Say Anything Blog

Where are Jimmy’s handlers?

That wasn’t a hug. He was measuring Jimmy’s waste for an explosive belt.

He was measuring Jimmy’s waste for an explosive belt.

Amazing no one thought of this long ago!

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

ROb
you forgot to add that that particular jew hating man is no longer a terrorist. no, now he is in command of a state, having been DEMOCRATICALLY elected in elections that WE FORCED ON HIS COUNTRY back when we were still bullshitting about bringing democracy to the middle east. i believe terrorists are defined as non-state actors, correct? perhaps former-terrorist-turned-democratic-leader-by-bushANDcondis-hasty-stupidity would be more apt. what do you think?

Sparkie,

Actually, you are wrong about a Palestinian “state”.  The US Supreme Court, in declining to hear the appeal of a lower Appeals Court decision, has already ruled that there is no such thing, and that the Palestinian Authority is not a legitimate “state” government.  The case was Efrat Ungar v. PLA/PLO.

When you think about it, the implications of that very quiet decision are enormous.

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

Sparkie,

An interesting sidenote to Efrat Ungar is that the losing attorney, the one responsible for the whole argument that a “sovereign” PLA/PLO could not be sued in federal court, was leftwing nutball Ramsey Clark.

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

Sorry Sparkie, I don’t think a democratic election confers any legitimacy on people who repeat the blood libel as if it were true.  Didn’t work in 1933, and it doesn’t work today, either. 

Learned today that Germany-which I believe prohibits the repeating of the blood libel for obvious historic reasons--is providing foreign aid that get used in part to (sigh) indoctrinate young children into such slurs.

I don’t understand how diplomats sleep at night with idiot decisions like this.  Would it be too **** much to ask that they say “you want aid?  Get the ******* blood libel out of your textbooks, and stop funding rocket attacks of Israel.”

But apparently sanity is too much to ask of a diplomat.

bat and bike.
admittedly, i did not know about that case. i will have to look it up. i have been doing a lot of reading of late on the hamas/fatah skizm and have uncovered some interesting things about those elections, the fatah ‘insurgency’ that led to hamas taking all of gaza, mr. dahlan, arms shipments from us to fatah with the aid of egypt, jordan, and other ME states within days of the election that we forced on them despite fatah’s insistence that they weren’t ready enough to fix it in their favor yet.
Hamas thinks the Bush admin wants them in power because they suck so bad at achieving their objectives. Also, you guys clearly have dropped that little bit of idealist vitrol about brining democracy, eh? so what;s the policy now? fuck everything, we will kill you?
israel is going to get pushed into the sea once all the arab infighting is over. it strikes me that we are busy trying to make it worse for them by pissing everyone off and (apparently) putting groups like hamas into power.
the supreme court decision is so much farcical bullshit. we pushed for that election. no one else. the US. we chose Hamas. we also pushed for the Fatah uprising - which, like the elecion, was a premature failure. now we blame it all on terrorists. yea right. we are the terrorists. Dahlan, ‘Bush’s man’ over there is yassar arafat’s former security guy. his solution: kidnapping hamas sympathizers, drilling out their kneecaps, and making them chant ‘Dahlan is king’. Now I wonder why Hamas has animosity towards us?
Also, what about all the other ‘states’ in the middle east that want israel dead? saudi arabia, for one. our ‘boys’.
thanks for the tip on that case, bat, i will have to look into it.

here is an article worth reading:

Abu Dan, 28, is a member of Hamas, the Iranian-backed Islamist organization that has been designated a terrorist group by the United States, but I have a good reason for taking him at his word: I’ve seen the video.

It shows abu Dan kneeling, his hands bound behind his back, and screaming as his captors pummel him with a black iron rod…

...“They took us to a house in north Gaza,” abu Dan says. “They covered our eyes and took us to a room on the sixth floor.”

