If you can, come join Matty O' Blackfive and myself for a few toasts to Arthur on the anniversary of the classic food beer. We will be at the Mackey's in Crystal City tomorrow eve, from around dinner time until ?????

To Arthur!

Posted by: Uncle Jimbo at 08:56 PM | Add Comment
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Proof? We'll see.

Relying on inside sources, quite possibly Michelle Obama herself, Andersen describes how Dreams came to be published -- just as I had envisioned it in my articles on the authorship of Dreams. With the deadline pressing, Michelle recommended that Barack seek advice from "his friend and Hyde Park neighbor Bill Ayers."

To flesh out his family history, Obama had taped interviews with various family members. Andersen writes, "These oral histories, along with a partial manuscript and a truckload of notes, were given to Ayers." Andersen quotes a Hyde Park neighbor, "Everyone knew they were friends and that they worked on various projects together. It was no secret. Why would it be? People liked them both."

Andersen continues, "In the end, Ayers's contribution to Barack's Dreams From My Father would be significant--so much so that the book's language, oddly specific references, literary devices, and themes would bear a jarring similarity to Ayers's own writing."

You may or may not know that this is the one crazy, kooky conspiracy theory I have embraced. Cashill's theory struck me as overwrought partisan dementia-twaddle... until I actually read it. It's hard to prove authorship based merely on reading-ease scores and sentence length and an odd fascination for maritime metaphors, but Cashill sure proved it wasn't crazy to notice these "two" authors shared a lot in common, including the odd ability to find a metaphor for life in a tidal river that flowed one way or the other depending on the moon.

Proof? Depends. "Celebrity biographer" is generally not a profession held in high esteem or usually thought to convey a sense of integrity. It's possible Andersen even read Cashill's thesis before turning to his autobiography, thus putting the idea in his head and, as happens, causing him to read too much into quotes about Ayers "helping" Obama.

But. Still. Who is the source for this? I'd sure like to know. If it's someone without a motive to lie against Obama, and in a position to know... then game over, Ayers wrote the damn book, and Obama is not the rara avis that Chris "Fat Moon-Faced Retard" Buckley fell in love with.

Posted by: Ace at 08:30 PM | Comments (2)
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No jury in the world gonna find against that.

Zero Sheep, a research attorney, doesn't go into the deep weeds of the law so much as he notes the profound schizophrenia of ACORN's lawsuit.

Among the points he makes: the two individual defendants cannot say that Breitbart et al. are the "proximate" (direct and immediate) cause of the loss of employment, for example. Obviously that honor belongs to their co-plaintiff, ACORN.

And ACORN can't really claim that its communications were intercepted, because its claim seems to be that what these two did had nothing to do with ACORN. Completely contrary to ACORN's policy. Hence, the firing.

So how can ACORN join a suit claiming its communications were recorded? Are they going to admit that these two workers were in fact faithfully transmitting the contents of their employee training manual?

Makes no sense, as that lawyer writing in to NRO said, and in fact, I'm kinda thinking that writer was Zero Sheep since he's banging this drum pretty loud. Update: No, he wasn't the same guy.

Question: Damn I'm rusty. But I'm wondering if Breitbart et al. can drag ACORN in as a co-defendant against the individuals' suing, and put ACORN on the hook, partially or wholly, for any damages they are found to have suffered.

Because ACORN was in fact the direct cause of much of their "distress" by firing them, and the less-direct cause of all the rest of it by not training them properly and failing to supervise them.

So if the individuals are found to be owed, whatever, say $50,000 in damages, it's possible -- though I really forget -- that Breitbart et al. can argue and prove they are only (say) 5% responsible for those damages, with ACORN itself having to pay its employers the other 95%.

Bring ACORN In as Co-Defendant! I asked Zero about this and he wrote back:

Was writing a whole paragraph, then remembered the term: apportionment of fault (or that's one term for it anway). [re: what I was calling contributory negligence, which isn't the right term here, as this isn't a negligence case -- ace.]

I had also veering off into left field since I was focusing on that -- if that were the only issue, then it would be a tactical decision based on MD law, which I don't know. But then I realized it didn't really matter, because the smart thing to do actually would be to sue ACORN as a third party defendant (or something to that effect) up front, claiming that any damages for the emotional distress that might be assessed against the defendants should actually be paid by ACORN. It might not shake out that way in the end, but I think counter-suing ACORN as a third-party defendant would be a smart tactical move.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. ACORN caused at least some, if not most (if not all) of the damages to the individuals here, so why should ACORN not sit right besides Breitbart et al. as damages are figured and the relative fault of those responsible is assessed?

ACORN would be suing Breitbart for one purpose but a defendant along with Breitbart standing against the individual plaintiffs.

It would be... anarchy, really. It would be Thunderdome. Kookoobananas, baby.

