BUSH APPOINTEE in Northern District of New York, Deals Right to Dissent a Death Blow! Options

[Livyjr]

Well, this afternoon, we had an interesting thing pointed out to us, as we were reviewing the papers that were sent to us yesterday by the two lawyers, and that is that Rensselaer County has apparently picked up the legal coverage, which is to say, legal bills, for not only Carl Richard Aiken, the New York State licensed professional engineer involved as a defendant in this matter, who was the engineer-of-record for the developer Jeffrey Pelletier, who assaulted the PLAINTIFF in this matter in August of 2001, just before the August 22, 2001 PSYCHIATRIC TAKE-DOWN went down; but for Kevin Joseph McGrath, the New York State licensed land surveyor, as well, who was at the same time, the Poestenkill Town Planning Board Chairman, and the "design consultant" for Jeffrey Pelletier, the developer, who had his subdivision plans in front of the Poestenkill Planning Board for approval, where McGrath was Chairman.

And Aiken, while the engineer for Pelletier, was also signing off on plans for the Rensselaer County Department of Health, as well, which means that when you want to get an approval from either agency, you hire the Planning Board Chairman to do your plans for you, and you hire the health department engineer to do your plans for you, and of course, it is a blatant conflict of interest, but who cares, and more to the point, who is going to say a word about it, when saying a word is going to get you tossed into a secure mental facility down in Troy, New York?

And there is the point, to us, anyway, who are excluded from protection of law by this arrangement.

It is a "good-enough-for-them" scenario, where the person taking money from the developer then gets to say what is good enough for the adjoining property owners, and in this case, what is good enough for us is that Pelletier gets to put his sewage into OUR creek, and that is good enough for us, as the creek don't mean that much to Pelletier, and he shouldn't be prevented from making money, just because the creek means something to us, along with OUR drinking water, which, being down-gradient from Pelletier, would be impacted, while his would not be!

"**** on you", goes the saying, here In Rensselaer County, anyway, and to prove how serious they are to the "development community", Rensselaer County is making the demonstration by having its lawyer, Tom O'Connor, do the legal work for Pelletier's "design professionals", as well as for its own alleged co-conspirators, and we county taxpayers get to pay the freight, since his legal bills to the county are paid with money lifted out of OUR pockets by that same entity through OUR property taxes, which are supposed to be buying us public health protection, but buy us nothing, instead.

Quite a deal if you're a land developer, and quite a screwing if you are a property owner, on the other side of the equation, which is the one that pays, and gets nothing in return for that expenditure of OUR hard-earned money on county property taxes!

[Livyjr]

Dear Livyjr,

This much is clear already.

Judge Roberts is no Sandra Day O'Connor.

Last night we learned that President Bush wants to replace a woman who voted to uphold Roe v. Wade with a man who argued against Roe v. Wade, and that sends a clear signal that this White House remains bent on opening old wounds and dividing America.

There are big questions that must be answered involving Judge Roberts' judicial philosophy as demonstrated over his short time on the appellate court.

The Senate must learn whether he has a clear, consistent commitment to upholding Constitutional standards like civil rights, the right to privacy, and Roe v. Wade.

These issues are in serious question if you take even a cursory glance at his record.

We need to ask the tough questions to determine whether John Roberts is the nominee who will give America a Court that is fair, independent, ethical and committed to Constitutional freedoms rather than an ideological agenda, and I promise you I will do everything in my power to assure that no question is sidestepped.

Throughout every step of the confirmation process, I will keep you informed about the questions that need to be asked, the answers we need to demand, and the principles we need to defend.

It's impossible to overstate the importance of this moment.

As the U.S. Senate discharges one of its most important responsibilities, I will be active and vigilant.

I hope you will do the same, beginning right now.

Start by sharing a few words about your personal feelings on the importance of this Supreme Court nomination.

You can submit your comments or questions here:

http://www.johnkerry.com/action/share/

Thank you,

John Kerry

P.S. In the days ahead, we'll be featuring on our johnkerry.com website a cross-section of the comments submitted and contacting you with important information and action requests as events demand.

Sign up here if you want to get the latest information.

Recruit your friends and neighbors, too.

[Livyjr]

And for an idea of where I am coming from with all of my talk about citizenship rights and responsibilities, here in OUR America, and the federal government, versus state's rights, or the rights of the citizens in a state versus the rights of citizens in America, in general, this following is the PREAMBLE to the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which is the oldest functioning constitution in the world, I believe, and if not in the world, then certainly in OUR America, and since we are Americans, that is what counts, to me, anyway.

These words to follow were written by Mr. John Adams, who was to later serve as an American president, long before the time of George W. Bush, and his version of what America should be, in his eyes, and when King George III of England recognized Massachusetts as a free and independent state on the face of this earth in the Treaty of Paris in 1783, these words were what he was recognizing, and acknowledging the truth of, because a Constitution of a free and independent state is what "constitutes" the state so recognized!

At the time these words were written, and adopted by the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as their frame of government, there was no United States government as it exists today, and there was no President of the United States, and there was no United States Supreme Court, either.

Those things would not come until later, 1787, at the earliest, and so, the authority of George W. Bush and the United States Supreme Court does not go back before 1787, and the birth of the United States Constitution, which is a younger and more junior Constitution to this one below!

Look carefully at the words in the first paragraph of this Preamble, and consider, if you can, the times in which these words were written, and the cost, the huge cost, the people, the alleged "liberals" of Massachusetts, paid to make these words a continuing reality in OUR America today.

And as we continue to go forward in here, keep these words in mind!

Do you believe these words?

If you don't live in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but say, in Texas, do you have a right to "combine" at the federal level, say, with someone from Tennessee, to deprive and deny the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts what these words are to provide to them?

If you are an American president, and you do not like the sounds of these words, especially the part about people having a right to alter the government, can you appoint someone as a federal judge, to have that person strike these words out of existence?

Are these sentiments expressed in this Preamble too liberal in the post-9/11 environment that exists in OUR America today?

PREAMBLE.

The end of the institution, maintenance, and administration of government, is to secure the existence of the body politic, to protect it, and to furnish the individuals who compose it with the power of enjoying in safety and tranquillity their natural rights, and the blessings of life: and whenever these great objects are not obtained, the people have a right to alter the government, and to take measures necessary for their safety, prosperity and happiness.

The body politic is formed by a voluntary association of individuals: it is a social compact, by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good.

It is the duty of the people, therefore, in framing a constitution of government, to provide for an equitable mode of making laws, as well as for an impartial interpretation, and a faithful execution of them; that every man may, at all times, find his security in them.

We, therefore, the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the goodness of the great Legislator of the universe, in affording us, in the course of His providence, an opportunity, deliberately and peaceably, without fraud, violence or surprise, of entering into an original, explicit, and solemn compact with each other; and of forming a new constitution of civil government, for ourselves and posterity; and devoutly imploring His direction in so interesting a design, do agree upon, ordain and establish the following Declaration of Rights, and Frame of Government, as the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

[Livyjr]

"It is the duty of the people, therefore, in framing a constitution of government, to provide for an equitable mode of making laws, as well as for an impartial interpretation, and a faithful execution of them; that every man may, at all times, find his security in them."

And there it is!

There is the heart of this matter that we are talking about in here, which is this thing of Bush-appointed judges engaging in JUDICIAL ACTIVISM FROM THE RIGHT, where they are interpreting laws in such as way as to render the above null and void, where there is no longer impartial interpretation of laws, and therefore, disabled persons such as the PLAINTIFF herein, and those who depend upon his word as a New York State licensed professional engineer, can no longer find their security in them, the laws, that is, and here I hear the pundits saying to me, "Livyjr, you're obviously lost in your geography, because you're in New York, and that is the Preamble to the Massachusetts Constitution, and Massachusetts isn't in New York", and you know what?

I concede that fact, readily!

Massachusetts isn't in anything, at all, because it is an idea expressed in writing on a piece of paper called a Constitution, for posterity, and like the American Revolution, it is in people's heads, or it is nowhere, and that is what this PREAMBLE above is saying here, to all the candid world, in this place, this is what government is, FOR ALL TIME YET TO COME, FOR ALL MEN AND WOMEN IN THIS PLACE!

And if ever it is not, then you can change it, at will, to bring it back to these principles, which are original, and God help those who try to tear these principles down!

And were these idle words?

Hell no, is that answer!

By the time these words were written, Lexington and Concord had happened, Bunker Hill had happened, as I recall, and there was in Massachusetts, blood on the ground, and much more was to be spilled, BY AMERICANS, bleeding in defense of these very words, so that these words would be true for all time yet to come, as they are right now, today, thanks to the Massachusetts liberals who believed, then and now, in rule of law, and constitutional government in a free and independent Commonwealth, or REPUBLIC, such as is the State of Massachusetts to this day!

By the time these words were written, Independence had been declared, and so, for the next six or so years, the lives of each AMERICAN in Massachusetts who had ratified these words, accepted these thoughts as their own, this government as the only one acceptable to FREE MEN AND WOMEN created equal on the face of this earth; the lives of each of these people were forfeit, as they were considered traiters to the English crown for having these very thoughts, so that the only thing waiting for them if they did not achieve their liberty was slavery for their families, and a gallows noose for themselves.

THAT, FOLKS, WAS IT!

That is as AMERICAN a story as there ever can be, BECAUSE IT IS THE VERY ORIGINAL TRULY AMERICAN STORY, and that story is one for all true AMERICANS today with the love of liberty in their hearts, here in OUR America, because under OUR United States Constitution, NO ONE IN AMERICA CAN BE LESS THAN SOMEONE IN MASSACHUSETTS, and so the LITMUS TEST for FEDERAL JUDGES here in OUR America ought to be based on whether they themselves know of these words, and implicitly, how these words came into being, and whether they believe in these words, and can support these words, as PATRIOTIC AMERICANS do, who believe in a nation based on law, and not on man, as was the Kingdom of England at the time of separation, and INDEPENDENCE.

If a federal judicial nominee cannot recite these words and history, with ease, then they should be thanked for applying, and then sent on their way, as unsuited for the task at hand, which is maintaining OUR America as a nation of laws, and not man, as appears all too often to be the case, once again, and to OUR detriment as a free nation, to boot.

If a man or woman candidate for the Federal Bench believes these words are too liberal, then we do not need nor want that person as a federal judge, here in OUR America, and so, that is how it should be!

And who needs to know this and hear this, if you yourself believe a word that I have said here?

Well, John Kerry would be one, and then there is Chuck Schumer, who is a very important part of this process, and Arlen Specter, I believe, and these Senators, and all others can be reached instantly, and with no cost to yourself, other than having to think, at http://capwiz.com/congressorg/pyv/electors/

[Livyjr]

The body politic is formed by a voluntary association of individuals: it is a social compact, by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good.

"Independence of U.S. judiciary a concern-O'Connor"

By William Stimson

1 hour, 50 minutes ago

SPOKANE, Wash. (Reuters) - Retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on Thursday said there was a new tendency in Congress to second-guess every decision by the high court and that has caused tension between the two branches of government.

"In all my years of my life I don't think I've ever seen relations (between Congress and the high court) as strained as they are now," O'Connor told a conference of judges and lawyers at the 9th Circuit Judicial Conference in Spokane, Washington.

O'Connor is the Supreme Court justice who handles certain matters from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

She said an integral part of the democracy that the United States is promoting around the world is an independent court system.

"And yet, in our country today, we're seeing efforts to prevent that -- a desire not to have an independent judiciary."

"That worries me," she said.

As an example of the congressional tendency to pick apart court rulings, she cited a March decision that declared the death penalty for juveniles unconstitutional.

The ruling noted the weight of international opinion and the fact that only one other country -- Somalia -- executes young offenders.

"Some citations were found very offensive by some members of Congress."

"I don't personally think it's a good idea to restrict freedom of speech or thought for anybody, even if they are federal judges," O'Connor said.

The 75-year-old justice, who announced her retirement earlier this month, often cast the deciding vote on the nine-member court closely divided on hot-button issues like abortion, the death penalty and church-state separation.

O'Connor, who in 1981 was the first woman to be appointed to the high court, said she was scared initially that she would "mess it up for other women."

She gave credit for the historic change to former President Ronald Reagan.

"When he took the huge step of appointing a woman after 191 years without one, that opened the doors all across this nation," she said.

O'Connor expressed some disappointment on Wednesday that President Bush, who this week nominated conservative U.S. Circuit Judge John Roberts to replace her, did not select a woman.

"He's good in every way, except he's not a woman," O'Connor was quoted as telling the Spokane-Review newspaper.

[Livyjr]

"Independence of U.S. judiciary a concern-O'Connor"

By William Stimson

SPOKANE, Wash. (Reuters) - Retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on Thursday said there was a new tendency in Congress to second-guess every decision by the high court and that has caused tension between the two branches of government.

"In all my years of my life I don't think I've ever seen relations (between Congress and the high court) as strained as they are now," O'Connor told a conference of judges and lawyers at the 9th Circuit Judicial Conference in Spokane, Washington.

