of governing in bad faith, or possessed of a hidden agenda - I genuinely believe Obama thinks he is doing the right thing - but the president's values are, to put it mildly, not mine, and his economic ecumen is, in my opinion, highly suspect.

The name of the latest bailout, intended to prop up borrowers behind on their mortgages or holding negative equity, is The Making Home Affordable Refinance and Modification Options. Quite simply, the president is pouring gasoline on the fire and is delaying the day of reckoning, which I am sorry to say is a painful, regretful, but ultimately necessary removal of delinquent mortgagors from the home ownership market. It is an awful thing to contemplate yet more foreclosures, but it has to happen if the housing market is to heal. Following a trend that started in the Carter administration, this latest plan from Washington is a breathtaking collection of interventions into the housing and mortgage market and, as most of these recent plans have done, it rewards bad financial decisions and irresponsible economic behaviour. And the U.S. government is doing all this on money borrowed from generations yet to be born. Someone tell me how any of this is wise.

But never mind me. Check out Robert Stacy McCain's profanity-laced smackdown alternative plan, to which he gives the acronym FEDS, which stands for Foreclose and Evict the Deadbeat Scum. (Warning: R-rated metaphors.)

No equivocator Mr. McCain.

The Court-Appointed Liquidator

My secret identity:

I think everyone will agree that there's nothing more heroic than an accountant, or, more accurately, a wannabe accountant. And what is a superhero accountant without a flamethrower?

Image courtesy of The Hero Factory. (Can't wait to see Krankor's, Sporko's and Macrum's.)

(H/t: The Amazing Monocled Dead Eye.)

Lent begins

I have to assume that the absence of just about everyone from the blogosphere lately has to do with their focus on their souls, since Lent begins today.

So remember, everyone - assuming you eventually return to read this - you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Forty days without coffee. It ain't going to be easy.

Did he say half?

President Obama announced yesterday that he wants to cut the federal deficit in half by 2013.

Well, the headline sounds good, but as always, the devil is in the details:

"We can't generate sustained growth without getting our deficits under control," Obama said in his weekly radio address in which he also announced immediate implementation of tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans as part of the effort to stimulate the economy.

An administration official said Obama was proposing to cut the deficit, which private economists project will rise to $1.5 trillion this year, through a mixture of tax increases on wealthier Americans and spending cuts.

"The deficit this administration inherited was $1.3 trillion or 9.2 percent of GDP. By 2013, the end of the president's first term, the budget cuts the deficit to $533 billion or 3.0 percent of GDP," the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

"Most of the savings will come from winding down the war in Iraq, increased (tax) revenue from those making more than $250,000 a year, and savings from making government work more efficiently and eliminating programs that do not work," the official said.

The United States spent about $190 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008. Obama has pledged to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months while ramping up the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan.

Well, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal deficit at the end of FY 2008 was $454.8 billion. I doubt very much the president was referring to this figure, since he says he "inherited" a deficit of $1.3 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office projects a deficit of $1.186 billion for FY 2009. It is more than a little weasel-like to call FY 2009 something inherited from the previous administration, since much of the spending in the current fiscal year is being promoted by President Obama and passed, at his behest, by the president's allies in the Congress. However, I shall grant him a pass on this sneakiness for two reasons: 1) every incoming administration fools with the fiscal year that the previous administration started, claiming credit if it is good, and loading it with everything not nailed down if it is bad; and 2) the alarming trend in the USA known as Bailout Mania, which has on its heels its ugly cousin Stimulus Mania, was started by the Bush administration anyway.

So just for the sake of argument let us say that the projections of the private sector economists cited in the article are right, and His Obamatude is inheriting a $1.5 trillion deficit in FY 2009. ("It was like that when I got here." - Homer Simpson.) By the time September 30th rolls around, it is probable that the deficit shall be about $314 billion higher than predicted by the CBO, due to falling tax revenues and drunken-sailor-at-the-public-trough spending, which, like everything else, shall end up under the category of Bush's Fault. Fine. A trillion and a half dollars, cut in half, is $750 billion in red ink by the end of FY 2013.

How is he going to do this, again? Well, the article I linked to says through a "mixture of tax increases on wealthier Americans and spending cuts."

