Crossposted at my place.

As a rule of thumb, I think the military is overlawyerd. Not that there isnÂ’t an important place for them, but I think there is a slight tendency for some folks to think that everything in the world can be solved in a courtroom. If that was the case, we wouldnÂ’t need an armyÂ…

We all know that military life is different from civilian life, and accordingly, service members operate under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). But as the Army increasingly relies on contractors for many roles and missions, how do we address the grey areas there? If a contractor is working directly for the Army overseas, and commits a crime, who tries the case? It is difficult to prosecute crimes committed overseas in US Federal court. And do we allow US citizens working for the Army to be at the mercy of host nation courts? What if the host nation has no functioning courts, such as in Iraq immediately after our invasion? What about Third Country Nationals (TCNs) working indirectly for the Army?

AP has a very interesting article about a quiet change to the UCMJ made in 2006 that does allow the military to claim jurisdiction over certain civilians in times of conflict, but not declared war.

Three Army judges are weighing a question that hasn't cropped up in decades: whether a civilian contractor working for the U.S. military can be tried in a military court. The issue eventually could end up at the Supreme Court.

The case of Alaa "Alex" Mohammad Ali, a former Army translator in Iraq, challenges the notion that courts-martial only have authority over members of the armed forces. But it also runs up against complaints that using U.S. civilian courts to prosecute contractors working with U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq has been largely ineffective, and trying them in local courts often has not been possible.

Ali, an Iraqi-Canadian, was prosecuted by the military after an altercation in Iraq during which he allegedly stole a U.S. soldier's knife and used it to stab another translator. He pleaded guilty to lesser charges.

One of the primary driving factors behind the adoption of the Posse Commitatus act was to prevent US civilians from being tried by court martial. But that is strictly a domestic law.

I think we will see an evolution of the law in this area, and depending on how much influence the civilian courts have on it, it may be a very messy outcome.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:13 AM | Comments (98)
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Inevitable. And yet I'm grateful for its arrival.

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Posted by: Ace at 08:39 AM | Comments (87)
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"By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method, they not only confiscate, but confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth.

"Those to whom the system brings windfalls... become 'profiteers', who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds... all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless."

Who said it? Answer below the fold. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 08:00 AM | Comments (174)
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What, what in the world, O Lord, what could I have ever done to deserve all this?

Ah, we laugh. Because other people's misfortunes are, what's the word, funny.

I'm not proud of that. That's just the way it is.

Don't hate the playa, hate the game.

Now, in this particular case, some of those dark schadenfreude giggles may be justified.

Because John Edwards -- who has been indicted for failing to report in-kind campaign donations in the form of bribes to keep his baby-mama quiet -- has actually attempted to convince said baby-mama to take the rap for him and claim it was all her fault, or something. And go to jail in his place, I guess.

At least so says the National Enquirer.

Desperate to stay out of jail, bad boy politi­cian JOHN EDWARDS begged his mistress and mother of his love child Rielle Hunter to cover up for him, but she flatly refused, sources say.

...

In a web exclusive preview, we can report that a close source said, “Rielle snapped at him, ‘I can’t help you! My only concern is raising our daughter.’

“John felt as if she’d stabbed him in the back.”

There is something wrong with this guy. Really wrong. I don't even mean morally; I take that as a given. I mean a serious emotional disorder that I think might border on the s-word. Sociopathy.

It's not just that he tried to lobby her to take the fall.. That's corrupt and cowardly and evil, sure. But... he thought he could actually make this sale?

Then he got mad at her for not going along with it?

What's wrong with him?

You may remember John Kerry's own memory of Edwards, as recounted, I believe, in Bob Shrum's book.

Apparently Edwards was lobbying VP, and told Kerry a story about his son's death, and gave a teary account of it, and told him that he'd learned so much from it and was ready to be VP, or that kind of thing.

And he concluded: And I have never. Told. Anyone. That story before.

Kerry got a chill when he heard this, but not for the reason you'd think. He'd got the chill because he remembered Edwards telling him this same story, with the same dead son and the same "And I have never -- told -- anyone" conclusion, to convince him on some other virtue of Edwards', years earlier. And he got a sense of the man he was thinking about putting on the ticket.

Put him on the ticket anyway, of course.

Posted by: Ace at 05:31 AM | Comments (365)
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Pointing a gun at a soldier's kids?.

You fail at crime.

He waved his gun toward Peoples, who is black, and warned that "the big black guy" shouldn't try to stop him. Before fleeing the bank, he pointed the gun at Peoples' kids, Ikaika and Kioni. "The kid will get it" if anyone messed with him, Rogers said, according to the Herald-Tribune.

"I could not let that pass," Peoples said.

As the robber tried to make his getaway, Peoples left his sons inside the bank and ran to his rented van, which he used to block Rogers' car in the parking lot.

Let me switch over to another account for the rest.

Peoples said his Army combat training simply took over. He used his left arm to grab and twist the robber's arm until the wrist locked, making it easy for Peoples to strip the gun away.

Then he used a martial arts move to wrap one arm behind the robber's neck and slam him face first to the ground.