She said an integral part of the democracy that the United States is promoting around the world is an independent court system.

"And yet, in our country today, we're seeing efforts to prevent that -- a desire not to have an independent judiciary."

"That worries me," she said.

"I don't personally think it's a good idea to restrict freedom of speech or thought for anybody, even if they are federal judges," O'Connor said.

We, therefore, the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the goodness of the great Legislator of the universe, in affording us, in the course of His providence, an opportunity, deliberately and peaceably, without fraud, violence or surprise, of entering into an original, explicit, and solemn compact with each other; and of forming a new constitution of civil government, for ourselves and posterity; and devoutly imploring His direction in so interesting a design, do agree upon, ordain and establish the following Declaration of Rights, and Frame of Government, as the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

"The Nominee As a Young Pragmatist - Under Reagan, Roberts Tackled Tough Issues"

By Jo Becker and Amy Argetsinger
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, July 22, 2005; Page A01

As an up-and-coming young lawyer in the White House counsel's office from 1982 to 1986, John G. Roberts Jr. weighed in on some of the most controversial issues facing the Reagan administration, balancing conservative ideology with a savvy political pragmatism and a confidence that belied his years.

Asked to review legislation that would have prohibited lower federal courts from ordering busing to desegregate public schools, Roberts, now President Bush's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, took on no less a conservative legal scholar than Theodore B. Olson, who at the time was an assistant attorney general and later served as the solicitor general under Bush.

Olson had argued that based on his reading of case law, Congress could not flatly prohibit the busing of children to achieve racial balance in public schools.

That argument did not impress Roberts, who was two weeks past his 29th birthday.

"I do not agree," Roberts wrote to White House counsel Fred F. Fielding in a memo dated Feb. 15, 1984.

Congress has the authority "and can conclude -- the evidence supports this -- that busing promotes segregation rather than remedying it, by precipitating white flight."

But, he added, "Olson's view has already gone forward as the Administration view, and it would probably not be fruitful to reopen the issue at this point."

The memo -- and others like it that are available at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. -- offers a revealing glimpse into the mind of a judge whose relatively short two-year tenure on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has produced few clues on how he would vote on key issues facing the high court.

Until now, the views that Roberts held in eight years as a government lawyer have remained largely unknown.

Before serving as an associate counsel in the Reagan White House, Roberts worked at the Justice Department under Attorney General William French Smith.

He returned to the department in 1989, serving as principal deputy solicitor general under President George H.W. Bush.

The Reagan-era memos portray a cocksure young lawyer whose writing was clear, highly attuned to political realities and occasionally sarcastic.

Take, for instance, Roberts's response to a request sent by then-Rep. Elliott Levitas (D-Ga.) to Reagan.

In 1983, the Supreme Court struck down laws that contained provisions for Congress to veto actions taken by executive departments and agencies.

Levitas wanted to meet with Reagan to determine "the manner of power sharing and accountability within in the federal government."

The request offended Roberts's notion of the proper separation of powers.

"There already has, of course, been a 'Conference on Power Sharing,'" Roberts wrote, sarcastically referring to the convention at which the Constitution was drafted.

"It took place in Philadelphia's Constitution Hall in 1787, and someone should tell Levitas about it and the 'report' it issued."

Fielding said yesterday that during Roberts's tenure in the Reagan administration, he was known for his intelligence and dry sense of humor.

While Fielding declined to comment on the specifics of any of Roberts's writings, he said they were in line with what he demanded from all his lawyers.

"My staff's role was to stimulate thoughts," Fielding said.

"I encouraged people to give me their unvarnished analysis and personal views."

Roberts's memo on the anti-busing bill, which was sponsored by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and co-sponsored by the late Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), is instructive not just because it says something about Roberts's views on an important civil rights question but also because of the reasoning he used to dispute Olson.

Olson, he wrote, interpreted earlier court decisions as holding that "busing may in some circumstances be constitutionally required, and accordingly concludes that Congress may not flatly prohibit busing."

Roberts, however, said that Olson was misreading precedent and that the bill was defensible because Congress is empowered to pass legislation to enforce the 14th Amendment, which bars states from denying equal protection under the law.

"Even if Olson's reading of the 13-year-old early busing court cases is correct, we have now had over a decade of experience with busing, and if that experience demonstrates that busing is not an effective remedy, Congress can legislate on the basis of that experience," he wrote.

"I would conclude that it is within Congress's authority to determine that busing is counterproductive and to prohibit the federal courts from ordering it."

To do otherwise, Roberts warned, would undercut the administration's own legal strategy.

"It strikes me as more than passing strange for us to tell Congress it cannot pass a law preventing courts from ordering busing when our own Justice Department invariably urges this policy on the courts."

Olson said yesterday that he did not recall the dispute with enough specificity to comment on it.

"These were complicated questions," he said.

Roberts's busing memo is relevant now because of an ongoing dispute over Congress's power to enforce anti-discrimination laws.

A conservative majority at the U.S. Supreme Court has limited that power in a series of recent cases, rejecting the argument of more liberal justices who say the rulings threaten basic rights secured by the 14th Amendment.

Martin H. Redish, a professor at Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago who specializes in federal court jurisdiction and constitutional law, said that Roberts's position on busing is "very controversial, and not one I accept."

But, he added, "reasonable people will disagree."

Political Shrewdness

Olson was not the only person with whom Roberts was willing to match legal wits.

In a memo dated Jan. 13, 1984, he summarily dismissed retired Supreme Court justice Arthur Goldberg's concerns, expressed in a private letter to the White House, that the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada was unconstitutional.

"Goldberg is correct that the constitution vests the authority to declare war in the Congress," he said.

The president, however, "has inherent authority in the international area to defend American lives and interests," an authority that "has been recognized since at least the time President Jefferson sent the marines to the shores of Tripoli."

"While there are no clear lines separating what the president can do on his own and what requires a formal declaration of war, the Grenada mission seems to be clearly acceptable."

Roberts adopted a similarly expansive view of presidential powers in his review of the proposed Immigration Emergency Act.

The bill was drafted in response to the 1980 Mariel boatlift crisis that brought 125,000 Cuban refugees to U.S. shores.

Roberts noted that the legislation would have allowed the United States to "flexibly detain" illegal immigrants as well as "freely transport them between detention facilities."

He said: "It is a broad grant of emergency powers to the President, but I cannot conclude that it is too broad in light of the Mariel experience."

In August 1984, he gave Fielding the heads-up that then-Rep. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) may be upset to hear that the administration opposed an attempt by a private school in his state to appeal a court ruling that could cause it to lose its tax-exempt status because of alleged discrimination.

Not a problem, the young lawyer explained in a memo dated Aug. 2, 1984.

A year earlier, the White House had been criticized for defending the right of discriminatory institutions to keep their tax exemptions, a battle it lost in the Supreme Court overturned.

Now the White House appeared to be on the side of the black parents suing the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the school, run by Clarksville Baptist Church -- a stance that guaranteed "little press interest," Roberts said.

At the same time, Roberts wrote, the Justice Department could simply tell Lott "that Clarksville can still have its day in court" to defend its tax-exempt status -- "just not the Supreme Court."

He added: "If Lott complains, he should be advised that the present petition concerns a procedural matter and not the merits of Clarksville's tax-exempt status."

That same political acumen was on display in a memo dated Jan. 31, 1983, in which Roberts addressed the administration's pace on a housing discrimination bill.

Some in the administration wanted to move quickly, since Reagan had hurt himself with many minority voters the year before when he was perceived to have dragged his feet on an extension of the Voting Rights Act.

"I think it is important, as the storm clouds gather over the issue of housing discrimination legislation, to recall what Mark Twain said of the cat who sat on a hot stove lid."

"The cat will never sit on a hot stove lid again, but it will also never sit on a cold one," Roberts wrote.

"The fact that we were burned last year because we did not sail in with new voting rights legislation does not mean we will be hurt this year if we go slowly on housing legislation. . . . I do not think there is a need to concede all or many of the controversial points . . . to preclude political damage."

Less than six months later, Roberts did a final review of the bill.

Everything seemed in order, he wrote, but he was concerned about language that suggested that the federal courts had historically enjoyed the confidence of the American people for their impartiality, independence and fairness.

"As a statement of historical fact this is untrue," Roberts noted.

"The federal judiciary has been viewed by the American people with active distrust from the very beginning, when the Federalists packed the new courts to thwart the aspirations of Jeffersonian Republicans."

But since the language had been inserted as an implicit criticism of a rival bill, he added, "I suppose it is tolerable."

Roberts often balanced his own views with political realities, as he did in a debate following the 1984 Supreme Court decision in a case called Grove City College v. Bell , in which the court determined that a 1972 federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in schools that receive government money applied only to those programs that received the funding, not the institutions as a whole.

The ruling, which threatened to upset dramatic gains for women's athletics among other programs, had prompted an outcry in Congress, and lawmakers were rushing to introduce bills that would again expand anti-discrimination rules across entire campuses. (A measure eventually succeeded, in 1988.)

Administration officials were split over how to react.

Some believed it was not fair that schools be forced to comply with such broad rules simply because they admitted students on federal loans and scholarships, and were arguing for a higher threshold.

That idea, Roberts wrote in a memo dated July 24, 1985, had "intuitive appeal."

But as a "practical matter," he noted, it was too late for the White House to take that stance, since the administration had already conceded that argument before the Supreme Court.

"Reversing our position on that issue at this point would precipitate a firestorm of criticism, with little chance of success," he concluded.

Protecting Administration

Roberts was similarly protective of the administration on an unrelated matter.

In 1982, the administration clashed with Congress over its refusal to hand over documents from the Environmental Protection Agency on Superfund sites.

Anne Gorsuch Burford, the agency director, later said that she refused to hand them over at the request of Reagan and the advice of the Justice Department.

But a few months later, the Justice Department stopped representing her -- saying it was involved in investigating EPA corruption -- and she was forced to resign in the spring of 1983.

A December 1982 memo suggests that Roberts may have had a hand in drawing up that strategy.

In the memo, he opposed defending Burford by arguing that she could not have complied with a subpoena because Reagan ordered her not to produce documents.

He wrote: "The downside is significant: a Congressional contempt citation against the President [which] could be very politically damaging."

"With Mrs. Gorsuch in the case there is at least a 'buffer' separating the President from the dispute."

An aide to Burford later called the whole episode a "coldblooded, treacherous act of political callousness."

On March 23, 1984, Roberts went beyond his lawyerly duties of reviewing an assistant attorney general's planned Hill testimony and acted as damage-control strategist instead.

A year earlier, the State Department had denied an entry visa to Hortensia Allende, widow of overthrown Chilean socialist president Salvador Allende, saying that her planned speech to California churches on women's and human rights issues would be "prejudicial to U.S. interests" because she was supposedly a member of a communist organization.

At hearings later that spring, the department acknowledged that it had similarly denied entry to hundreds of people in recent years -- and then went on to deny entry to Nicaraguan Interior Minister Tomas Borge in December 1983.

"We recommend deleting specific mention of the denial of visas to the widow of Chilean president Allende and Nicaragua Interior Minister Borge" from the speech, he wrote.

"Those denials were, and continue to be, particularly controversial, and there is no need to mention them in this testimony."

Argetsinger reported from Simi Valley, Calif. Research editor Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.

[Livyjr]

As to our matter under discussion in here, this appeal, we remain in a "holding pattern" right now, with briefs from the appellees, the "other side", being due at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in a week or so, now, unless extra time is granted to the "opposing counsel", which, of course, we are greatly in opposition to, since for each of those extra days granted, we remain "locked out" of "due process" of law, in OUR own community, and OUR own county, and OUR own state, which it might in fact no longer be, if this decision under appeal is allowed to stand as "law of the land" in the State of New York, that with nothing at all, no evidence whatsoever, no proof whatsoever, a "political entity" such as REPUBLICAN-controlled Rensselaer County, in REPUBLICAN-controlled New York State, can have anyone at all "arrested" on trumped-up "psychiatric grounds" on the "report" of a "reliable, anonymous source", at a literal moment's notice .......

Well, in Rensselaer County, just to the east of Albany, New York, THE TRASHMAN COMETH, and if you are for law and order, and no corruption in government up here, then you better damn well be shaking in your boots is the word from Rensselaer County to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, according to Thomas J. O'Connor, brother to REPUBLICAN New York State Lt. Governor Mary O'Connor Donohue, and head lawyer for the County of Rensselaer in this appeal.

"THE TRASHMAN!"

That, of course, is REPUBLICAN Timmy Holt, who O'Connor has finally identified as the "man who pulled the plug" on the PLAINTIFF in this matter, by calling over to his "connection" at Samaritan Hospital in Troy, New York, a nurse there named Carol Fiorino, who had a doctor there who would sign a New York State Mental Hygiene Law 9.45 "psychiatric arrest order" for her, and so, history, or a warped and twisted Rensselaer County version of it, anyway, was made!

We wonder, of course, why Holt was "outed" now, at this time, by Tommy O'Connor, because up till now, Holt's name was a literal "state secret", that could not be known, in the words of Rensselaer County, and Samaritan Hospital and Northeast Health, and New York State Attorney General and GUBERNATORIAL HOPEFUL, Honorable Eliot "Big EL" Spitzer, anyway!

