"From his past experience as a TOWN JUDGE ......

I know Phil Lance to be scrupulously honest ....."

- REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County Executive John L. Buono, May 25, 1989

MARCH 15, 1989

CONTINUED CROSS-EXAMINATION OF REPUBLICAN RENSSELAER COUNTY ATTORNEY ROBERT A. SMITH, ESQUIRE, BEFORE THE "EYES AND EARS" OF REPUBLICAN RENSSELAER COUNTY EXECUTIVE JOHN L. BUONO

Q: And so ...

That would be some time between October 11 and the meeting with Mr. Buono on the 13th or 14th?

SMITH: YES.

Whether it was October 12 and 13 and 14 ....

So ...

But some time prior to the 13th and 14th ....

Q: And what was the substance of that conversation, if you can remember?

SMITH: Just basically what I already indicated ....

There was some questions of the Associate Public Health Engineer being placed on leave for some period of time, a kind of "cooling off period" ....

And as I recall ....

An inquiry was made of me of whether or not that could be accomplished within the legal framework we have to deal with .....

AND MY RESPONSE TO MR. BUONO WAS I THOUGHT IT COULD BE DONE WITHIN THE GENERAL POWERS AFFORDED UNDER THE COUNTY CHARTER .....

And here we have taken a short interlude from the CROSS-EXAMINATION of REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County Attorney Robert A. Smith, Esquire, which the miracle of this internet allows us to do, so that I can address a question which just came in as to whether during this initial period of assault on the integrity and professional reputation of the Rensselaer County Associate Public Health Engineer in late-1988 and early-1989, there was any OVERT PUBLIC MENTION of the subject of alleged or supposed mental illness on the part of the PLAINTIFF .....

And in response, I directed that reader back to this post above, where on two separate days running circa February 22, 1989, the Troy, New York RECORD quoted REPUBLICAN Deputy Rensselaer County Attorney Gordon Mayo, the same Gordon Mayo who is representing the County of Rensselaer as his client in this hearing before REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County Executive John L. Buono's "EYES AND EARS" in March of 1989, as saying that PLAINTIFF suffered from a post-combat stress condition that could result in irrational behavior ......

And at that time, February 22, 1989, this was still the official reason that Buono was giving to members of the public in Rensselaer County as his reason for keeping the Rensselaer County Associate Public Health Engineer locked out of his office ....

Despite being in possession of absolutely no evidence whatsoever that PLAINTIFF suffered from anything at all ....

And particularly, any alleged SYNDROME which would make PLAINTIFF irrational ....

While at the same time being in possession of a medical statement in rebuttal of Buono's false charges from a noted area psychiatrist who had examined PLAINTIFF and had found him to be quite rational and sane shortly after Buono had gone onto the Kapostacey-Jansing Show on TV Channel 13 broadcasting out of Menands, New York on October 12, 1988 to make his now-famous statement that he was locking the Rensselaer County Associate Public Health Engineer out of his office in the Rensselaer County Office Building, because in Buono's words, the engineer was mentally ill .......

Medical evidence that Mayo himself was in possession of when he went before New York State Supreme Court Justice Conway in February of 1989 and falsely stated to him, with impunity of course, since in the State of New York, political lawyers are bound by no ethical or legal standards whatsover, that the PLAINTIFF suffers from a post-combat stress condition that could result in irrational behavior .....

Not once was Mayo requested by the Court to back up that very serious and very public charge with any evidence whatsoever ....

To the contrary, the court simply accepted the false charge at face value .....

As did the Troy RECORD newspaper ....

Which printed the false charge not once ....

But twice ...

For effect, of course ......

And so ....

People wonder, of course, and this was brought out during these confirmation hearings before the United States Senate recently, just what it is these government lawyers talk about with their "clients" when they are having these closed-door meetings ....

And here is a glimpse into that world ...

Right above here in the words of REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County Attorney Robert A. Smith ....

Where he telling us and all the world just what it was that he and REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County Executive John L. Buono were talking about in the days before Buono went on the Christine Kapostacey-Jansing Show on TV Channel 13 out of Menands, New York on October 12, 1988 to inform the world that he had just locked the Rensselaer County Associate Public Health Engineer out of his office in the Rensselaer County Office Building on the false and specious grounds that the engineer was mentally ill and dangerous ....

CAN GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION EXIST WITHOUT A LAWYER, OR A TEAM OF LAWYERS, TO KEEP IT COVERED UP?

That is one question that emerges from all of this ....

And, IF these lawyers are nothing more than an amoral pack of people without ethics, or standards, totally contemptuous of the law, and those who would have it enforced equally across the board, and judges in OUR America can only come from their ranks, which is the case at the federal level, then how and why is that individual going to change, once he or she dons the robes of a federal judge, here in OUR America?

Especially when that individual is put forth as the CHOICE of the lawyers who will remain lawyers ....

Which is to say, those who will be making their money before that same lawyer from their ranks who is now sitting as a judge in judgment of US, the American people, when we have a grievance against the "CLIENTS" that these amoral lawyers represent ....

CLIENTS who can pay these lawyers BIG BUCKS to make sure that we never even see the inside of a courtroom, let alone get before a jury to state OUR case and present OUR evidence .....

So that as Judge Alito says above, these lawyers, like REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County Attorney Robert A. Smith can achieve "a desirable result for the client in the particular case at hand" .....

REGARDLESS OF WHAT RESULT THE LAW AS WRITTEN SHOULD HAVE PRODUCED INSTEAD .....

