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Judge Cebull’s Smart Response To His Incredibly Stupid Act

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I was going to delve deeper into the Cebull insult of Obama case after Friday’s events, but I now have something else I need to get to, so this is a shorter take. As you will recall, the intertoobz blew up at the end of last week, starting late Wednesday, with the story of Judge Richard Cebull, Chief Judge of Montana’s US District Court, and his email distributed slur on Barack Obama. The incident was first reported by a local paper, the Great Falls Tribune, but quickly hit the national wires.

I am not going to reprint the email, but it is fairly disgusting and very inappropriate (you can see it in the original form here). Numerous outraged individuals and organizations immediately called for Cebull’s resignation. David Dayen has a rundown on some of the loudest, as well as of Cebull’s “explanation/apology”, which has not been accepted to well by those calling for Cebull’s head. And, while Cebull’s statement is indeed less than exculpating, it is pretty much all he could say under the circumstances. Unlike Rush Limbaugh, at least Cebull had the guts to own up to the full weight of his act, even if concurrently inferring “heck I thought it was private”.

You can quibble about whether the “joke” was directly racist, or only indirectly racist in overtone, and I can see both sides of that argument; however, there is no denying that it was in unconscionably bad taste and completely inappropriate for a federal judge to be trafficking in. That’s a given. I am, at this point, far more interested in Cebull’s response which, all things considered, I find pretty crafty.

Cebull immediately admitted his full involvement, did so publicly to the press, and took the affirmative step of immediately filing his own formal judicial complaint – against himself – over the matter, and asked for an inquiry by the judicial council of the 9th Circuit. He also immediately issued a formal written apology to President Obama:

Dear Mr. President:

I sincerely and profusely apologize to you and your family for the email I forwarded. I accept full responsibility; I have no one to blame but myself.

I can assure you that such action on my part will never happen again. I have requested that the Judicial Council of the Ninth Circuit review this matter.

Honestly, I don’t know what else I can do. Please forgive me and, again, my most sincere apology.

Richard F. Cebull

It is brief and to the point and, frankly, there is not much more he can do to erase the stain he left. Which is where it gets interesting. As you can see by clicking on the link to Cebull’s self initiated complaint (there are others that will be later joined, but his was immediately self filed, that will count large), it is submitted to the Chief Judge of the Ninth Circuit, Alex Kozinski. Not only Read more →

Carrier Classic, Veterans, Lions and Huskers Trash Talk

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Alright, as you may have heard, there has been a bit of excitement in college sports this week. We first hit on it last Saturday as we slid into another seemingly routine weekend of trash talk. But it has indeed mushroomed into an oxygen consuming goliath and, quite frankly, it has that level of significance in many respects. Marcy has done a couple of very good posts on the background and why Penn State is special in her life and that of so many others, and a more detailed post on timing and charging details. There is a little of my input in the latter, but I will be along, in a separate post, with some thoughts and observations on the legal status of the overall Penn State matter.

I will also be along with the college football rundown for the weekend as an update to this post in a little bit and, likely a separate post for the NFL Sunday slate, because there are some great games, including Jets and Pats.

But, for now, the first ever Carrier Classic is starting on ESPN and, I have to say, this thing looks freaking cool. They have a first rate court set up, with stands and all the hoopla, on the USS Carl Vinson, a 1,092-foot-long, 244-foot-high floating battle city. It is still on the water though, and it is outdoors in the port at San Diego. That is going to affect the shooting and play of the teams a little, just how much we will see. Oh, and Mr. and Mrs. Obama are there. It is a really great gig for Veteran’s Day. Gotta love it.