The video reveals a bare room with white walls and a black-and-white tiled floor, where abu Dan’s father is forced to sit and listen to his son’s shrieks of pain. Afterward, abu Dan says, he and two of the others were driven to a market square. “They told us they were going to kill us. They made us sit on the ground.” He rolls up the legs of his trousers to display the circular scars that are evidence of what happened next: “They shot our knees and feet—five bullets each. I spent four months in a wheelchair.”…

A clue comes toward the end of the video, which was found in a Fatah security building by Hamas fighters last June. Still bound and blindfolded, the prisoners are made to echo a rhythmic chant yelled by one of their captors: “By blood, by soul, we sacrifice ourselves for Muhammad Dahlan! Long live Muhammad Dahlan!”…

Bush has met Dahlan on at least three occasions. After talks at the White House in July 2003, Bush publicly praised Dahlan as “a good, solid leader.” In private, say multiple Israeli and American officials, the U.S. president described him as “our guy.”

bat, do you mean first circuit and not supreme court?

uuuhhmmm, thank you Mr. Arbuckle?

“If a conservative is still a republican after the last 13 years, he is blind to the fact that his party of choice has failed him utterly.” – Realitybasedbob

also, as i have pointed out before… we still are buddies with the saudis, the royalty. how many american deaths to you think they are responsible for? how many extremists will we have to deal with in the coming years as a result of their madrasas? something to keep in perspective. a kiss is nicer than a hug, is it not?

also, bike bubba,
you might be interested to know how popular Mein Kampf is among right wing hindus in india. they do teach it in school, for real! its also one of the most popular books in india. but those are our boys. why? because they are all for the slaughter of muslims. just like you, bike bubba, just like you. so get the ‘blood libel’ out yur effing mouth, eh?

So the fact that other people in the world are emulating Herr Schicklgruber makes it irrelevant that Hamas is as well?  Was I somehow saying that it’s wrong if Hamas does it, but OK if people in India or elsewhere are doing so?

Say what, Sparkie?  You’re making even less sense than usual, which is kinda remarkable.

BAT ONE
I’m calling bullshit. You, sir, are full of it. I don’t know who your ‘legal analyst’ is, but you should tell that Ostrich to get their effing head out of the sand. You say:

Actually, you are wrong about a Palestinian “state”.  The US Supreme Court, in declining to hear the appeal of a lower Appeals Court decision, has already ruled that there is no such thing, and that the Palestinian Authority is not a legitimate “state” government.  The case was Efrat Ungar v. PLA/PLO.

You are wrong. Well, it hinges on what you mean when you use those scare quotes around state. If that means what you are saying is patently false, then okay. Otherwise, you are wrong. The case pertains to tort actions being brought against a state by US citizens for terrorist acts causing harm to aforementioned citizen while in the state. The case is about ‘sovereign immunity’ not ‘sovereignty’. Those are different. The upshot of the case is that the PLO does not meet the four prongs set forth in ATA#201 that, when met, qualifies a state for this sort of immunity. It doesn’t mean they are not a state. Perhaps if I add scare quotes like you I can just sit around and lie my ass off. Nice effing work. This just makes me wonder how many other times you have misled me and others on this blog. Maybe you thought it was to much reading for me or that I don’t have the legal acumen needed. Well, we have WestLaw access here at my house and that one only took about a half an hour to disambiguate. Basically, you lie.

This is getting interesting.

BAT ONE
in short, they can go ahead with the tort. if Palestine is not a state… who are they going to sue? i think you can appreciate that.
you really must take me for a sucker.

bat, do you mean first circuit and not supreme court?

Sparkie,

First, I meant exactly what I said.  The Supreme Court, in rejecting the appeal by the defendants (PLO/PA) of the Appeals Court ruling, which in turn rejected their appeal of the ruling of the federal District Court, reiterated the Appeals Court ruling.  Even without a “legal analyst” most moderately educated people should be able to understand this.

Second, your suggestion that a ruling on the question of a claim of sovereign immunity without consideration of the underlying question of sovereignty is gratuitous, stupid, and unworthy of even you at your most vituperative.

This left only a single question: “whether the PA and/or the PLO represent or constitute a foreign State and are thus entitled to sovereign immunity.” Id. at 175. The court answered that question in the negative…

...the defendants’ claim to sovereign immunity derives from their assertion that Palestine is a state, and the evidence presented to the district court in support of that assertion consisted entirely of indisputably authentic international legal documents. The district court’s determination that Palestine was not a state was premised on a legal conclusion: the court determined that the defendants’ documentary proffer did not satisfy the legal standard derived from international law. Our review of that decision is de novo.

In other words, the documents offered by the PLO/PA in support of their claim to sovereignty and thus sovereign immunity, while indisputably “authentic” did not sufficiently prove the claimed sovereignty by the recognized international legal standard for the court to acknowledge the claim of sovereign immunity.