AMORAL: Being outside or beyond the moral order .....

MORAL: Pertains to character, conduct, intention, social relations, etc.

1) Pertaining or relating to the conscience or moral sense or to the general principles of right conduct;

2) Cognizable or enforceable only by the conscience or by the principles of right conduct, as distinguished from positive law;

3) Depending upon or resulting from probability; raising a belief or conviction in the mind independent of strict or logical proof; or

4) Involving or affecting the moral sense ...

MORAL ACTIONS: Those only in which men have knowledge to guide them, AND A WILL TO CHOOSE FOR THEMSELVES ....

And here, a new reader has stopped me to say:

"Livyjr, why are you making such a blanket statement about lawyers being AMORAL ....."

And my reply was that I AM NOT ...

Making a blanket statement, that is ....

Rather ....

What I am doing above here ....

Is acknowledging the power of THE STATEMENT made by the PRESIDENT of the Albany, New York BAR ASSOCIATION right above here back in 2003 that all lawyers, at least in the capital city of the State of New York are AMORAL .....

His choice of words ...

And not mine at all ....

All I am doing in here is not arguing the TRUTH of that statement ....

I mean ....

After all ...

Who should know better than he?

And his knowledgeable statement about his own profession does not at all conflict with my experience of members of the bar ...

And so ....

Give credit where credit is due is my thought, anyway ....

"Ethics rules target judges' seminars - Senators want tighter regulations in wake of Abramoff scandal"

By JENNIFER A. DLOUHY, Washington bureau, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Sunday, February 5, 2006

WASHINGTON -- In the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal, lawmakers in Congress are rushing to impose tighter limits on the gifts they can accept from lobbyists, and now three Democratic senators want to force tougher ethics rules on federal judges, too.

Sens. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., Russell D. Feingold, D-Wis., and John Kerry, D-Mass., are pushing legislation that would limit what Leahy calls "special interest-funded junkets" for judges.

The trio is taking aim at seminars for judges -- sometimes held at posh resorts -- and funded by private groups they say are trying to influence court rulings.

Even if judges rule fairly on the bench, the all-expense-paid trips create the appearance of impropriety, Leahy said.

"The American people deserve a federal judiciary that is beyond reproach -- in appearance, and otherwise," Leahy said.

Leahy is trying to capitalize on a scramble on Capitol Hill to tighten congressional ethics rules in response to the biggest lobbying corruption investigation in decades -- a dragnet that ultimately could implicate a number of lawmakers and their aides.

At the center of the scandal is Abramoff, a lobbyist who pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe members of Congress with campaign contributions and entertainment.

As Congress cleans house, Feingold said, it makes sense to sweep in tighter rules for the more than 1,200 federal judges, including those serving on the federal district and appeals courts, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and the Tax Court.

The Abramoff scandal "reminds us that wherever people are put in a position of public trust, we have to be very careful to avoid the appearance or the reality of conflicts of interest," Feingold said.

"This is especially important when it comes to judges who have life tenure, and over whom we have no power to defeat them in elections, or other forms of accountability."

The effort also comes after criticism was lobbed at Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia for skipping out on last year's swearing-in ceremony for newly installed Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., to attend an event by the conservative Federalist Society at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Bachelor Gulch, Colo.

Other conferences for judges -- underwritten by a variety of groups -- have taken place at ranches in Idaho, lodges in Montana and golfing resorts in Arizona.

Under current rules, federal judges already are blocked from accepting any benefits from parties in litigation before them.

And, under federal law, they have to disclose information about gifts they receive.

Under self-imposed guidelines, judges also are supposed to consider who is paying for a seminar -- and whether they are likely to appear before them in court -- before accepting a trip.

Leahy's legislation would go much further.

With some exceptions, the bill would bar federal judges from accepting anything of value -- including travel and attendance fees -- in connection with a judicial seminar sponsored by a private group.

Under Leahy's bill, judges could still attend private seminars -- but the federal government would have to pick up the tab.

Leahy's legislation would create a new pot of cash to pay for judges to attend private seminars that provide "continuing legal education," as long as the events are approved by the Federal Judicial Center, the government agency that conducts continuing education workshops for judges.

Federal judges, who have long defended their right to attend private seminars, bristle at any new restrictions.

The Judicial Conference of the United States, a self-governing group of federal judges, has opposed similar legislation on the ground that it would limit valuable opportunities to study developing areas of the law or technology.

"Whitman, EPA short on truth"

Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Sunday, February 5, 2006

Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Todd Whitman is probably not sleeping well these days.

Don't look for any sympathy here.

One particularly nasty bit of business still unresolved from 9/11 concerns what happened after the attacks.

Whitman broadcast dangerous assurances two days after the collapse of the World Trade Center, and continuously after, that the air in lower Manhattan was safe to breathe.

"Don't concern yourselves, citizens, go about your business" was the gist of repeated announcements from Sept. 13, 2001 on.

What made it dangerous -- and plain outrageous -- is that Whitman had no right to offer those assurances.

She had no data to support it.

In fact, more sophisticated testing than the EPA was doing at the time would have shown heavy concentrations of airborne asbestos as fine particulate in the air and in buildings even miles away.

That would be true for years.

In addition, we later learned the EPA wasn't even testing for many common toxins that were hovering in lower Manhattan air at the time.

At the same time, there were scientists and doctors at the scene, particularly from nearby Mount Sinai Hospital, who were leery of the asbestos and toxin-laden air and suggesting it did pose a hazard.

We got wind of who was right when, in 2003, the EPA's own inspector general unexpectedly and pointedly criticized Whitman and her statements of assurance.

