Macho Nachos

Whoops.

It appears that I have made some grievous errors. First, I erroneously claimed the following:

I would, however, remain cautious about going out on a limb over what Franken says. I don't really expect that Sean Hannity would be an authority on the finances of Disney, and I am highly skeptical that Franken has a clue what he is talking about when it comes to the details of the financial arrangements involved.

On another occasion, I further speculated on Franken's ignorance of the actual issues:

I put this down to Franken's general bumbling idiocy, rather than an official statement on behalf of the company.

It appears, per Michelle Malkin, that I was wrong, and Al Franken was in fact knowledgeable of the shady transaction in question - as evidenced by his signature on a document detailing the transaction in question. So, my bad.

The problem is, I should have been right. What major media company involves one of their on-air personalities in their financial dealings? Does Disney consult Sean Hannity before entering into partnerships, or obtaining financing? Does Clear Channel get Rush Limbaugh's signature before buying a new radio station? What in the world is the possible motivation for getting Franken involved in this transaction?

This baffling turn of events signals, to me, a couple of significant things. First, it is a sign of a business that does not know what the heck it is doing. Franken is not entertaining, but it's at least appropriate for Air America to have Franken in his on-air position, given that he is (at least nominally) an entertainer by trade. For them to involve him in negotiations concerning major financial decisions in their country seems, to me, to indicate a gross negligence with shareholder money. I am too busy at this moment to scan through the document and determine whether all of the rest of the investors in Piquant/Progress Media signed on to this document as well, to determine whether they knew who was making decisions about their money.

Although, given their past history, it might be too hard to find enough people who care whether these particular investors were screwed or not to actually push the issue.

The second thing it indicates is that a large number of Franken's on-air comments were not merely ignorant, they were deliberately false - as Michelle catalogs in her post. Basically, his whole defense - I'm just a humble "entertainer" - a defense which was highly plausible, suddenly has come crashing down. Franken's involvement with this scandal on a personal level is stunning.

I would think this would be of far greater interest to some folks in the media than Rush Limbaugh's addiction to prescription drugs (which, to this point, were legally consumed). Well, it might be, if Franken were conservative.

Or if anyone actually listened to his show.

Blogging in the Raw

Of course, it goes without saying that I haven't been blogging enough. Sorry about that, I've just had a few too many things on my plate. Plus, there's so much going on that it's presented an overwhelming task to try and keep up with it all.

Foremost on everyone's minds, of course, is the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The political blame game continues, with the interesting new twist being that Nagin has apparently decided that the entire mess is Blanco's fault. I'd personally rather that we wait until the bodies stop floating in the water to get into the finger-pointing at all, but the reality is that it's already started. And, I have learned the hard way in the past that taking the high road, and letting the other side do ALL of the finger-pointing is a sure way to let that finger-pointing become reality, which is bad news. Right now, however, all I'll say is that I'm praying for the folks in New Orleans who have lost everything, and also those who have lost family members. I'm personally thankful that the only real friend I have in New Orleans is out safe, despite the fact that his workplace and home are both destroyed.

My parents called me on the phone last night about all of this as well. They live in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, and have a decent-sized house. Apparently, they called down to a local motel and asked if they'd had to turn anyone away who still needed housing, and now they're putting up a couple of families who have been displaced. My dad said that they are both looking for jobs in Dallas, and neither of them intends to return to New Orleans, even if they do rebuild it - which is something to seriously consider. Before we spend the billions of dollars to rebuild, it might be interesting to determine exactly how many people we are going to need to house.

There is one other thing that might be considered relevant to the reconstruction of New Orleans, although nobody really wants to talk about it now. I used to live in the town of Valdez, AK, which is situated along the side of an inlet on Prince William Sound. It used to be that the town of Valdez was situated at the end of the same inlet, but in the 1960s, the earthquake that devastated Anchorage started a Tsunami that wiped the entire city out. The federal government absolutely refused to provide the money to rebuild Valdez at the end of the inlet again, where it was subject to such a disaster, so the city was rebuilt on the side, where it is relatively safe.

I'm just saying.

The other thing on everyone's mind, of course, is the other SCOTUS vacancy opened up by the passing of CJ William Rehnquist. His wisdom and administration will be greatly missed on the court. Stay tuned to RedState, where Erick will be sure to have all the latest rumors and updates.

