Posts from — March 2007

The Associate Press reports: Mistake means tax cheat can keep $100 million

Poorly written Justice Department documents cost the federal government more than $100 million in what was supposed to have been the crowning moment of the biggest tax prosecution ever.

Walter Anderson, the telecommunications entrepreneur who admitted hiding hundreds of millions of dollars from the IRS and District of Columbia tax collectors, was sentenced Tuesday to nine years in prison and ordered to repay about $23 million to the city.

But U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman said he couldn’t order Anderson to repay the federal government $100 million to $175 million because the Justice Department’s binding plea agreement with Anderson listed the wrong statute.

This is a rookie mistake. They have no one at the Justice Department who verifies the citations in plea agreements? One hundred million United States dollars is real money, not a parking fine, and no one bothered to check on the statutes that were cited? The worst government in US history.

1-800-984-8523

Lurch at Main and Central reports on the The Wounded Warrior System:

The Wounded Soldier and Family Hotline can be reached from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. [EDT] Monday through Friday at (800) 984-8523. The call center is under the command of the U.S. Army’s Human Resources Command. As the system gears up, it is expected that it will go 24/7.

This is a reaction to the problems with the military medical system. It is a start, and should be used so they can at least understand the scope of the disaster.

In an attempt to achieve the release of their personnel, the BBC reports that the UK is in ‘discreet talks’ with Iran. This called diplomacy and is what mature countries do to resolve their differences.

So while the Blair government is conducting sensitive negotiations with the Iranians, the US Navy starts war games in Gulf.

The US Navy has begun its most extensive manoeuvres in the Gulf region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but denies sabre-rattling aimed at Iran.

[snip]

The exercises follow Iran’s capture of 15 British navy personnel, and high tension over its nuclear programme.

The US Navy said the exercises were not meant to exert pressure on Iran.

US Navy Commander Kevin Aandahl, based with the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, across the Gulf from Iran, said: “What it should be seen as by Iran or anyone else is that it’s for regional stability and security.

“These ships are just another demonstration of that. If there’s a destabilising effect, it’s Iran’s behaviour.”

Sorry, Commander, but it’s called “gunboat diplomacy”, and the world knows a threat when it sees it. Given that the Iranians are claiming that the UK Naval people were conducting espionage in preparation for naval action against Iran, the sane people in the Iranian government have just had another defeat. Would it have killed you to wait until the UK people had been released before demonstrating that you are clueless about the world?

While this garbage, Blog death threats spark debate, regrettably exists in political blogtopia™, this case is around the bend an through the looking glass:

Prominent blogger Kathy Sierra has called on the blogosphere to combat the culture of abuse online.

[snip]

One of the issues raised is the question of how women bloggers are treated online.

Ms Sierra, author of popular blog Creating Passionate Users, began receiving death threats four weeks ago.

[snip]

Robert Scoble, author of popular technology blog Scobleizer, condemned the campaign against her.

“It’s this culture of attacking women that has especially got to stop. I really don’t care if you attack me. I take those attacks in my stride. But, whenever I post a video of a female technologist there invariably are snide remarks about body parts and other things that simply wouldn’t happen if the interviewee were a man,” he said

In response, he has decided to temporarily stop blogging and has turned off functionality that allows people to post anonymously.

This isn’t about politics, she writes about technology! While the Winnies and Macistas have argued for years and questioned each others intelligence and sanity, there is no way an individual’s sex, or sexual preferences, can be justified as relevant. You can either cut it, or not, and hormones don’t play a role. Being named Francis or Frances doesn’t make your code or logic better. The CPU couldn’t care less whether you sit down or stand up.

There’s a John McCain banner ad on Lisa’s front page at All Hat and No Cattle which tends to indicate that someone doesn’t read blogs before they buy ad space. Lisa can use the money, but I hope they don’t think she’ll lower the snark.

I haven’t posted on the seizure because I’ve been waiting for more information. When a similar thing happened in June, 2004, it was over in a week. Fortunately, the UK has an embassy in Iran and talks to the government, which makes the resolution of these things a lot easier.

Thers of Whiskey Fire covers the wingnut reaction to an Andrew Sullivan piece, which basically said that the US treatment of “enemy combatants” could well make things rough on the Royal Navy and Marine people who were taken.