The sum of the inspector general's evaluation was that when Whitman made those statements, she didn't really know what she was talking about.

As a result of the inspector general's report, it came out that every statement and news release uttered soothingly by Whitman during those hellacious days had been vetted by the White House, and that warnings of health concerns raised by her own scientists were deleted from news releases and statements.

"We didn't want to scare people," she told Newsweek.

Now the other shoe has dropped on Whitman.

In a little-publicized ruling Thursday, Federal Court Judge Deborah Batts in Manhattan cleared the way for class-action civil suits against Whitman personally and as the administrator of EPA, and against the agency.

Let the floodgates open, and let Whitman and the feds get hammered.

What an unspeakable thing to do to a stunned and helpless citizenry surely not expecting further misery from our own government.

The judge's ruling related to a 2004 class-action suit on behalf of residents and schoolchildren from lower Manhattan and Brooklyn who claim they were subjected to contaminated air in buildings near the World Trade Center -- a situation the EPA either turned its back on or stated was not harmful.

"No reasonable person would have thought that telling thousands of people that it was safe to return to lower Manhattan, while knowing such return could pose long-term health risks and other dire consequences, was conduct sanctioned by our laws," the judge stated, terming Whitman's cotton-mouthed assurances as "conscience-shocking."

Now this only clears the way for civil trials and settlements.

Those bringing the suits still have to prove they were hurt as a result of Whitman's words.

But there's no question the judge's ruling clearly establishes that as far as the court is concerned, Whitman and the EPA had a legal as well as a moral responsibility to speak the truth.

And that they did not.

Fred LeBrun can be reached at 454-5453 or by e-mail at flebrun@timesunion.com.

And here, a reader has asked me whether this "hearing" before the "EYES AND EARS" back in 1989 was pursuant to any provisions of the New York State Civil Service Law ....

And that answer is yes .....

The HEARING before the "EYES AND EARS" of REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County Executive John L. Buono in 1989 that we are reading from the TRANSCRIPT of in this thread was held pursuant to New York State Civil Service Law section 75-A, which section of state law, according to the "EYES AND EARS" himself, allowed Rensselaer County to skirt "due process" of law provisions, and thereby remove from PLAINTIFF his right AS A DISABLED VETERAN to employment as Rensselaer County Associate Public Health Engineer in the Rensselaer County Health District ........

As well as denying PLAINTIFF medical coverage ....

Or any form of compensation ...

For injuries suffered in a back-hoe assault ....

In the Town of Sand Lake ...

In the County of Rensselaer ...

In the summer of 1988 ....

BECAUSE ....

REPUBLICAN RENSSELAER COUNTY EXECUTIVE JOHN L. BUONO WANTED IT TO BE THAT WAY .....

So ...

"The law requires a hearing?"

"Okay ..."

"We'll give the son-of-a-***** a hearing alright ..."

"We'll throw everything we have at him ..."

"We'll really trash his reputation ..."

"And then ...."

"We'll fire his *** ...."

"And make sure he never works in the State of New York ..."

"As an engineer ..."

"Ever again ..."

Which is as it was to be ...

And it is interesting that originally, when Buono ordered that the Associate Public Health Engineer be locked out of the Rensselaer County Office Building on October 12, 1988, HE, BUONO, was acting pursuant to section 75-B of the New York State Civil Service Law, which section deals with mandatory leaves of absence for psychiatric purposes .....

Which requires a medical certification ..

Which Buono did not have .....

And could not get ....

Because PLAINTIFF had already been to a noted area psychiatrist ....

Who had pronounced PLANTIFF ...

Rational ...

And sane ....

And so ...

Subsequently ...

Buono had to eat the fact that he had no grounds to have acted pursuant to section 75-B ....

At which time he ordered the Associate Public Health Engineer suspended without pay for 30-days pursuant to section 75-A, while the County searched around for something to charge the Associate Public Health Engineer with ...

As a pretext ....

So Buono could then "fire" him ....

Which leads me to this person's next question, which had to do with the Civil Service status of this engineer ....

Whether this person had to take a test to hold this position ...

And whether this engineer had in fact taken such a test if it was required ...

And if the engineer took the test, did he pass ....

And the answers are YES, and YES, and YES ....

Yes ...

There was a Civil Service test for this position ....

YES ...

The engineer in fact took this Civil Service examination ...

And YES ...

The engineer passed that test ...

Which meant at the time of this hearing before the "EYES AND EARS" in 1989, the Rensselaer County Associate Public Health Engineer was supposedly vested with permanent Civil Service status with the Rensselaer County Health District ....

And that turned out to be absolutely no protection, whatsoever .....

In fact ...

It was a FARCE .....

As was made clear to all of us in Rensselaer County in the State of New York .....

During these hearings before the "EYES AND EARS" in 1989 ......

And every moment thereafter ....

Right on up to this very moment in time ....

And here, a reader has asked whether there was any evidence before Federal District Court Judge Gary L. Sharpe and the Federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City that would tie together what transpired in Rensselaer County in the State of New York in 1988 and 1989 with what took place subsequently in 2001, when REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County Executive Kathleen Jimino, with the aid and assistance of REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County Attorney Robert A. Smith, was able to successfully derail a continuing investigation into corruption in the Rensselaer County Department of Health under REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County Public Director Denise Ayers by the use of the PSYCHIATRIC TAKE-DOWN ....

And that answer is most certainly ...

