The Casey-Toomey Porter Deal Hits The News

A scant 2 full weeks after I blogged on it, the P-G is reporting on the deal:

Pennsylvania progressives are looking to scuttle an apparent backroom deal on judicial nominations that the state's two senators are negotiating.

The arrangement would have Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., sign off on Pittsburgh lawyer David J. Porter's nomination to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. In exchange, Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., would defer to Mr. Casey on at least three of Pennsylvania's other eight judicial vacancies, according to opponents of the deal.

By the way, all those petitions?

33,000 people signed them.

Why would they?  Perhaps here's the reason:

In a post on its website, Keystone Progress characterized Mr. Porter as an extreme conservative who opposes abortion rights, gay marriage and restrictions on gun ownership. It notes that Mr. Porter leads the Lawyers Chapter of the Pittsburgh Federalist Society, that he opposed the 2009 nomination of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, that he wrote a Post-Gazette opinion piece asserting that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional and that he is a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association.

The writer of the P-G piece, Tracie Mauriello, gets another side of the story - the local attorneys who believe Porter's not the ideologue that all those 33,000 petition signers believe him to be.  Take a look:

"He's a brilliant lawyer and he's fair-minded," said attorney Tina O. Miller, who has known Mr. Porter for several years. "I have never found David to be overly political. Whether it's as a lawyer advocating for his client or in bar association and community activities, he has always been willing to listen to everyone's viewpoint and give consideration to everyone's viewpoint and to be fair. "Those are exactly the qualities I would want in a judge."

Mary Austin, a health care attorney in Pittsburgh who considers herself a liberal, said she has never seen ideology influence Mr. Porter's legal work in the decade she has known him.

"I really don't know [his politics]. We've never discussed it," she said. What she does know is, "David is a very good lawyer and has shown very good sense."

That may well be the case.  It may well be the case that he's a brilliant lawyer and that whatever his politics, the people of Pennsylvania should set aside them aside and simply judge him by the quality of his legal work.

Yea, tell that to Debo Adegbile.

Ten Commandment UPDATE

There hasn't been much movement in the lawsuits regarding the unconstitutional Ten Commandment monuments in New Kensington and Connellsville, as far as I can see.

But please, if I am error about that, let me know.

I wanted to draw your collective attention to this piece I found in the Trib.  Looks like our friends in the Thou Shalt Not Move have been busy:

A 15th granite Ten Commandments monument was unveiled on Saturday at Liberty Baptist Church in Uniontown, where the Rev. Ewing Marietta has been leading a battle to keep the monument outside Connellsville Junior High School.

“We finally have our Ten Commandments monument at Liberty Baptist Church,” said Marietta, organizer of the Thou Shall Not Move group, to a crowd of about 200 people. “But we're not going to stop here. We plan to raise enough money to erect 100 monuments.”

The Rev. Alfred Thompson, pastor of St. Paul's AME Church in Uniontown, said Christian denominations need to unite to support the cause and bring attention to the word of God.

But look. They've erected the monument on church grounds.  Unless there's a paradigm shift in constitutional law, they're going to loose the fight to keep the monument on school grounds.  There's no question that they're free to make a commandment erection on church grounds.  It's just when they're looking to use the guv'ment to impose religion (by way of a stone monument at a public school) that they run in conflict with the Constitution.

But that's all a frame work.  Let's zip our eyes down the page a few paragraphs:

Marietta told the group that the nation was founded on Christian principles and the Ten Commandments that serve as a guide for the American people and the basis for American laws.

“We have a reason and a purpose to follow the word of God,” Marietta said. “We need to pray for our children and teach them the importance of God's word. We need to bring God back into the schools and our nation.”

Gary Colatch, a member of the Thou Shall Not Move group, said teaching children about Christianity is important because they will be the nation's leaders and its future.

“We need to raise our children and grandchildren to trust in God,” Colatch said. “We were a godly and Christian nation, and we need to return to those principles. God will bless America again if we return to our Christian beliefs and values.”

Before the Ten Commandments monument was unveiled, the group sang “God Bless America.”

Yea, about that song.  They do know it was written by someone (Irving Berlin, born Israel Isidore Beilin) who wasn't a Christian, right?  And they do know that his family had to escape Imperial Russia because they were the wrong religion, right?  The Cossacks reportedly burned the family home to the ground because the Beilins were Jewish.  It's a good thing that they found their way to the land of the free, where everyone's faith (or non-faith) is protected.

