[Changed by Ace; the system's occasional tendency to double post the same item got Drew.]

Posted by: DrewM at 08:33 AM | Comments (8)
Post contains 4 words, total size 1 kb.

You may recall that in February the Obama administration announced it would no longer defend parts of the Defense of Marriage Act in court. The House of Representatives took up the case and hired former Solicitor General Paul Clement as its attorney.

Gay groups then geared up to pressure Clement's firm, King and Spaulding, to withdraw their representation on the grounds that representing the House to defend a duly enacted law is hate or something. Not surprisingly the firm caved and now Clement has resigned from the firm.

In a letter to King & Spalding chairman Robert Hays, Clement says he chose to resign not because he has strong personal views about DOMA. Rather, he writes, "I resign out of the firmly-held belief that a representation should not be abandoned because the client's legal position is extremely unpopular in certain quarters."

King & Spalding had faced protests and threats from pro-gay marriage groups in light of its decision to defend DOMA.

"Efforts to delegitimize any representation for one side of a legal controversy are a profound threat to the rule of law," Clement continues. "Much has been said about being on the wrong side of history. But being on the right or wrong side on the merits is a question for clients. When it comes to the lawyers, the surest way to be on the wrong side of history is to abandon a client in the face of hostile criticism."

So upscale firm King and Spalding won't represent the US House of Representatives but you know who they will represent? Guantanamo Bay terror detainees.

Meet John Chandler who joined King and Spalding as a Partner in 2008

Last week John A. Chandler retired from Sutherland to consider, he said, the next phase of his life. Meanwhile his wife and fellow litigator, Elizabeth V. Tanis, left Sutherland for King & Spalding in hopes of bigger opportunities for her accountancy liability practice.

On Monday, Chandler joined Tanis at King & Spalding, becoming a partner at the firm, after a 36-year career at Sutherland.

...

Chandler said continuing to practice with Tanis, the potential to expand his practice abetted by King & Spalding's larger geographic footprint and the firm's willingness to support his pro bono representation of several Guantanamo detainees induced him to change firms. He'd spent his entire career at Sutherland, where he headed the litigation practice until May, handling professional liability and securities cases, plus other complex business litigation.

...Chandler was the lead lawyer for Sutherland's Guantanamo detainee cases, a pro bono effort he started almost four years ago with other lawyers from the firm. He said he'll continue to represent the detainees in conjunction with the Sutherland lawyers. "King & Spalding has told me to do whatever I need to do," he said. A federal judge has scheduled a March status conference for five of Sutherland's Guantanamo cases and Chandler said he and the Sutherland lawyers would ask for expedited hearings.

Last week, after his retirement from Sutherland, Chandler expressed interest in a post with the Obama administration to end detainees' imprisonment at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which President-elect Barack Obama has promised will be a priority of his administration. Chandler said Friday that he'd still like to work on Guantanamo matters for Obama -- but not as a full-time employee. "To be able to advise and help is something I'm very interested in," he said.

Emphasis mine.

Choices.

*I corrected the headline and second paragraph because apparently there haven't been any protests yet by gay rights groups, so this is a preemptive surrender. Of course there may have well been some private communications give how tied into liberal groups this firm obviously is.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:28 AM | Comments (33)
Post contains 674 words, total size 5 kb.

I'm near a boiling point this morning over this AP story concerning President Carter's trip to North Korea this week. From the AP story:

"BEIJING (AP) - Former President Jimmy Carter said Monday that he hoped to meet with North Korea's reclusive leaderduring a visit to the country this week aimed at assessing severe food shortages and discussing the possible revival of nuclear disarmament talks."

First of all, shame on AP for including such a mind-numbingly stupid phrase as "reclusive leader" with regards to Kim Jong Il. Reclusive? With he and Papa Kim's likenesses plastered all over the nation in the form of statues, murals and mandatory portraits in every hovel? Reclusive? As in attempting to develop and export nuclear weapons to every rogue regime around the world? Yep, very reclusive...like Hobbits. Nuclear-armed Hobbits.

"Carter is making the three-day visit accompanied by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Brundtland and former Irish President Mary Robinson. The four are members of a group of retired world leaders called the Elders founded by former South African President Nelson Mandela."

"Carter said the group "would like very much" to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, as well as his son and heir-apparent Kim Jong Un, but was unsure whether that would happen. "We have no indication that we will do so, but it would be a pleasure if we could do so," he said at a news conference in Beijing prior to his departure for Pyongyang on Tuesday."