Right at page 270 of the voluminous and encyclopedic RECORD that Jimino's ATTORNEY, the MOST HONORABLE Tommy O'Connor, had before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in his successful effort to have that Court "IMMUNIZE" Jimino and her fellow co-defendants in the matter, along with the assailant in this matter, Jeffrey Pelletier of Poestenkill, New York ....

Page 270 of what is being called the "O'CONNOR BIBLE" up here in the State of New York is a document entitled "SAMARITAN HOSPITAL BEHAVIORAL HEALTH CRISIS DEPARTMENT" .....

This Samaritan Hospital form was originally annexed to the Amended Complaint in the District Court before Judge Sharpe as PLAINTIFF's Exhibit D ....

The form is dated 8/22/01 at 0930 in the morning of that day ....

And it states in relevant part as follows:

"Timothy Holt reports that pt. has long psych. history; IS FORMER COUNTY EMPLOYEE ...."

Timothy Holt, of course, is the REPUBLICAN in charge of making sure the trash is taken out of the Rensselaer County Office Building in a timely manner, and so ..

It is no wonder that REPUBLICAN Jimino would select Holt to "get rid of this trash", referring to the PLAINTIFF in this matter, who was about to institute legal proceedings against Rensselaer County and its Health Department ....

And it is interesting also in the light of this statement by REPUBLICAN Federal Court Judge Sharpe in his decision dated March 31, 2005:

"This COURT has attempted to summarize the litany of unintelligible and conclusory allegations in PLAINTIFF's convoluted COMPLAINT and attached exhibits."

We still look at this statement by this man, and we wonder what on earth he can possibly be talking about ...

Since the Exhibits that he was referring to included this very document above here ......

And that was a Samaritan Hospital form ....

Which means that if it was unintelligible to the judge ....

As it apparently was ...

Then he should have requested some further clarification from the ATTORNEY for Samaritan Hospital, THE MOST HONORABLE Donny "BOB" Ford, ESQUIRE, of the Thuillez, Ford & Gold Johnson firm in Albany, New York ....

And yet ...

He did nothing at all ..

Besides throwing out the Amended Complaint ...

Because this evidence prepared by Samaritan Hospital and the Rensselaer County co-defendants ....

Would never stand scrutiny ...

In the clear light of day ...

Especially before a jury .....

And so ....

And here, I want to take one more moment ...

And once again ...

I wish to sincerely thank each and every person who has passed through this thread since its inception back in March of 2005 ....

When this federal court decision under discussion in here was rendered ....

I am a real person, myself .....

And I live in a real place ....

And in that place ....

There is and has been a small community of productive people since around 1790 .....

Or before .....

I have been where I am since 1949 ....

Out walking on my road on nice days, you will see an older woman with her dog ....

She is up in her eighties ...

And she has been on her place since 1957 ....

Down through the woods ...

Her land borders mine ...

And in all that time ...

We have never had need for any confrontations ....

And to me ...

That is a prime element of what makes a real community ...

Here in OUR America ...

Which is peace ...

And stability ...

And sadly ...

That is what has been stripped from us ...

By these federal court decisions ...

Under discussion in here ...

Especially the callous disregard these federal court judges displayed towards this assault on a disabled veteran here in OUR America by Jeffrey Pelletier of Poestenkill ...

Who represents the "NEW GENERATION" in town ....

That is anxious to have us older folks ...

Off OUR land ...

So that people like him can take it over ...

And make their killing in the real estate market ....

While the market is still hot ....

This morning ...

Thanks to all of you who have stopped by here ...

This thread went over 10,000 visits ....

Which in the big scheme of things ....

May not be much at all ...

But to us ...

A handful of old folks with a vested interest in the ultimate outcome of this struggle ....

That number 10,000 is a positive psychological factor ....

FOR US ....

And that is what matters .....

For without this thread ...

Our story would never have been told ...

OUR voices would never have been heard ...

And so ....

And here, I have a question as to whether the PLAINTIFF ever saw a federal district court judge once this matter was filed with the federal court in Albany, New York ...

And that answer is NO .....

And this is despite the express provisions of GENERAL ORDER #25 ....

Which is supposed to apply evenly, and uniformly in the Northern District of New York ...

Across the board ..

Regardless ....

GENERAL ORDER #25 states as it PURPOSE as follows:

"It is the POLICY of this court to help litigants resolve their civil disputes in a JUST, TIMELY and COST-EFFECTIVE MANNER."

"To that end, this court has adopted an EXPENSE and DELAY REDUCTION PLAN in accordance with the Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990."

"This will tailor the level of individualized case management needs to such criteria as case complexity, and the amount of time reasonably needed to prepare the case for trial."

With respect to the applicability of GENERAL ORDER #25 to this case, GENERAL ORDER #25 states as follows:

"WHEN SERVING a Complaint or Notice of Removal, the FILING PARTY SHALL SERVE on all other parties a copy of this General order and the attached materials."

"Service of process should be completed within Sixty (60) days from the initial filing date."

"This expedited service IS NECESSARY TO FULFILL THE DICTATES of the Civil Justice Reform Act Expense and Delay Reduction Plan of this court and to ENSURE adequate time for pretrial discovery and motion practice."

The gist of GENERAL ORDER #25 is that in as short a time as possible after filing a COMPLAINT, the parties are to meet with a Federal Magistrate Judge in what is called a Settlement Conference ....

Which in this case ....

NEVER HAPPENED ....

The PLAINTIFF was never allowed in ....

And the lawyers were ...

For the purpose of having the case thrown out ...

Before there was ever any chance for discovery ..

By the PLAINTIFF .....