I'm sick of it.

This whole situation is patently ridiculous. This is, point blank, the greatest disaster to occur on American soil during my lifetime. We are looking, potentially, at the loss of tens of thousands of lives, and an entire American city. This is, apparently, a perfect time to score political points, in the opinion of some. I've spent a little time at Kos today, and I'm frankly stunned at how many people are so irrational in their hatred of Bush that they are actually laying a HURRICANE at his door. Our society is in trouble.

I really don't even want to talk about this, but then John Cole found this and sent it to me. What is this? Why, it's the "City of New Orleans Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan." These are the guidelines that the city officials are to follow. Thus stuff is absolutely incredible in its implications, because of what was not done:

Evacuation planning and actual implementation has to be based upon certain assumptions. It must be understood that the need to evacuate elements of the population can occur at any time, events resulting in evacuations occur with various amounts of lead time and every evacuation will be unique and offer unexpected challenges to those conducting the evacuation. Evacuations in response to hazardous material spills or sudden severe weather are provided with little or no warning, and often have to be accomplished after the fact, and in a disaster response environment. Throughout the Parish persons with special needs, require special consideration regarding notification, transportation, and sheltering. Resources of equipment, facilities and personnel are more difficult to locate and coordinate when an evacuation is required during late night or early morning hours. If possible, advance warning should be given so an evacuation can be coordinated. Adequate provisions should be maintained at all times in order to conduct a warning or alert of an area.

Certain hazards, such as a hurricane, provide some lead time for coordinating an evacuation. However, this can not be considered a certainty. Plus, the sheer size of an evacuation in response to an approaching hurricane creates the need for the use of community-wide warning resources, which cannot be limited to our City's geographical boundaries. Evacuation of major portions of our population, either in response to localized or citywide disasters, can only be accomplished if the citizens and visitors are kept informed of approaching threats on a timely schedule, and if they are notified of the need to evacuate in a timely and organized manner. If an evacuation order is issued without the mechanisms needed to disseminate the information to the affected persons, then we face the possibility of having large numbers of people either stranded and left to the mercy of a storm, or left in an area impacted by toxic materials.

Jeez. That's not the worst:

Using information developed as part of the Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Task Force and other research, the City of New Orleans has established a maximum acceptable hurricane evacuation time standard for a Category 3 storm event of 72 hours. This is based on clearance time or is the time required to clear all vehicles evacuating in response to a hurricane situation from area roadways. Clearance time begins when the first evacuating vehicle enters the road network and ends when the last evacuating vehicle reaches its destination.

Clearance time also includes the time required by evacuees to secure their homes and prepare to leave (mobilization time); the time spent by evacuees traveling along the road network (travel time); and the time spent by evacuees waiting along the road network due to traffic congestion (delay time). Clearance time does not refer to the time a single vehicle spends traveling on the road network. Evacuation notices or orders will be issued during three stages prior to gale force winds making landfall.

Still waiting for something, anything, that went according to this plan:

It must be understood that this Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan is an all-hazard response plan, and is applicable to events of all sizes, affecting even the smallest segments of the community. Evacuation procedures for small scale and localized evacuations are conducted per the SOPs of the New Orleans Fire Department and the New Orleans Police Department. However, due to the sheer size and number of persons to be evacuated, should a major tropical weather system or other catastrophic event threaten or impact the area, specifically directed long range planning and coordination of resources and responsibilities efforts must be undertaken.

The clearance times facing Orleans Parish for a severe hurricane will necessitate proper traffic control and early evacuating decision making. The evacuation must be completed before the arrival of gale force winds. Evacuation should also start when school is not in session and when there is at least eight (8) hours of daylight included in the evacuation time allowed. Provisions must be made for the removal of disabled vehicles. Flooding of roadways due to rainfall before a hurricane arrives could close off critical evacuation routes rendering evacuation impossible.

Uhh... hooo boy. There's so much more in there and I just can't bring myself to filter through it all. What a mess.

Shall we Shoot the Looters?

Apart from all of the partisan bickering that's been going on over who should bear the blame for the results of Hurricane Katrina - one interesting question has repeatedly made its way to the forefront of the discussion: what should be done about the looters? Specifically, is the use of lethal force against looters justified?