But we're just getting warmed up here...

"In almost any case when there are sanctions against an entire people, the people suffer the most and the leaders suffer least," he said. "And we believe that the last 50 years of deprivation of the North Korean people to adequate access to trade and commerce has been very damaging to their economy, as well as some problems they may have brought on by themselves."

Gotta' love that last sentence: “…as well as some problems they may have brought on by themselves." Well, isn’t that a nice concession.

The problem with the way we've always dealt with Carter is that we treat him like some well-meaning but doddering and naive fool. Crazy ex-prez in the attic and so forth. Builds nice homes with Habitat for Humanity. Had an amusing brother. Bravely fought off an amphibious rabbit assault. Had lust in his heart, which he kept hidden beneath the cardigan sweaters.

I've come to a different conclusion over time, which is that he knows exactly what he's doing and is in fact a malevolent force in this world. On every single issue where America finds itself at odds with dictators and authoritarian regimes, you'll find Carter there, standing in support of them. Wherever political corruption and abuse of power exists, there is Carter. Wherever unelected, belligerent despots who starve their own people and deny them the most basic of human rights can be foundÂ…there is Carter.

The common denominator and prime qualifying factor for him it seems when choosing his allies: “Must hate America.” No others need apply.

Just because he's old doesn't mean he's senile, and he's not a dumb man. You don't become a nuclear engineer, governor of Georgia and eventually the President without having a fairly formidable collection of brain cells. How you use, or misuse, those gifts is another matter entirely.

I'm not a psychologist, nor do I play one on the HQ, but I think the root of his problem lies in how he was so utterly rejected after one term in office and how so many citizens did and still do view his term as such an utter failure. Every administration inherits problems from the previous one and his was no different. Every administration also has new ones pop up while in office. It's upon how each president responds to these issues that they're ultimately judged. Carter was ineffectual because in the face of great challenges to the nation he chose to do...nothing.

But now he's going to do large things. He'll show us for rejecting his wise and benevolent rule. Why, if we'd just re-elected him we would've eventually seen the greatness in this man. But we didn't, and now it's payback time. Except that he really canÂ’t exact too much revenge against us, at least directly. However, this bitter, broken shell of a former human being can try and do so by proxy. To seek audience with and stand in solidarity with the likes of Kim Jong Il and dare to point the finger at us for the suffering of the North Korean people, I have only one response:

Mr. Carter, you disgust me.

Posted by: Genghis at 07:56 AM | Comments (143)
Post contains 793 words, total size 5 kb.

"The Fed bet $900 billion it didn’t have — and it lost."

In what can only be termed comic understatement, the New York Times calls a $900B waste of taxpayer money “disappointing”. (In the same way they refer to World War II as “that bit of mid-20th century unpleasantness”.)

America's welfare empire. And Barack Hussein Obama rules as emperor over this domain. (Ferrara refers to a book I've linked in a previous book thread: Never Enough: America's Limitless Welfare State.)

Michael Barone opines further on the essential unsustainability of most defined-benefit systems. The basic problem with these systems is that actuaries cannot yet accurately predict the future more than five or six years ahead (and sometimes not even that far), and so they rely on (usually overoptimistic) rate-of-return calculations that turn out to be wildly off the mark. But these overoptimistic projections mean that people can contribute less (or nothing at all, if it is a shared plan), which is why there is a vested interest in assuming high rate of returns. In private pension plans, bankruptcy or a bail-out is the usual end-state; for sovereigns, collapse and penury. ("We have turned into a pension plan with an Army," is how one commentator put it.)

It bears repeating, too: We really suck at predicting the future.

Let's all welcome Australia to the Loyal Order of the Terminally Boned! A big hand for the new guy!

Finally, a public-service message -- if you operate on the distaff side of the law-and-order divide from time to time, you might want to be aware that your favorite bail bondsman may no longer accept the title on your crackhouse as collateral on your bail-bond.

Doom! DOOM! DOOOOOOM!

[UPDATE 1]: Congressman Ryan's budget doesn't benefit the recliner-bound all that much, that's true. However, I consider that a advantage, not a drawback.

[UPDATE 2]: Fareed Zakaria: "The Chinese will keep buying our debt! They have nowhere else to go!" China: "We might stop buying your debt." Fareed Zakaria: "...aw, shit."

[UPDATE 3]: Maxed-out America. (Via Insty.)
more...