There's some video here. It's at that last link, if this direct link doesn't work.

Update: Bryan tells me that in that link, the report says the robber was scared enough to have "an accident" in his pants.

Since I'm being Captain Smartypants telling other people how to do crime, I'll do it for this guy too.

You had an enormous black guy in the bank who you immediately sensed would be trouble. You were so preoccupied by him you made a special point of wagging the gun in his face, and telling him not to do anything aggressive, and then even threatened his kids to drive the point home.

So here's the question, genius:

That black guy was going to be done with his business and out of the bank in like ten or twenty minutes. Why didn't you just wait for him to finish his banking business and leave, as you'd already identified him as 240 pounds of trouble?

The bank is not a Chuck-E-Cheese. The guy's not going to have his kids there all day in the bouncy castle or anything.

Were you going for a high degree of difficulty to impress the Romanian judge?

Or did you have a something scheduled for later? Did you have to mail something out at the post office and so you had to hurry up your bank robbery?

I know the post office sucks but let's prioritize our chores here, huh?

Posted by: Ace at 03:54 AM | Comments (167)
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FRIDAY!

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:51 AM | Comments (131)
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Weinah, please.

Of course, the simplest explanation of the scenario is that he had, in fact, tried to send a picture of his genitals to a 21-year-old Washington state college student. Weiner has denied that in public and in private. Two people who spoke to him privately said he had suggested that, as one said, “he took or sent a photo or photos like this at some point — but in this case actually was hacked/set up, perhaps with a posting of one of his own photos or something very similar.”

“If that is the reality, there is no magic, good way to handle it,” Dezenhall said. “You have what lawyers call a ‘bad fact.’”

What am I, drunk on stupid-juice? You've paged through a series of false claims, almost all of which are disproven or can be easily disproven.

Yfrog says there was no hack. Twitter says nothing, and for God's sake you are a key legislator writing laws regarding them, so I think they're inclined to support your story. Yet they don't.

I hate to keep hammering this point but your lighthearted, casual, #Hacked! demeanor immediately after the "hack" is violently incompatible with the serious and malicious breach you were alleging.

For me, that's the game right there. As I say there, the words "I HAVE JUST BEEN CRIMINALLY, MALICIOUSLY VIOLATED!" have never been genuinely followed by "Hey, anyone catch the score of that Bruins game?"

This new trial balloon of what, in Nixon's day, was called, um, the "modified limited hangout" -- admit a little, in the hopes that people will incorrectly conclude you're now coming clean -- is preposterous.

There is no earthly reason this "innocent explanation" couldn't have been offered on day three. Yes, you could have told everyone "When I was single, I was a bit of rowdy, and I did some things as a single man I'm not happy to acknowledge as a married man." And, if that were true-- fine. Sure, I would have accused you of lying, and comics would have goofed on you, but if it were true, you'd be in no peril.

None at all. You'd get some razzing, and some dark muttering from angry bloggers who are convinced that "there's more to this story," but I think I speak for all angry bloggers when I say we do that all the time, anyway, and if it's not your junk we're spinning conspiracy theories about it's something else. No one takes us particularly seriously.

If that were true, none of this would be happening.

Note what is perhaps the third-most powerful two-letter word in the language there, however -- if. That little word turns all lies into truths.

If any of this were true, then you would have been the victim of a serious hacking -- such a serious hacking, in fact, that I personally would not dare to joke about it, myself -- and would be entitled to, and would naturally receive, all the police assistance in the world to track down your hacker.

There's not getting around this. Weiner's spinner calls the penis picture "the bad fact."

No, the penis picture is the funny fact.

The fact that the picture was sent to a 21 year old coed is the alarming fact.

Not calling the police? That's the bad fact.

I admire the effort to turn the picture into the "bad fact." But here's the actual fact: It's people who are not serious about hanging you who are still looking at that picture. People like TV Clown Jon Stewart, whom naive people are calling "brave" for simply acknowledging that yes, a funny picture of a penis exists, ha-ha-ha, hee-hee-hee.

Oh my garsh! Jon Stewart is really telling the truth on this!

Oh? About what? That penises are funny and have been since we were three years old? Well, thanks for the insight on that, Jon. You keep on being edgy and brave.

No, people who are serious about hanging you aren't looking at your picture. They're looking at your behavior.

And your behavior is of a guilty man.

Because, if you were telling the truth with this newest version of your claim, then you would be not just a victim, but a sympathetic victim, and a sympathetic victim entitled to all the help in the world in tracking down your violator.

And yes, that's the word I'd use. Violator. This would be a clear violation. One that I could sympathize with.

So your best move, Representative, is to call the FBI IC3 unit, which could track down your hacker in probably two days, and determine you were hacked in forty five seconds, clearing your name, removing any humiliation from your wife, whom you claim you're "protecting." Not to mention all those poor human shields you say you care so very much about and really can't we just let this go? For their sake?

And not only clearing your name, but putting the entire Right Wing in dire jeopardy, because we all know the media loves to take the crimes of one right winger and charge them against a movement of 100 million people.

