August 2003

Judicial Slapdown

ArchPundit August 25, 2003 0 Comment

It isn’t often that one laughs out loud at a Federal District Court judge, but leave it to the Fox News suit against Al Franken to produce such an outcome.

here are hard cases and there are easy cases," said Chin. "This is an easy case. The case is wholly without merit both factually and legally?It is ironic that a media company that should seek to protect the First Amendment is instead seeking to undermine it."

Dori Ann Hanswirth, Fox’s lawyer, argued that buyers might be confused and think that the book was actually put out by Fox News, thus diluting and tarnishing the Fox brand. "Defendants’ use of the Trademark?on the Preliminary Cover is likely to cause confusion among the public about whether Fox News has authorized or endorsed the Book, and about whether Franken is affiliated with FNC [Fox News Channel]," said the suit. "Franken is commonly perceived as having to trade off of the name recognition of others in order to make money."

Chin didn’t buy it. "Is it really likely someone is going to be confused as to whether Fox News or Bill O’Reilly is endorsing this book?" asked the judge.

"It is likely consumers could believe that," replied Hanswirth. Later she added, "There’s no real message that this is a book of humor or political satire. It’s a deadly serious cover and it’s using the Fox News trademark" to sell itself.

In response, the judge pointed out that one of O’Reilly’s own books is titled "The O’Reilly Factor: The Good, the Bad, and the Completely Ridiculous in American Life." "Is that not a play on "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly?’" Chin asked, noting that the movie title is also trademarked.

"I don’t know," replied Hanswirth.

"You don’t know?" asked the judge.

That’s about as bad of a day in court one can have as a lawyer. But it got worse,

Abrams said that if Fox pursued its case, he would challenge the validity of the "Fair and Balanced" trademark itself.

In delivering his scathing opinion, Chin suggested that Abrams would probably succeed in such a challenge. "The mark is a weak one," he said. "It’s highly unlikely that the phrase ‘Fair and Balanced’ is a valid trademark."

When you go to court and learn you may lose a trademark and not just the case to protect the trademark you just hook up the IV full of gin right there.

My suggestion to Franken is not to just be reimbursed for legal fees, but file suit proclaiming it a frivolous lawsuit. If you win, you get to use it every time a blowhole on Faux News whines about frivolous lawsuits. It’s like job creation for satirists.

Will Not Stand–What Does He Have Leg Problem

ArchPundit August 25, 2003 0 Comment

Marie, in comments, notes,

"And I’m not going to stand for it."
There’s that same misdirected righteous indignation we heard when he went after cheating cows. He’s getting lost in his own rhetoric.

Well, he can stay sitting down as he is about to be overridden by the Lege.

This fits with a recent post by Eric Zorn on good and bad Rod that describes Blagojevich’s split personality–scroll down–no permalinks. Zorn did a column during the campaign that highlighted the problem and it is linked from his post.

Rod wants to always play the tough guy when a deft hand would do better. He learned not to try and punk Madigan during the campaign, but apparently that lesson was specific to Madigan and not general to people with whom he needs to work. What he doesn’t realize (or maybe care about) is that every time he takes on a political ally with tough language he hands their opponents a campaign issue. Even in those reasonable cases where he disagrees, a softer touch will get him much farther.

The Trib does a nice job slapping him down over the veto as well.

That’s not simple. It’s simplistic. It is a cartoon view of criminal justice that says if you’re with me, you’re with the good guys, and if you’re against me, you’re with the bad guys.

So which is it, governor? It’s difficult to figure out a leader who changes his tune every time he changes his audience.

Seventeen police officers decide whether there should be an administrative penalty of losing one’s badge under the provision he vetoed. Does anyone believe that seventeen officers are going to pull a badge on a weak case? I’m not sure they’ll do it on a strong case.

Zorn addresses why there is a different standard for an administrative action in his post,

police officers to additional scrutiny, higher standards and separate disciplinary boards and proceedings in many areas for a simple reason: With additional power comes additional accountability. This is an extremely common notion that cuts across many regulated professions, such as medicine and the law. Good Rod knows this. Bad Rod thinks he can confuse the issue by portraying himself as an advocate for equal treatment for to police officers.

I’ll go one step further. Employers can discipline employees for less than criminal acts. Police officers are public employees. In this case we are setting up an administrative review panel to ensure fairness to the individual officer. It does go one step further as well banning an officer from employment as a police officer in other Illinois jurisdictions.