For the pro se PLAINTIFF, which is to say, a common American citizen, who is trying on their own to vindicate their civil rights, at least up here in the Northern District of New York, the courts across the board can be and have proven themselves to be a very openly hostile environment ...

And that was definitely the case here, in this matter ....

As though someone had let a dog into the august setting ....

And the sole purpose of the courtroom personnel ..

Was to get that dog back out on the street again ....

And that, I would say ...

Is a "lawyer thing" ......

The court rooms in OUR America, or at least up here, where I am, have become what appears to be an "EXCLUSIVE PROVINCE" for lawyers ...

So that to get through the door ....

You are going to have to stuff some money down their pockets ....

Or you will never see the inside of the room ....

"Furthermore, as PLAINTIFF'S familiarity with the law has been demonstrated in another action pending in your court, I sincerely believe adequate representation of the People's position should be provided by this office!"

Yes, indeed ....

The LAWYER thing .....

A citizen who knows the law is dangerous ...

To the lawyer ....

Who views the law as his or her exclusive possession ....

Especially when that citizen can beat a "full-grown lawyer" in a court of law ...

Where all the candid world can see ....

And with respect to that ....

Back in early-2004, the Albany, New York Times Union newspaper contacted the PLAINTIFF in this matter ...

And in that telephone call ....

The Times Union informed the PLAINTIFF that it was going to do a story on litigants who were going to court without lawyers ....

And would the PLAINTIFF consent to being a part of that story ....

Which he did ....

And that story by Michelle Morgan Bolton ran on the front page of the local section on Sunday, February 8, 2004 with a picture of the PLAINTIFF sitting behind a stack of law books, and the caption "PLAINTIFF of Poestenkill uses his own legal knowledge to successfully fight zoning and other issues in court" ...

And a second picture at page 4 with the caption "PLAINTIFF looks through his legal books at his home in Poestenkill. PLAINTIFF has not used an attorney in 15 years."

All of which caused the local BAR ASSOCIATION to get quite surly and snippy .....

"WE DON'T LIKE SEEING PICTURES OF YOU IN THE NEWSPAPER WITH YOUR LEGAL BOOKS ....

The story ran in relevant part as follows:

Everyone has a right to legal representation.

But a growing number of civil and criminal litigants are choosing to defend themselves, citing a shortage of cash, mistrust of lawyers or a misplaced belief - based on popular courtroom drama - that they can swing it on their own.

A 1999 survey from the National Center for the State Courts in Virginia found that 58 percent of Americans believe they could represent themselves in court if necessary.

Such pro se representation - Latin for "on one's own behalf" - is most often seen on the civil side, involving marital or tenant/landlord disputes and traffic violations.

Statistics show, for example, that 85 percent of all tenant/landlord cases are unrepresented in New York.

That number is attracting attention by lawyers, state officials and advocates who worry that justice can't be served when inexperienced people navigate the legal system on their own, especially in criminal cases.

"Someone with access to a lawyer can win by making it impossible for the other partner to be in the game,"' Albany Law School professor Laurie Shanks said.

"In most criminal cases, the individual is told he will held to the standard as an attorney."

"But that is like putting someone who has never seen a football game on the field and saying, 'O.K., now play by the rules'."

It's a process set up by lawyers for lawyers, she said.

New York is working on a number of initiatives to even the playing field for pro se defendants, she said.

And it's also pondering the relatively new concept of allowing attorneys to offer a la carte services, a philosophy described as "unbundling".

"I WOULD NOT GO TO COURT WITHOUT A LAWYER," added state Deputy Administrative Judge Juanita Bing Newton, who heads up Justice Initiatives for the Unified Court System.

"AND I AM CERTAINLY NOT AN ADVOCATE OF PEOPLE REPRESENTING THEMSELVES."

Yet because more and more of the "working poor" are opting to do just that, New York has a responsibility to make sure they get help, she said.

"When you tell a litigant he will be held to the rules of evidence, you may as well be saying 'blah, blah, blah, blah'," Newton said.

"We need to give them tools in a system that is very complex."

A click on the Court Help Link of the Unified Court System's Web Site is a good place to start, Newton said.

"We can provide information, even though we can't provide legal advice."

Every county also has in-house training programs and resource centers, so unified court employees can better help pro se litigants, Newton said.

The pilot Office for the Self-Represented in Manhatten, which sees 1,500 clients a month, may expand upstate if a survey shows the level of self-representation warrants it.

As another way to help cash-strapped litigants, a number of states are re-writing their ethics laws to allow for "unbundling".

That means a client could pay for the partial services of a lawyer without committing to the entire case.

She could commission a ghostwritten brief, by agreement, for example, but not require a personal court appearance.

Lawyers, however, are cautious about the idea.

"As an attorney, I would be very hesitant to take on one part of a case and not have responsibility for all of it," Shanks said.

"It's very unusual that a case could be drawn and quartered."

"Then how can you be held accountable?"

As a judge, Newton said she also finds "ghost representation" troubling, but New York offers "quasi-unbundling" already.

Take the woman who goes to a non-profit law center and attends a volunteer lawyer's clinic on uncontested divorce, she said: "They don't sign an agreement, but they do offer advice."

A 2002 State Bar Association report said unbundling could work in non-litigation situations, but the 72,000 member group has yet to take an official position.

Poestenkill resident PLAINTIFF apparently hasn't needed the full or partial services of a lawyer during the seven civil cases he has successfully won over the past 15 years in state Supreme and federal court.

