Wednesday, February 05, 2003

Republican power COLD WAR IN GRAND RAPIDS -- Snowball fight erupts during president’s healthcare message President Bush was in Grand Rapids, Mich., last week to unveil the administration’s health-care reform plan.  Meanwhile, outside an estimated 500 pro- and anti-Bush demonstrators clashed in a savage snowball fight.  By the time order was restored, several demonstrators were arrested. But [U.S. Rep. Vernon] Ehlers, a professor at UC-Berkeley in the 1960s, wasn’t impressed. “Nothing like a Vietnam protest,” he said of the melee, in which outnumbered Bush supporters routed their opponents, according to one participant, by using “better target selection and superior firepower.”  (Source: HillNews) 5:04:17 PM     Update: Indiana Justice Thanks to Howard Bashman for pointing us to the decision of the Indiana Supreme Court to reduce the sanction against a lawyer from a 30-day suspension to a public reprimand, and for drawing our attention to a procedural wrinkle.  The offense, which we first noted here on November 2, 2002, was that the lawyer, in a brief to the Indiana Supreme Court, characterized the Court of Appeals decision as "quite disturbing", "replete with misstatements of material fact", and "factually and legally inaccurate".  The lawyer suggested that the Court of Appeals had been  "determined to find for" his opponent, regardless of the law or the facts.  The reduction of an outrageous penalty is still outrageous.  There was no legal basis for the Indiana Supreme Court to take any action against the lawyer for what was, in essence, "rhetorical hyperbole".  No one, it seems, has bothered to ask the Tom Wolfe question (taken from The Pump House Gang): "What if he is right?" The Indiana Supreme Court itself should apologize to the lawyer and to the people it serves for its inane ruling in this case.  I still hope that the lawyer takes the case further. 8:32:17 AM

© Copyright 2003 Franco Castalone. Last update: 3/1/2003; 7:17:43 AM.