There are well-intentioned folks in error on both sides of this debate. Some have advocated "shoot to kill" against the looters in a kneejerk reaction of human disgust. Some, on the other hand, cannot distinguish between looting and petty theft, and why the punishment should potentially be different for the two offenses.

Basic punishment theory teaches us that neither of these approaches are correct, and that the truth - as it frequently does - lies somewhere in the middle.

More below the fold:

Punishment, as a public policy objective, is generally viewed to serve three societal purposes: Deterrence, Reform, and Retribution. Some punishment theorists (mainly death penalty opponents) have attempted throughout the years to deligitimize Retribution as a policy goal of the state - primarily because it suits their own pet cause to note that the death penalty is rather obviously useless for reform, and it is arguable whether it serves as an effective deterrent. Therefore, they say, retribution should not properly be viewed as a part of legitimate punishment theory.

However, not only is retribution a valid part of punishment theory, it is the essential aspect of any valid punishment theory. If punishment is not fundamentally based upon the principle of "giving the lawbreaker his due," then the justice of punishment quickly dissolves. After all, it is a psychologically established fact that it is more effective (from the perspective of deterrence and reform) to visit punishment on the loved one of a lawbreaker, rather than on the lawbreaker himself. In other words, if I am caught stealing, and my four year old son is punished in my sight for my sins, that is, from an efficacy standpoint, far more effective than punishing me for my own sins. And thus the foundation of personal retribution is the essential consideration of any punishment theory that can remotely be called just.

It is important to realize that some acts of punishment by nature will only fulfill one or two of the policy objectives mentioned above (the death penalty being the most glaring example). Generally, however, as a matter of public policy, whichever approach satisfies all three to the greatest utility will be preserved, with the caveat that societies have generally placed a greater emphasis on retribution as the foundation, followed secondarily by deterrence, with reform lagging behind as a distant third. Some may quibble, but I contend that this is as it should be, given my own conservative views of the nature of government, and the limits of its role as a reforming entity - in comparison with its role as an entity that exists to keep order.

Again recognizing the quibbles some may have with the specifics, it is a point of general agreement by those who do not exist on the far sidelines of the discussion that the first question that should be examined when considering whether a given punishment is appropriate is to measure whether it is appropriate from a retributive standpoint. And so we ask, "What constitutes appropriate retribution?"

A rather simplistic answer is that retribution would demand that a person should be punished in a manner commensurate with the crime they have committed. However, societies have generally eschewed this view on the basis that provides no deterrent value. If a man steals an ox, and he is punished by having an ox taken from him, he has, in the end, come off none the worse for the transaction. In fact, a significant argument can be made that not only has his punishment not served as a deterrent, but in fact that he has not been punished whatsoever, in the way that we understand punishment. Thus, generally, the severity of the retribution has generally been somewhat more serious than the severity of the crime. Various societies throughout time have obviously differed on how wide the disparity should be (should theft be punished by the severance of a hand, or the confiscation of a greater part of the thief's property?) but the principle is that disparity has always existed. Each society generally determines its own mores, which change throughout time, as to where the line should be drawn.

In the case of looting, which in many respects is equivalent to petty theft, it seems fairly obvious to our American sensibilities that death without trial is not an appropriate retributive response for the crime of theft - and indeed the societies who would have held that view would be very rare indeed, even throughout antiquity (with the caveat that petty theft is under consideration). However, there are many ways in which looting is siginificantly different from other kinds of petty theft, and therefore deserves a different kind of punishment.

Looting is a specialized kind of theft that takes advantage of the fact that the likelihood of retribution has dipped below a certain level. In other words, looting is what happens when whatever is being done in the way of deterrence has completely and utterly failed. The question that presents itself to us is this: Is it justified to raise the retributive level of a punishment if the needs of deterrence demand it?

Generally, we answer this question in the affirmative. In most cases, it would be viewed as wholly inappropriate to use tear gas and/or taser guns as retribution for simple trespassing. However, when trespassing occurs en masse as part of an unruly mob, the directive of deterrence and the mandate of the government to promote order through deterrence generally justifies the elevation of retribution beyond its normal bounds. This elevation, however, is not without limits. We would generally be aghast if instead of tear gas and taser guns the police immediately resorted to lethal force to disperse an unruly group of protestors.