Tonight’s classic pits the Spartans of Michigan State and Tom Izzo against the Tar Heels of North Carolina and Roy Williams. Seriously, college basketball does not come much more steeped in tradition than that. Carolina has owned MSU lately, winning seven of the last eight and the Heels are pretty much a consensus preseason number one in the land. Hard to pick against them. But never count out any team coached by Tom Izzo, even though the Spartans are looking at a rare rebuilding year. Magic Johnson, Mr. Sparty himself is in the house as is the Tar Heels’ Big Game James Worthy. Guess Michael Jordan is too busy trying to screw current players now that he is ownership in the NBA.

Anchors Aweigh mateys! See you in comments and will add in college football later tonight, but feel free to trash on any, and all, subjects you can think of. Drink sailors!

Saturday’s College Football: Okay, the Carrier Classic was pretty cool and the shots looking out over the court and off into the ocean sunset were simply stunningly beautiful. But we are on to football. The Gulf coast Pirate’s Houston Cougars have already done their work and moved to a remarkable 10-0 after rolling up 73 points on woeful Tulane; the Cougs need to be rewarded with a substantial bowl game. Similarly Virginia Tech has already dispatched the Rammblin Wreck of Georgia Tech and looks good for the ACC championship game.

The most important game today is not the Penn State game against Nebraska; no, the most important game is the Oregon Quackers at the Home of the Tree, Stanford. Stanford is number 4 in the BCS and Oregon number 7; the implications are simply huge for both the national championship picture as well as the North division berth in the Pac-12 championship. Both teams have good defenses and fast, wide-open offenses. Both have extremely good ground games (nobody notices this about Stanford, but they really do). Everybody knows about the Duck’s LaMichael James, but Sethfan Taylor is a killer too. There are going to be a LOT of points scored here, but Stanford is at home in Palo Alto and I will take Andrew Luck over Darron Thomas; a hard fought win for the Tree is the prediction.

TCU and Boise State is always a good game, but TCU is not the team it has been the last few years, the Broncos should roll again. Auburn versus Georgia will be a great SEC game; I’ll take Georgia this year. Oklahoma State is in Lubbock. Texas Tech has had an up and down year; here’s hoping they get it together for an upset of OSU. Florida at South Carolina will also be a pretty good game. I would have taken the Gamecocks easy before Marcus Lattimore went out for the year, but now it is a tossup.

That leaves the game that will, for mostly all the wrong reasons, hold the nation’s attention today, Nebraska at Penn State. Obviously there is a situation going down in Happy Valley. It is not so happy these days. Comments discussion in Trash Talk is always wide open, but I am not going to go into substantive analysis of the facts and legal analysis here in this main post body. There are already three substantive posts where we have done that (here, here and here) and I will likely be along with something more later today or tomorrow.

But the game itself is very notable as the Nittany Lions are 8-1 and undefeated in Big-10.2 play. Their last three games of the year are, however, starting today, Nebraska, Ohio State and Wisconsinl the last two on the road. Both have pretty solid defenses and spotty offenses. Despite being without Paterno and the assistant coach who was effectively offensive coordinator, Mike Mcqueary (who claims to be in protective custody and double fisted drinking), my guess is the team is way more focused and motivated under interim coach Tom Bradley. Bradley has been there a long time and can run the team just fine, in fact he was already doing a lot of that when Paterno was still there. McQueary may actually be more of a loss during the game. But it is Senior day and the last home game these players will play at Penn State. If Penn State quarterback Matt McGloin, who was very close to Paterno, can put together a decent game, then I think the Nittany Lions surprise a whole lot of people and pull off the win. Say what you will about the mess roiling PSU, the kids on the current team did not do that; I will be rooting for them today.

There you have the rundown. Lots to jaw about today, we will do a separate post for the pros and tomorrow, and there are some good games there too. Let the trash flow!

Notice of Errata: Um, I actually did mean to mention the Mighty Ephs versus the Jumpin Jeffs. Yes, today it is the official “Biggest Little Game In America” and they will be playing for all the NESCAC marbles. Amherst rolls in undefeated at 7-0 and Williams right behind at a respectable 5-2. The Lord Jeffs are led by super running back Evan Bunker, while the Ephs seem to have a last minute question at QB between Chris Cleary and Adam Marske. This is gonna be a real barnburner humdinger as Keith Jackson would say!