Cleaning Up the Terminology: A lawyer writes:

Defendants can cross-claim against Acorn for equitable indemnity and ask for an apportionment of the damages.


Also, Acorn also might have fallen into an anti-SLAPP trap.

I'm going to call to get the details on that.

Flyover Sam makes a great point in the comments. "Reasonable expectation of privacy?" Oh? Workplaces are defined by their employers as places where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.

In our workplace, we handle PII (personally identifiable information) and financial data - things like your credit card number, checking account number, social security number, tax return, etc. In our employee policy, we mention that employees have no reasonable expectation of privacy because we may (and do) employ controls that supervise the protection of that PII. For instance, where actual credit cards are handled, there are cameras galore, plus a bunch of other controls that would freak most people out. We also have controls around email messages, instant messages, computer usage and a variety of other information technology supervision mechanisms. While this may seem extreme, when you all read about how Heartland Payments had a few hundred thousand records breached, you'll appreciate that the time for such an event to occur can be mere seconds in the IT world, and can result from simple things like employees attaching an inappropriate file and emailing it.

Subsequently, there is no expectation of privacy in our workplace, or for that matter, a bank, an IRS office, an H&R Block office, or really any location that handles PII. The company has the inherent right to supervise employee conduct through various surveillance controls in order to protect that information.

Damn this suit is really beginning to look very, very weak.

Ahhhh... A method to ACORN's madness?

Reasonable expectation of privacy works like this (unless I've forgotten): If you know a third party, X, may legally be listening in, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy usually against other third parties Y and Z. Once you know your conversation isn't private, in other words, you generally don't have privacy any more, not just with regard to the person you expect to be listening in, but anyone else.

So: If ACORN works like a legitimate business and checks its employees to make sure they're not stealing credit card numbers (perhaps a dubious proposition, that), then the individuals have given up their reasonable expectation of privacy as regards Giles and O'Keefe, too.

So the thinking here, I think, is this: ACORN joins this suit as a co-plaintiff despite how insane that seems. But the reason they're joining it is to say "Hey, ACORN and the two individuals are in this together and should be treated as one single entity; while we did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy vis a vis each other, the three of us, together, have a reasonable expectation of privacy that 'our' conversations were private from anyone else."

Since usually proving that X could listen in and you knew that would mean that Y and Z could listen in too, ACORN's trying to say: We're not X, we are not a third party listening in ourselves who would destroy the employees' expectation of privacy, all of us together are one big happy family having one big private conversation amongst ourselves, which no one else can listen in on.

This seems stupid to me, and perhaps can just be dispensed with by pointing out, "This is friggin' stupid." If not, get ACORN (who doesn't have standing anyway) tossed from the suit as quickly as possible. Then the employees can't say they had an expectation of privacy breached, because they already knew that one outside party -- ACORN -- had a right to listen in.

A right that ACORN doesn't seem to have exercised very often, but that doesn't matter.

Anti-SLAPP: A lawyer sends me the Anti-SLAPP statute.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:04 PM | Comments (25)
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Good evening morons! Welcome to your official Ewok-approved nightly playpen. Everything is non-toxic for your safety but please do not chew on the power cables or assault the staff.

Looking for a local Oktoberfest? Use this map to find one. Just remember that you're only a Greyhound ride and underwear change away from any point in the country.

Item #1: Everest From Above
Here are some awesome photos from back in 1991 when British photographer Leo Dickinson flew a balloon over Mt. Everest. These were taken at an altitude of 36,000 feet with a temperature of -56C. It took him 10 years to plan the trip, he took a lot of precautions but still nearly died in the attempt.

Posted by: Open Blog at 07:59 PM | Add Comment
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Talk-radio has eroded civility and impedes the nation's ability to solve beeg problems.

"He can't even compete with all this stuff that people are saying about him, so the idea that he did five interviews on Sunday, that's just minuscule compared to the kind of trash talk that goes on all week prior to that," LaHood said.

A moderate Republican, known for his ability to bore you to death while managing a multi-billion dollar useless federal agency, his mission today was to explain to you why you're an idiot for listening to the coarsening of America via talk shows which required Obama to bully-pulpit you to death on five Sunday morning shows.

Don't you wish Ray was in charge of potholes and fixing bridges?

I know I do.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 07:21 PM | Add Comment
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Credit where it's due I suppose. I have to admit I wondering if we would.

France on Wednesday led a walkout of a dozen delegations, including the United States, to protest a fiery speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the UN General Assembly.

"It is disappointing that Mr Ahmadinejad has once again chosen to espouse hateful, offensive and anti-Semitic rhetoric," Mark Kornblau, spokesman to the US mission to the United Nations, said in a statement.

Delegations from Argentina, Australia, Britain, Costa Rica, Denmark, France Germany, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand and the United States left the room as Ahmadinejad began to rail against Israel, a European source said.