I don’t think the Iranians are going to mistreat their prisoners. Fortunately their batshit crazy president has no actual power, so the decisions will be made by people who are going to rub the West’s nose in the fact that an Islamic country doesn’t mistreat prisoners or hold mock trials, like the Shrubbery. Iran’s real leaders are looking for international support to fight the recently imposed sanctions over its nuclear program, and this would be a golden opportunity to demonstrate what an exemplar of a peace-loving, law-abiding nation that Iran is. [I plead too many years reading Soviet agitprop.]

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Update: Ms. Goodling has some money behind her, because John M. Dowd, partner and head of the criminal litigation group at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, doesn’t come cheap. He has popped up in Iran-Contra, Resolution Trust, and investigated Pete Rose for Major League Baseball. Ms. Goodling graduated from Pat Robertson’s Regency University Law School in 1999.

The lead story at CNN [I guess they forgot about the white woman's autopsy results]: Justice official to plead the Fifth before Senate panel

WASHINGTON (CNN) — A Justice Department official will refuse to answer questions during a Senate committee hearing on the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, citing her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself, her lawyer said Monday.

In a letter sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Monica Goodling’s lawyer said she would not testify because senators have already decided that wrongdoing occurred.

“The public record is clear that certain members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have already reached conclusions about the matter under investigation and the veracity of the testimony provided by the Justice Department to date,” John Dowd, Goodling’s lawyer, said in a letter to the committee’s chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont.

Yo, Mr. Dowd, if the Senators didn’t feel there was a problem they wouldn’t be holding hearings and voting on sending subpoenas. They don’t just get together over a nosh in the cloakroom and say, “hey, for giggles and grins, let’s investigate the Justice Department.” A Congressional hearing isn’t a trial court, it’s closer to a grand jury investigation, without the secrecy. They want to know if something is wrong, and by standing on her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, your client has indicated that she thinks there’s a problem, and that problem is a crime.

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Cat Daddy & Dr. Squeeky wonder about Media priorities.

Apostropher wonders about the exchange rate in Alabama.

Reuters states what everyone already knew: Dark chocolate is good for blood vessels.

Pierre of Candide’s Notebooks is getting a little cross.

Oh, the site was down for a short period this morning. Less than two dollars a month just doesn’t buy what it once did.

Responding to complaints about the supplemental appropriation that passed the House, Juan Cole of Informed Comment notes:

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution clearly says that Congress has the right:

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years . . . ‘

The Founding Fathers did not want even so much as a standing army, much less a standing war. It was the clear intent of the Constitution that any funding for any military effort be strictly limited in time. The idea that Bush could take the country to war for 4 years and never face any Congressional scrutiny or limits on funding is wholly antithetical to the US constitution.

Via Melanie at Just a Bump in the Beltway Jim Dwyer of the New York Times reports that the NYPD Spied Broadly Before G.O.P. Convention. The NYPD doesn’t have any power that extends beyond the city and county of New York unless in hot pursuit, nor any reason to believe they have such power.

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Florida License Plates

Beneficiary

A weekend feature of Why Now.

it’s not just for Presidents.

From the Wikipedia article on Impeachment:

Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution states:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Jack at the Grumpy Forester details the crime.

Olvlzl at Echidne of the Snakes talks about the reason to impeach Gonzales.

The President specifically lacks the power to pardon impeachment. Impeachment can include a ban on ever holding a Federal office, in addition to removal from office. Something that should be considered in view of the number of convicted, but pardoned, Iran-Contra felons with jobs in the current administration.

If John Conyers starts holding impeachment hearings on Federal officials, maybe people will decide that the Democrats are serious about oversight.

CNN says: University of Florida squabbles over snub to Jeb Bush

University officials said they could not recall any precedent for the Senate rejecting the nominees put forth by the Faculty Senate’s Honorary Degrees, Distinguished Alumnus Awards and Memorials Committee. The committee determines whether nominees deserve consideration according to standards that include “eminent distinction in scholarship or high distinction in public service.”

“The committee endorsed him,” [UF President] Machen said. “It is unheard of that a faculty committee would look at candidates, make recommendations and then [those candidates] be overturned by the Senate.”

No one could have imagined that faculty members would be annoyed with the problems that face the state’s higher education system and do something about it.

The problem is that John Ellis Bush has done nothing particularly good for the University of Florida, and a few things that many people consider bad. If you don’t pass the test, you don’t get the degree, just like JEB’s reliance on the FCAT, which he has shown he can’t pass.