Going Astray – Obama and Nato Bombings in Libya

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EW and probably bmaz as well will likely have more to say on this one when they free up.

Charlie Savage reported on Friday that Obama rejected advice from both Jeh Johnson (Pentagon general counsel) and, even more significantly, Caroline Krass (the acting head of DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel) when he availed to himself the power to continue bombings and killings in Libya, under the assertion that he’s, well, he’s just not being all that hostile in his bombing campaign.

Like Nixon in Cambodia, Obama did find supporters for his decisions about Libya. Ex-Yale Dean, current assassination proponent, Harold Koh (legal advisor for the State Department) apparently assured Obama that the bombings just do not rise to the level of being “hostilities” for which Obama needs Congressional permission. Robert Bauer, Obama’s White House counsel, reportedly provided his own version “yeah buddy” for Obama.

Just as Bush found it convenient to get his White House Counsel, Alberto Gonzales, to opine that as long as Bush designated his torture victims as being “illegal enemy combatants” (whatever the ultimate facts) he was exempt from war crimes prosecutions, Obama’s White House counsel is equally eager to tell Obama that, as long as he doesn’t call them “hostilities,” Obama can bomb any nation for any period of time.   

Most importantly – all of this is being done in derogation of the Office of Legal Counsel opinion that the President has exceeded his authority.   At issue, according to White House Spokesman Eric Shultz (Dan Pfeiffer was tied up) isn’t the very same, age old, typical power grab of any unchecked sovereign, but instead the age of the War Powers resoluton.

“It should come as no surprise that there would be some disagreements, even within an administration, regarding the application of a statute that is nearly 40 years old to a unique and evolving conflict,” Mr. Schultz said. “Those disagreements are ordinary and healthy.”

The Obama theory is that with 10 years of Bush-Obama battering of the psyches and vocabularies of of Americans and with some very dedicated government propaganda processes to boot, the meaning of the term “hostilities” has changed to exclude American or American led NATO bombings.  And this is “ordinary and healthy.”

Apparently the words “ordinary” and “healthy” have changed some over the last 40 years as well. For those civilian residents in Tripoli who were killed or maimed by NATO’s bombing run today, there is no translation dictionary or program current enough to convert their descriptions of the outcome of the NATO bombing into the words “ordinary” and “healthy.”  NATO provided an assist though – what happened wasn’t a bombing of civilians, but rather a strike on an unintended target. 

“[I]t appears that one weapon did not strike the intended target and that there may have been a weapons system failure which may have caused a number of civilian casualties.”

Cue up Obama’s spox to explain to us how words like “civilian casualties” have also changed a lot over the last few decades – in an ordinary and healthy way.  Maybe they’ll even bring on Henry Kissinger to help with the explanation.   

I don’t completely buy Glenn Greenwald’s take that Bush had “better” lawyers, because [now starts my paraphrase of Glenn’s point] some were prepared to threaten to quit over the NSA program (which they demanded be revised into an equally unconstitutional format) and others were prepared to blindly follow the lead without even knowing anything about why they’d be resigning, still, I will say that Bauer and Koh can easily fill the shoes of Gonzales and Bellinger.

Bush and “torture.” Obama and “hostilities.”  The one thing that we can rely upon is that the meaning of the phrase “Executive Power” has changed over the years. Unchecked, it will continue to change at an ever-increasing rate.  And for those of us who remember Obama’s “stern face” as he promised during primaries and camaigns to “restore the rule of law” we can only wonder when that phrase went so far astray as to encompass the things the Obama administration has done over the last few years. 