…We recognize that the status of the Palestinian
territories is in many ways sui generis. Here, however, the defendants have not carried their burden of showing that Palestine satisfied the requirements for statehood under the applicable principles of international law at any point in time. In view of the unmistakable legislative command that sovereign immunity shall only be accorded to states — a command reflected in both the FSIA and the ATA — the defendants’ sovereign immunity defense must fail…

We need go no further. The defendants have not shown that this case involves nonjusticiable political questions. By like token, they have not shown that Palestine is a state and, as a consequence, they do not have available to them the buckler of sovereign immunity.

Third, as a personal matter, I find your resort to insult and ad hominem childish and unnecessarily offensive.  In the long run, insulting me personally simply because you disagree with my conclusions only diminishes the validity of any future disagreements you might have with what I write.  If you oppose what I write here, prove me wrong.  Perhaps a legal analyst would prove helpful to you?

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

you’re source is quoting out of context. and you provide no link. also, notice this:

the court determined that the defendants’ documentary proffer did not satisfy the legal standard derived from international law

they are referring to the ATA#201 4 prong standard. notice my itl. and you follow it with this:

In other words, the documents offered by the PLO/PA in support of their claim to sovereignty and thus sovereign immunity, while indisputably “authentic” did not sufficiently prove the claimed sovereignty by the recognized international legal standard for the court to acknowledge the claim of sovereign immunity.

not international standard, rather a US ATA#201. DERIVED FROM international standards.

you are still fibbing.
try again.

Sparkie,

My “source” was the ruling of the First Circuit Court of Appeals, found here.

The quotes are direct and not at all out of context as you suggest.  As for the link, its the very same one you didn’t provide!

My point, from the beginning, wasn’t what the so-called “international standard” may be.  It is arguable that there is on… as the Appeals Court recognized in its ruling.

My point, again, was that in refusing to hear the defendants’ appeal, the US Supreme Court, as in all other such instances, reaffirmed the lower court decision.  Thus, the Supreme Court has effectively reaffirmed that, judicially speaking, Palestine is not a state and the Palestinian Authority is not a sovereign government.

This shouldn’t be this difficult, Sparkie.  Even for you!

Try again!

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

BAT
your link requires a sign in. and you repeatedly lie. my link, found here, doesn’t require id and its on the 1st circuit court of appeals site. in other words, it is the govt site. when you say this:

My “source” was the ruling of the First Circuit Court of Appeals, found here.

its unfortunate that that link leads to a sign in page. and nothing else.

now, to continue pummeling you into the ground while you offer pitiful bullshit in reply:
first, you say this:

My point, again, was that in refusing to hear the defendants’ appeal, the US Supreme Court, as in all other such instances, reaffirmed the lower court decision.  Thus, the Supreme Court has effectively reaffirmed that, judicially speaking, Palestine is not a state and the Palestinian Authority is not a sovereign government.

It is patently false. You offer no quotes, so my continuing past this point is generous.
First, it is a civil case - it is a tort. A US citizen is trying to sue Palestine. They are able to do this under ATA sec.201 definitions, if they meet the four prongs DERIVED FROM INTERNATIOnAL law, then the STATE is has ‘sovereign immunity’. if not, the STATE can be sued within the US by a US citizen. palestine lost the burden, and can be sued, here. the relevant document is here. the defs begin on p12 of the PDF. please notice, it is not international law and neither is the supreme court. furthermore, it is merely a civil case being tried in the US. nothing more.
who can be sued if they have been deemed not a state as you contend?
you are so far off the mark on this one it is not funny. and you keep up the bullshitting. VERY TELLING. now, for some quotes from the case, which i linked at 11am today, contra what you say here

As for the link, its the very same one you didn’t provide!

at 8.30pm. but if you are going to tell lies, why not make sure every effing character you type is incorrect? now, the quotes:

This appeal raises exceptionally important questions of justiciability and sovereignty, emblematic of unsettled political conditions that have plagued the Middle East for many years. In it, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) ask us to countermand the district court’s refusal to dismiss the action against them. They contend that the case hinges on a nonjusticiable political question and that, at any rate, the defendants enjoy sovereign immunity. In the event that these arguments do not carry the day, the defendants seek vacation of two $116,000,000-plus default judgments, one entered against each of them, on the ground that they were entitled to a binding determination of sovereign immunity (including appellate review of any unfavorable decision) before being forced to bear the burdens of litigation.