Essentially, we have boiled the question down to this: can a crowd ever become so unruly that the use of lethal force upon some of them is justified to deter the continued action of the rest of them? In the case of New Orleans, the question is a very difficult one indeed.

Some cases are relatively easy. Those who shoot at relief helicopters have "earned" a lethal response. However, we would generally believe that taking a TV from Radio Shack does not "earn" a lethal response. Does the need to restore order and deter this behavior on a massive scale justify the elevation of the response to one of instantaneous death?

As much as I hate to end a post with a question, in this case I must. Such a decision is high above my "pay grade" and a level of responsibility that I'm willing to assume. Were I the governor of Louisiana right now, given what I know of the situation, I'd say probably yes. But it would be a decision that would probably haunt me to my grave. What frightens me at this point, are those who are all too ready to pull the trigger without thought, and likewise those who would just as eagerly eschew the option altogether.

May God help the residents of New Orleans.

It's Bush's Fault!

Thomas takes a look at the insane desire of the left to blame everything that ever might happen in the world on Bush. Including hurricanes. And the existence of masoleums. And the construction of towns below sea level - before he was born. The whole post is beautiful, but one part in particular hit home in a special way:

This is obscene. It's actually worse than obscene, because not all of those bodies floating down there right now are from the mausoleums. How distorted is our political discourse -- excuse me, their political discourse -- that they start pointing fingers before the bodies are in the damned ground? We haven't even buried the dead yet, and they're trying to pin the untold lives and livelihoods lost on an opponent for political gain. I'd say something about shame, but the Left long ago forgot that.

Gee, guys, if you have the courage of your convictions, join the National Guard. They could use a few, ahem, bodies right now. Or at least act out your more lurid dreams and head down to New Orleans or Gulfport. Grab a body floating by. Reporters are thick on the ground -- scream at Bush and shake the body in front of the camera to good effect.

*wiping eyes* It's just... so... beautiful!

A National Object Lesson in Tennessee

Those of us who primarily vote Republican generally do so for a variety of reasons, each of them particular to our own favorite central Republican value. For those of us who consider ourselves to be "social conservatives," we are animated in large part by anger and frustration at the perceived moral direction of the country. For me, I am especially motivated to see the wholesale slaughter of the unborn in this country end.

What is lamentable and frustrating about the entire situation is that the national Republican party is throwing away our best chance to take out our anger on the left in the only way that matters: through policy. How is this happening? We turn to the state of Tennessee for answers.

The state of Tennessee, as some of you may know, has no state income tax. We are, according to various estimates, one of the lowest taxed states in the union. This is something that virtually no one who lives here is bothered by, and in fact is a significant motivating factor for in-state residence, especially given that many of our metropolitan areas border closely on other states (Memphis borders Arkansas and Mississippi, Nashville has moderate extension into southern Kentucky, and the tri-cities area in Eastern Tennessee has significant spillover into Virginia).

During the early 90s, when the push for nationalized healthcare a la Hillary was in full swing, then-Governor Ned Ray McWherter began to push for a Medicaid expansion program called TennCare, which conformed roughly to Hillary's vision of how healthcare in this country should run. To make a very long story short - the program almost instantly became the kind of fiscal disaster that scared folks away from nationalizing the same system.

Enter "Republican" governor Don Sundquist onto the scene. When TennCare bloated to the point that it was nearing 40% of the total cost of the Tennessee budget, Sundquist responded by pushing for an income tax. The ensuing political battle lasted two years, and provoked the first and only Republican mass protests I've ever seen - every time word leaked out that the legislature was considering an income tax measure, thousands of people would leave their jobs, drive downtown and completely block traffic around the capitol. Sundquist's approval numbers dipped into the 20s during this farce, and when his term expired in 2002, the Republican party in Tennessee was completely unable to launch an effective gubernatorial campaign, and what should have been a safely red gubernatorial seat instead turned into a comparatively easy win for Democrat Phil Bredesen.