The Obama Disconnect: Arlington, Korea and Catfood

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Marcy wrote earlier this morning about David Axelrod’s despicable announcement of Obama’s capitulation to the oligarchs on tax cuts (another lead balloon the Obama White House incompetently tried and failed to walk back). Later this morning, however, were a couple of events that put an even starker gloss on this pig.

First, was this from The Oval:

President Obama is in Seoul, South Korea, where today he said lawmakers in the United States should hold off on comments about his fiscal commission’s proposals to slash the federal budget deficit through spending cuts, ending tax breaks, and a revamping of the Social Security system.

“Before anybody starts shooting down proposals, I think we need to listen, we need to gather up all the facts,” Obama told reporters.

He added: “If people are, in fact, concerned about spending, debt, deficits and the future of our country, then they’re going to need to be armed with the information about the kinds of choices that are going to be involved, and we can’t just engage in political rhetoric.”

So, Barack Obama is in Korea lecturing Americans to suck it up and embrace the catfood he and the wealthy elite have deemed necessary to feed us in order to pay for their grotesque largesse. Notably, at the same time Vice President Biden was left to be the White House representative at the traditional Arlington National Cemetery ceremony to honor America’s Veterans, where Presidents usually pay their respects and appreciation to veterans and the military. Especially during a “time of war”. Obama couldn’t make it to Arlington for the Memorial Day Ceremony either.

But Mr. Obama could not be present at Arlington this time because he was in Korea. And just what was so pressing in Korea? As Jane Hamsher points out, it is the desire to press for a horribly conceived US-Korea free trade deal:

It would be a truly horrific blow to whatever is left of American manufacturing at a time when unemployment is rampant. But from a political standpoint, fighting for another so-called “free trade” agreement right now has got to represent some kind of death wish for the Democratic party.

Yes indeed, but thus is what we are constantly served by Barack Obama. As Paul Krugman today rightfully termed it, Mush From the Wimp.

You know, it is not just that the arrogant and cluelessly detached President Pangloss is steaming toward a one and done Presidency, it is that he is literally destroying the Democratic Party and liberal ideology in the process and leaving them in his wake.

UPDATE: I guess Obama couldn’t even sell crack free trade to Charlie Sheen the Koreans.

Who We Are: Zeitoun and Camp Greyhound Five Years On

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In a country founded on “self evident truths” such as life, liberty, equality, and due process of law, the timeless quote from Ben Franklin speaks to the peril imposed when the founding principles are discarded or compromised:

Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.

Yet, of course, since 9/11 that is exactly what the United States has done and what has resulted in return. Fareed Zakaria has a piece up at Newsweek speaking to the senseless and destructive madness that has consumed the US since the 9/11 attacks:

The error this time is more damaging. September 11 was a shock to the American psyche and the American system. As a result, we overreacted.

….

Some 30,000 people are now employed exclusively to listen in on phone conversations and other communications in the United States. And yet no one in Army intelligence noticed that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan had been making a series of strange threats at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he trained. The father of the Nigerian “Christmas bomber” reported his son’s radicalism to the U.S. Embassy. But that message never made its way to the right people in this vast security apparatus. The plot was foiled only by the bomber’s own incompetence and some alert passengers.

Such mistakes might be excusable. But the rise of this national-security state has entailed a vast expansion in the government’s powers that now touches every aspect of American life, even when seemingly unrelated to terrorism.

…..

In the past, the U.S. government has built up for wars, assumed emergency authority, and sometimes abused that power, yet always demobilized after the war. But this is a war without end. When do we declare victory? When do the emergency powers cease?

Conservatives are worried about the growing power of the state. Surely this usurpation is more worrisome than a few federal stimulus programs. When James Madison pondered this issue, he came to a simple conclusion: “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germs of every other … In war, too, the discretionary power of the executive is extended?.?.?.?and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.

“No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual war,” Madison concluded.