PLAINTIFF, a former Rensselaer County engineer, has taken it upon himself to reverse the illegal permitting of local gravel mining and waste hauling facilities and the alleged backroom commercial rezoning of his rural community.

He has gone up against town planning and zoning boards; Rensselaer County government; Waste Management; Showers Enterprises and R.J. Valente gravel, Inc.; the state Department of Environmental Conservation; and the Attorney General's office, among others.

The 59-year-old disabled Vietnam veteran is also a vocal activist, who is trying to prove federal court that county social services, veterans and Samaritan Hospital officials tried to forcibly commit him to a mental health facility in 2001.

"THE LAW IS FAR TOO PRECIOUS A THING TO BE LEFT IN THE HANDS OF LAWYERS," said PLAINTIFF, who has been called every name in the book.

"I did an Abe Lincoln."

"If he could stretch out on the dirt floor and learn the law, so could I."

Cognizant of the old adage that says those who represent themselves have a fool for a client, PLAINTIFF confided:

"I'D RATHER HAVE A FOOL FOR A CLIENT THAN A FOOL FOR A LAWYER."

Half the lawyers who go to court every day lose, PLAINTIFF said:

"With those odds, for me it was no worse than a 50-50 proposition."

"I work hard at what I do, and since I don't have to take outright stupid cases, the odds in my case are actually somewhat better than what a lawyer faces."

And there we kind of are in here ....

For the moment, anyway ....

I have been asked if we would appeal this up to the United States Supreme Court ...

And the answer to that is that for us, it would be a waste of time and money ....

When there are much more pressing matters at hand ....

Such as life itself ....

Up here in the cold country ....

Is this matter over?

Who can really tell .....

For were things really over when the United States Supreme Court sent Dred Scott back to the slave pens?

Or were they just beginning to begin?

And when you come right down to it ....

Professor Shanks of the Albany Law School is saying quite a mouthful here ....

When she says that someone with access to a lawyer ....

Can make it IMPOSSIBLE ....

For the other side ...

To ever make it in to a courtroom ....

Let alone ever see justice .....

And here ....

Ms. Shanks is referring to what is known as the "FIXER" ......

The COURTHOUSE fixture that can get things "made gone away" ....

If only one knows how to find and engage the FIXER's services ....

And that was part of the game here ....

And Professor Shank's statements in that regard about access to FIXERS by one side of a dispute making it impossible for the other side "TO BE IN THE GAME" is interesting from the perspective that when the PLAINTIFF first filed this COMPLAINT in federal district court, Albany Law School was one of the places that he appealed to for aid and assistance in connection with developing all of the constitutional issues involved in this matter ....

And Albany Law School turned a deaf ear ....

"Sentencings on hold in asbestos case"

Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Thursday, February 9, 2006

The asbestos cleanup fraud case that landed a local father and son the longest prison terms ever for environmental crimes continues.

Last week, Raul and Alex Salvagno were in federal court in Syracuse for resentencing, but that didn't happen.

Instead, the judge said he will assign them a third set of lawyers.

Raul, 72, and Alex, 39, were handed 19 and 25 years, respectively, in 2004.

Last April, they reported to the medium-security Federal Correctional Institute in Otisville, Orange County.

The two men and the younger Salvagno's company, AAR Contractor of Latham, were also ordered to pay $25 million in fines and restitution.

After a five-month trial, they were convicted of racketeering and conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act and Toxic Substances Control Act for some 1,555 instances of illegal asbestos removal in schools, government buildings and other sites, as well as falsifying about 75,000 laboratory results.

Asbestos, once a common fire-retardant and insulator, can cause breathing problems and cancer with exposure.

Just after they got their prison terms, the U.S. Supreme Court changed federal sentencing guidelines from mandatory to advisory, compelling the resentencings, though not necessarily any reduction in their penalties.

The defendants have raised concerns that in light of the huge fines they owe the government, lawyers may not be vigilant in fighting for reduced sentences for fear they won't be paid.

Last week, the Salvagnos' first set of lawyers were in the courtroom on Thursday and taken off the case at the defendants' request.

A new team of attorneys was also on hand, but because their clients had not spoken with them in months, they could not participate in the proceedings before U.S. District Judge Howard G. Munson.

Munson, the trial judge, appointed U.S. Magistrate Judge George H. Lowe to look into the matter.

On Friday, Lowe decided that despite attorneys' pledges to represent clients to the best of their ability, the Salvagnos had a reasonable argument.

Lowe will assign a government-appointed lawyer to both Salvagnos to help them decide whether to proceed with the second set of lawyers or find new ones.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig A. Benedict, the prosecutor, contends that the defense had asked for extensions at almost every turn, but "We understand that the court is trying to do everything it can to ensure the defendants' rights are protected, and its judgment will stand up on appeal."

"Bar association looks to stem misleading legal ads"

Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Thursday, February 2, 2006

In a continuing campaign by the president of the New York State Bar Association to improve the public image and understanding of the legal system and the role of lawyers, the focus has now turned to legal advertising.

The bar association's House of Delegates, at the annual meeting last month in New York City, recommended major changes in the way ads placed by lawyers are reviewed.

"We need to fight back against the unfair attacks that have damaged the reputation of the legal profession, and we need to inform the public about our outstanding legal system and the valuable role lawyers play in preserving it,'' bar President A. Vincent Buzard said.

When Buzard of Rochester took over as president last June, he appointed a task force to examine advertising and how to prevent inappropriate or misleading ads.

The task force issued a report, adopted by the House of Delegates, which calls for the creation of a new entity under the Administrative Board of the state court system to review ads and refer inappropriate ones to grievance committees for review.