Bredesen ran on a "no income tax" platform, and promised further that if the budget got too tight, he'd axe the rolls of TennCare. Surprisingly, when things got tight, Bredesen did just that. Despite hysterical shrieks and shrills from the extreme members of his own party, Bredesen announced in late 2004 that he was dissolving TennCare altogether, in order to save the state's budget without an income tax (subsequently, in a compromise maneuver, some of the sickest and poorest TennCare enrollees have been allowed to stay on the rolls). This simple act of keeping a promise to be responsible with the money of others has made Bredesen a virtually bulletproof candidate for re-election in 2006.

The TennCare debacle will likely have a trickle-down effect to the rest of Tennessee. Bredesen's credibility as a fiscally conservative Democrat, coupled with the fiscal irresponsibility of the Senate Republicans (of which outgoing Bill Frist was the figurehead) will likely have a coattails effect on Senatorial candidate Harold Ford, Jr. Ford Jr. is NOT a moderate, but he plays one well on television. Ford Jr. never met a piece of pork he didn't like, but he's smart, politically, and he knows enough to talk like a pork hawk, and to attach himself as often as possible to Bredesen during this run. Because Ford Jr. is much better at sounding moderate than your average Democrat - Bredesen can afford to maintain this symbiosis without a serious risk to his own reputation. And thus, a Senate seat that should be safely red has now become an absolute toss-up, with a very real risk of Republican loss.

Now here is the point that is applicable to myself, and social conservatives like me. We all have things and causes that are nearest and dearest to our heart. For me, it's the pro-life cause. For others, it might be other things. The political reality that we face in a representative democracy is that, in order to see those causes converted into policy, it is necessary to see like-minded folks elected into public office. Increasingly (and lamentably) for social conservatives, those like-minded folks exclusively wear GOP hats. It's natural for us, then, in seeking the advancement of the GOP, to make the assumption that our causes are the causes that will motivate others to vote for my party. The sad truth, for social conservatives, is that that's not often the case.

The reality is that, however popular certain socially conservative causes might be, there are NO causes more popular with average voters than fiscally conservative ones. People, essentially, want the government to do two things: 1) Keep them safe, and 2) Be responsible with their money. The other causes that motivate those of us standing on the far sides of The Big Ditch™ represent so much background noise for the average American who wants nothing more than to go to work in safety every day, and take home a bigger portion of his paycheck when that working day is done. And, a politician who will actually deliver in those two areas will win the middle in a landslide every time.

That used to be the grand vision of the GOP. It was that vision that carried us to victory in 1994. In 2004, we won on the first half of that vision - and I'm afraid that a certain hubris has gripped us whereby we believe that somehow that will be enough forever and always. However, it's becoming clear that, going forward, emphasizing number one to the detriment of number two just ain't enough. There are still Democrats who exist (although their number is growing smaller) who are smart enough, to simply refuse to discuss social issues in favor of fiscal and security issues. Bredesen is one of these. During a legal flap a few years ago over some Tennessee license plates that said "Choose Life," in which all the state Republicans tried to make hay over the issue (license plates!) - Bredesen's sole comment on the issue was (paraphrased), "politicians who have to run on this kind of non-issue usually do so because they haven't the faintest idea of how to actually govern." Ouch. I wake up in cold sweats at night at the prospect of a Napolitano/Bredesen ticket in '08, because in the current political climate, that ticket wins over 40 states over any ticket involving Sam Brownback.

We get a lot of folks on this site who express frustration and anger at what they perceive as the hijacking of the GOP by the "religious right". A lot of these folks are just mobys, but many of them are sincere in their vision of the party. The problem is that, while their frustration is legitimate, the target of their frustration is grossly misplaced. As a card-carrying member of the "religious right", I'm every bit as frustrated. And it's not because the party has been hijacked by Pat Robertson, because it hasn't.

The problem is that the party has been hijacked by our own elected representatives, many of whom seem to have forgotten that small government is a winning electoral strategy - and more imporatantly, a core Republican principle.

It's time to wake these dolts up, by whatever means necessary. How many of us who are here today were motivated by the force and the excitement of the 1994 movement - who were ecstatic that the promise of fiscal responsibility got a lot of great socially conservative folks elected? How much more infinitely disappointing it is that once those same folks got in power, they deceived themselves into believing that the citizenry didn't really mean they didn't like pork - they meant that they didn't like Democrat pork. The arrogance and buffoonery of this attitude is stunning, and if it is not checked, it will lose us elections - and not just the ones that are toss-ups, but the ones that should be safe, as well. Like the U. S. Senate seat in Tennessee, for instance.

