Law & Justice: June 2009 Archives
Larry Kudlow asks where's Madoff's money?
Yet while everyone can now cheer that the greatest crook in financial history will die in jail, Madoff also may die keeping his secrets with him. So far, prosecutors have come up with very little about this case. And under the tutelage of the clever lawyer Ike Sorkin, Madoff has given almost nothing up. No singing in jail. (Maybe he should have been waterboarded.) We don’t know if his wife or two sons were part of the scam. Nor do we know where most of the money -- estimated up to $65 billion -- has gone. There’s a number being used that bankruptcy trustee Irving Picard has recovered $1.2 billion of the $13.2 billion in estimated net losses. But the strength of those numbers is somewhat in doubt.Where’s the money? Who are the accomplices? And what about some of these big-time fat cats who invested with Madoff, people we thought were victims but may turn out to be the real winners in the story?
There are several reports about Jeffry Picower and Stanley Chais, two rich businessmen who may have taken $6.1 billion in returns from the Madoff fraudulent funds -- more than they put in. There’s also businessman Carl Shapiro, a close Madoff pal. And while there is yet no number as to what he took out of the funds, years ago the guy sold his garment business for $20 million and grew that sum to nearly $1 billion -- most of it from investing with Madoff.
Madoff is obviously keeping quiet because his former partners-in-crime have threatened to kill him and his family if he talks.
Lots of outrage over a firefighter who killed his two dogs to save on boarding costs:
A Columbus firefighter admits that he took his two dogs to the basement, tied them up and blasted them with a rifle so he and a girlfriend could vacation without paying to board the animals. ...He was convicted of "needlessly killing ... a companion animal" on Dec. 3, according to the charges filed 10 minutes before the hearing in Municipal Court. One dog was shot six times in the head.
Santuomo, who did not give a statement in court, will spend 90 days in jail, pay $4,500 to cover the cost of his investigation and serve five years' probation, Judge Harland H. Hale ruled.
"This is a travesty and abhorrent behavior to those in this community who work to save the lives of animals," said Jodi Buckman, executive director of the Capital Area Humane Society.
And yet killing unborn babies for the sake of convenience is a "right". The people who evince the most outrage over animal abuse tend to be the most vociferous supporters of abortion.
I mocked President Obama's "clarification" of Sotomayor's racist comments a few days ago, but unsurprisingly Thomas Sowell skewers the judge even more effectively.
In Washington, the clearer a statement, the more certain it is to be followed by a "clarification" when people realize what was said.The clearly racist comments by Judge Sonia Sotomayor at the University of California at Berkeley in 2001 have forced the spinmasters to resort to their last-ditch excuse, that it was "taken out of context."
If that line is used during Judge Sotomayor's Senate confirmation hearings, someone should ask her to explain just what those words mean when taken in context.
Exactly. In what context is it ok to say:"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life."? The only context I can think of is when you're surrounded by a bunch of fellow racists.
Sowell goes on to demolish "empathy" as a basis for judging:
It is dangerous because citizens are supposed to obey the law, which means they must know what the law is in advance - and nobody can know in advance what the "life experiences" of whatever judge hears a case will happen to be.
If judges are to be making law rather than interpreting it, then anyone who appears in their courtroom should be protected from their rulings by the ex post facto clause(s) of our Constitution.