Tax increases on wealthier Americans? I have already demonstrated that wealthy Americans are already the only ones paying the freight. Tax rate increases have not been proved to create additional revenue. In fact, Presidents Kennedy, Reagan and Bush II created new revenue by cutting rates. Let me know how that works out, guys.

But the biggest eyebrow-raiser is this one: cutting spending. In Washington, D.C.? As they say on Capitol Hill, Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

Cutting spending is a good idea. It sounds good in theory, and the Several States could actually force it to happen. But how often has this actually occurred? After World War II, spending decreased substantially as costs associated with the war fell. Spending went up dramatically again during the Korean War, but then eased off (only slightly) after the war's end in 1953. Since FY 1956, spending by the US federal government has increased every single year.

Look, I hope President Obama can actually make this happen. But I will only believe it when I see it.

More of this, please

The following is the text of a document filed in the Texas state legislature on Tuesday, February 17th:

By: Creighton H.C.R. No. 50
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads as follows: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"; and

WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being that specifically granted by the Constitution of the United States and no more; and

WHEREAS, The scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment means that the federal government was created by the states specifically to be an agent of the states; and

WHEREAS, Today, in 2009, the states are demonstrably treated as agents of the federal government; and

WHEREAS, Many federal laws are directly in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; and

WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment assures that we, the people of the United States of America and each sovereign state in the Union of States, now have, and have always had, rights the federal government may not usurp; and

WHEREAS, Section 4, Article IV, of the Constitution says, "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government," and the Ninth Amendment states that "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people"; and

WHEREAS, The United States Supreme Court has ruled in New York v. United States, 112 S. Ct. 2408 (1992), that congress may not simply commandeer the legislative and regulatory processes of the states; and

WHEREAS, A number of proposals from previous administrations and some now pending from the present administration and from congress may further violate the Constitution of the United States; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the 81st Legislature of the State of Texas hereby claim sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States; and, be it further

RESOLVED, That this serve as notice and demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers; and, be it further

RESOLVED, That all compulsory federal legislation that directs states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties or sanctions or that requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding be prohibited or repealed; and, be it further

RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate of the United States Congress, and to all the members of the Texas delegation to the Congress with the request that this resolution be officially entered in the Congressional Record as a memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.

I do not want to single out President Obama's administration in this post, because the U.S. federal government has been utterly out of control for decades. Obama is simply following the same trend that the previous several presidents followed. George W. Bush's administration was the worst offender prior to January 20th, but I suspect this administration shall be even worse.

As for the Texas resolution, I am simply very impressed that someone, somewhere gets it. Actually, whoever filed this in Texas was probably inspired by Oklahoma legislator Charles Key, who is making a similar effort in the Sooner State.

Please join these folks, Americans. Respect your awesome Constitution and force your governments to do likewise. If you think something in it is improper or you find it incomplete, then follow the prescribed procedure to amend. Stop weaselling around it. Stop the insanity that is the gargantuan federal government before it gets worse. Make an effort to undo the damage. Please.

Baseball post to fill space

Baseball players you may be surprised to learn are still alive:

Vic Barnett (b. 1922; played for Pittsburgh in 1940s)
Eddie Basinski (Played for Brooklyn & Pittsburgh in 1940s)
Phil Cavaretta (b. 1916; played for Cubs & White Sox 1934-1955)
Ralph Kiner (b. 1922; still appearing occasionally in the broadcast booth)
Marty Marion (b. 1917)
Luis Olmo (Played for Brooklyn in 1940s)
Red Schoendienst (b. 1923)

I would have added Don Gutteridge (b. 1912), but I see he died a few months ago. So that, like five, is right out, which is too bad because Gutteridge was the last living player from the St. Louis Browns' pennant-winning team of 1944. But I just found out that Frenchy Bordagaray only died in 2001, at the age of 91. That kind of makes up for it.

A few more recent ballplayers who died early:

Tommy Agee (1942-2001)
Ken Brett (1948-2003)
Ken Caminiti (1963-2004)
John Cerutti (1960-2004)
Rick Mahler (1953-2005)
Joe Niekro (1944-2006)
Darrell Porter (1952-2002)
Kirby Puckett (1960-2006)

And don't let the figures deceive you:

Ed Delahanty (1867-1903; great stats but actually sucked, and because of this was pushed to his death from a moving train. RIP.)

A-Rod adds to his classy reputation

Jeff Darcy hits it in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, again.