It's time for social conservatives to work the grassroots of fiscal conservatism again. Our causes are our causes, and it's right for us to hold our policians accountable for betraying them. But, in our euphoria over the victory of 2004, if we press our agenda to the exclusion of pressing the agenda that got these politicians in office in the first place, we may find that our victory is very short-lived indeed.

Levee Breaks, New Orleans Devastated

CNN reports:

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- As the death toll from Hurricane Katrina reached at least 65, a levee holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain sustained a breach two blocks long overnight in the Lakefront area of New Orleans.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin confirmed the breach in a local TV interview. City fire officials said the break was about 200 feet long in the levee surrounding the 17th Street Canal.

"My heart is heavy tonight," Nagin said in the interview on WWL-TV. "I don't have any good news to share.

"The city of New Orleans is in a state of devastation. We probably have 80 percent of our city underwater. With some sections of our city, the water is as deep as 20 feet."

"It's dumping all the lake water in Orleans Parish," she said. "It's essentially running down Canal Street. We have whitecaps on Canal Street.

"We now are completely surrounded by 6 feet of water and are about to get on the phone with Federal Emergency Management Agency to start talking about evacuation plans," Caraway said.

"The water is rising so fast, I can't even begin to describe how fast it is rising."

She did not know whether any pumps had been turned on to pump the water but said, "They're not going to be able to compete with Lake Pontchartrain."

Michelle Malkin has more, as does Josh Trevino - who's done some work with the USACE before and has some links to levee maps and heights. What is significant about this, that I haven't seen anyone comment upon yet, is that the Mississippi river has actually been artificially held out of its natural channel by the USACE for years now. If this flooding causes it to revert to that natural channel, the devastation will be total - and beyond that, virtually irreversible - to not only New Orleans but numerous towns and hamlets upstream.

More updates as they become available today.

Frisking the Complaint

As most of you know by now, there is quite a scandal brewing involving the lefty talk radio network known as Air America, in which the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club of New York is accused of improperly "loaning" the network almost $900,000 which was never repaid. From the very beginning of this story, Michelle Malkin and Brian Maloney have been breaking the news at it happens. At one point, I followed this story down every alley and around every corner - a summary of my work thus far can be found here.

Unfortunately, then, school started again, sucking away my every free moment and most of the mental energy required to post quality material. However, with some of the recent revelations about another lawsuit that Air America is facing, I have decided to frisk through the complaint that Multicultural Radio Broadcasting (MRB) filed against the principal owners of Air America and see what's what. I hope that, as Pejman has opportunity, he will contribute his own thoughts to mine.

Now, for those who are unfamiliar with the civil procedure system, the complaint in a lawsuit is really just the first shot fired in what is sometimes a very long battle. According to the Federal Rules of Procedure, a lawsuit has to begin with a complaint, which has to provide a "short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." The FRCP even has a "form" which shows how ridiculously simple these complaints are required to be (it's about three sentences long). So, legally, all you are trying to do with your complaint is serve notice that the party you are suing is getting sued, and why.

You're really not even required to make your claims logically consistent, or exclusive to one line of argument, so frequently lawyers will just throw a whole bunch of crap into their complaints and throw it all against the wall in the hopes that at least some of it will stick. Your basic goal, from a legal standpoint, is that you want to state some facts that, if true, would entitle you to legal relief - because if you don't, your complaint might get dismissed.

However, complaints also serve a more strategic value - which is that, if you are trying to get a settlement, you might also load your complaint with a bunch of facts that prove that your case is, indeed, legitimate, and that prove that you have some pretty good knowledge that the defendant is screwed, so that when the defendant's lawyers read through the complaint, they will go to the defendant and ask, "Are these things true? Because if they are, we need to settle." I get the sense from this complaint that, in alleging fraudulent conveyance, they are trying to impress the defendants with their knowledge of all the shady financial deals that they have been involved in.