Perhaps instead of God Bless America, they should have sung this:

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.

Perhaps.

Embarrassing, Colin. Just Embarrassing.

Given the vast array of fact-checking tools (aka The Google) that should be available to the folks over at Scaife's Tribune-Review, you'd think that someone somewhere would check out Colin McNickle's opening quotation:

Why should freedom of speech and freedom of the press be allowed? Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the government?

— Nikolai Lenin (1920)

We all know who Lenin was right?  He's the guy who founded the Russian Communist Party and is the "Lenin" part of "Marxist/Leninist" thought, right?  But Colin I gotta ask you, wasn't that Vladimir Lenin?

So who's this "Nikolai" quoted?  Couldn't possibly be Vladimir's younger brother Nikolai who died in infancy in 1873 when Vladimir was only three, right?  The source of the quotation couldn't be that Lenin because that Lenin wasn't even alive in 1920, right?

Doesn't The Google work on Tribune-Review drive?  Took me about 5 minutes to check this.

So that's mistake #1.  Colin McNickle meant to write Vladimir Lenin when he wrote Nikolai Lenin.

Mistake #2 is even bigger, though subtler.  Can we even be sure that Vladimir said what Colin McNickle mistakenly said that Nikolai said?

And...we can't.  Did you know that no less a source than the Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations puts those words in the mouth of... Winston Churchill?  Perhaps they got it wrong, those Oxfordians, as they're basing their assertion on just one bio of Churchill, just one bio of Churchill, written by Piers Brendon.

Maybe Brendon got it wrong.

So where does the attribution to Lenin (Nikolai) come from?  According to the Quoteinvestigator, it comes from H. L. Mencken's 1942 Book of Quotations.  This is probably as far back as McNickle went.  He should have gone farther.  But where did Mencken get it?  From Quoteinvestigor:

QI has traced this expression back to a diary entry that was written in 1920 by George Riddell who was a powerful newspaperman and close friend of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Lloyd George. Riddell later became the 1st Baron Riddell. The text in Mencken’s reference is very similar to the text in Riddell’s diary, but it is not identical.

The words attributed to Churchill also appear in the passage in Riddell’s diary. But QI believes that Riddell was describing a speech by Lenin and not the words of Churchill. Hence, QI thinks that the ascription to Churchill is almost certainly incorrect.

Ah...so let's look at what Riddell wrote.  He wrote of a conversation he had with Churchill:

I told Winston of Lenin’s speech, in which he said that the day of pure democracy was finished and that freedom of speech and the freedom of the Press were its two chief characteristics. “Why should these things be allowed?” he went on. “Why should a Government which is doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticised? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. And as to the freedom of the Press, why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the Government?”

Brendon, obviously, thinks that Riddell is referring to Churchill in the second sentence and  Mencken thought Riddell was referring to Lenin.

But is there any actual evidence that Lenin actually said it?  QI writes that no one's been able to find any reference to the speech in Lenin's other than Riddell's diary.  For example it's not found in the Marxists Internet Archive.

And yet Colin McNickle said it was from Lenin (though the wrong Lenin, of course).  Isn't that embarrassing?

This is not to say, of course, that Vladimir Lenin was a friend to the free press.  Did he, in fact write anything about a free press?  Why yes, yes he did.  In Letter To Gavril Myasnikov, dated 8/5/20, Lenin wrote:

All over the world, wherever there are capitalists, freedom of the press means freedom to buy up newspapers, to buy writers, to bribe, buy and fake “public opinion” for the benefit of the bourgeoisie.

Sound familiar?  If you're reading the Tribune-Review you're actually reading a real-life example of what Lenin actually described.  Need an example?  How about:

• This?
• Or this?
• Or this?

But what Lenin was describing of course wasn't actually a press that is free - he's describing a press that's bought and paid for.

Toomey, Casey And Porter (A Petition Update)

Hey, remember this?

That was a blog post where I ask my Senator, Senator Bob Casey, what he's thinking making a deal with my other Senator, Senator Pat Toomey, to get David J. Porter a judgeship.  The thing is, while I am sure David Porter's a fine attorney, his politics lean heavily right ward.  That in itself should not disqualify him for a judgeship, the fact that a Democratic senator is looking to get him onto the bench is somewhat troubling.