Indeed it is a chilling picture we have allowed our political “leaders” to paint us into, and Zakaria does not even hit some of the most disturbing impingements on due process and the rule of law such as the government arrogating itself the right to summarily execute American citizens with no judicial trial or due process whatsoever and the legal black hole that is Guantanamo and the Obama Military Commission and indefinite detention program. That is, as a nation, who and what we are today and it has bought us nothing except world scorn, geometrically more enemies, a plundered treasury, ignored and dilapidated domestic infrastructure, swelling joblessness and exploding income inequality.

But, hey, at least we have increased security and all those oppressive terrorist modalities are only for al-Qaida and the bad foreigners, right? No. The rot is now who we are, towards ourselves in addition to “them”. And that is where we finally get to the subject of the title of this post. Nothing demonstrates the deadly rot virus that has been injected into the blood of the American ethos than the story of Zeitoun. (more after jump) Read more →

Obama Had 60 Votes For Dawn Johnsen's Confirmation Last Year; Johnsen Stalled Again This Year

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3855The Obama Administration’s confounding unwillingness and/or inability to move the nomination of Dawn Johnsen as head of OLC has manifested itself yet again. The renomination of Johnsen was set to be voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, but somehow they just “ran out of time” before they could get to it, even though they found time to muse about a couple of far less significant district court judges and other lesser nominees.* It is a continuing and puzzling pattern of delay and diversion that has kept Dawn Johnsen’s nomination in limbo for better than a year.

I previously wrote about the failure of the Obama Administration to support the Dawn Johnsen nomination, a far less than good faith effort that finally resulted in Johnsen’s nomination being killed by operation of Senate Rule XXXI when they adjourned on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2009. It turns out what I wrote has been borne out and, as lawyers are wont to say, proved up pretty well.

As I will detail below, there is now crystal clear evidence that Barack Obama and Harry Reid had the sixty (60) votes for cloture on the confirmation of Dawn Johnsen all along last year, at least subsequent to July 7, the day Senator Al Franken was sworn in, and despite that fact refused to call a vote and get Johnsen installed in her critical post at OLC. Here is what I wrote immediately following the Christmas Eve death of her nomination:

Moreover, the bleating by Harry Reid and the Obama Administration that it is all the fault of mean old Republican obstructionism simply does not hold water. The Democrats hold a 60 seat caucus block, sufficient to overcome Republican obstruction. Of those, the Main Justice article is quite clear there were only two Democratic problem children, former Republican Arlen Specter and the ever whiny Ben Nelson, who never passes up an opportunity to betray his party. That means there were potentially only 58 Democratic votes for Johnsen’s nomination. But Republican Richard Lugar firmly supported Dawn Johnsen, so that makes 59 votes, only one shy of confirmation.

In addition to Lugar, both Republican Senators from Maine, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, have refused to rule out voting for Johnsen and were being lobbied hard by extremely influential women’s groups and liberal constituents. Both Collins and Snowe have a history of agreeing, when pressured, to allow up or down votes on Presidential nominees, even from Democrats.

Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel had 59 votes in favor of Dawn Johnsen’s nomination, a distinct possibility of picking up Collins, Snowe or both, and are more than aware Arlen Specter needs big help in his reelection campaign in Pennsylvania and that Ben Nelson can always be bought. And despite all of the above, the Obama White House did not ever request Harry Reid to call a vote. The only rational conclusion from this is the Obama White House did not want Dawn Johnsen, their own nominee, to be confirmed.

My calculations on the 60 votes being available were confirmed upon Obama re-nominating Johnsen when it was immediately announced to much ballyhoo that Arlen Specter would be the 60th vote for cloture on the re-nomination; albeit apparently only after Johnsen has been again dragged through the committee process and other vagaries of prolonged confirmation procedure. The TPM report of Specter’s intention to support Johnsen’s confirmation confirms exactly what I stated, Specter was the 60th vote (there were always 58 Dems plus Richard Lugar) and was there all along; all Obama and Harry Reid had to do was call the vote. Read more →