Paragraphs 1-25 as discussed here involve jurisdiction. The plaintiffs (for reasons, at this point, known only to them) have filed this suit in state court, rather than federal. From what I can see from their complaint, diversity jurisdiction would certainly apply, and they could potentially have filed in federal. However, for (I presume) strategic reasons, they have filed in state court, and thus are establishing the grounds for the court to hear this case, as per paragraphs 23 and 24.

Paragraphs 26-46 outline the facts of the existence of the debt itself. When Air America (Radio Free America) began broadcasting, they apparently leased airtime on two of MRB's stations in Chicago and Los Angeles. The complaint contains a lot of information about the finances of Air America, through which MRB is seeking to prove that Air America was insolvent - that they knew that they were insolvent, and yet they continued to accrue debt they knew they could not pay. You might guess that legally, this is a big no-no. Again, if you as an individual intentionally accrue a bunch of debt with the full knowledge that you intend to file bankruptcy in the near future, the court will generally exempt all that debt from your bankruptcy settlement and force you to pay your creditors in full. I'm not sure because I'm utterly unfamiliar with corporate law, but I'd imagine the same principle applies to corporations.

A couple of the allegations here are damning in the sense that they are ridiculously easy to prove, and quite potentially felonious. For instance, from paragraphs 39-40:

<blockquote>After receiving written notices of default from Multicultural and an opportunity to cure, Radio Free America tendered a $156,000 check in payment of amounts owed under the Chicago agreement. That check was returned for insufficient funds. Radio Free America executives later candidly admitted that they had stopped payment on the check.</blockquote>

Whoops. Aside from the considerations this has for the civil complaint at hand, this activity is felonious - if it can be proved that 1) they knew, in the first place, that the check would not clear and 2) they intended for MRB to rely on the payment of this check to their detriment. 2) is virtually a given in this circumstance - if you write a check to someone for $156,000 - anyone, even a large corporation, will be induced to reliance. Especially given that the check was issued in an attempt to extend broadcasting of Air America over MRB's airwaves, thereby creating detriment from the loss of income they might have received from having, you know, someone who was able to pay leasing their airwaves. So, the contractual issue, to me, is pretty clear. If it is also clear that they knew in the first place that the funds were insufficient, a criminal case could also be forthcoming for fraud and other issues.

Following this, MRB reached settlement with Air America over the continued usage of their airwaves - part of which was the payment of this $156,000. Given that this payment was never received (as MRB alleges), the settlement was never consummated.

The really damaging information in this complaint, however, is in paragraphs 47 through 84 - these are the paragraphs establishing "fraudulent conveyance" - alleging that Air America engaged in a shell transfer of their assets from the company Progress Media to the new corporation Piquant LLC, composed of pretty much the same investors as those from Progress Media. What is very interesting to me is all the information about David Goodfriend, and what he is alleged to have known and informed the defendants of. It seems to me, from reading this complaint, that it's very likely that Mr. Goodfriend sat down at some point and had a chat with some of the lawyers of MRB. If this case goes to trial, and Goodfriend testifies to the truthfulness of half of what is alleged in this complaint - and further that he took these repeated and extreme steps to warn the good folks at Air America that what they were doing was fraudulent and illegal, this could very well become the kind of case in which a message verdict is sent.

And, in the final straw, 85-89 point out that MRB has still not been paid the judgment in a court case that they've already won against these folks.

Now, here is my final conclusion to all of this (fully realizing that I am coming to this party really late by blogging standards). As I said at the beginning of this post, complaints often times have a bunch of stuff that lawyers throw in there in hopes that some of it will eventually stick at the trial, so it's difficult to put much stock in the truthfulness of a complaint - however, given the past behavior of the Drobnys (et al.) thus far in this case, we have no reason whatsoever to disbelieve that any of the allegations contained herein are not true. Further, given the incredible specificity and falsifiability of these allegations, some of which are clearly scandalous in nature (if untrue), it seems unlikely that a lawyer includes them without some kind of verifiable evidence, at the risk of running afoul of FRCP Rule 11 (Lawyer sanctions). I think that the bounced check allegation in particular is pretty cut and dried.