He simply was the "RELIABLE SOURCE", and up till now, we were unable to "pierce" that "shroud of secrecy" surrounding Holt's exact role in this matter, and now, at the very last minute, literally, we are handed Holt, and his "role", on a platter, which has all kinds of implications at this point, where the District Court Judge in the Northern District of New York never bothered to find out exactly who it was who had "denounced" PLAINTIFF in this matter, a New York State licensed professional engineer investigating alleged professional misconduct by Rensselaer County State Actors Carl Richard Aiken, an engineer, and Kevin Joseph McGrath, a surveyor, to Samaritan Hospital as being mentally ill, and in immediate need of incarceration in Samaritan Hospital's secure mental facility, or GULAG, as it is affectionately known up here, by those who must live in its fearsome "shadow", 24/7.

Speculation for why Holt was finally "outed" by Tommy O'Connor now runs rampant, of course, but I am of that school that says the only real reason they withheld Holt's name was to make it almost impossible for the PLAINTIFF to be able to file a federal complaint in the matter with the degree of "specificity" required in a civil rights complaint, because up until now, PLAINTIFF never really knew what exact roles were played by the various "players" in this matter, which point forms the basis for the brief submitted to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals by Attorney-at-Law David Rook of the politically-connected, powerful Albany, New York law firm of Thuillez, Ford, Gold Johnson & Butler, who are the legal counsel and attorneys of record for defendants Northeast Health, Inc., Samaritan Hospital of Troy, New York, Dr. Adrian Anthony Morris, Dr. John Christian Braaten, Carol Fiorino, and Bernadette Rotter Hallam in this appeal.

"He didn't say it the right way, throw out his appeal" is essentially what Rook is saying to the Appeals Court in his brief, which we received just last Monday, and on its face, it is a powerful and persuasive argument, if you can just look past the fact that the reason the PLAINTIFF was unable to state facts with a certain degree of specificity was because Northeast Health, and Rensselaer County made damn sure that those essential facts were withheld from PLAINTIFF, by having discovery for the PLAINTIFF denied by the District Court, and by failing to disclose this information themselves, despite provisions in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure which require that disclosure.

"This is a very special case" said the GOLD JOHNSON man, Rook, and so it was to be.

Get control of what the first word can be, in this case, the contents of PLAINTIFF's federal complaint, by having the District Court limit him to just twenty pages, including all of the required "boiler-plate" language which must be included in every federal civil rights complaint, at the same time that you are withholding evidence, yourself, and then, retain the last word for yourself, in this case, the right to file the last brief with the words in it, "see, he didn't do it right, because we were so good at our jobs of withholding evidence from him", and you have a winning solution, every time!

And so it now might be!

But it is not quite yet over, so ....

Please!

Stay tuned for further details!

Thank you for your attention!

[Livyjr]

Well, in Rensselaer County, just to the east of Albany, New York, THE TRASHMAN COMETH, and if you are for law and order, and no corruption in government up here, then you better damn well be shaking in your boots is the word from Rensselaer County to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, according to Thomas J. O'Connor, brother to REPUBLICAN New York State Lt. Governor Mary O'Connor Donohue, and head lawyer for the County of Rensselaer in this appeal.

"THE TRASHMAN!"

The TRASHMAN!

We're still chuckling about that one up here, and it is days ago that we heard the joke, that Timmy Holt, the "TRASHMAN" for the Rensselaer County Office Building in Troy, New York, or head of custodial services actually, which includes cleaning rest rooms in addition to simply taking out the trash, is the MYSTERIOUS "RELIABLE SOURCE" that we have been hearing about now, since August 2001, in fact, when we learned that the PLAINTIFF in this matter was what Bernadette Rotter Hallam at Northeast Health CORPORATE HQ. called a "special file", which is someone in Rensselaer County who can be removed at a moment's notice, and that notice comes to Carol Fiorino, a nurse at Samaritan Hospital, from Timmy Holt, whose job in the Rensselaer County Office Building is to make sure the trash is taken out everyday, which then converts him into a "health officer", in the eyes of David Rook, with the GOLD JOHNSON law firm, who is defending the "objective reasonableness" of this arrangement, where in Rensselaer County in the State of New York, determinations as to who is mentally ill and dangerous, and thus in need of immediate incarceration in Samaritan Hospital's secure mental facility, or political GULAG, are left to the head of custodial services for the Rensselaer County office Building!

Mr BIG, revealed, at last!

It is an inside joke, of course, up here in Rensselaer County, where Tommy O'Connor hails from:

"Hey, Timmy, Kathy Jimino gots some trash she wants you to get rid of!"

"Take care of it, will you!"

And so, it is done!

By the TRASHMAN!

And now Tommy O'Connor is bringing the Justices of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals into the joke, "see what the TRASHMAN took out here .....", and let me tell you, that has caught our attention, big time, and so .....

In the meantime, it is my understanding that the PLAINTIFF did get a Reply Brief finished today, and served and filed with the Court of Appeals in New York City, and so, this matter of the head of custodians for the Rensselaer County Office Building having this literal power of life or death over a New York State licensed professional engineer investigating alleged professional misconduct by other licensed professionals in Rensselaer County is not going unchallenged!

[Livyjr]

Mr BIG, revealed, at last!

It is an inside joke, of course, up here in Rensselaer County, where Tommy O'Connor hails from:

"Hey, Timmy, Kathy Jimino gots some trash she wants you to get rid of!"

"Take care of it, will you!"

And so, it is done!

By the TRASHMAN!

And now Tommy O'Connor is bringing the Justices of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals into the joke, "see what the TRASHMAN took out here .....", and let me tell you, that has caught our attention, big time, and so .....

And despite my attempt at levity, here, we common folk in Rensselaer County are taking this matter very seriously, because Tommy O'Connor is no political lightweight, here in the State of New York, and everybody over the age of eighteen who cares about their future here in New York State knows that fact, for talk is that Tommy O'Connor just might be one of OUR next United States Supreme Court Justices, long about 2009, if his sister Mary's political star keeps rising as it has been in what is being billed as the "Century of the New Republican Woman" up here in the State of New York, where former WHIZ-KID and rising political star himself, New York State Republican "Boss" Stephen Minarik is said to be personally grooming Donohue, the present REPUBLICAN Lt. Governor, as part of his "TRIPLE HEADER", as the REPUBLICANS call it, or "TRIPLE THREAT" as the Democrats see it, at least according to REPUBLICAN WAGS up here, and, well, they should know, shouldn't they?

The REPUBLICAN "TRIPLE THREAT", of course, is intended to be a counter to a Democratic strategy to run Hillary Clinton as its first woman candidate for President of the United States, and the "TRIPLE THREAT", as it is called, is so, because not only does it have a woman running for president as a REPUBLICAN, that being Tom O'Connor's sister, Mary Donohue, but has Kathleen Jimino, the present Rensselaer County Executive running as Vice-President, and Rensselaer County District Attorney Patricia "Trish" DeAngelis as Attorney General, for what Minarik is said to believe is a slam-dunk irresistable triple-header for the American public to fall in love with, at first sight, and so ......

"Judge's robes an ill fit for district attorney? - Patricia DeAngelis' star has risen quickly, but some question her pursuit of justice"

By MICHELE MORGAN BOLTON, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Tuesday, July 26, 2005

TROY -- Patricia DeAngelis' courtroom career began when she was a little girl, banging her father's gavel in his Bethlehem Town Court and sentencing pretend criminals to prison.

Two years ago, at age 34, she abruptly became Rensselaer County's acting district attorney when her former boss, Kenneth R. Bruno, resigned to make more money as a lobbyist.

Now, the young district attorney is being handpicked once again.

Republican sources privately say that DeAngelis has been chosen as the dominant party's candidate for a new Rensselaer County judgeship authorized by the state Legislature last month.

The new judge will begin a 10-year term in January with the same $119,800 salary as the district attorney.

However, just as privately, dozens of people in the local legal community are questioning whether DeAngelis is cut out to wear a black robe.

They cite what they call a tendency for overzealous prosecution.

They question her honesty.

DeAngelis has a checkered history for a lawyer: Three reversals, one citing prosecutorial misconduct, in two years; an admonishment for prosecutorial misconduct before a grand jury in 1998; and, recently, a confidential letter of caution from the court system's Committee on Professional Standards for inappropriate behavior in the courtroom.

For weeks, DeAngelis has refused to answer questions or be interviewed for this story.

Last week, the would-be judicial candidate refused to respond to written questions provided by the Times Union.

E. Stewart Jones, a prominent Capital Region defense lawyer and a Republican with a Troy law practice, was one of the few attorneys willing to express a view for the record.

"That office has enormous power and justice is the obligation, but that responsibility has eluded her," Jones said.

"She does not have a balanced view of the role of the DA's office in a high-profile case."

"There is a lack of mature judgment."

He added, "She is vindictive and retributive and sees herself as an avenging angel."

"In an overly emotional state, she becomes reckless."

As a defense lawyer, Jones has criticized DeAngelis before.

He labeled as "barbaric" her 20-years-in-prison plea bargain for 16-year-old student Jon Romano, his client.

Romano was overtaken as he began firing a 12-gauge shotgun at Columbia High School in February 2004.

Months ago, Jones agreed to appeal -- for free -- one of DeAngelis' most controversial cases, the conviction of Troy boat salesman Jack Carroll, after he learned Carroll's family had spent $250,000 on other lawyers.

Carroll was first convicted in December 1997 for the rape and sexual abuse of his then-stepdaughter, but the state Court of Appeals dismissed the rape conviction and ordered a new trial for sexual abuse.

In their ruling, the state's top judges said DeAngelis had no evidence to prove rape.

They noted that she argued during the trial that Carroll never denied the charges and used witnesses to testify to that effect, after then-acting County Judge Richard E. Sise refused a defense request to play a taped telephone call where Carroll did just that.

Carroll was convicted of sexual abuse in January 2001 and is serving a 10- to 20-year sentence while appealing.

Relatives insist he is innocent.

Jones describes DeAngelis' actions in that case as being of "constitutional dimension."

"No one is ever held accountable in Rensselaer County for anything," said Troy attorney Michael Rourke, a Democrat who is running for a seat on the County Legislature.

"When you're a government attorney, your obligation is to justice, not to winning," Rourke said.

"The whole problem started with one district attorney who was inexperienced replaced by another district attorney who is inexperienced and there's no older lawyers around to give guidance."

County GOP Chairman Jack Casey, who also is a lawyer and the state Senate parliamentarian, did not return repeated calls for comment.

In April 2003, Ken Bruno elevated DeAngelis to a newly created $85,000-a-year position as deputy district attorney.

However, records of three annual county budgets since then indicate the position was never officially established in the county budget.

A Freedom of Information Law request from the Times Union seeking records about the position yielded only the forms Bruno penned to increase DeAngelis' salary.

The County Legislature, which normally approves new positions and lists them in budgets, never OK'd the deputy district attorney job.

No one ever offered any legislation seeking an approval, officials said.

By elevating DeAngelis, Bruno greatly lessened any chance his previous No. 2 lawyer, Chief Assistant District Attorney Mark Loughran, would be chosen as his successor when Bruno resigned in June 2003.

At the time, Loughran, a major in the Army Reserve and 22-year service veteran, was deployed to Washington, D.C., with military intelligence.

A public affairs officer at the Reserve's Alexandria, Va., office said it's possible Loughran was deprived of a job opportunity.

The federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Act of 1994 says soldiers on active duty must be restored to the status they would have achieved had they not been serving their country, Maj. Rob Palmer said.

"The burden of proof is on the employer that discrimination was not a motivating factor," he said.

"Suppose a position was created purely for patronage purposes, and this guy's being a Reservist played a role in the job not going to him -- that would be considered a motivating factor."

Loughran, now an assistant district attorney in Broome County, never made a complaint that might have triggered a federal investigation.

He declined a Times Union request for comment.

Another former employee is preparing to drag DeAngelis into civil court, alleging she was wrongfully fired for challenging DeAngelis' misdeeds.

Jennifer Sober, a former colleague and confidant of DeAngelis, was forcibly escorted from the courthouse last November.

Sober has filed a notice of her intent to sue.

She claims DeAngelis told her she made a deal with GOP officials to become district attorney in the middle of Ken Bruno's term because Bruno had to leave.

"The sum and substance was that Ms. DeAngelis told Jen there was a crisis having to do with Ken Bruno," Cheryl Coleman, Sober's attorney, said last week.

DeAngelis told Sober "that she had to become DA right away," Coleman said.

"And to do that, she had to make an agreement."

"The words Jen remembers Trish saying were, 'It can't wait'."

"Ken has to leave right now'," Coleman said.

What was Bruno's crisis?

It's unclear whether Sober knows firsthand.

Bruno's lawyer, Michael Assaf, vigorously denied his client was ever in trouble or in crisis.