Even when the right winger is not a right winger, but an avowed Communist, like IRS plane-bomber Joseph Stack.

So that is your best move, Anthony Weiner.

The trouble is -- that's not actually your best move, Representative Weiner, and I'm pretty sure even your most ardent supporters are beginning to understand why that should be.

If you were a victim, you'd call the FBI's IC3 unit. You would get the White Glove, Red Carpet, Gold Star treatment. They would be so scrupulously cautious about checking with you regarding each and every file on your computer you'd have no fears of "additional invasion of privacy" or whatever bullshit you'll wind up telling us next.

No, you're not siccing the police on the hacker for the real "bad fact" that there is no hacker.

And you can trot out these preposterous new trial balloons every day if you like, and I will sit here saying the same goddamned thing, over and over again:

Here is the Internet Computer Complaint Center. You can fill out this form and get justice.

Of course, as a Representative in the United States Congress, a man in actual Constitutional succession to assume the Presidency should just the right improbable disaster strike, you don't need to fill out that form, and be ignored, like most citizens.

You can call -- and this person's number is right on your cell phone, and if you don't have it, ask your wife, former trusted aide to the Secretary of State -- the Attorney General of the United States of America, the boss of all bosses of the FBI.

But you're not going to call him. You're not going to call anyone, except your "private security firm" which looks suspiciously like a law firm with some IT guys.

So keep on floating these new, improved tales of Violations Imponderable, looking for a miracle story to get you out of a jam.

And I will keep on telling you, as Hans Gruber said, "You want a miracle? I give you the F.

B.

I."

And it will always continue being spelled that way. Not "PSF" for Private Security Firm.

That is the "bad fact."

Deal with that.

I don't want to hear your next 30 "how about this one?" excuses about this.

I want the F.B.I. to hear them.

They can determine the truth of the matter readily enough. Stop trying out your exciting new stories on me, and start trying them out on a Special Agent.

You think you can backpedal your way into a new story we'll suddenly all buy?

No dice. Call the people who can tell false stories from true in five minutes, and then have them report the truth to me.

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Posted by: Ace at 09:37 PM | Comments (213)
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Anthony Weiner tells a lot of lies. So many, in fact, it's hard to keep up.

So one obvious one just struck me.

He claimed the DM sent to the porn star was, if his memory served (i.e., gee whiz, it it turns out I'm lying, it's just a mistake, not the lie it is), simply a "pro-forma" message saying "Thank you for following" and directing the porn star to AnthonyWeiner.com for campaign information.

Ummmm... no.

He could send that message to all of his 45,000 followers. He could DM anyone who followed him. They just couldn't DM him back.

No, following someone gave that person the ability to send a message to him, not just receive it; all 45,000 could already receive "thank you for following, please check AnthonyWeiner.com."

Following someone else allowed him to have an actual conversation. And to get something from those followed.

No, out of 45,000 followers, he personally chose 91 to follow himself, and to send private messages to, and to receive private messages from.

He did not specially select these 91 out of 45,000 to receive the automated pro-forma message "Thank you for following, make sure to check AnthonyWeiner.com for more information."

He could have done that for 45,000 people. He didn't.

He chose 91 very special people to send him DMs. And I doubt he was looking for pro-forma responses in return.

That's less than one half of one one thousandth of all his followers. Fewer, even, when you consider half the "people" he followed were the standard-issue newsfeeds, not people at all.

I'm pretty sure his messages to this specially-selected 91 -- rather heavy with cute young females of the sort he used to enjoy carousing with -- were a tad more personalized than that.

Some more personalized than others.

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Posted by: Ace at 06:24 PM | Comments (217)
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Andrew Breitbart's Appearance on the Adam Carolla Podcast

If you enjoy listening to either Andrew Breitbart or Adam Carolla, then you'll love them together ranting in sync about what's wrong with politics and society. By the end of this interview I think Andrew had Adam just a few drinks and a bit of nagging away from running for office.

Thanks to George Orwell for reminding me about this.

You can listen to it here:

40 Things That Will Make You Feel Old

Exhibit A: If The Simpsons ever aged, Bart would be 31 now.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:16 PM | Comments (697)
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When a Gurkha thinks he has nothing to lose, you had better bring your A game.

Corporal Dipprasad Pun, 1st Battalion, Royal Gurkha Rifles was awarded the CGC for singlehandedly defeating 30 Taliban in Afghanistan. After he had expended his ammunition and grenades, he fought them hand to hand.

He first grabbed a sandbag but it had not been tied up and the contents fell to the floor. (son of a.. everything happens to ME!)

Then he seized the metal tripod of his machine gun and threw it at the approaching Taliban militant, shouting in Nepali 'Marchu talai' ('I will kill you') and knocking him down.

Two insurgents were still attacking by the time the heroic Gurkha had used up all his ammunition, but he set off a Claymore mine to repel them. "Take that mofakus!" he screamed as he descended upon them with a kurkri in one hand and a bullwhip in the other, teaching them the meaning of the word "respect".

I might have messed up some of that.

via ConnieG

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:18 PM | Comments (95)
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