The complaint in question is stamped May 24, 2005. According to various rules that apply based upon how you are finally served with the complaint, you generally have either 20, 60, or 90 days to respond to a complaint with either a response or any number of motions to dismiss/request clarifications. All of those deadlines have passed. Methinks that its time for this blogger to put in a call to the New York County court and see what's what when it comes to this lawsuit. More information as it becomes available.

Am I Still Overreacting?

When the Washington Post first started covering John Roberts, and I accused the paper of attempting to slime John Roberts as a racist, a lot of folks seemed to think that I was overreacting and/or that my media bias detector was picking up non-existent signals. It appears, however, with the release of the newest WaPo hit piece on Roberts, that the problem is that I wasn't being paranoid enough. In an article entitled, "In Article, Roberts's Pen Appeared to Dip South," the Post breathelessly informs us that:

When John G. Roberts Jr. prepared to ghostwrite an article for President Ronald Reagan a little over two decades ago, his pen took a Civil War reenactment detour.

A Civil War reenactment detour? A pen can do this? Luckily, the Post tells us how!

The article, which was to appear in the scholarly National Forum journal, was called "The Presidency: Roles and Responsibilities." Roberts was writing by hand a section on how the congressional appropriations process had evolved.

A fastidious editor of other people's copy as well as his own, Roberts began with the words "Until about the time of the Civil War." Then, the Indiana native scratched out the words "Civil War" and replaced them with "War Between the States."

In case you were wondering - no, there is nothing else in the article that would indicate that Roberts's pen "dipped South" or "took a Civil War reenactment detour." That's it. He crossed out "Civil War", and replaced it with "War Between the States." Clearly, the man longs for the return of slavery, or at the very least, the antebellum days.

While it is true that the Civil War is also known as the War Between the States, the Encyclopedia Americana notes that the term is used mainly by southerners.

John M. Coski, the historian and library director of the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, said the term was commonplace in the South until the 1960s or early 1970s. He said some people use "War Between the States" out of habit, others think it quaint or iconoclastic, and still others use it because they believe the Confederacy was right to secede.

"You can't always draw the inference that someone who uses the term does so with an ideological intent, but at the same time you can't be blind to the fact that some people do," Coski said.

Somebody stop me, I don't have enough spare hair to be ripping mine out the way I currently am. There might potentially be some reasonable case for the WaPo to make if Roberts had  called it "The War of Northern Aggression," or "The War for States' rights." The usage of the term "War Between the States" is nothing more than a historical indication that this particular war was fought along geographical, rather than factional lines.

The article relies, for expertise, on the testimony of history Professor Sam McSeveney of Vanderbilt University. Omitted from the article is the nearly ceaseless paranoid obsession Vanderiblt University often displays with distancing themselves from anything confederate, but I digress. McSeveney's quote is an almost breathtaking smear, and the WaPo was highly irresponsible for reprinting it:

Sam McSeveney, a history professor emeritus at Vanderbilt University who specialized in the Civil War, said that Roberts's choice of words was significant.

"Many people who are sympathetic to the Confederate position are more comfortable with the idea of a 'War Between the States,' " McSeveney explained. "People opposed to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s would undoubtedly be more comfortable with the words he chose."

We are left to wonder, absent Professor McSeveney's bald assertion, what exactly links the words "War between the States" and opposition to the civil rights movement of the 60s and 70s. This is nothing more the Washington Post attempting to throw a thin veneer of legitimacy upon an extremely dubious and unwarranted conclusion. It is a sickening example of two entities (the media and academia) who are generally hostile to things conservative pointing to one another as credible evidence in a sickening display of self-servitude.

Conservatives, however, should take heart. This garbage is really the best that they have - and that indicates at least two things. First, that Roberts will face an easy confirmation, after all - and second, that the mainstream media will continue its freefall from credibility. The only way this could be better is if we could somehow get the Democrats to pick up this garbage and run with it in the confirmation hearings. We assume, however, that they're too smart for that.

Or are they?

A Message for the Readers of the Daou Report

There are times when I wish my humble blog was more well read. Then, there was yesterday. I guess it all depends on the intelligence of the readers you are seeking to attract, as opposed to the intelligence of the readers that I sometimes DO attract.

Recently, Mark Coffey had a similar experience. Never fear, Daou Report readers! If you didn't get a satisfactory response from me, James Lileks has you covered!