After careful consideration of the relevant legal authorities and perscrutation of an amplitudinous record, we conclude that this case is justiciable; that the defendants have not established an entitlement to sovereign immunity; and that the defendants’ strategic litigation choices undercut their arguments as to the sequencing of the litigation. Consequently, we affirm the judgment below.

again, that is only the first paragraph of the case i linked at 11am today, the one i have been accused of excluding. as you can see… it has absolutely no bearing on the status of Palestine as a sovereignty, merely whether or not they enjoy certain immunities that are extended (per the US ATA of 2001) to countries that meet the four prongs set forth therein, sec201, that are derived from international law.

like I asked, if palestine is not a state, who did they decide can be sued? answer me that?

furthermore, we have to listen to you and the next guy absolutely rail on the UN and international law, but as soon as it fits with your agenda, then its just fine. can’t have it both ways BAT, hypocrite. extra unfortunately for your hypocrisy, the case doesn’t even involve the things you believe it to. i think, now that i have debunked your BS, this quote is actually really kinda funny:

When you think about it, the implications of that very quiet decision are enormous.

yea. enormous. now they can get sued. woopie! i wonder why is was so quiet? hmmmmm.

like I asked, if palestine is not a state, who did they decide can be sued? answer me that?

Sparkie,

For someone purportedly as educated as you, your reading comprehension is certainly less than inspiring.  Nobody sued “palestine” (Nice touch, that small “p"… the irony is exquisite!) The defendants in the suit were the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

As for the link, I apologize about the sign-in, though obviously you have found access to the Appeals Court decision all by yourself.  Good boy!  I saved a copy of the .pdf file two years ago, so I was working off that.

That said, I’m nearly sure you can look up the passages I quoted on your own.  There is/was no need to lie about what the court said, nor about the implications of the decision, though the practical implications may well be beyond the ken of a mere “philosopher.”

Incidentally, if you do give any consideration to getting a legal advisor, let me suggest some discrimination.  Ramsey Clark, the former US Attorney General, for example, is well-regarded in more radical circles, I’m sure.  But his understanding and advise cost his clients over a quarter billion dollars in judgments… plus legal fees.  His more recent clients, a couple of notorious Ba’athist Iraqis were summarily hanged.  Not much of a track record!

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

so are you maintaining that this decision denied palestine state status in the eyes of international law?

a lower Appeals Court decision, has already ruled that there is no such thing, and that the Palestinian Authority is not a legitimate “state” government

you left out FOR THE PURPOSES OF CIVIL LITIGATION. it patently does not mean that they are not a state qua state. if only the first circuit mattered for fuckall in the international scene. ie. it doesn’t matter what they rule in D.C.

derived from international law doesnot mean international law.

you are just being stubborn.

also, i wont seek ramsey clark. my wife is a lawyer, educated at one of the top law schools in the country. a libertarian cuban lawyer! that’s hot, eh? when she came home this afternoon, i confirmed what i have been saying with her. she said i am wasting my time arguing with you guys. i like to think differently, i’m fond of it. i can push you guys around, help to smash the veneer of authority and so forth… its fun. if only there we someone to cheer me on besides these democrat memes. dammit.

Sparkie,

I must have missed the fact that you two got married.  Congratulations!  Last I recall, she was in Miami suffering from an acute, painful medical condition, and you were moving to Ben and Jerry country.

As for the decision, I have said nothing specifically about international law, a subject I find dreary and all but pointless.  The consequences of this decision are another matter altogether.

Do the PLO/PA have bank accounts in the US.  Almost certainly.  And just as certainly, they have been attached and the balances frozen.  Office rents, payroll for staff both in NY and Washington, contributions from all sorts of sources official and unofficial… all, presumably gone!

Are the representatives of the Palestinian Authority to be afforded the normal courtesies and amenities of real diplomats?  Not now, they’re not.  How about immunities, diplomat license plates, state and local tax exemptions, parking tickets, etc.?

In a very real sense, this case was a monstrous blunder on the part of Ramsey Clark, and until there is a formal diplomatic recognition of Palestine by the US State Department, the official view of the court, reinforced by the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the defendants’ appeal, stands as the final word on the matter of Palestinian sovereignty.  And that doesn’t include the quarter billion dollar judgments.

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”