The Speaker Rules Out Redistricting

ArchPundit August 25, 2003 0 Comment

Up at Political State Report

as reported in the Capitol Fax

This is a good thing. This midterm redistricting idea is bad for the country and even Illinois native George Will agrees.

Two things here. One, What would George Will think about Tim Johnson representing his old home? Johnson’s personal character given Will’s view of Clinton would be an interesting challenge for Will to address.

Second, does anyone know if Will’s family had a trucking business in McLean County? Will himself, was a faculty brat in Champaign-Urbana, but I’ve heard that a relative had a trucking business around the beltway in Bloomington.

Birkett Announced For Reelection

ArchPundit August 22, 2003 0 Comment

DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett apparently announced a run for reelection last night at 8 PM.

Maybe the Governor can campaign for him.

Blagojevich Stands Up for Perjury

ArchPundit August 22, 2003 0 Comment

G-Rod runs to the right of the GOP and stands by his veto of an administrative panel of police officers designed to be a watchdog over police officers perjuring themselves in capital crimes .

In a stunning statement demonstrating he doesn’t grasp the issue,

"In my view that means less justice, not more justice," Blagojevich said after he signed into law an increase in the state’s minimum wage. "In my view, that means our streets are less safe, not more safe. And I’m not going to stand for it. When the legislature has to convene, they have to ask themselves one simple question and that is whether or not we should have a system that treats criminals better than it treats police officers."

Such a statement equates any sort of oversight panel as ‘treating criminals better than it treats police.’ It is baffling to me what exactly is wrong with having a disciplinary panel for police officers given such panels already exist in many communities and every police department has the authority to discipline officers with a standard below that in criminal trials. In fact, this one is to be staffed by other police officers. If anything, that makes it far too hard to yank a badge when an officer lies under oath.

All of this should be clear to a man with a law degree–unless his real goal is to appear tough on crime like another cynic who returned from the campaign trail to oversee the execution of a retarded inmate.

Illinois Circular Firing Squad Team Encourages California’s

ArchPundit August 21, 2003 0 Comment

John Zahm provides moral support to the California Circular Firing Squad Team slobbering over McClintock and suggesting a conservative might deliver California to Bush in 2004.

In other science fiction news…Pat O’Malley is likely to become Illinois Governor in 2006 after running nothing but attack commercials on Rod Blagojevich’s lack of support for home schoolers.

After donating to Democratic Party at the left, be sure to send Pat O’Malley some cash. It is far more effective going to him than any Democrat if your goal is to elect Democrats in Illinois.

In other news, the Leader gives us several articles detailing pretty much every political donation ever made by anyone with the last name McKenna.

Even more fascinating is the little soap opera playing out between Leader staffers and Republican lege staffers. I mean, Democrats couldn’t dream this stuff up to keep the ICFST from being productive and on message.

And the daily gay bashing continues with an argument that gays and lesbians getting married is an attack on my wife and I’s marriage. You see, gay rights is really about being Pro-Life. And it is all Griswold v. Connecticut’s fault. Keep it up and try and make the argument to the general public that the state should have the ability to regulate an individual’s use of contraceptives. Really, it will work great. I promise.

Tid Bit Week Continues…

ArchPundit August 21, 2003 0 Comment

Busy, Busy, Busy,

But let’s start with Zorn

First, Patrick Murphy, Cook County Public Guardian is sticking around for a while. He has long been a rather tireless advocate for kids and his relaxation is the public’s gain.

Second, a report on the Ford Heights Four case by the US Attorney’s Office determines there was no criminal conduct in their prosecution….Hmmmm…I remember talking with some folks who were connected with the pro bono appeal work and this seems relatively consistent with what they thought.

Dick Devine chimes in, "It is a case study of how law enforcement can go wrong even when the sole intention is to find the right person for a terrible crime"

The challenge for honest prosecutors and police is to admit they can be wrong. Devine seems to be coming around on these issues and worked for the video taping provision in death penalty reform.

Steve Wolk argues that the real problem in urban education is poverty. He is correct on that point and Wolk is progressive on charter schools compared to most education professors and realistic about their ultimate effects. However, the Chicago Public Schools receive a lot of money per student. While Vallas and now Duncan have introduced a series of reforms and cost cutting measures, too much money is still spent outside of instructional costs. If resources aren’t making it to the schools, then there needs to be a focus on how to get them there.