Posted by: Monty at 05:20 AM | Comments (224)
Post contains 363 words, total size 4 kb.

Gabe's on an extended hobo safari this week, so I'll be filling in. Here's a good one to get us started as we await Monty's Daily Dose of Doom™:

China May Start New Sovereign Funds to Invest in Oil, Gold. That pile of dirty C notes is getting a might large, is it?

Posted by: andy at 02:56 AM | Comments (155)
Post contains 61 words, total size 1 kb.

The video below the jump shows an uncle laying down the law to his nephew who fancied himself a hard core gangsta thug on Facebook. The uncle obviously did not take kindly to his nephew's boasting and made him fess up to lying about his street cred with the aid of a leather belt. If only more adults would take control of their children they might be less inclined to beat up on transsexuals in McDonalds restaurants. After the beat down the uncle issues the line "now put that on your f**king (facebook) wall". Classic.... NSFW due to language. H/t Demitria from DC more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:00 AM | Comments (62)
Post contains 117 words, total size 1 kb.

Happy Easter All!

Gas Prices, Food Prices At A ‘Tipping Point’?

That's what Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, says:

With gas prices now standing at about $3.90 a gallon, energy costs have now passed 6 percent of spending—a level that Johnson says is a "tipping point" for consumers.

"Energy is not quite as essential as food and water, but is a necessity in today's economy, and when gasoline costs more than bottled water—like now—then it takes a huge bite out of disposable spending," he said, in a research note.

Of the six US recessions since 1970, all but the "9-11 year 2001 recession" have been linked to—of not triggered by—energy prices that crossed the 6 percent of personal consumption expenditures, he said. (During the shallow 2001 recession, energy prices had risen to about 5 percent of spending, which is higher than the long-term 4 percent share.)

This year food prices have climbed 6.5 percent since the beginning of early January, according to Consumer Growth Partners.

"The combined increase in the necessities of food and energy creates a harsh double whammy for already stressed consumers," Johnson said. The last time this happened was in the recession that lasted from 1973 to 1975.

Johnson estimates that food and energy eat up about 15 percent of consumer spending at today's prices, compared with about 12.7 percent two years ago.

Hey, remember when gas was $2.20 a gallon and the unemployment rate was 4.4%?
Ah yes that was back in 2006 - good times. So what happened to change all that? Well perhaps this: Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 04:56 PM | Comments (731)
Post contains 1193 words, total size 11 kb.

The Easter Bunny Hates You. This second video is old, but it's worth watching again. The first video, the prequel, is probably old too, but it's new to me. Maybe some of you guys missed it too.

(I moved it below the fold due to page loading issues.) more...

Posted by: rdbrewer at 02:26 PM | Comments (142)
Post contains 130 words, total size 3 kb.

At first glance it appears to be a hit on Obama about his failure to deliver on closing Guantanamo. But the WaPo piece merely offers cover, dutifully so. It was the fault of the Congress, it was the popular fear of harboring terrorists on American soil (the stupidest claim ever).

Still, it calls him inept, so I can live with it.

For more than two years, the White House’s plans had been undermined by political miscalculations, confusion and timidity in the face of mounting congressional opposition, according to some inside the administration as well as on Capitol Hill. Indeed, the failed effort to close Guantanamo was reflective of the aspects of Obama’s leadership style that continue to distress his liberal base — a willingness to allow room for compromise and a passivity that at times permits opponents to set the agenda.

It's just too fine a legal point to explain the rights conferred upon Gitmo detainees upon entering our court system, and why this weakens the chance of conviction.

Obama simply miscalculated out of pure, stupid ignorance, that somehow he could take a campaign talking point, turn it into a Presidential edict, and show the country how the moron Bush had mucked it all up.

In the end it was merely a "vote for me because I'm not George Bush" talking point. When the rubber met the road, the boy-President found out some things are not so easily trumped by his "soaring rhetoric". His team warned him that the public by and large did not give a rats ass about Gitmo detainees, and he'd pay a heavy political price for loving on them. In the end he decided not to take that hit, blame others for his fecklessness, and move on to the next pretty colored balloon.

Idiot.

[ht Gabe]

HEH: Obama's Campaign Motto, suggested by commenter nevergiveup:

It's Not My Fault!

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 11:32 AM | Comments (162)
Post contains 316 words, total size 2 kb.

A little Easter Ham.

Posted by: Ace at 08:23 AM | Comments (161)
Post contains 28 words, total size 1 kb.