"Any suggestion, statement or implication of improper, unethical or illegal conduct on the part of Mr. Bruno with regard to the appointment of Patricia DeAngelis to succeed him as Rensselaer County DA has no basis in fact and publication of any statement declaring or implying the same would be false and defamatory," Assaf said, in response to written questions Bruno demanded from the Times Union.

When Ken Bruno resigned, Gov. George Pataki quickly appointed DeAngelis acting district attorney, praising her as "highly qualified."

Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, Ken Bruno's father, described the then-seven-year prosecutor as "outstanding" with an "impressive" record of experience in criminal justice.

She was easily elected to a four-year term in November 2003.

However, among the cases DeAngelis has been slapped for mishandling was a 1998 prosecution of an Albany police officer accused of assault in a domestic altercation.

Rensselaer County Judge Patrick J. McGrath, a Democrat, until now Rensselaer's only county judge, eventually dismissed all charges against the officer, Thomas Winant.

McGrath wrote a scathing decision stating DeAngelis' behavior before the grand jury was tainted by her prompting witness testimony, allowing improper hearsay evidence and making comments when testimony didn't measure up to her expectations.

In the last 18 months, the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court has reversed two of DeAngelis' convictions and another two achieved by prosecutors in her office.

Among those cases was Thomas Levandowski, a former Cambridge, Washington County, police chief who was convicted of rape in October 2002 and sentenced to 50 years behind bars.

On June 24, 2004, citing "prosecutorial misconduct," the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court ordered a new trial for Levandowski, who later took a plea deal for time served on top of up to 12 years in a related matter.

"Defendant contends that the prosecutor's misconduct during the course of the trial was so pervasive as to deprive defendant of a fair trial," the judges said.

"We agree."

Then there is the case of Robert Gorghan, a Petersburgh man accused of rape and sex abuse whom DeAngelis succeeded in convicting in June 2001.

He was serving up to 25 years in state prison when appellate judges reversed his conviction, criticizing DeAngelis for "straying beyond the bounds of permissible conduct."

The higher court found that DeAngelis, while discussing the "force" used during the rape, improperly led jurors to think an unlicensed gun seized at the defendant's home years later might have been used in the crime.

The appeals court called it "an improper attempt to create an inference."

Earlier this year, the local Committee on Professional Standards, which polices lawyers, placed a letter of caution in DeAngelis' file.

Neither DeAngelis nor the panel would discuss that disciplinary action, which stays confidential unless the panel's sanction rises to the level of a censure or suspension.

Meanwhile, 10 out of 15 lawyers have left the Rensselaer County district attorney's office over the last two years.

Last week, both DeAngelis' former chief assistant, Joel Abelove, and her spokeswoman, Kitty Carley, resigned.

DeAngelis has taken her critics in stride.

After each reversal, she said she accepted the court's decision, but would continue efforts to tirelessly pursue justice for innocent crime victims.

DeAngelis' father, retired Bethlehem Town Justice Donald DeAngelis, had spoken about his daughter's spirit when she took her oath as district attorney in July 2003.

Remembering visits to Town Court, where the future prosecutor and her siblings would take turns sitting at their father's bench, the old judge recalled: "They'd bang the gavel and sentence each other to 100 years in jail."

The judge said he had no idea then DeAngelis was showing an interest in the law.

"I thought," he said, "she was more interested in the gum ball machine out in the hall."

[Livyjr]

In the meantime, it is my understanding that the PLAINTIFF did get a Reply Brief finished today, and served and filed with the Court of Appeals in New York City, and so, this matter of the head of custodians for the Rensselaer County Office Building having this literal power of life or death over a New York State licensed professional engineer investigating alleged professional misconduct by other licensed professionals in Rensselaer County is not going unchallenged!

Partial text of Reply Brief sent to Second Circuit Court of Appeals in NYC by appellant PLAINTIFF on 25 July 2005 in answer to BRIEF of Thomas O'Connor, on behalf of Rensselaer County Executive Kathleen Jimino et al, to include Timothy Holt, Carl Richard Aiken, NYSPE, and Kevin Joseph McGrath, the New York State licensed surveyor who was at the same time the "lead professional" for developer Jeffrey Pelletier, and the Chairman of the Poestenkill Town Planning Board, and the Brief of the Thuillez, Ford, Gold Johnson Law Firm on behalf of John Christian Braaten et al, to include nurse Carol Fiorino, and Northeast Health, Inc. and Samaritan Hospital, and the Brief of nurse Andrea Gallerie:

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

As can be readily discerned from a review of page 455 of the extensive Appendix ("RCA") Rensselaer County State Actors Kathleen Jimino, Joseph Cybulski, Timothy Holt, Denise Ayers, NYSRPN, Roy Champagne, Robert Reiter, Kevin Joseph McGrath, NYSLS, and Carl Richard Aiken, NYSPE, have submitted to this Court pursuant to Appellate Rule 30(b)(1) in support of the issues Rensselaer County State Actors are presenting this Court for review in this appeal, the facts before the Court in the appeal are few, they are simple, and they are conceded by appellees.

Nor are they challenged by Appellant.

According to those facts, on August 7, 2001 (RCA-235- 238,paras.5-17), appellee Jeffrey Pelletier assaulted PLAINTIFF on Liberty Lane in the Town of Poestenkill, Rensselaer County, State of New York for the express purpose (RCA-237,para.13) of denying PLAINTIFF rights, privileges and immunities guaranteed to PLAINTIFF by the United States Constitution, and 18 USC 1512(b) & 1513(b) of the laws of the United States.

18 USC 1512(b) of the laws of the United States, entitled "Tampering with a witness", states in relevant part to this appeal that "whoever knowingly uses intimidation or physical force, threatens, or corruptly persuades another person, or attempts to do so, or engages in misleading conduct toward another person, with intent to, (1) influence, delay, or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding; (2) cause or induce any person to - (A) withhold testimony, or withhold a record, document, or other object, from an official proceeding; (B) alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal an object with intent to impair the object's integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding ....... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both."

No party to this appeal, either appellant, or appellees, disputes that this assault by Pelletier took place, for the express purposes stated in the record, which is to say, to intentionally harm and intimidate PLAINTIFF, both as a witness, and as a victim, so as to deter him by acts of overt physical violence from seeking redress of grievance against Pelletier, Aiken and McGrath with respect to the Rensselaer County sewage permit at issue in the courts of the State of New York where this matter was originally served and filed (RCA-247,para.37;398-404), prior to it being brought on in Federal District Court in June of 2001 (RCA- 001).

(For Constitutional Torts in the State of New York, see, Ricky Brown et al. v. State of New York, 89 NY2d 172, 192 [Ct. of Appeals 1996]).

Nor can they deny the assault, since the videotape of the Pelletier assault on PLAINTIFF is a part of the "evidence" (RCA-270) in the possession of Northeast Health State Actor John Christian Braaten at the time he executed the New York State Mental Hygiene Law 9.45 order (RCA-272;Brief of Braaten at 7) at issue herein, as well as a New York State Mental Hygiene Law 9.39 direct psychiatric admission for PLAINTIFF to both the Samaritan Hospital in Troy, New York, a co-appellee of Braaten, and the VA Hospital in Albany, New York (RCA-275) despite never having seen PLAINTIFF in his life.

With these simple facts well-settled, and agreed to among the parties herein, this appeal presents this Court, then, with a simple question of law, that being the objective reasonableness of Braaten's actions on August 22, 2001, where Timothy Holt, the alleged "reliable source" Braaten relied upon in determining that PLAINTIFF was a alleged dangerous mental patient (Appellant's Appendix, A-19,20,paras.9- 12;A-26,para.8) is the head of custodial and janitorial services for the Rensselaer County Office Building in Troy, New York.

There is not one scrap or shred of evidence in the voluminous Appendix Rensselaer County State Actors have placed before this Court in support of their issues in this appeal, which is the "objective reasonableness" of PLAINTIFF's "seizure" (RCA-468-480) at the Albany VA Hospital on August 22, 2001 (RCA-276), that Timothy Holt is anything other than the head of custodial services for the Rensselaer County Office Building, and despite that lack of any credentials whatsoever, other than "cleaning rest rooms", and "taking out trash" which apparently converted Holt into a "health officer" in the eyes of Braaten, on August 22, 2001, Braaten executed a NYSMHL 9.45 order for PLAINTIFF based on nothing more than Holt's say so that he, Holt, wanted it to be done that way!

That, say appellees, is what "objective reasonableness" looks like in Rensselaer County, in the State of New York, so, please, Justices of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, put your judicial imprimatur on this conduct so stated, by denying this appeal, and thereby immunizing appellees in the eyes of the law, forever!

It is a simple question, actually, a yes, or a no:

"Should the head of Janitorial Services for the Rensselaer County Office Building have the unimpeded "constitutional" authority, 24/7, to hinder (RCA-257-262) a New York State licensed professional engineer (RCA-507,508, 544) in the performance of his duties, who at the time in question was investigating alleged professional misconduct in the County of Rensselaer (RCA-367-373) by Rensselaer County State Actor Appellees Carl Richard Aiken, P.E., and Kevin Joseph McGrath, L.S. in connection with a Rensselaer County Department of Health sewage system construction permit issued to appellee Jeffrey Pelletier (RCA-600), by having the unrestrained right to have PLAINTIFF incarcerated at will in the secure mental hospital of Holt's choice, by the simple expedient of Holt calling Fiorino at Samaritan Hospital, and putting in a request for a 9.45 order to be faxed over to Holt at the Rensselaer County Office Building, so Holt can then have the New York State Police seize PLAINTIFF for transport to wherever Holt directs them to go?"

With respect to the question of "objective reasonableness" in this appeal, as it pertains to PLAINTIFF's "seizure" (RCA-578-587) at the VA Hospital on August 22, 2001, in a comprehensive and scholarly opinion at 169-171 in Ruhlmann v. Ulster County Dept. of Social Services, 234 F.Supp.2d 140 (NDNY 2002), a case in which counsel for Braaten in this matter was also counsel of record for defendants in that matter, District Court (Hurd, J.) stated clearly at 169 that "The issue of probable cause may be decided as a matter of law if there is no dispute as to the relevant events and beliefs of those involved", and in this case, the unrebutted sworn statements of Albany, New York police officer (******) in the Rensselaer County State Actors' Appendix make it incandescently clear to all parties that there was no probable cause here, and of all people, appellee John Christian Braaten should have been the very first to become suspicious, when Fiorino told him to sign the 9.45 order she had in her hand, so she could get it back to the head of custodians in the Rensselaer County Office Building, to have PLAINTIFF, a New York State licensed professional engineer, incarcerated as a dangerous mental patient in Samaritan Hospital's secure mental health facility, where Braaten had already certified an emergency admission pursuant to New York State Mental Hygiene Law 9.39, despite never having seen PLAINTIFF in his life!

It is clear from Ruhlmann, supra, that had this happened in Ulster County in the State of New York, instead of Rensselaer County, PLAINTIFF would by this time in the proceedings have already been afforded discovery (Appendix of Appellant, A-43), and this matter would now be headed to a jury for speedy trial, in the interests of justice for PLAINTIFF, a permanently disabled Viet Nam combat veteran, with a damaged spine from the August 7, 2001 Jeffrey Pelletier assault documented in the video that Timothy Holt provided to Carol Fiorino as alleged proof that PLAINTIFF was "mentally ill", where appellee Jeffrey Pelletier can be seen and heard in the videotape calling PLAINTIFF a ""expletive deleted"ing retard" (RAC- 236,para.10), after having "cracked" PLAINTIFF's spine in a kind of wrestling throw where Pelletier grabbed PLAINTIFF's head and cracked PLAINTIFF's spine against Pelletier's hip, in a move intended to cripple PLAINTIFF, in wilful violation of 18 USC 1512(b) & 1513(b) of the laws of the United States.

As it is in Rensselaer County, however, instead of Ulster County, where the facts in this matter arise, counsel for Rensselaer County State Actors to include Jimino, Holt, Ayes, Champagne, Reiter, McGrath and Aiken, has combined with counsel for Northeast Health State Actors to include Northeast Health, Inc., Samaritan Hospital of Troy, N.Y., Adrian Anthony Morris, John Christian Braaten, Carol Fiorino, and Bernadette Rotter Hallam, and counsel for Andrea Gallerie to argue in this Court for a lower standard of "reasonableness" in the County of Rensselaer in the State of New York which makes it "constitutional" as a matter of law in the Northern District of New York, for the head of custodial services for the Rensselaer County Office Building to be placed, 24/7, in a position of such authority over the life and liberty of a New York State licensed professional engineer investigating alleged corruption in the Rensselaer County Department of Health and Town of Poestenkill Planning and Zoning Boards (RAC-526-533), that this head of custodial services can, at the literal drop of a hat, have this licensed professional engineer picked up by the New York State Police for transport to a secure mental hospital of Timothy Holt's choosing!