The Administrative Board is made up of Judith Kaye, the state's chief judge, and the presiding justices of the state's four appellate divisions.

The bar association is forwarding the proposal to the Administrative Board, asking it to create a committee to review the ads, bar spokesman Frank Ciervo said.

The reviewing group "would examine randomly selected advertisements for compliance with the rules related to lawyer advertising,'' Buzard said.

"It would put in place a much-needed formal mechanism to methodically review advertising and ensure effective enforcement of advertising rules.''

Other recommendations include a prohibition on advertising directed to an accident victim or victim's family for 15 days after the accident if the state Insurance Department adopts a similar restriction for insurance carriers and their adjusters; a requirement that direct mail or e-mail advertising be labeled as "attorney advertisement;'' and a requirement that ads include a disclosure if a non-employee spokesman or actor is used.

Contributing were Tim O'Brien and Michele Morgan Bolton.

"Grand jury to probe box case - Case involves files removed from North Greenbush Town Hall"

By KATE PERRY, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Friday, February 10, 2006

NORTH GREENBUSH -- It's up to a county grand jury to decide if two town planning board members and some acquaintances broke the law when they hauled 17 boxes of records out of Town Hall on New Year's Eve.

The town's police commission requested Monday that the district attorney call a grand jury together to review the case.

Steve Dworsky, the commission's consultant, said the panel wanted a body outside the town to review the case because town officials were involved.

"They didn't want to leave anything to doubt," Dworsky said.

Potential charges include tampering with public records and obstruction of governmental administration, Dworsky said.

On Dec. 31, 2005, Town Clerk Kathryn Connolly claims she saw four individuals -- planning board member and former town attorney Linda Mandel-Clemente; Evelyn Kohler, the confidential assistant to outgoing Town Supervisor Paul Tazbir; planning board member Jim Reid and an unidentified woman -- removing boxes from Town Hall.

Town police followed the group to Mandel-Clemente's office and seized the boxes of files.

Mandel-Clemente had more files in her office.

Her attorney, Ray Kelly, said she kept the files after resigning in December because the town's new attorney, Josh Sabo, represented an entity that took legal action against the town.

Town police investigated the case and Chief Rocco Fragomeni agreed calling a grand jury is the best idea.

"We concur with the request and we would have made that request three weeks ago, but we were told we had to make a report to the (police) commission," he said.

The commission was reinstituted when the town's new administration took over in January.

Neither Sabo nor town Supervisor Mark Evers had any comment on the decision.

Rensselaer County District Attorney Patricia DeAngelis recused herself from the case.

Eric Wohlleber, her spokesman, said DeAngelis stepped aside because she is a Republican and the town administration has Democratic roots, and she wanted to avoid any appearance of partiality.

County Court Judge Patrick McGrath appointed Tom O'Hern, an Albany attorney, to the case, Wohlleber said.

Kate Perry can be reached at 454-5420 or by e-mail at kperry@timesunion.com.

The other day, on FOX NEWS FAIR AND BALANCED, I heard that the American Bar Association was launching a big advertising campaign ....

That had as its objective ....

An attempt to convince the American public ....

That lawyers are not sleazy ....

And I had to think to myself ....

That just buying some "good press" is not going to change any perceptions ....

That are formed in the minds of the American people ....

By their own contacts with lawyers ....

And by what they see the lawyers getting away with ....

Week after week after week ...

In their own town board meetings ....

And planning board meetings ...

And zoning board meetings ...

Not to mention all of what has been discussed in here, to date ....

This farce of a disciplinary hearing, for example, that was held in Rensselaer County in the State of New York in 1989 ....

There were no standards of evidence in place at that proceeding ...

As was made clear over and over again by the LAWYER in charge, the "EYES AND EARS" of REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County Executive John L. Buono, the Honorable Phil Lance himself ....

Witness on March 16, 1989, for example, when Lance was responding to an objection by the PLAINTIFF over REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County Public Health Director Kenneth Van Praag's right to step in and censure the content of PLAINTIFF's communications as a New York State licensed professional engineer when corresponding with other engineers practicing in the Rensselaer County Health District in alleged accordance with the New York State Public Health Law and Sanitary Code:

EYES-AND-EARS: I'll note your objection ....

And as with ....

As I stated previously ....

IN THIS PROCEEDING ....

THE EVIDENTIARY RULES ....

DO NOT APPLY!

SO .....

Professor Shanks ....

EXACTLY WHAT IS IT THAT YOU ARE MAKING REFERENCE TO ....

When you talk about being held to the same standards as a lawyer?

Especially in light of Albany County Bar Association President Michael P. Friedman's statement above in March of 2003 that:

After all, it is just "Ethical Considerations" in the Code of Professional Responsibility, as in "OK, I've considered it, now here's what we do ....."

There is the standard that a lawyer is held to ....

At least in New York State ...

AND IT IS NOTHING AT ALL ....

A SHAM ....

A RUSE ....

A SNOW-JOB ....

As this entire episode from 1988, at least, until this very day has demonstrated ....

And the genesis of this story in here starts with REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County Attorney Robert Smith, ESQUIRE, and his DEPUTY, REPUBLICAN Gordon Mayo, ESQUIRE, trying to force the low ethical standards of the lawyer's profession over onto the practice of professional engineering in the State of New York as well ....

And the engineer refused ......

And that was unacceptable ...

And so .....