While public school education in high poverty areas will never be as strong as in low poverty areas as measured by achievement tests, the ultimate crime is being poor stewards of resources and not using every available resource to instruction. Poor students have extra challenges and that is why support service overspending is so wrong.

And for the first time ever, I think I can comfortably say that St. Louis may actually be the model for this. While the experiment is only beginning, there are signs of hope that the Saint Louis Public Schools will dramatically shift resources from support to instruction.

Now the challenge is how to figure out how to recruit and retain high quality teachers. There simply are not enough quality teachers who can handle an urban classroom. If we reorganize schools under Chicago’s plan or No Child Left Behind, we are only rearranging the deck chairs of the Titanic without increasing the supply of high quality teachers. To make matters worse, currently good teachers, such as the above mentioned State’s Attorney’s older son, have every incentive to go to magnet schools because if they stay in the most challenged schools, they risk
their teaching careers.

And he links here–the link whore in me thanks him.

Separated At Birth

ArchPundit August 20, 2003 0 Comment

Perhaps Eric Zorn has been blogging longer than we think…

Eric Zorn

Calpundit

Loony Leader Bits

ArchPundit August 20, 2003 0 Comment

Joyce Morrison argues that deregulation and environmentalists are to blame for the power outage. Besides the fact that we don’t have an exact cause yet, it is hard to imagine how environmentalists caused a breakdown. Environmental regulations are designed to force the costs of pollution to be passed on to the users of electricity. Stunning concept to actually charge users for the costs of their behavior, stunning I tell you. But I’m sure I’m a dupe of the black helicopter patrols. Or given Joyce’s version of the conspiracy, the people who dupe people into believing that there are people who believe in black helicopters.

As always, a giant no-prize to the individual who can locate a proper thesis statement in the column. I believe she outdoes herself in her first sentence, "When the electricity goes off, we are so dependent on electricity, we are helpless."

Beyond that, she keeps arguing dereg caused the blackout in her usual incoherent fashion. She seems to want to maintain the traditional power monopolies without grasping that the prime reason transmission is such a problem is because you have multiple agencies responsible for shaping the regulatory structure reducing incentives to invest. A coherent national plan would eliminate the problem.

The only decent column I’ve seen so far on the issue is from Robert Samuelson of the Washington Post.

After the blackout, the search for a scapegoat could easily go awry. Electricity won’t ever be deregulated. The real issue isn’t between "the market" and "regulation," because the danger of bad regulation is at least as great as that of bad market behavior. What we ought to seek is an intelligent balance of government regulation and market flexibility.

There’s the rub, because Americans generally won’t acknowledge conflicts and make choices. The cry is for low prices, ample supplies, absolute reliability, clean air, no disfiguring construction projects, local autonomy and national accountability. Great. Unfortunately, there are tensions among all these goals. If we want reliability (and we should), we’ll have to pay for redundancy. All too often, regulatory politics are a veil for avoiding choices — a formula that, while pleasant in the present, is disastrous for the future.

Typical. No one wants to admit scarcity or market failures.

In other news of the ridiculous at the Leader, some of the social conservaitves in Illinois have gotten their panties in a wad over the University of Illinois giving benefits to employees’ same sex partners. The horrors of equal treatment. Next you know we’ll be treating homosexuals like equals or something. In an interesting bin of silliness it seems conservatives are upset because there is a budget crunch. Yeah. But of all of the spending at U of I, this is what you question? Don’t worry, everyone gets it. Strangely, more and more conservative towns are passing equal treatment ordinances. When you lost Normal, you lost the war, but keep it up. It keeps you from getting into any real mischief.

And finally, Lee Newcom comes out from underneath his rock in McLean County. I have no opinion on Kinzinger, but Newcom I do. He gave a talk to some high school students several years ago and suggested they could do anything they wanted in campaigns because they weren’t accountable and should take advantage of that factor. Nothing like teaching students to be responsible citizens there Leester.

Sneed Tidbits

ArchPundit August 20, 2003 0 Comment

Sneed offers a couple gems up.

Sneed hears Gov. Blagojevich’s top politicos claim the Guv is seriously hoping to get the nod for veep in 2004.

If true, this blows a hole in the theory that G-Rod is politically astute. Illinois is a safe Democratic seat in the general election and thus not an attractive place to pick a VP Candidate from.

Dem senatorial candidate Blair Hull’s new campaign mobile, a 34-foot-long Cruise Master that is touring statewide, is being called "Hull on Wheels." Get it? Forget it.

Maybe corny, but it raises name recognition.