It is uncontrovertible in this case (RAC-367-373;458), based upon the Appendix Rensselaer County State Actors have placed in evidence in support of their issues (RAC-255,257-262,264-268) that on August 22, 2001, Holt ordered PLAINTIFF's "arrest" on alleged psychiatric grounds immediately after PLAINTIFF had informed appellee Jimino in writing (RCA-257-262) of PLAINTIFF's intent to commence legal action against the Rensselaer County Department of Health to seek redress of grievance in the matter of the Pelletier sewage permit which was the subject of the letters Holt gave to Fiorino (RCA-270) as alleged proof that PLAINTIFF was allegedly mentally ill.

Presumably, at the time Braaten executed the 9.45 order on August 22, 2001, he had read these letters, as they were a vital part of the "evidence" against PLAINTIFF that allegedly "supported" the "objective reasonableness" of Braaten's actions on August 22, 2001 (Appellant's Appendix, A-20,para.12;A-26,paras.7,8) and he had witnessed the assault of PLAINTIFF by Pelletier in the videotape, and so, it was with intent to cause harm to PLAINTIFF that Braaten executed the 9.45 order, where he had no objective evidence before him other than that PLAINTIFF was exactly what he said he was, an honest competent licensed engineer in the State of New York performing his duty (RCA-235,236,paras.5-9) with respect to a Board of Regents requirement for ALL licensed engineers in the State of New York, pursuant to section 29.3 of the Rules of the Board of Regents governing professional practice of engineers in the State of New York, to police the profession, 24/7.

In this case, the only conclusion that the established facts allow for, is that on August 22, 2001, Fiorino and Braaten combined with Holt for the express purpose of preventing PLAINTIFF from going forward with his lawsuit against Rensselaer County in a timely manner, which is exactly what ended up happening, to PLAINTIFF's detriment.

That is a tactic that the County of Rensselaer employed to deny PLAINTIFF equal protection and due process of law pursuant to the Constitution of the State of New York, and in their briefs, appellees are praying this Court to place its imprimatur on this tactic by immunizing Timothy Holt, Carol Fiorino, John Christian Braaten, and Andrea Gallerie, finding that under the circumstances as they are presented by the facts in this specific matter, the actions of Holt, Fiorino, Braaten and Gallerie were objectively reasonable as a matter of law, pursuant to this Court in Glass v. Mayas, 984 F.2d. 55,58 (2nd. Cir. 1993).

DATED: July 21, 2005

Respectfully submitted,
Appellant Pro Se

[Livyjr]

"Judge's robes an ill fit for district attorney? - Patricia DeAngelis' star has risen quickly, but some question her pursuit of justice" 
 
By MICHELE MORGAN BOLTON, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Tuesday, July 26, 2005

"No one is ever held accountable in Rensselaer County for anything," said Troy attorney Michael Rourke, a Democrat who is running for a seat on the County Legislature.

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

As can be readily discerned from a review of page 455 of the extensive Appendix ("RCA") Rensselaer County State Actors Kathleen Jimino, Joseph Cybulski, Timothy Holt, Denise Ayers, NYSRPN, Roy Champagne, Robert Reiter, Kevin Joseph McGrath, NYSLS, and Carl Richard Aiken, NYSPE, have submitted to this Court pursuant to Appellate Rule 30(b)(1) in support of the issues Rensselaer County State Actors are presenting this Court for review in this appeal, the facts before the Court in the appeal are few, they are simple, and they are conceded by appellees. 

Nor are they challenged by Appellant. 

According to those facts, on August 7, 2001 (RCA-235- 238,paras.5-17), appellee Jeffrey Pelletier assaulted PLAINTIFF on Liberty Lane in the Town of Poestenkill, Rensselaer County, State of New York for the express purpose (RCA-237,para.13) of denying PLAINTIFF rights, privileges and immunities guaranteed to PLAINTIFF by the United States Constitution, and 18 USC 1512(b) & 1513(b) of the laws of the United States. 

18 USC 1512(b) of the laws of the United States, entitled "[b]Tampering with a witness", states in relevant part to this appeal that "whoever knowingly uses intimidation or physical force, threatens, or corruptly persuades another person, or attempts to do so, or engages in misleading conduct toward another person, with intent to, (1) influence, delay, or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding; (2) cause or induce any person to - (A) withhold testimony, or withhold a record, document, or other object, from an official proceeding; (B) alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal an object with intent to impair the object's integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding ....... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both."[/b] 

"If you want to kill someone, do it in Rensselaer County, you can get away with it there!"

And so goes an old local adage, although I don't think it was just local, but who ever does know .......

As to getting away with other things, like assault and perjury, and making and filing false instruments, well, those things you can most certainly get away with up here, and so, people do!

Which makes me wonder why we bother having laws up here, since they are nothing but a joke, by and large, as this latest twist in this case proves, to me, anyway .......

And that brings up a question I was asked earlier about whether the District Court Judge in this matter under discussion in here ever bothered to know any of this before he rendered his decision on March 31, 2005, that the mysterious "reliable source" Dr. John Christian Braaten of Samaritan Hospital was relying on for his own diagnosis in this case, since he did not know the PLAINTIFF from Adam, and in fact, had never seen the PLAINTIFF in his life; who Braaten was relying on for his medical advice was in fact the guy responsible for keeping the rest rooms clean in the Rensselaer County Office Building and the trash taken out, and I would have to say that I doubt it, because so far as I know, and so far as the voluminous record shows, the District Court Judge was never told who the "reliable source" was, only that there supposedly was one, and that apparently was good enough for him, because he never bothered to ask!

And who knows why that was?

Perhaps it is because these were fellow REPUBLICANS, or maybe the Judge doesn't like "law and order" types such as the PLAINTIFF in this matter, or maybe he was having a bad hair day, but whatever motivated the District Court Judge to not bother asking who it was in the Rensselaer County Office Building who had determined that this particular licensed professional engineer was supposed to be mentally ill and dangerous to the point of needing to be immediately incarcerated in the secure mental facility of the Samaritan Hospital in Troy, New York, based on nothing more than the say-so of the head of custodians for the Rensselaer County Office Building is lost on us, and if LAW is to be LAW, it shouldn't be that way, is my thought.

IF law is to really be law, then is should be understandable by the commonest of common people, and when a Judge makes a determination, the wisdom of that determination should be there for all the candid world to see, and when it is not, and obviously so, as in this case, then the "law" is nothing but a mockery, and that is not good for "order" in the land, which should be the only purpose of having law and regulation in the first place, which is for the COMMON GOOD, and not for the special benefit of a privileged few, like Jeffrey Pelletier in this case, who has been "immunized" by the Court in this matter, even though he not only admitted to, but actually openly bragged about being able to assault the PLAINTIFF in this matter in broad daylight to intimidate him as a witness, and Pelletier would be able to walk away, scot-free, as was exactly the case, here, on March 31, 2005, when Pelletier received his "immunity" from the Federal District Court in Albany, New York, despite the fact that it was a federal criminal statute that he was allegedly in violation of, and the District Court Judge had a statement from Rensselaer County Criminal Court Justice Patrick McGrath attesting to that very fact.

"Looks like the BIG JUDGE just tore the head right off your little judge, there, Livyjr, and ****ed right down his neck, is what it looks like to me, now get outta here with your law and order drivel, before I do the same to you!"

That is where we are up here, right now, and from OUR perspective, it is a bleak situation!

"In Rensselaer County in the State of New York, the law is a joke, and everybody knows it!"

Pass it on!

[Livyjr]

If out of fear, you don't say a word to the public officials involved, because you believe, or KNOW that they will immediately retaliate, and then you go to court to challenge the action, you will simply be tossed out of court, for a failure to have given proper notice, beforehand.

If you stand up and give the notice, then you won't make it to court, or when you do, you will be greeted, as was the initial case with this matter, which started out in Albany County Supreme Court in front of Hon. Joseph Cannizarro, with the charge that you are mentally ill, and dangerous, and thus, you will be thrown out of court, with sanctions.

And who is ever going to know, or say a word?

The courts?

The New York State Attorney General?

The Governor?

Joe Bruno, the head of the New York State Senate?

"Judge's robes an ill fit for district attorney? - Patricia DeAngelis' star has risen quickly, but some question her pursuit of justice" 
 
By MICHELE MORGAN BOLTON, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Tuesday, July 26, 2005

TROY -- Patricia DeAngelis' courtroom career began when she was a little girl, banging her father's gavel in his Bethlehem Town Court and sentencing pretend criminals to prison.

Two years ago, at age 34, she abruptly became Rensselaer County's acting district attorney when her former boss, Kenneth R. Bruno, resigned to make more money as a lobbyist.

Now, the young district attorney is being handpicked once again.

Republican sources privately say that DeAngelis has been chosen as the dominant party's candidate for a new Rensselaer County judgeship authorized by the state Legislature last month.

The new judge will begin a 10-year term in January with the same $119,800 salary as the district attorney.

However, just as privately, dozens of people in the local legal community are questioning whether DeAngelis is cut out to wear a black robe.

They cite what they call a tendency for overzealous prosecution.

They question her honesty.

The judge said he had no idea then DeAngelis was showing an interest in the law.

"I thought," he said, "she was more interested in the gum ball machine out in the hall."

"Perish the thought - Rensselaer County District Attorney DeAngelis' record does not qualify her to become a judge"

EDITORIAL, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Thursday, July 28, 2005

Judge Patricia DeAngelis.

Say that out loud a couple of times and feel the disappointment swell.

Ms. DeAngelis, 34, and just two years into her job as Rensselaer County district attorney, is on the fast track to a 10-year term as a county judge.

That should put a chill down the spine of anyone living, working or even passing through Rensselaer County.

Most people expect judges to be successful lawyers who are chosen because of their wisdom, maturity and mental acuity.

We expect a certain gravitas that most often is gained only through age and experience.

Ms. DeAngelis would bring none of that to the bench.

As a county prosecutor, Ms. DeAngelis has been something of a loose cannon.

Three times in the past two years she has seen convictions reversed on appeal, once with the higher court scolding her for prosecutorial misconduct.

She's also been admonished for prosecutorial misconduct related to a grand jury proceeding in 1998, when she was an assistant DA, and has been hit with a formal letter of caution from the court system's Committee on Professional Standards for inappropriate courtroom antics.

She's tried to make her bones as a hard-as-nails prosecutor who's tough on crime, but that's not gone well.

In one high-profile case she threw compassion to the wind in demanding a 20-year prison sentence for a troubled teenager who clearly needed mental health treatment rather than incarceration.

Her many critics in the area's legal community tend to use words such as overzealous and inexperienced when asked about her.

Nor can she claim a great record as the administrator of a significant county department.

Of the 15 assistant district attorneys she inherited, only five remain with the office.

Happy partings were few, and one has a pending wrongful termination lawsuit.

So what makes Ms. DeAngelis a prime candidate for black robes and a $119,800-a-year salary?

Loyalty to the local political machine known as the Bruno family, and its subsidiary, the Rensselaer County Republican Party.

Ken Bruno, son of Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, was the DA when Ms. DeAngelis began her swift climb to the top.

In 2003, he handed her the prosecutor's job when he left mid-term to become a lobbyist.

Two years later, the Bruno organization appears ready to again favor Ms. DeAngelis with a tasty patronage plum.

Exactly why the Brunos think she deserves it remains unclear.

The only thing we know for sure is that she hasn't earned it as a fair broker of justice for the people.

[Livyjr]

The other day, on Clear Channels Radio, I heard one of Rush Limbaugh's minions telling a listener that United States Senator John Kerry HAD NO RIGHT WHATSOEVER to be asking for any of the writings of this newest Supreme Court nominee, because in the words of this minion, John Kerry had failed to turn over all of his military records, and all I could do at hearing this was wonder at how this minion and those who get their guidance on how OUR government is supposed to function from people like Rush Limbaugh, actually do think OUR government works, when people like him, the minion, that is, and Rush Limbaugh, apparently, get to decide who in OUR government should be afforded the opportunity to be able to make an informed decision, and who does not, like John Kerry, for instance, who apparently does not have a right to know who it is he is voting for, when he goes to cast his vote for OUR next Supreme Court Justice, who is supposed to be interpreting OUR Constitution, for the greater good, here in OUR America.

SO!

What I want to do to counter this purveying of ignorance by the pound by the Limbaugh-ites, is to go to the Annotations of the United States Constitution, for Article I, the Legislative Branch, and I want to conduct a little American history seminar in here, while we are waiting for further action from New York State Attorney General Eliot "Big EL" Spitzer in this other matter under discussion in here, which is this appeal.

Section 1. Legislative Powers

SEPARATION OF POWERS AND CHECKS AND BALANCES

The Constitution nowhere contains an express injunction to preserve the boundaries of the three broad powers it grants, nor does it expressly enjoin maintenance of a system of checks and balances.

Yet, it does grant to three separate branches the powers to legislate, to execute, and to adjudicate, and it provides throughout the document the means by which each of the branches could resist the blandishments and incursions of the others.

The Framers drew up our basic charter against a background rich in the theorizing of scholars and statesmen regarding the proper ordering in a system of government of conferring sufficient power to govern while withholding the ability to abridge the liberties of the governed.

