9th Circuit's Idiot Dialectic is Rule not Exception

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For those of you astonished or disheartened by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal's Idiot Dialectic about BASE, it gets much worse. Check out this piece by William Safire about another rabid wolf in judge's clothing.

31 JUL 2000 New York Times article by William Safire

NORMA THE PLUMBER

WASHINGTON -- Democrat Norma Holloway Johnson, in my view the most partisan and power-abusive judge on the federal bench, is finally being forced to answer questions about her conduct.

To avert favoritism, the chief judge of the D.C. District Court is supposed to assign judges to cases randomly. But when assigning politically sensitive cases involving Webster Hubbell and Charlie Trie, Judge Johnson veered "off the wheel" to direct those cases to Clinton-appointed judges.

When this apparent subversion of the administration of justice drew fire in the press and a formal complaint from Judicial Watch, the Judicial Council of D.C. listened to the chief judge's protestations at any challenge to her integrity and too hastily dismissed the complaint.

Then Representative Howard Coble, chairman of House Judiciary's subcommittee on the courts, sent the Court of Appeals here evidence of four more cases in which Chief Judge Johnson bypassed the system to steer cases embarrassing to Democrats (including that of Clinton-Gore fund-raiser Maria Hsia) to judges notoriously soft on Clintonites. The implicit message: if the Judicial Branch didn't clean up its act internally, the Legislative Branch would step up to its constitutional responsibility.

This evidence was somewhat sternly passed down to Judge Johnson's embarrassed see-no-evil colleagues. They hastily convened a five-judge panel to protect themselves from complicity in what the House subcommittee chairman called an assignment procedure that was "unusual, unorthodox and may be improper."

The Judicial Council hired an investigator. He is Joe D. Whitley, a lackadaisical former U.S. attorney in Atlanta who recused himself in the 80's Banca Lavoro scandal -- a suitably Republican choice, but not the type to rock a boat in D.C.
However, when Whitley asked for the chief judge's records to ascertain a pattern of partisanship in assignments, goes the scuttlebutt, Johnson resisted until so ordered by the Judicial Council. Now genial Joe is duty-bound to take testimony from Johnson's possibly intimidated law clerks about any discussions with them about what to tell the investigator.

Logic suggests we now have one furious chief judge. In the midst of all this, and perhaps temperamentally related to it, the vindictive Norma Holloway Johnson launches and pursues a leak investigation even more bizarre and chilling than in the days of the Nixon "plumbers."

The object of the beleaguered judge's rage is Charles Bakaly, once Ken Starr's spokesman. She went after him for supposedly leaking grand jury information; when the Court of Appeals decided that no grand jury secrecy was involved, the angry judge charged him with lying about a non-crime. (Nice irony there.) She wants to brand him a criminal for swearing he did not pass on "non-public" information in talking with a New York Times reporter.

The huge secret that so incenses our out-of-control jurist was that the independent counsel was considering indicting President Clinton. Some secret: that possibility has been common knowledge for years, and Starr's successor makes no bones about it in public.

I have not discussed the case with my colleague, but I am one of the thousands of journalists who discuss non-public information with all kinds of sources every day (sometimes calling it scuttlebutt) for the public purpose of making it public. I see Johnson's vendetta as her intemperate way of getting even with the House, the independent counsel and the press.

Consider: she makes an accusation of criminal contempt and asks the Justice Department to prosecute her target in her court. Reno Justice knows her charge is an egregious mixture of petulance and arrogance, sure to be rejected by a jury, but does not exercise its prosecutorial discretion to decline. Why? Because Reno political appointees owe Johnson plenty for steering Clinton cases to Clinton-appointed judges, and Justice's career lawyers are terrified of her wrath.

So Justice and the out-of-control judge, perhaps in collusion, make the criminal charge petty enough to rate only six months in the slammer, which takes away a defendant's right to trial by jury. Result: the accusation is made by Norma the Plumber, the trial is conducted by Norma the Plumber, the verdict is rendered by Norma the Plumber, and the sentence is meted out by Norma the Plumber.

If that is justice in Washington D.C, something is rotten in the state of the Judicial Branch.

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Keep your five and dime stinken old man republican views out of this message board unless it relates directly to base jumping. A big witch hunt that ended up with egg on the faces of republicans, as usual, you can't let it die. Yes, I'm glad we are going to put a crack addict like Bush in office, that make sense, NOT. AS for non-stop clinton haters like yourself, take some viagra and quit being jealous of a Democratic president who can get a hardon and a young intern to boot, I guess Republicans have forgotten how this country was formed, by arrogance and defiance.