Huffingtonpost wrote about it a few days ago (and, uh, a few days after I wrote about it - just sayin').

Well a few petitions have been set up (here, here and here) and guess what?

From Huffingtonpost:

Progressives in Pennsylvania have been working for weeks to derail an apparent deal between their U.S. senators to submit a conservative Republican judicial nominee to the White House -- and it looks like they're gaining momentum.

More than 20,000 people have signed a petition urging Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) not to recommend corporate lawyer David J. Porter to President Barack Obama for a lifetime appointment to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. A coalition of state lawyers, advocates and community members collected the signatures and plans to deliver them to Casey on Monday, according to the Pennsylvania Coalition for Constitutional Values.

So what, again, is the problem:

"The coalition isn't just opposing Porter because he's a right-winger," said Michael Morrill of Keystone Progress, a statewide progressive advocacy group. "He is a radical right-wing activist and leader in anti-choice, anti-marriage equality, anti-environmental movements in Pennsylvania who is so far out of the mainstream that he can't adequately represent everyday Pennsylvanians."

And Rick Bloomingdale, the president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO had some issues as well:

Bloomingdale said he plans to personally talk to Casey about Porter next Monday when the senator is in Pittsburgh for an annual AFL-CIO convention. He said he understands that, in a state with a senator in each party, there are deals that have to be made on judicial nominees. But it's "troubling" to him that Toomey is pushing a nominee like Porter after holding up some of Casey's labor-friendly nominees in the Senate.

"So if he's going to play the ideological game, we certainly ask Sen. Casey to say [Porter] is too extreme for Pennsylvania," said Bloomingdale. "He's not going to be impartial on the bench."

Toomey blocked some of Casey's nominees and STILL Casey makes this sort of deal?

That is troubling.

Senator Casey needs has to ask himself this question:  If the GOP controlled the Senate and White House would Senator Toomey make a similar deal for a union friendly judicial nominee in exchange for three Porters?

I would think not.  I would think that if that were the case, the GOP would demand "bipartisanship" and then quietly redefine "bipartisanship" into "do what I tell you and we'll call that bipartisan."

Senator, if this is a deal as described above we need to know the details.  Your constituents and more importantly the people who voted for you have a right to know what you're getting in exchange for David J. Porter.

UPDATE: Thinkprogress is reporting this now.

Just a reminder

How Long Has It Been??

Hey, you remember former County Councilman Chuck McCullough, right?

You remember that 52-page document that a Grand Jury presented?  Here's how the P-G described it:

A county grand jury today handed up a 52-page presentment that alleges Mr. McCullough, an attorney, and his sister, Kathleen A. McCullough, bilked money from the $14.5 million trust fund of an Upper St. Clair widow, Shirley H. Jordan, 90.

The investigation began after an article appeared in the Post-Gazette in April 2007 in which Mrs. Jordan denied that she donated $10,000 to each of four political candidates the year before, according to an affidavit that accompanied the arrests of Mr. McCullough and his sister.

And so on.  Did you see the date on that?

Chuck McCullough was arrested a little more than 5 years ago.

Has there been a trial yet?

Um, no.  In fact an astute reader emailed a legal document to me a few days ago.  Here's the first paragraph:

Appellant, Charles P. McCullough, appeals from the denial of his pre-trial motions to dismiss criminal charges, pursuant to this Court’s grant of McCullough’s pro se petition for review on May 23, 2012. After careful review, we affirm the trial court’s pre-trial rulings.

If I am reading the rest of it correctly (and as I am not an attorney, that's always a possibility), it says that McCullough's appeal to have the charges dropped were denied.  A point reinforced by my astute reader, who wrote:

Basically the Superior Court dismissed his appeal of the lower court's refusal to dismiss the charges. I assume he will now appeal to Pa. Supreme Court. If he loses there, I would think there is no reason the trial can't finally start, subject, of course, to whatever legal maneuvers he has up his sleeve. To me, the most interesting thing is that he is representing himself.

So how long has it been?

Let's put this in some context.

• Jerry Sandusky was arrested in November 2011 and he was found guilty the following July.
• Richard Poplawski killed three police officers in April 2009 and he was found guilty in June 2011
• Jane Orie was indicted in April 2010 and was convicted March 2012

I am NOT saying that McCullough is guilty.  He has every assumption of innocence until proven guilty that everyone else has.  Nor am I saying that he's been charged with anything as heinous as killing a police officer or raping young boys.

