Packing the Court

JB over at Balkinization has posted one of the four recommendations for judicial reform being sent to Congress.

The lone one JB supports concerns appointments to the Supreme Court. Get a load of this:

• A new appointment is made to the Supreme Court every two years.
• All justices currently on the court remain
• Court cases are heard by the nine junior justices on the court.
• Justices who are senior to nine or more justices are considered Senior Justices
• Senior justices will fill vacancies on the court when junior justices recuse themselves or are otherwise unavailable
• Senior justices called to fill vacancies will be called in order of reverse seniority.

As in, the Supreme Court would have a bench behind the *ahem* bench.
The more junior justices there are beneath you, the less chance you will have to decide a case.

Senior Justices would still be allowed to rule on petitions for certiorari and court rules, but couldn't write opinions unless they were filling a vacancy.

Interesting.

Some flavor of this would certainly make the Court more responsive to the current political climate - but I have think that more turnover means more frequent political struggles. True - each president could count on an equal number of appointments - so I guess that's a plus. This whole "appoint the young & healthy" trend would become moot.

Dunno. I guess if the appointments became a known quantity the court's composition would stop being as subject to acts of God (death, disease, etc).

Burris: Now that I have the job, there are a few things you should know...

Burris, now safely seated in the Senate, now feels the time has come to open up.

Burris: Blago asked for $10k

[Burris'] affidavit is dated Feb. 5 -- three weeks after Burris was sworn in to replace President Obama in the Senate.

[snip]

"There were several facts that I was not given the opportunity to make during my testimony," Burris said. "I voluntarily submitted an affidavit so everything was transparent."

Burris, you are so not getting re-elected.

Barry Ritholtz 'splains the stimulus

The Big Picture man puts it all in perspective:

Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?
A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

Q. Where will the government get this money?
A. From taxpayers.

Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
A. No, they are borrowing it from China. Your children are expected to repay the Chinese.

Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.

Q. But isn’t that stimulating the economy of China ?
A. Shut up.

Stevens prosecutors = Keystone cops

You really gotta be kidding me.

I mean, the early rumblings of prosecutorial misconduct in the trial of Ted Stevens did not bode well. I was surprised they got a guilty verdict. I had rationalized that Stevens was so unbelievably corrupt - even bad prosecutors could score a win.

So now, with Stevens out of office the legal wrangling continues - and despite a new administration - the DOJ's foolishness knows no bounds.

Last month, [Federal Judge Emmet] Sullivan ordered the Justice Department to turn over all the agency's internal communications regarding a whistleblower complaint against the FBI agent leading the investigation into the former Alaska senator.

The agent, Chad Joy, bitterly complained about some Justice Department tactics during the trial, including not turning over evidence and an "inappropriate relationship" between another agent working the case and the prosecutor's star witness.

[snip]

During Friday's hearing, Sullivan repeatedly asked three Justice Department attorneys sitting at the prosecution's table whether they had some reason not to turn over the documents. They finally acknowledged they did not, and Sullivan exploded in anger.

"That was a court order," he bellowed. "That wasn't a request. I didn't ask for them out of the kindness of your hearts. ... Isn't the Department of Justice taking court orders seriously these days?"

He said he didn't want to get "sidetracked" by deciding a sanction immediately and would deal with their punishment later. But he ordered them to produce the material by the end of the day.

"That's outrageous for the Department of Justice — the largest law firm on the planet," he said. "That is not acceptable in this court."

Judge Sullivan ended up holding three prosecuting attorneys in contempt. He should have found them guilty of being stupid.

And this bit?

[The FBI whistleblower] also said the lead FBI agent in charge of the investigation, Mary Beth Kepner, had an inappropriate relationship with witness Bill Allen, the Alaska millionaire at the center of the investigation. Joy said he once saw Kepner entering Allen's hotel room alone and that Kepner told Joy that she wore a skirt during her appearance at the Stevens trial as a "surprise/present" for Allen.

He accused her of developing close personal relationships with other witnesses — inviting them to dine at her home, revealing details of FBI investigations and accepting gifts from them, including a job for her husband as a security guard at the Port of Anchorage, Alaska.

I mean what the freaking hell, people?

Who do these guys think they are, the Department of the Interior?

(H/t TPM)

Haec credam a deo pio, a deo justo, a deo scito?

This...is seriously messed up.

A 9/11 Widow, Killed in Crash Near Buffalo

I've said it for my own reasons, but it's doubly true for Ms. Eckert:

Some things are immune to all reason.

We base our killer drones in Pakistan?

At least according to Sen. Feinstein, we do.

