The Department of Agriculture, in a desperate effort at damage control (and to make amends for its unprofessional and unfair treatment of her), offered Shirley Sherrod another job. She has turned it down, saying, “I know [DOA Secretary Tom Vilsack] apologized, and I accept that. And a new process is in place, and I hope that it works. I don’t want to be the one that tests it.”
Excellent. Brava! Continue reading
“U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald failed to convict Blagojevich on 23 of 24 multiple counts. But not to worry. Fitzgerald succeeded in convicting Blagojevich, and destroying his reputation and career, three years ago with a vicious press conference — and without having to bother himself with due process and trial by jury.”
—Prof. Monroe Freedman, blogging at The Legal Ethics Forum.
In his press conference announcing the charges against the then-Illinois governor, Fitzpatrick memorably said that Blagojevich’s conduct had Abe Lincoln “rolling in his grave.” He also said: Continue reading
There are two disturbing implications of President Obama’s premature condemnation of Massey Energy for the recent tragedy at its Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia, where an explosion killed 29 miners on April 5. The first is that the President appears to have a flat learning curve, as this repeats his error in the Professor Gates fiasco in Cambridge, Mass, in which Obama condemned the conduct of a Cambridge police officer without getting all the facts. The second is that for a former law professor, Obama has a rather loose grasp on the concept of Due Process. Continue reading
“In confronting their summary disposal, we see how cruelty thrives in the guise of compassion. The possibility of such collective social derangement makes intellectually coherent actions that are incompatible with moral integrity.”
——-Colin Dayan in his searing essay for the March-April “Boston Review”, about the disturbing societal implications of pit bull extermination facilitated by the collaboration of law enforcement agencies, animal protection organizations, the media and the courts. Continue reading
“But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”
—-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in her speech before the 2010 Legislative Conference for National Association of Counties, dicussing the need to pass health care reform.
Many, including me, assumed that reports and YouTube clips of this comment were just typical examples of the increasingly common deceitful tactic of taking one sound bite out of context to make the speaker sound irresponsible or, in some cases, unhinged. But read the speech: Pelosi really is asking her audience to trust her, the House, Senate Democrats and President Obama to pass a sweeping, life-altering, expensive and vaguely defined law, that the legislators haven’t read and the public cannot begin to comprehend. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 