What I AM asking is this: How is it that such high profile cases as Sandusky, Poplawski and Orie can go to trial and our friend Chuck is still filing appeals?

Can We Prosecute The Torture NOW??

In case you missed it, there's been a bit of conflict between the Senate Intelligence Committee and the CIA recently.  From the Washington Post:

A behind-the-scenes battle between the CIA and Congress erupted in public Tuesday as the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee accused the agency of breaking laws and breaching constitutional principles in an alleged effort to undermine the panel’s multi-year investigation of a controversial interrogation program.

Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) accused the CIA of ­secretly removing documents, searching computers used by the committee and attempting to intimidate congressional investigators by requesting an FBI inquiry of their conduct — charges that CIA Director John Brennan disputed within hours of her appearance on the Senate floor.

The CIA, in turn, charged the committees staffers with an unauthorized removal of some documents and requested an investigation.  From McClatchy:

The FBI is investigating the alleged unauthorized removal of classified documents from a secret CIA facility by Senate Intelligence Committee staff who prepared a study of the agency’s use of harsh interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists in secret overseas detention centers, McClatchy has learned.

The FBI’s involvement takes to a new level an extraordinary behind-the-scenes battle over the report that has plunged relations between the agency and its congressional overseers to their iciest in decades. The dispute also has intensified uncertainty about how much of the committee’s four-year-long study will ever be made public.

The FBI investigation stemmed from a request to the Justice Department by the CIA general counsel’s office for a criminal investigation into the removal last fall of classified documents by committee staff from a high-security electronic reading room that they were required to use to review top-secret emails and other materials, people familiar with issue told McClatchy. The existence of the referral was first reported online Thursday afternoon by Time magazine.

So what's going on?  For that we go back to the Post:

The dueling claims exposed bitterness and distrust that have soared to new levels as the committee nears completion of a 6,000-page report that is expected to serve as a scathing historical record of the agency’s use of waterboarding and other brutal interrogation methods on terrorism suspects held at secret CIA prisons overseas after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Well not it looks like someone's been able to take a look at that report. And it ain't good:

A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee concludes that the CIA misled the government and the public about aspects of its brutal interrogation program for years — concealing details about the severity of its methods, overstating the significance of plots and prisoners, and taking credit for critical pieces of intelligence that detainees had in fact surrendered before they were subjected to harsh techniques.

The report, built around detailed chronologies of dozens of CIA detainees, documents a long-standing pattern of unsubstantiated claims as agency officials sought permission to use — and later tried to defend — excruciating interrogation methods that yielded little, if any, significant intelligence, according to U.S. officials who have reviewed the document.

These would be the same enhanced techniques that former Vice President (and still unprosecuted war criminal) Dick Cheney defended recently:

According to Cheney, the enhanced interrogation tactics used do not fall under the scope of the 1949 United Nations Geneva Convention, which outlaws cruel, inhuman or any degrading treatment or punishment because the Geneva Convention does not apply to unlawful combatants.

The Bush administration considered terrorists as unlawful combatants and considered those undergoing enhanced interrogation tactics as terrorists.

“If I would have to do it all over again, I would,” Cheney said. “The results speak for themselves.”

Yea, that torture.  The report, on the other hand, tells a different story:

“The CIA described [its program] repeatedly both to the Department of Justice and eventually to Congress as getting unique, otherwise unobtainable intelligence that helped disrupt terrorist plots and save thousands of lives,” said one U.S. official briefed on the report. “Was that actually true? The answer is no.”

And then there's this:

If declassified, the report could reveal new information on the treatment of a high-value detainee named Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, the nephew of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. Pakistan captured Ali, known more commonly as Ammar al-Baluchi, on April, 30, 2003, in Karachi and turned him over to the CIA about a week later. He was taken to a CIA black site called “Salt Pit” near Kabul.

At the secret prison, Baluchi endured a regime that included being dunked in a tub filled with ice water. CIA interrogators forcibly kept his head under the water while he struggled to breathe and beat him repeatedly, hitting him with a truncheon-like object and smashing his head against a wall, officials said.

And still none of this led to any "otherwise unobtainable intelligence" that could be used to protect the United States and its citizens.  It was illegal, immoral and it didn't work.

And this is what George Bush agreed to with his ballsy "Damn right."

Can we prosecute the torture now??