The Theory Elaborated and Implemented

When the colonies separated from Great Britain following the Revolution, the framers of their constitutions were imbued with the profound tradition of separation of powers, and they freely and expressly embodied in their charters the principle.

(Thus the Constitution of Virginia of 1776 provided: ''The legislative, executive, and judiciary department shall be separate and distinct, so that neither exercise the powers properly belonging to the other; nor shall any person exercise the powers of more than one of them, at the same time[.]" Reprinted in 10 W. Swindler (ed.), Sources and Documents of United States Constitutions (1979), 52. See also 5 id., 96, Art. XXX of Part First, Massachusetts Constitution of 1780: ''In the government of this commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them; the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them; the judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them; to the end it may be a government of laws, and not of men.'')

But the theory of checks and balances was not favored because it was drawn from Great Britain, and, as a consequence, violations of the separation-of-powers doctrine by the legislatures of the States were common place events prior to the convening of the Convention.

('In republican government the legislative authority, necessarily, predominates.'' The Federalist No. 51 (J. Cooke ed. 1961), 350 (Madison). See also id., No. 48, 332-334. This theme continues today to influence the Court's evaluation of congressional initiatives. E.g., Metropolitan Washington Airports Auth. v. Citizens for the Abatement of Aircraft Noise, 501 S.Ct. 252, 273-2274, 277 (1991). But compare id., 286 n. 3 (Justice White dissenting).)

As much as theory did the experience of the States furnish guidance to the Framers in the summer of 1787.

(The intellectual history through the state period and the Convention proceedings is detailed in G. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 (1969) (see index entries under ''separation of powers'').)

The doctrine of separation of powers, as implemented in drafting the Constitution, was based on several principles generally held: the separation of government into three branches, legislative, executive, and judicial; the conception that each branch performs unique and identifiable functions that are appropriate to each; and the limitation of the personnel of each branch to that branch, so that no one person or group should be able to serve in more than one branch simultaneously.

To a great extent, the Constitution effectuated these principles, but critics objected to what they regarded as a curious intermixture of functions, to, for example, the veto power of the President over legislation and to the role of the Senate in the appointment of executive officers and judges and in the treaty-making process.

It was to these objections that Madison turned in a powerful series of essays. 5

(The Federalist Nos. 47-51 (J. Cooke ed. 1961), 323-353 (Madison).)

Madison recurred to ''the celebrated'' Montesquieu, the ''oracle who is always consulted,'' to disprove the contentions of the critics.

''[T]his essential precaution in favor of liberty,'' that is, the separation of the three great functions of government had been achieved, but the doctrine did not demand rigid separation.

Montesquieu and other theorists ''did not mean that these departments ought to have no partial agency in, or controul over, the acts of each other,'' but rather liberty was endangered ''where the whole power of one department is exercised by the same hands which possess the whole power of another department.''

That the doctrine did not demand absolute separation provided the basis for preservation of separation of powers in action.

Neither sharply drawn demarcations of institutional boundaries nor appeals to the electorate were sufficient.

Instead, the security against concentration of powers ''consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others.''

Thus, ''[a]mbition must be made to counteract ambition."

"The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.''

Institutional devices to achieve these principles pervade the Constitution.

Bicameralism reduces legislative predominance, while the presidential veto gives to the Chief Magistrate a means of defending himself and of preventing congressional overreaching.

The Senate's role in appointments and treaties checks the President.

The courts are assured independence through good behavior tenure and security of compensation, and the judges through judicial review will check the other two branches.

The impeachment power gives to Congress the authority to root out corruption and abuse of power in the other two branches.

And so on.

To be continued ......

[Livyjr]

To a great extent, the Constitution effectuated these principles, but critics objected to what they regarded as a curious intermixture of functions, to, for example, the veto power of the President over legislation and to the role of the Senate in the appointment of executive officers and judges and in the treaty-making process.

It was to these objections that Madison turned in a powerful series of essays. 

(The Federalist Nos. 47-51 (J. Cooke ed. 1961), 323-353 (Madison).)

Madison recurred to ''the celebrated'' Montesquieu, the ''oracle who is always consulted,'' to disprove the contentions of the critics.

''[T]his essential precaution in favor of liberty,'' that is, the separation of the three great functions of government had been achieved, but the doctrine did not demand rigid separation.

Montesquieu and other theorists ''did not mean that these departments ought to have no partial agency in, or controul over, the acts of each other,'' but rather liberty was endangered ''where the whole power of one department is exercised by the same hands which possess the whole power of another department.'' 

That the doctrine did not demand absolute separation provided the basis for preservation of separation of powers in action.

Neither sharply drawn demarcations of institutional boundaries nor appeals to the electorate were sufficient. 

Instead, the security against concentration of powers ''consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others.''

Thus, ''[a]mbition must be made to counteract ambition."

"The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.''   

Institutional devices to achieve these principles pervade the Constitution.

Bicameralism reduces legislative predominance, while the presidential veto gives to the Chief Magistrate a means of defending himself and of preventing congressional overreaching.

The Senate's role in appointments and treaties checks the President.

The courts are assured independence through good behavior tenure and security of compensation, and the judges through judicial review will check the other two branches.

The impeachment power gives to Congress the authority to root out corruption and abuse of power in the other two branches.

And so on.

SO!

In answer to the Limbaugh-ite minion on Clear Channels WORLDWIDE RADIO the other day, IF John Kerry IS a United States Senator, and he is, THEN .....

Pursuant to OUR United States Constitution, which is not something that either Clear Channels or Rush Limbaugh can strip us of, AS A UNITED STATES SENATOR, John Kerry has vested directly in him, HIS OFFICE, his official "public identity", A RESPONSIBILITY, to us, the American people, to see that corruption DOES NOT enter into ANY of the DEPARTMENTS of OUR government over here, and that would start with the JUDICIARY, and the time to start that process of rooting out corruption in the DEPARTMENTS of OUR government is RIGHT EXACTLY NOW - at the CONFIRMATION STAGE, where those called, but not qualified, can be weeded out before they have a chance to do real harm, here in OUR America.

YOU KEEP CORRUPTION OUT OF GOVERNMENT BY HAVING A DILIGENT SENATE THAT DOES NOT LET IT IN, despite the very best efforts of the DOMINANT PARTY to have it be so, by whatever wiles, or threats, or inducements, are necessary for the DOMINANT PARTY to affect its ends, taking effective control of ALL DEPARTMENTS of OUR federal government, to our detriment, especially to the extent that Karl Rove is a direct policy-maker in OUR government.

That is the job of OUR United States Senate - to keep corruption out of OUR government, by not letting it in!

They are not there to be a lapdog to George W. Bush, licking his hand and curling around his feet, waiting for him to throw them a little treat!

They are not there to merely give him what he wants, to simply swoon and acquiesce, as though George W. Bush were the living re-incarnation of Caesar Augustus, himself!

OUR United States Senate is there to keep corruption OUT of OUR government, and by God, that is what they should be doing, 24/7, and especially so, in this case of a United States Supreme Court Justice nominated out of a process that included Karl Rove as one of its key policy people!

Right now, Karl Rove and other key administration people are embroiled in a very public controversy involving possible criminal conduct on the part of Rove and other key administration personnel, and there is a Federal Grand Jury taking testimony in the case, where a news reporter has been jailed for contempt, and that case is sure to at some point involve the United States Supreme Court, as it deals directly with the Office of the President, where Rove sits, and so, the idea of Karl Rove having any hand at all in picking the Supreme Court Justice who might well sit in judgment of Rove is very unsettling to me, anyway, and so, I have stated that here, for all the candid world to see!

Any attempts by this White House in particular to stonewall OUR Senate with regard to providing background on this nomineee should be looked at by EVERY American as an attempt to keep something important from public scutiny regarding this person's background, and therefore, ability, to remain above the taint of corruption that is constantly licking and curling at the bootheels of those who have public office, here in OUR America, and that alone should serve as a DISQUALIFIER!

"Sorry, but we have rules here!"

"When you feel you can be more open with the American people, ALL of the American people, and not just those who quaff from the cup of Rush Limbaugh, and his, then, come on back, and try again!"

"Thanks for coming!"

"NEXT!"

[Livyjr]

The impeachment power gives to Congress the authority to root out corruption and abuse of power in the other two branches.

And so on.

"Roberts Was Ready at Every Turn"

By Richard A. Serrano, David G. Savage and Richard B. Schmitt, LA Times Staff Writers

Mon Jul 25, 7:55 AM ET

WASHINGTON — Three Republican presidents have shepherded him at the White House.

Two powerful federal judges have mentored him in the law.

And one of the capital's most prestigious law firms helped make him a millionaire.

At every step in his 25-year legal career in Washington, it seems good fortune has traveled with him.

Even his first appearance in the nation's capital, where as a young man he'd walk each morning from his cramped Capitol Hill apartment to his new job as a Supreme Court clerk, could not have been timed more fortuitously.

The year was 1980, the dawn of the Reagan revolution.

His boss was William H. Rehnquist, the future chief justice of the United States.

And for a young conservative, bright but conforming, modest and deeply religious, a workaholic content with weekends in the office, the only son of a steel plant manager, raised on the shore of Lake Michigan, John G. Roberts Jr. had arrived.

A quarter-century later, Harvard-educated and Washington-trained, at age 50 he now stands on the brink of where he seems to have been headed all along.

President Bush nominated him last week to the Supreme Court.

"Opportunity is important."

"Chance is important," said Rep. John Barrow (D-Ga.), a classmate of Roberts at Harvard Law School.

"But opportunity and chance also favor the prepared mind."

"And he's clearly the kind of person who was prepared to serve."

Others reflect on the trim, smiling, blue-eyed lawyer, the dark-suited conservative who married and became a father later in life, the friend who is hard to pull away from his law books for an occasional game of golf, and recall someone who meticulously molded himself into the perfect nominee.

He covered every base: Clerking for Rehnquist.

Working for the Reagan White House counsel.

Deputy solicitor general under President George H.W. Bush.

A lawyer with more than three dozen appearances before the Supreme Court.

A seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

At Harvard he majored in history, but smoothly turned to the law.

He found it better suited his analytical interests.

William J. Kayatta Jr. worked under Roberts on the Harvard Law Review in the late 1970s.

"When you walk in the door of the Law Review office on your first day, the stairs are on your left," Kayatta said.

"As you go up the steps, to your left along the wall begins this long line of pictures and each picture is a class portrait of each year's Law Review staff."

"Underneath each picture are the names."

"Felix Frankfurter."

"Learned Hand."

"By the time you get upstairs on your first day you have this sense of, like, wow."

"Kids going up those stairs are going to stop at our class picture."

Case of the Orange

Roberts was born in Buffalo, N.Y., and raised in tiny Long Beach, Ind.

His father ran the electrical department at the local Bethlehem Steel plant.

The devout Roman Catholic family — Roberts, his parents and his three sisters — shared a brown split-level brick home near the lake.

At La Lumiere, a rigorous, Catholic-sponsored boys prep school nearby, he sported thick brown hair and the traditional plaid pants, long-sleeve sweater and dark tie.

But he found ways to stand out.

He studied Latin and classical literature.

He captained the school football team, despite his small size and clunky feet.

He waited tables at the school dining hall.

Summers he hauled cables for his father at the steel mill.

Two episodes from his youth say as much about the boy as the man.

To gain admittance to La Lumiere, the 13-year-old wrote a letter in December 1968 that was remarkable for its drive and focus.

"I won't be content to get a good job by getting a good education," it said in part, written in neat, evenly spaced cursive letters.

"I want to get the best job by getting the best education."

There was another young John in those days too, the one at the Notre Dame Catholic elementary school in Michigan City, Ind., who one day found himself sitting in the principal's office.

His parents were called in and John was asked to explain how an orange had come to be smashed against the freshly painted cafeteria wall.

"Did you throw the orange?" his parents asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Did it hit the wall?"

"Yes."

"It splattered all over the place."

"But it wasn't my fault."

His parents looked confused.

"You threw the orange."

"You hit the wall."

"But it wasn't your fault?"

He explained: "Tommy ducked."

"It's Tommy's fault."

"I had no intention of hitting the wall."

"I had every intention of hitting him in the face."

Young John Roberts, already the litigator.

Bob MacLaverty, a school chum of Roberts and now a Chicago banker, loves that story.

"It's so perfectly John," he said.

"His mind and his sense of reason are so organized and logical."

"So of course it wasn't his fault."

A Legal Natural

Roberts graduated summa cum laude at Harvard in 1976 after just three years and entered the law school that fall.

He was chosen managing editor of the Harvard Law Review, which meant a full course load burdened with another 40 to 50 hours a week editing submissions from law professors and others.

Stephen H. Galebach, a classmate who worked for Roberts at the review, recalled that Roberts' hair was often long and unkempt — not to be fashionable but because he'd forgotten to visit the barber.

His thoughts drifted elsewhere.

To the law, Galebach said.

"He was just a natural at it."

All this was mere preparation for real life, and the nation's smartest law graduates were frantically applying for clerkships.

"Our highest aspirations at that time were just to clerk for a good judge," Galebach said.