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Dear illiterate whining web weasel:

The subject of Mr. Safire's column is the blatant abuse of power by a federal judge. The players involve Democrats preying on Republicans, but the point Safire makes, and the _CONSEQUENCES_ to which I referred, have to do with the corruption of the judiciary, not side-choosing among the two totalitarian "parties" that allow this corruption to continue -- and advance -- regardless of which guys sit in the Oval Office and the Speaker's chair.

Safire (and I, by posting his piece without comment) share deep concern for the magnitude of this judicial corruption; Johnson Holloway's crimes simply reinforce the horror that all freedom-loving people felt when they read the Idiot Dialectic about BASE that today passes for federal judicial "opinion."

Safire's column does in fact directly relate to BASE jumping becuase it is this corrupt system supporting an equally corrupt Nosepicking Prevaricators Society egged on by an equally corrupt and Orwellian "Justice Department" for whom justice is defined as "Can we get away with this or not?"

Without Johnson Holloway and the rest of those judicial nosepickers to sanction NPS criminality, we'd be jumping in a host of spectacular and currently off-limits places.

That your drooling diatribe focuses on peripheral issues instead of the clearly and concisely stated core principle indicates your urgent need for comprehensive remedial reading instruction. I recommend the Sylvan Learning Centers.

As for your critical thinking ability, all I can say is that if you think through BASE problems the way you "wrote" your post, you're gonna bounce pretty soon, and then we'll all be sad to have lost the further pleasure of your brain-dead cowardly company.

Love,

Robin

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As always, you have chosen to critique peoples literary skills again. I hope you understand no one cares if you write with 2 syllable or 5 syllable words. Such a waste you life has been to develop your vocabulary and it doens't even impress the paper boy. Poor poor Robin, always trying to impress when all you have to impress people with if the female english teacher side of the brain, I guess the technical side of your brain is dead. Such vocabulary and no one to impress. I'm sure a few of your buddies with now say you are a breath of fresh air. As for a bias column, lets just pull a few sentences out of that article that you are so proud of " Democrat Norma Holloway Johnson, in my view the most partisan and power-abusive judge on the federal bench,.."
"The huge secret that so incenses our out-of-control jurist was that the independent counsel was considering indicting President Clinton."
Anyway, I did understand the core issue but was opposed to the way it was presented, anti-democratic as usual, but then again, that's pretty much describes you.
Lasty poor Robin, always hiding behind behind your "English" skills to mask an intellectual level of a child. But then again, since your intellectual level is on such a low level, you will keep right on being an idiot, because an idiot can't recognize he's an idiot. Anyway, anytime you wish to match technical wits with me, feel free. Hey, and if you want, be a good woman and correct my spelling and grammar while you are at it, because that is about all you are good for anymore. Hey, and do you jump anymore, or do you just reminise about taking one in the butt and liking it from the NPS.

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Dear MoRon Misogynist:

If you would take some Sylvan Learning Center remedial reading classes, you could actually understand what you read, and then you would know that I didn't critique your literary skills; I questioned your ability to think rationally and critically, so thank you for so eloquently answering that question in your most recent post.

Congratulations also on demolishing that technical straw man. As anyone who reads this Board knows, I routinely defer to others on technical matters and rarely offer input in that area because there are plenty of people out there with more technical knowledge and experience than me and almost without exception they are putting out good information and ideas.

You may even be one of them, though we'll never know because you're too much the whining web weasel to identify yourself.

It certainly is interesting to see how brave cowards like you can be when you can snipe from behind the skirt of anonymity, or hide out in a mob.

Which reminds me: Here's a little Political Science 101 for you -- maybe you can find some 8-year-old to read it to you:

Democracy is governance by the majority -- mob rule, in other words.

Republicanism is governance according to a set of principles -- the rule of law, in other words (embodied in the U.S. by the Constitution).


The Democratic Party of the United States faithfully follows its creed: It seeks to rule the mob by destroying the rule of law.

The Republican Party of the US, on the other hand, has abandoned its creed: It too now seeks to destroy the rule of law so it can rule the mob.

Thus while I am surely no Democrat, I am no Republican with a capital "R" either.

Call me a republican with a small "r" if you want, which is what the Libertarian Party of the US is: The party of real republicans, who believe in the rule of law, and governance according to principle.

It _is_ true that I have found Democrats to be generally more totalitarian in temperament than Republicans, but the differences these days are so small as to be inconsequential.

Which is, again, the core principle at issue in Mr. Safire's post: The pervasive, deepening and acclerating corruption in the federal government, regardless of who sits in the Oval Office or the Speaker's chair.

Now go find some kid who can read this to you, and try not to wet the bed tonight. It seems to make you kinda cranky.