Which is news to many Pakistanis. Their President has called the strikes -- more than 40 in the past year --  "counterproductive"; their prime minister, "intolerable." Pakistan's army has practiced shooting down the drones. 

(Via Danger Room)

Her office is sourcing that comment to a WaPo article - which might be true, or just good cover for the kind of gaffe that will require considerable smoothing of Pakistani feathers.

(I'm all for funny gaffes but you know, there are limits.)

Down goes Ireland?

Simon Johnson on Baseline Scenario is bearish on Ireland.

According to Johnson - the Emerald Isle is flashing red.

Yikes.

Pebble shot

Sean Quin takes the WH statement of Sen. Gregg's withdrawal as Commerce Secretary a bit harder than I did.

Here is the statement the White House just put out on kicking Judd Gregg to the curb, in full:

    “Senator Gregg reached out to the President and offered his name for Secretary of Commerce. He was very clear throughout the interviewing process that despite past disagreements about policies, he would support, embrace, and move forward with the President’s agenda. Once it became clear after his nomination that Senator Gregg was not going to be supporting some of President Obama’s key economic priorities, it became necessary for Senator Gregg and the Obama administration to part ways. We regret that he has had a change of heart”.

Translation: Gregg asked us for the gig and lied to us, so eff him, this is his fault.

As one longtime White House correspondent just told me, "I have never seen a White House statement that kicks someone in the balls that hard before."

As Quinn actually knows something - I'm inclined to wonder if Sen. Gregg sees it this way, too.

Invisible eye in the sky

Okay, Special Forces are moving into the realm of Enemy of the State technology.

Some of the pointless billions wasted on systems that are useless against insurgents (F-22, B-2) will be diverted towards the production of something called the Hummingbird.

The Hummingbird is a remotely-piloted-vehicle with one hell of a camera (1.8 GIGA pixels) and the ability to hang around.

Danger Room explains:

The Hummingbird is unique in its ability to hover at high altitude (over 15,000 feet) and its endurance of over 20 hours. This means it can park high in the sky and scan a wide area. Robo-chopper camera-maker BAE Systems says that its imager will be able to cover an area of over a hundred square miles. The refresh rate is fifteen frames per second and a "ground sample distance" of 15 centimeters –- this means that each pixel represents six inches on the ground.

Meaning the Hummingbird is way the hell up in the air - stays there all day - and can spot objects as small as a kleenex box.

Combine that with the ability to track bullets in flight - and you get a major boogeyman feeling. (Picture rewinding this kind of film to see the bullet hitting its target, then playing it in reverse to locate its shooter.)

Ground forces with a realtime God's-eye-view can seriously mess up conventional forces.

Freaky.

One last run at the trough

(Via CJR's Ryan Chittum)

Old news: Wall street firms paid big bonuses before holding out their hands for public dollars.
e.g. Merrill Lynch, paid out $4 billion dollars worth of bonuses for 2008.

New news: The distribution of those bonuses is worse than you think.

Let's understand that Merrill Lynch employs some 39,000 people. 

Fifty-three Merrill bankers got bonuses of more than $5 million each. The top four got $121 million total. The FT goes further:

The next 10 bonus recipients took home $128m in incentive pay, while the top 149 recipients got $858m in aggregate payments.

That'd be 149 employees sopping up almost a quarter of the $4 billion Merril paid out in bonuses.

What's the word I'm looking for.... clawback??!!

P.S. Oh yeah - NYAG Mario Andrew Cuomo's not at all pleased by this.


Late edit: corrected my Cuomo. Thanks, Russ.

Gavin: Donald Luskin = Colossal idiot

(via digby)

Oh my heavens...

Sadly, No! carpet-bombs Donald Luskin with his own stupidity.

It's hard to read - but Luskin so totally deserves a good beating, you can't turn away.

A bright light in the dark field of justice

Emptywheel and bmaz interpreting Judge Walker's latest order in the FISA immunity case, In Re: National Security Agency telecommunications records litigation:

Emptywheel: Say, Mr. AG, I'd really appreciate seeing some of your original lawyering work on this one, please. I've seen what the dead-enders want to give me, and I'm not really interested in seeing their stale arguments rehashed again. Unless, of course, you're really willing to adopt their completely indefensible position as your own?

bmaz: Ladies and gentlemen, Vaughn Walker is on a mission. As most of you know, I have thought that was the case for quite some time now. But jeebus, and seriously, I have rarely, if ever, seen a judge more on top of a subject, loaded for bear and out in front of a case as we see here. It is awesome and impressive. He is anticipating what the parties are going to argue and how appellate courts are going to rule in the next set of appeals, all from a pre-trial posture. He is treating this case with the respect, depth and care that it deserves because nothing short of our Constitution and Fourth Amendment thereto is at issue. There are precious few bright lights in the dark field of justice these days; irrespective of how it all plays out in the end, so far this sure looks like one of them.