Israel had already called for a boycott of the speech, and was not present when the Iranian leader began his address. Canada had already said it would heed the boycott call.

It would have been better had we not been there to start with but this was better than nothing.

Here's my question...how's that promise to meet with Ahmadinejad coming along? Only about 4 months left to make good on it.

Kind of curious that no one in the big time press is asking what happened to this campaign promise, isn't it. Yeah, I'm just kidding. Of course they are shoving that down the memory hole.

Posted by: DrewM at 05:52 PM | Comments (1)
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A reader at the Corner seems to think they've got a very weak case.

This is a good point which several have made already:

Fifth, it's sorta bizarre that the fired employees are joining in the suit with ACORN, the entity that fired them. That complicates just about every legal theory, and even has possible ethical complications for their attorneys. I'd have to think about the issue some more, but at first blush I think the defendants' attorneys might want to move to disqualify the ACORN attorneys from representing all three plaintiffs on the grounds that the fired employees have, essentially, wrongful discharge claims against ACORN. Even if the motion is unsuccessful, each of the plaintiffs will have to take a stand, very early on in the litigation, as to whether or not the firings were appropriate. None of them have any good answers to that question.

And why this particular claim? Because other possibilities run afoul First Amendment protections:

Second, ACORN's legal theory is very, very thin. Their only cause of action is for a violation of the Maryland wiretapping statute. I'm certainly no expert on that statute, and I have no opinion as to whether Giles and O'Keffe violated it. But, for the sake of argument, let's assume they did. The violation of a criminal statute does not automatically give rise to civil liability in the absence of an express statutory provision that creates a private cause of action. I've litigated that issue on behalf of corporate defendants many, many times and my recollection is that I've never lost on it. I'm somewhat surprised that ACORN didn't include some other common law claims, such as intentional infliction of emotional distress or false light breach of privacy. But the problem with those claims is the vast, vast body of First Amendment law protecting media defendants (which surely includes Breitbart, Giles, and O'Keffe here).

Oh I could go on quoting but you're already over there reading the whole thing so I'll stop.

He also thinks discovery might be broader than I imagined.

Thanks to DrewM.

Posted by: Ace at 04:59 PM | Comments (1)
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Isn't it ironic? Don't you think? A little TOO ironic. I really do think.

With all the international saber rattling going on right now over Iran's nuclear program, am I the only one who thinks that THIS should be a front page story? The ONE Airborne Command & Control platform in Iran crashes during a "dog & pony show" for Dear Leader Immadinnerjacket?

And how will Iran blame this on the Joooooos? Are they going to say that one of the F-5 escort pilots, who OBVIOUSLY were the cream of the crop when it comes to Iranian Combat Pilots, was a Joooooooo sleeper agent? Or will they simply blame a flock of Zionist Geese for crashing the plane?

And if the plane landed on Khomeni's tomb, like the early reports are saying, this should be FREAKIN' GOLD for all the "truther" elements in the Middle East. "Fire Can't Melt Hummus" and "Why Did All The Joooooos Call In Sick On The Day Of The Big Airshow?" should make great T-shirt slogans.

If Obama & Biden weren't such bucket-headed mouthbreathers, I'd say "Good job outta you, covert CIA teams". But we're in a Post-American world, where CIA operatives spend more time answering questions at Holder's justice department than they do helping overseas proponents of democracy monkeywrench up their oppressive governments.

No, if anyone deserves kudos for this move, its the Mossad. And Rove/Cheney, naturally.

(hat tip to both Instapundit & the Jawas for bringing this story to our attention)

UPDATE

I was washing my hair.
Honest
Posted by: Ziva David at September 23, 2009 08:46 PM

You Morons complete me. I'm super cereal here!

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 04:36 PM | Comments (1)
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I feel sorry for them personally but discovery is going to be a bitch for ACORN*.

The liberal group contends that the audio portion of the video was obtained illegally because Maryland requires two-party consent to create sound recordings.

The two employees seen in the video were fired after it was posted online. The lawsuit says the employees, Tonja Thompson and Shera Williams, suffered "extreme emotional distress."

No word yet on a defense fund but I'm guessing it will popular.

*There's some debate in the comments about what the extent of discovery might be in this case. That was just my first thought when I saw the story but we shouldn't be celebrating the idea that we are going to get a look at ACORN's books just yet.

Heads Up via Jonah Goldberg on Twitter.

Posted by: DrewM at 01:44 PM | Comments (18)
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Sounds like ACORN is too sleazy for even Barney Frank to defend now.

That is what you call penetrating into the public consciousness. If even Barney Frank is now running... well.

Barney Frank being Barney Frank, he blames Bush for funding ACORN. Well, not blames, exactly, but he's trying his black little heart out to make this a "bipartisan scandal."

Emphases added below: more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:53 PM | Comments (4)
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