"John got the chance to clerk twice."

Roberts' bosses were two of the most esteemed judges in the country.

The first was U.S. Circuit Judge Henry J. Friendly in New York, a taskmaster who expected his clerks to be versed on every nuance of every case that reached his bench.

Roberts' roommate at the time, a fellow Harvard Law alum named Charles Davidow who was clerking for a different judge, said Roberts' apprenticeship was a double-edged sword.

The position was coveted because of Friendly's exalted reputation but was also tough.

Yet the more demanding, the more Roberts learned.

Friendly "was the gold standard," Davidow said.

"It was one of the most intellectually rigorous clerkships around."

Roberts made just $19,000 a year.

The window of their dismal apartment on New York's East Side looked out on the Bellevue mental hospital.

Roberts had no car, little social life and, frankly, Davidow said, only one interest: the law.

So he was a nerd?

"No, I don't perceive it that way," Davidow said.

"He was reasonably quiet, not a big partyer."

"He was a fairly conservative kind of guy."

"A terrific sense of humor."

"Very dry."

"He tended to appreciate the absurdity of things."

"He was understated."

"He was clever."

In 1980 Roberts moved to Washington to work for Rehnquist, then an associate justice on the Supreme Court, appointed by President Nixon.

Reagan's conservatism was beginning to catch on.

But Roberts kept his head down.

His friends remember him as more the budding lawyer than the young politico, more interested in the law than the political process.

The image that sticks with his friends is of Roberts walking studiously each morning to the Supreme Court, single-minded, almost unaware of America's great political shift to the right.

Another Harvard pal, Richard J. Lazarus, who shared the small Capitol Hill apartment with him, can recall Roberts letting down his guard only once.

At an election-year party in their apartment, Lazarus, a Democrat, placed a toy donkey on the television set.

Roberts put up an elephant.

The elephant, of course, won by a landslide.

Memos Show Style

There was no better place for a young conservative lawyer than the new White House counsel's office.

The country was changing, and on many of the day's issues he found himself in a position not only to speak up, but to make a difference.

In memos to the administration, he often exhibited a bit of flair.

He mocked a Georgia Democratic congressman who proposed to Reagan a "conference on power sharing" after a 1983 Supreme Court ruling limited Congress' power to oversee federal regulations.

"There already has, of course, been a 'conference on power sharing,' " Roberts wrote.

"It took place in Philadelphia's Constitution Hall in 1787."

Roberts also took a dim view of several civil rights proposals.

He endorsed an anti-busing bill sponsored by then-Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.).

The government had taken the position that Congress could not limit court-ordered busing as a remedy for school segregation.

Roberts disagreed, saying the evidence showed that "busing promotes segregation rather than remedying it, by precipitating white flight."

The legislation went nowhere.

But he saved his greatest scorn for a proposal by then-Chief Justice Warren E. Burger to create an intermediate appeals court to relieve an overworked Supreme Court.

"My own view is [it] is a terrible idea," Roberts wrote.

"If the justices truly think they are overworked, the cure lies close at hand."

Then he added, in a remark that he might have cause to rethink:

"While some of the tales of woe emanating from the court are enough to bring tears to the eyes, it is true that only Supreme Court justices and schoolchildren expect to and do take the entire summer off."

Before Court, Flashcards

Roberts left the White House in 1986 for private practice with the firm Hogan & Hartson, not far from the White House.

He was 31.

But when George H.W. Bush was elected to succeed Reagan, the White House tapped Roberts to be chief deputy to Solicitor Gen. Kenneth W. Starr.

Roberts and Starr led a small team of conservative lawyers who were determined to overturn Roe vs. Wade and to restore some form of prayer to public schools.

Roberts' work for Starr is the period Senate Democrats are most likely to scrutinize, because it was the one time he advocated before the Supreme Court major changes in the law.

He did so as an attorney representing the administration's position.

The legal position taken by Starr's office that is most often quoted is: "Roe vs. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overruled."

When senators a decade later asked about the office's stance in that case, Roberts replied that his personal views weren't necessarily the same as his client's.

In a case from Rhode Island, Starr and Roberts defended a school principal's decision to invite a cleric to give a graduation invocation.

They argued that a "ceremonial acknowledgment of religion" in public schools or government buildings should be upheld.

To its surprise, the Bush administration lost both Supreme Court cases even though eight of the nine justices were Republican appointees.

Roberts' years at the Justice Department meant frequent appearances before the Supreme Court, though typically in mundane cases and often only for 10-minute arguments.

But one episode stood out.

Robert Long, a young assistant to Starr in 1990, was to argue a case before the Supreme Court.

But the Friday before the Monday argument, he learned that his application to the Supreme Court bar had not yet been approved.

A court clerk phoned to say: "You'd better send somebody else up here."

Long had spent weeks preparing for the case, which involved a subtle point of federal bankruptcy law.

Roberts was selected as last-minute stand-in for the expert, even though he was scheduled to handle a separate argument before the federal appeals court the same day.

Roberts spent the weekend boning up on the case, handled the arguments in both courts and won both cases.

In 1992, Roberts experienced a rare setback in a career marked by distinguished and relentless advancement: His presidential nomination to the federal appeals court fell victim to the election of Bill Clinton and was never acted upon.

"It is the kind of opportunity you are not sure will ever come back."

"To be that close and not have it materialize … it was quite a disappointment," former law partner David Leitch said.

"I think it deepened his resolve" to develop a "top-notch Supreme Court litigation practice."

Which he did.

Returning to Hogan & Hartson, he continued to appear frequently before the Supreme Court.

Most of his cases were business disputes.

They brought to 39 the number of cases he argued before the high court, about half of them as a private lawyer and the rest for the government.

In 1994, he represented the owners of a barge that had punched a hole in a tunnel, flooding buildings.

The next year, he represented a nearly bankrupt options trader who wanted an arbitrator, not a court, to decide how much he owed.

He represented an insurance company against policyholders.

But if his cases were not particularly dazzling, Roberts gained the respect of lawyers who followed the court.

"When I was a clerk [at the Supreme Court], we would rate the lawyers, sort of as a parlor game."

"And consensus among the clerks was that Roberts was one of the two or three best oral advocates," said Bradford Berenson, a Washington lawyer who used to work for the current Bush administration.

"He was very smooth, low-key, confident and substantive."

"He was masterful at answering the justices' questions and using them to make his points."

Lawyers at the Supreme Court do not make dramatic arguments like those before a jury.

Rather, they stand before the nine justices and mostly answer their questions.

The difficulty is holding firm amid the barrage.

His arguments were "difficult to tear apart," former law partner Gregory Garre said.

"To do that over and over, where you might have gotten 50 questions from different justices, was what made John extraordinary."

Roberts was known for intense preparation, making dozens of notecards.

He tried to think up every possible question a justice might throw at him, writing that on one side.

On the other side, he'd note an answer to bolster his position.

He would then "shuffle them up and continuously go through them," Garre said.

He would also conduct moot courts to practice his argument.

Roberts was skilled in making a position sound eminently reasonable — even in cases where many thought it wasn't.

One such example was his defense of a Hawaiian statute that said only members of the racial class of "Native Hawaiians" could vote in certain statewide elections.

He argued that native traditions should take precedence over the rights of citizens rendered ineligible to vote.

The Supreme Court ultimately held that the statute violated the 15th Amendment prohibition against racial classifications in voting — although Roberts won the votes of two justices.

"John, as an advocate, was the sort of ultimate reasonable man standing up there, reassuring everyone that his position had no dangerous implications," said Roy T. Englert Jr., a former assistant solicitor general.

"Now, as a judge, he has a different job, and it is his job not to hide any dangerous implications."

During his years in private practice, Roberts' personal world changed.

Concerned about his lack of a social life, friends fixed him up with a blind date at the Delaware shore.

She was Jane Sullivan, an Irish Catholic from the Bronx and, like him, a corporate lawyer in Washington.

In 1996, they wed at St. Patrick's Church in Washington.

At the reception, guests recalled, they were already talking about a family.

Both were in their 40s, and both devout Catholics.

Jane Sullivan Roberts has been active in the antiabortion movement, a fact that some on both sides of the issue take to mean that John Roberts also opposes abortion.

When no children came along, they declined to take special fertility measures, friends said, and instead turned to adoption.

Their first attempts failed, some heartbreakingly at the last minute.

"But they never became depressed or bitter," said one of Jane's closest friends, who remembers going to a dinner party at their home right after one of the adoption attempts fell through.

"They were always sure it was going to work out."

"They bore it as a very strong couple."

They prevailed at last several years ago, becoming the parents of two babies from separate birth mothers: Josie, now 5, and Jack, 4.

Hitting All the Notes

In 2003, Roberts joined the D.C. Court of Appeals, a 10-member court that is often called the nation's second-highest court because legal challenges to federal regulations are often filed in Washington.

But the court offers relatively few clues for those trying to predict how a judge would behave on the high court.

Unlike other appellate courts, the D.C. circuit rarely gets involved in controversies such as the death penalty, abortion, religion or gay rights.

And generally, the judges agree on the result.

Last week, a statistical analysis by two legal researchers found that of the 191 cases Roberts had ruled on, he had voted slightly more often with two Clinton appointees than with the court's most conservative Reagan appointee.

He agreed with Judge Merrick Garland 95% of the time and Judge David Tatel 94% of the time, while he agreed slightly less often (92%) with Judge David Sentelle, a Reagan appointee.

But Roberts has shown a willingness to back the Bush White House in disputes involving national security and the war on terrorism.

Last year, he was part of a 3-0 ruling that threw out a nearly $1-billion verdict won by 17 former U.S. prisoners of war who had sued Iraq for torture and abuse during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

In a separate opinion, Roberts said he agreed that the president had the authority to cancel such verdicts because the U.S. now controlled Iraq.

Two weeks ago, he was part of a 3-0 ruling that the Geneva Convention does not protect the "enemy combatants" being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

When Roberts appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee this summer, he will argue why he should be confirmed.

But this time, he will be attorney and client both.

The record suggests he will acquit himself well.

There was speculation that the president would name a woman, or perhaps a Latino, to the post.

But in the end, it was Roberts who filled the White House criteria, lawyer Berenson says:

"Exceptional intellect."

"Exceptional temperament."

"A conservative judicial philosophy."

"Youth and confirmability."

"He had all those things, and I doubt there was another candidate who did."

Times staff writers P.J. Hufstutter, Catherine Saillant and Henry Weinstein contributed to this report.

[Livyjr]

"Roberts Was Ready at Every Turn"

By Richard A. Serrano, David G. Savage and Richard B. Schmitt, LA Times Staff Writers

Mon Jul 25, 7:55 AM ET

There was another young John in those days too, the one at the Notre Dame Catholic elementary school in Michigan City, Ind., who one day found himself sitting in the principal's office.

His parents were called in and John was asked to explain how an orange had come to be smashed against the freshly painted cafeteria wall.

"Did you throw the orange?" his parents asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Did it hit the wall?"

"Yes."

"It splattered all over the place."

"But it wasn't my fault."

His parents looked confused.

"You threw the orange."

"You hit the wall."

"But it wasn't your fault?"

He explained: "Tommy ducked."

"It's Tommy's fault."

"I had no intention of hitting the wall."

"I had every intention of hitting him in the face."

Young John Roberts, already the litigator.

Bob MacLaverty, a school chum of Roberts and now a Chicago banker, loves that story.

"It's so perfectly John," he said.

"His mind and his sense of reason are so organized and logical."

"So of course it wasn't his fault."

When I read these words above, as an older Conservative American, I must say that I find them off-putting, to be truthful, and they make me wonder about this person's judicial temperament, especially when called upon, time and time again, as a United States Supreme Court Justice, to determine where rights really belong, when his philosophy in this vignette above was clearly that rules somehow did not apply to him, and so, it could not have been his fault, EVEN THOUGH HE WAS THE ADMITTED PERPETRATOR!

"Oh, no, it wasn't me, I' m no crook!"

Just like Dick Nixxon, somehow!

Unsettling!

Discomforting!

A good lawyer, perhaps, but a Supreme Court Justice?

I would say a very weak choice, where character counts so much as it does in OUR United States Supreme Court!

[Livyjr]

"Roberts Was Ready at Every Turn"

By Richard A. Serrano, David G. Savage and Richard B. Schmitt, LA Times Staff Writers

Mon Jul 25, 7:55 AM ET

"I had no intention of hitting the wall."

"I had every intention of hitting him in the face."

Young John Roberts, already the litigator.

Bob MacLaverty, a school chum of Roberts and now a Chicago banker, loves that story.

"It's so perfectly John," he said.

"His mind and his sense of reason are so organized and logical."

"So of course it wasn't his fault."

Lawyer's tricks, versus the law!

And what should it really be all about?

Lawyer's tricks?

Or the law?

And who should determine which prevails?

A lawyer?

Or a man, or woman, who can sit up there on the bench, wearing the black robes, who is without partisanship, and who does not indulge the lawyers, and their tricks?

[Livyjr]

"Oh, no, it wasn't me, I' m no crook!"