Here's hoping they're right.

Chilling out vs. Killing the Zombies

I want to put these two guys in a room and watch them fight:

Nate Silver: Give Geithner a Break

I'm sorry, but somewhere between 99.9% and 99.999999% of us are severely underqualified to be making policy recommendations on this particular issue. And I'm certainly in the majority on this one. My anecdotal experience for the past several months has been that the more someone knows about the economy, the more they know (or at least are willing to admit to) what they don't know. Anyone who is professing with certainty that this or that will work -- nationalizing the banks, for instance -- is an idiot.

Martin Wolf: Why Obama’s new Tarp will fail to rescue the banks

The correct advice remains the one the US gave the Japanese and others during the 1990s: admit reality, restructure banks and, above all, slay zombie institutions at once....Mr Obama is taking a huge gamble. He should have resolved to cleanse these Augean banking stables. He needs to rethink, if it is not already too late.

My own fury at Wall Street's ineptitude and greed makes me predisposed to any plan that involves making Wall Street suffer - a LOT, but I'm genuinely confused.

I've never understood how the government buying bad investments is a good deal for the government. I'm sure the banks selling them would disagree - but I'm pretty sure they're only interested in their own survival.

Geithner's "We'll tell you the details later" approach makes me think there's still wrangling going on - but if Mr. Wolf is right, we're already sinking and emerging details are just where to put the deck chairs.

Cripes.

I wish I knew.

Late edit: 
This NYT article is very encouraging

Nearly 100 federal banking regulators descended on Citigroup in New York on Wednesday morning. Dozens more fanned out through Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and other big banks across the nation.

[snip]

At the center of this effort, part of the Obama administration’s plan to shore up the nation’s financial industry, is a new stress test for banks that federal officials are devising.

[snip]

“What you are left with is that we are going to nationalize banks that fail the stress test,” [Stanford Group analyst] Mr.[Jaret] Seiberg said. “How many big companies are going to want to do business with government-run banks?”

CalculatedRisk explains:

It sounds like the stress tests could be completed within "weeks" at some banks, and I think 30 days is sufficient for all 18 or so banks with $100 billion in assets.

The banks will probably fall into one of three categories:

1) No additional assistance required. These banks will definitely want this publicized!

2) The banks in between that will need additional capital. This is where the Capital Assistance Program comes in...

[snip]

3) Banks that will need to be nationalized or sold.

Uhhh, no thanks. My lawyer says I'm full...

...or something like that.

Stewart Parnell (CEO) and Sammy Lightsey (Plant Manager) of the ["Ship 'em with salmonella"] Peanut Corporation of America testified before congress today.

They took the Fifth Amendment for everything.

Emptywheel provides the capper:

But the highlight of the hearing came when Congressman Greg Walden (R-OR) offered up a plastic bin wrapped with big yellow CAUTION ribbons--with Peanut Corporation peanut material inside. Walden asked Parnell and Lightsey if they would be willing to eat some of their own product right there, before the Sub-Committee.

"On the advice of counsel, I uh respectfully exercise my rights Fifth Amendment of the Constitution."

A simple yes or no might have sufficed.

Ooooooooh, Snap!

Sat-on-Sat

Something I've always wondered about just happened.

In an unprecedented space collision, a commercial Iridium communications satellite and a defunct Russian satellite ran into each other Tuesday above northern Siberia, creating a cloud of wreckage, officials said today.

The international space station does not appear to be threatened by the debris, they said, but it's not yet clear whether it poses a risk to any other military or civilian satellites. 

(Via Spaceflight Now and Danger Room)

Pearlstein to Wall Street: You suck

Oh how I love this. 

Short version - The Washington Post's Steven Pearlstein tees off on Wall Street and then kicks them when they're down.

His windout is the best: A community banker named Kim Price suggested using federal bailout funds to offer below market interest rates without closing costs to home buyers who buy homes financed by the same bank. Sound good?

Pearlstein thinks so - and he wonders what Wall Street thinks, too:

So here’s a question the House Financial Services Committee might put to the Titans of Finance: How is it that Kim Price, a community banker with an undergraduate degree from Appalachian State University, a tiny executive staff and a pay package that you would consider insulting, somehow managed to come up with a more creative use for his government bailout money than any of you?

