Balkinization

There is a remarkable article in today's National Journal about the "delegation" by Alberto Gonzales of basic appointment authority to Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson. This was accomplished in a secret memo. Apparently the first version was declared unconstitutional by OLC because it gave final authority to them; it was then revised to require approval by the AG (but, interestingly, by no one else in the DOJ), and one can be confident that the ever-soporific AG would sign anything put in front of him. Goodling and Sampson had become the de facto "deciders" at DOJ.

As the article points out, what is truly shocking is the delegation to manifestly inexperienced and ideologically driven people like Goodling and Sampson. Callow defenses of the necessity to delegate or the fact that people serve in the DOJ at the President's pleasure will not overcome the fact that this is the kind of behavior one associates with fourth-rate authoritarian governments with no scintilla of respect for what used to be called "the rule of law."

What the article omits is the extent to which religious affiliation--or at least graduation from reilgiously-affiliated law schools--has increasingly become a prerequisite for employment in the modern DOJ. ...   more »

Sirotablog

We just heard from Terry McGraw, the head of McGraw-Hill and chairman of the Business Roundtable - the same Business Roundtable that is lobbying aggressively to prevent shareholders from having a say on how much the companies they own spend on CEO pay packages. That makes sense, at least for someone like McGraw - he [...]

URL: Sirotablog

   more »

Sirotablog

It’s not everyday you get to stand up in front of 2,000 people and challenge the statements of the richest man on the planet right to his face. But that’s what I did today in the main auditorium at Montana Tech here in Butte, Montana (otherwise known as Butte America). That’s right, Microsoft founder Bill [...]

URL: Sirotablog

   more »

DownWithTyranny!

Let's leave aside Rudy Giuliani's penchant for dressing like a woman-- something he did serially throughout his entire life-- and let's leave aside his relationship to organized crime and his bad judgment in promoting, partnering with and a criminal figure like Bernard Kerik. A couple of other developments in the wild and wooly adventures of Rudy Giuliani have come to light today that illustrate the inappropriateness of taking his bid for the presidency seriously.

Former Senator Gary Hart, co-chairman of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century wrote Giuliani a letter today, published at the Huffington Post that answers-- in spades-- Giuliani's Bush-like smear of the Democratic candidates for president last week (when he claimed that we would be bombed by al-Qaeda if we elected a Democrat president).

" Since you have based your presidential campaign almost exclusively on your reaction to terrorist attacks on New York City," writes Hart, "and since you have recently accused Democrats of being on the defense against terrorism and therefore guilty of inviting more casualties, I have one question for you: Where were you on terrorism between January 31, 2001, and September 11th?" Good question, and one Giuliani should be forced ...   more »

Balkinization

[Address delivered at the Second Access to Knowledge Conference (A2K2), Yale University, April 27, 2007. My address at the first A2K conference discussing the basic theory of Access to Knowledge can be found here.]

I’m delighted to welcome you to this second annual conference on Access to Knowledge at Yale Law School. I can’t think of a finer group of people to be with us as the Information Society Project celebrates its tenth birthday.

I have two things to talk about this evening. One is infrastructure. The other is harmony. They may not seem related, but I hope to show you by the end of this talk that in fact they are.

The chair I hold at Yale is devoted to the First Amendment. When I mention that I work on Access to Knowledge issues, people say, “You mean, like the First Amendment?"

I always tell them no. I tell them that Access to Knowledge is not primarily about the American First Amendment, and they are very disappointed every time I tell them this.

I tell them two things. First, Access to Knowledge is global; it is not limited to the confines of a single nation state. Second, ...   more »