Just like Dick Nixxon, somehow!

Unsettling!

Discomforting!

A good lawyer, perhaps, but a Supreme Court Justice?

Updated: 10:11 AM EDT

"Debating the Subtle Sway of the Federalist Society"

By JASON DePARLE, The New York Times

The Federalist Society can boast of members like Kenneth Starr, left, but the White House insisted John Roberts is not a member.

WASHINGTON (July 31) - "I am a member of the Federalist Society, and I do not know, quite frankly, what it stands for."

The transcript does not say whether people in the Senate hearing room responded with disbelief.

But that is how one person headed for a top job in the Justice Department, Viet D. Dinh, described his relationship with the society, a conservative legal group whose influence is the source of ever-swelling myth, mystery, insinuation, denial and debate.

In a new Washington ritual, President Bush has repeatedly drawn from the Federalist Society for cabinet members, senior aides and judges.

And perhaps to deflect what many conservatives call unfair attacks by liberals, the nominees have repeatedly claimed to know little about the group's beliefs.

White House aides have worked hard to put distance between the society and John G. Roberts, the federal appeals judge Mr. Bush has nominated for the Supreme Court.

They have even demanded corrections from newspapers that identified him as a member.

Then an old directory surfaced last week, listing Judge Roberts as part of one of the group's steering committees.

The White House spokesmen clung to their line; since Judge Roberts had not, apparently, written a $25 membership check, he was not a formal member.

Who cares?

Lots of people, it seems, because a fight over the influence of the Federalist Society is a proxy in the war over the federal judiciary and the Constitution itself.

Remarkable in its growth and reach, the society was founded in 1982 by law students unhappy with what they saw as liberal dominance in law school faculties and the courts.

It now claims 35,000 participants (some paying dues and some not) and has chapters in virtually every law school and in 60 cities.

Part of the society's influence stems from its sponsorship of public debates, which hone and promote conservative points of view.

But much of the influence, and most of the intrigue, flows from an informal social network, which members use to advance one another's causes and careers.

Openly and behind the scenes, members have played prominent roles in the most pitched political battles in recent years, including the impeachment of President Bill Clinton and the Florida recount fracas in 2000 that led to the election of Mr. Bush.

The society takes few official positions.

But to some liberal critics, the activism of its members conjures all they fear about the legal right, from the defense of states' rights and business interests to attacks on affirmative action, gay rights and abortion.

One liberal blog, democrats.com, called the group "the conservative cabal that is attacking America from within."

Ralph G. Neas, president of People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group, did not go that far in an interview last week.

But he pointed to the society as a link between Judge Roberts and two Supreme Court justices many on the left abhor, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Justice Scalia was a faculty adviser to the society, and Justice Thomas has praised its work and spoken at its events.

"Just because someone belongs to the Federalist Society does not inherently disqualify them," Mr. Neas said.

"But it certainly raises a lot of questions about whether that individual adheres to the judicial philosophy of Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia," who are not "mainstream conservatives," he said.

Leaders of the group cry foul.

Steven G. Calabresi, a law professor at Northwestern University who helped found the group as a law student at Yale and is now chairman of its board, evoked the question Senator Joseph McCarthy used a half-century ago in hunting Communists:

"There's been an element of 'Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Federalist Society?'"

"It's worse than McCarthyism, because at least McCarthy was going after people who advocated a total dictatorship," he said.

"We don't even hold a unified set of views."

Although the group endorses a few broad principles like the separation of powers and a faithful adherence to Constitutional text, Mr. Calabresi said there was much disagreement on particulars.

"The Federalist Society is a debate club," he said.

The blurred lines between the group's official debate-club role and the private activities of many of its members were on display last week as the group's longtime president, Eugene B. Meyer, dismissed as "silly" accusations that the society was exercising secret influence.

"That's just not how we operate," he said.

Mr. Meyer said outside observers often failed to recognized the idealism that attracted members.

"I don't mean to sound too goody-two-shoes about this, but it's an interest in good government and how people can do the best for the society," he said.

Recalling a trip through rural Mexico, Mr. Meyer spoke of the "Stone Age" living conditions there as an example of how people suffer "when they haven't had the rule of law."

Yet down the hall from Mr. Meyer's office, a vacated desk testified to the more activist role that members often play.

It belonged to Leonard A. Leo, the executive vice president, who doubles as the head of Catholic outreach for the Republican Party and who has taken a leave of absence to help Judge Roberts win confirmation.

As he argued that the society's influence flowed from its intellectual work - "I sound a little like a broken record, but what I'm excited about are the ideas"- Mr. Meyer also said he had benefited from news media training by Creative Response Concepts.

That is the public relations firm that represented Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group whose advertisements in last year's presidential campaign attacked the war record of Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee.

The Federalist Society hired the firm, Mr. Meyer said, to train members and place them on television shows during the confirmation process.

He said the goal was to educate the public on the role of judges and courts.

"Given the general philosophical outlook, the chances are very good that they'll support the nominee," Mr. Meyer said.

"But that's not the purpose."

In the early days of the Bush presidency, administration officials said about a quarter of their judicial nominees were recommended by the Washington headquarters of the society.

Mr. Meyer said the advice came from staff members speaking in their private capacities, not as official representatives.

With an annual budget of $5.5 million, the society has benefited from decades of support.

[Livyjr]

Well, in Rensselaer County, just to the east of Albany, New York, THE TRASHMAN COMETH, and if you are for law and order, and no corruption in government up here, then you better damn well be shaking in your boots is the word from Rensselaer County to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, according to Thomas J. O'Connor, brother to REPUBLICAN New York State Lt. Governor Mary O'Connor Donohue, and head lawyer for the County of Rensselaer in this appeal.

"THE TRASHMAN!"

That, of course, is REPUBLICAN Timmy Holt, who O'Connor has finally identified as the "man who pulled the plug" on the PLAINTIFF in this matter, by calling over to his "connection" at Samaritan Hospital in Troy, New York, a nurse there named Carol Fiorino, who had a doctor there who would sign a New York State Mental Hygiene Law 9.45 "psychiatric arrest order" for her, and so, history, or a warped and twisted Rensselaer County version of it, anyway, was made!

We wonder, of course, why Holt was "outed" now, at this time, by Tommy O'Connor, because up till now, Holt's name was a literal "state secret", that could not be known, in the words of Rensselaer County, and Samaritan Hospital and Northeast Health, and New York State Attorney General and GUBERNATORIAL HOPEFUL, Honorable Eliot "Big EL" Spitzer, anyway!

He simply was the "RELIABLE SOURCE", and up till now, we were unable to "pierce" that "shroud of secrecy" surrounding Holt's exact role in this matter, and now, at the very last minute, literally, we are handed Holt, and his "role", on a platter, which has all kinds of implications at this point, where the District Court Judge in the Northern District of New York never bothered to find out exactly who it was who had "denounced" PLAINTIFF in this matter, a New York State licensed professional engineer investigating alleged professional misconduct by Rensselaer County State Actors Carl Richard Aiken, an engineer, and Kevin Joseph McGrath, a surveyor, to Samaritan Hospital as being mentally ill, and in immediate need of incarceration in Samaritan Hospital's secure mental facility, or GULAG, as it is affectionately known up here, by those who must live in its fearsome "shadow", 24/7.

Speculation for why Holt was finally "outed" by Tommy O'Connor now runs rampant, of course, but I am of that school that says the only real reason they withheld Holt's name was to make it almost impossible for the PLAINTIFF to be able to file a federal complaint in the matter with the degree of "specificity" required in a civil rights complaint, because up until now, PLAINTIFF never really knew what exact roles were played by the various "players" in this matter, which point forms the basis for the brief submitted to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals by Attorney-at-Law David Rook of the politically-connected, powerful Albany, New York law firm of Thuillez, Ford, Gold Johnson & Butler, who are the legal counsel and attorneys of record for defendants Northeast Health, Inc., Samaritan Hospital of Troy, New York, Dr. Adrian Anthony Morris, Dr. John Christian Braaten, Carol Fiorino, and Bernadette Rotter Hallam in this appeal.

"He didn't say it the right way, throw out his appeal" is essentially what Rook is saying to the Appeals Court in his brief, which we received just last Monday, and on its face, it is a powerful and persuasive argument, if you can just look past the fact that the reason the PLAINTIFF was unable to state facts with a certain degree of specificity was because Northeast Health, and Rensselaer County made damn sure that those essential facts were withheld from PLAINTIFF, by having discovery for the PLAINTIFF denied by the District Court, and by failing to disclose this information themselves, despite provisions in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure which require that disclosure.

"This is a very special case" said the GOLD JOHNSON man, Rook, and so it was to be.

Get control of what the first word can be, in this case, the contents of PLAINTIFF's federal complaint, by having the District Court limit him to just twenty pages, including all of the required "boiler-plate" language which must be included in every federal civil rights complaint, at the same time that you are withholding evidence, yourself, and then, retain the last word for yourself, in this case, the right to file the last brief with the words in it, "see, he didn't do it right, because we were so good at our jobs of withholding evidence from him", and you have a winning solution, every time!

And so it now might be!

But it is not quite yet over, so ....

Please!

Stay tuned for further details!

And, of course, that is what we are doing as well, which is staying tuned for further details, because right now, the New York State Attorney General and the Town of Poestenkill both have extensions of time in which to file their briefs, and so ....

August 17th is the date, and all we can do is wait, to see exactly what it is that New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is going to say, in defense of this practice of Rensselaer County in the State of New York having its man in charge of taking out the trash and cleaning restrooms in the Rensselaer County Office Building also serving in the capacity of the MENTAL HEALTH EXPERT in Rensselaer County who Dr. John Braaten at Samaritan Hospital in Troy, New York, takes his marching orders from, as to who in Rensselaer County is really mentally ill, and dangerous, and is therefore in need of immediate incarceration in the GULAG, or secure mental health facility that Northeast Health, Inc. maintains in Troy for just that purpose, to take in those who the TRASHMAN deems "disposable" to society in Rensselaer County, and the State of New York, for the greater good of mankind, of course, as well as the eternal glory of the REPUBLICAN PARTY, who, when they tell you that you are buying STERLING PROTECTION FROM THE LAW from them, mean exactly what they are saying, at least in Rensselaer County, and that is that!

SO?

What will New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer tell the Federal Appeals Court in New York City as to his views on the legality and constitutionality of the head of custodians for the Rensselaer County Office Building serving in the capacity of a medical doctor in Rensselaer County, in the State of New York?

Who now knows?

But since it will be of great interest whatever Eliot Spitzer says, please, stay tuned!

Thank you for your continued interest!

[Livyjr]

"Conservative Group to Oppose John Roberts"

By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 41 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - A conservative group in Virginia said Tuesday it would oppose Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' confirmation because of his work helping overturn a Colorado referendum on gays.

The stance by Public Advocate of the United States, which describes itself as a pro-family organization, puts it in opposition to conservative groups that have endorsed Roberts.

A number of liberal groups oppose President Bush's nominee.

"The move comes as a result of Roberts' support for the radical homosexual lobby in the 1996 Supreme Court case Romer v. Evans, which overturned a pro-family law passed by the citizens of Colorado in an appalling act of judicial activism," the group said in a news release.

It planned a news conference for Wednesday in front of the Supreme Court.

The group's president, Eugene Delgaudio, had said last week that if "Judge Roberts did provide advice on how to overturn this pro-family measure overwhelmingly supported by the people of Colorado, then Public Advocate calls on President Bush to withdraw his nomination of Judge Roberts immediately."

Messages left for Delgaudio seeking comment were not immediately returned on Tuesday.

This is not the first time Delgaudio has gone up against the Bush administration.

He criticized Vice President Dick Cheney last year after the vice president, when asked about gay marriage, said, "Freedom means freedom for everyone."

Delgaudio said then: "'Freedom' is not embracing perversion."

The Colorado gay rights case involved Amendment 2, a constitutional amendment approved by voters in 1992 that would have barred laws, ordinances or regulations protecting gays from discrimination by landlords, employers or public agencies such as school districts.

Gay rights groups sued, and the measure was declared unconstitutional in a 6-3 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1996.

Roberts' role in the case included helping develop a strategy and firing tough questions during a mock court session at Jean Dubofsky, a former Colorado Supreme Court justice who argued the case on behalf of the gay rights plaintiffs.

Other conservative groups, including the Traditional Values Coalition and Focus on the Family Action, the political arm of the Colorado Springs-based conservative Christian ministry Focus on the Family, are still supporting Roberts.

"We support President Bush and his choice for the Supreme Court, John Roberts," said the Rev. Lou Sheldon, founder of the Traditional Values Coalition.

Other groups also are taking public stands on Roberts' candidacy.

NARAL Pro Choice America plans to start running television ads opposing Roberts on Wednesday, and other abortion rights groups including the National Organization for Women, the National Abortion Federation and the Feminist Majority all have announced their opposition to Roberts.

The National Association of Manufacturers, led by Republican John Engler, is expected to announce an endorsement of Roberts on Wednesday.
___

On the Net:

Public Advocate of the United States: http://www.publicadvocateusa.org