Damn good question.

Late edit:

The bankers are finally going to get their hearing. While I don't expect miracles - it will be nice to see the titans of Wall Street get the same treatment given to Detroit.

Look into the camera, you tax fattened hyena - and tell me why we shouldn't already own your sorry ass.

Later edit:
Oh, those crafty bankers... they're way ahead of things.

Unforgivable

This, from Countdown's Worst Person segment (emphasis mine):

Our winner is Dr. Anderew Wakefield. He is the doctor, almost single handedly responsible for the paranoia in some parents, worldwide, for a decade now about letting their kids get the MMR vaccination - measles, mumps & rubella.

His research, published in February 1998 in the British medical journal the Lancet suggested that the MMR triple vaccine was a likely cause of autism via some new kind of inflammitory bowel disease that the vaccinations induced with symptonms appearing within days.

He apparently made it up.

The Times of London has obtained the actual hospital medical records of the vaccinated kids on which Wakefield based his conclusions.

There were only 12 kids in the study, and their ailments as described in the article were different than the ones in their hospital records.

Worse still, Wakefield left out the fact that in several of the 12 cases there had been concerns before the vaccinations that the kids were not healthy enough to be vaccinated. And the hospital records show nearly all of the kids had no bowel troubles at all, while Wakefield's article said they all did.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who may have put millions of kids at unnecessary risk for measles, mumps, rubella and who knows what else...?

Today's worst person in the world.

Also, the Lancet is accusing Wakefield of failing to disclose a conflict of interest involving the selection of the participants in his study and a possible financial benefit they or Wakefield could have received as the result of separate litigation involving autism.

This will not end the vaccination debate by a long shot - but when you think of the fear, misery and death visited upon families because some people were too afraid to vaccinate their kids - you hope this guy will have to answer for pitching bad science and calling it truth.

Somebody out to beat his ass.

Late edit: for those interested in a fuller version of Wakefield's sorry story - E passed along this article by Brian Deer

The MMR-autism crisis - our story so far

On State Secrets and the Lord of the Rings

David Luban has a great post, You Cover It Up, You Own It, over on Balkinization. It's about the Obama administration's support of Bush policies on state secrets.

Here's a nice bit:

One question is whether the state secrets doctrine concerns facts or documents.  That is:  does it mean that government documents cannot be entered into evidence because they are secret?  Or does it mean that the underlying facts are "state secrets" that can never be ventilated in an American courtroom, even if they are well known everywhere else in the world and the plaintiff can prove them using publicly available evidence?

The latter position -- that the state secrets privilege is a rule about facts, not about evidence -- is absurd, but it is the government's position.

Like many who voted for the man, I'd be very curious about what motivates a decision like this. If it's just continuity until key players are ramped up enough to change the policy - okay. But you'd think if this was so, there would be an attempt to get this across. There have been great strides on secrecy law in the past few weeks - so it's probably too early to pronounce judgement.

But I'm not encouraged.

Luban has a great closer, though:

It's time to throw away the Ring, Frodo, before it hooks you and enslaves you.

Like a cuttlefish squirting out ink

(via Hullabaloo)

The late great George Carlin had an absolutely brilliant routine concerning his disdain for the rampant use of euphemisms to sugarcoat hard truths. As an example, he traced the metamorphosis of the term “shellshock” throughout the course of 20th century warfare:

    There's a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It's when a fighting person's nervous system has been stressed to its absolute peak and maximum. Can't take anymore input. The nervous system has either (click) snapped or is about to snap.

    In the First World War, that condition was called “shell shock”. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables, shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves.

    That was seventy years ago. Then a whole generation went by and the Second World War came along and the very same combat condition was called “battle fatigue”. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn't seem to hurt as much.” Fatigue” is a nicer word than “shock”. (Stridently) “Shell shock!” (Subdued) “Battle fatigue”.

    Then we had the war in Korea, 1950. Madison Avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called “operational exhaustion”. Hey, we're up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. It's totally sterile now. Operational exhaustion. Sounds like something that might happen to your car.

    Then of course, came the war in Viet Nam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it's no surprise that the very same condition was called “post-traumatic stress disorder”. Still eight syllables, but we've added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-traumatic stress disorder.

    I'll bet you if we'd of still been calling it shell shock, some of those Viet Nam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I'll bet you. I'll bet you.

Well said.

To catch a crook

This is interesting. Emptywheel lays out a scenario where a questionable US Attorney is going after a questionable Congressman - Jack Murtha

I'm not sure who I'm rooting for.