Date: September 27, 1994

Certified Transcript of Examination of REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County Executive John L. Buono, by order of Federal District Court for Northern District of New York

Q: Now, on October 13, 1988, do you recall being interviewed by Chris Kapostacy for the Capital Region Report that was subsequently broadcast over Channel 13 television?

BUONO: I remember being interviewed by a number of people.

I have a vague recollection of being interviewed by Chris Kapostacy.

Q: Do you remember telling Ms. Kapostacy that there was a number of developers who were developing a large pool of money to use to run against you?

BUONO: I don't remember saying that to Ms. Kapostacy, no.

REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County Attorney Robert A. Smith, ESQUIRE: NOTE MY OBJECTION to the record to this procedure.

I don't know what we're going to do here!

Presumably, we're listening to some type of tape that's not been identified.

SO!

Just note my objection for the record.

Q: This is an excerpt from a tape recording of a Channel 13 news broadcast, and we'll provide you with a copy of the tape.

SMITH: I just placed my objection on the record as there being no proper foundation for this.

Nor is it proper procedure at a deposition.

But go right ahead and do it!

(Whereupon a portion of the tape was played)

Q: Do you recognize the voice?

BUONO: I recognize the voice, yes!

Chris!

I don't know who the other guy was, though.

Yes!

I do!

Yes!

Q: And that is you?

SMITH: Object to the form.

You can answer.

BUONO: It was tough to hear, but it sounds like my melodic voice, yes!

Q: Do you remember telling Chris Kapostacy about developers who were getting a fund of money up to run against you?

SMITH: Object to the form of the question.

I think it's already been asked and answered.

If your question is, does the tape recording refresh his recollection, I'll pemit him to answer that.

Q: Okay.

Having heard this excerpt of the tape recording, does that refresh your recollection with respect to whether you told Ms. Kapostacy that there were developers who were saving a large amount of money to run against you?

SMITH: Object to the form.

You can answer.

BUONO: I remember -- well, that obviously refreshes my memory!

I didn't know I said it to her or not.

There was some general information like that from the developer's side.

And then there was the other side, which indicated they weren't too pleased with me, either.

Q: And what was the source of YOUR INFORMATION that the developers had a fund of $80,000 to run against you, or run somebody against you?

SMITH: Note my objection to the form!

I don't know where that amount came from!

BUONO: I don't know that, either!

SMITH: But you can answer the question, GENERALLY!

BUONO: To the best of my recollection, I think it came out of some of the public hearings and legislative hearings and just general rumor floating around.

I don't put much stock in that stuff!

Q: Did the fact that the developers were allegedly saving up a fund to run somebody against you have anything to do with YOUR DECISION to place PLAINTIFF on leave of absence?

BUONO: OH, ABSOLUTELY NOT!

And here, a reader has stopped me and asked me to clarify this statement right above here ...

About "standards" ....

And let us say ....

The difference in "standards" that a licensed professional engineer would be held to ...

Versus those the lawyer is allegedly held to ....

And this is confusing ..

Which is why it is a good idea to stop right here and address this issue ....

If one were to come to the State of New York, and look for any "legal justifications" for the profession of engineering ...

Versus that of "lawyering" .....

One could go right to the volume of law in the State of New York entitled Education Law ....

And in that volume of law ...

One would come across specific legislation creating the profession of engineering in the State of New York ....

What licensed professional engineers are licensed by the state to do ...

And when their services are required ....

And further ...

One would then find the Rules of the New York State Board of Regents which also govern the practice of the profession of engineering in the State of New York ...

And if one wanted to "audit" the practice of the profession of engineering in the State of New York, that would form the baseline ....

And if one wished to bring on a complaint of unprofessional practice against a licensed professional engineer, the basis of that complaint would come from the law and the rules ....

If one then went around and tried to find out why we have lawyers here in New York, one would have a much harder time finding that basis ...

And it is not codified in any laws that I have ever found ....

SO ...

How have lawyers come to hold such power over our lives ....

And .....

How then does one bring on a disciplinary action against a lawyer?

That has been a question that has plagued us up here for years ...

Going back to at least 1983 ......

And in the course of seeking that answer ....

One is drawn to the headquarters of the New York State Bar Association down in Albany ...

Where one would be handed this little book entitled The Lawyer's Code of Professional Responsibility .....

Except as Albany County Bar Association President Michael Friedman made incandescently clear to everyone in this area back in March of 2003 ....

IT IS NOT A CODE, AT ALL .....

To the lawyers, that is ....

Instead, it is just a bunch of suggestions ...

Intended to gull the unsuspecting public ...

Into believing that lawyers are bound by any ethics at all ....

There is the sham ....

And it is perpetrated on us ...

By the "legal profession", itself ....

Which is these BAR ASSOCIATIONS .....

The "CRIMINAL BAR", as they call it up here ...

And this same reader also wanted to know if this statement above in March of 2003 was a public statement ...

And that answer is yes ...

It was ...

The "FINALLY COMING OUT OF THE CLOSET STATEMENT" some wags up here called it ....

WHOOPTY-DOO .....

We can just picture in our minds a copy of this Lawyer's Code of Professional Responsibility flying through the air towards the trash bin as this Friedman made his statements above ....

And if you can open that link, which is Adobe, and if you scroll down to the second page after Friedman's statement, there you will see in the same edition pictures of the highest judges in the State of New York ....

And if you scroll further down to page 6, on the right hand side, in BENCH AND BAR IN THE NEWS, there you will see the name of Randolph Treece in that same edition ....

And Randolph Treece was the federal Magistrate Judge in this matter under discussion in here who was responsible for denying PLAINTIFF a GENERAL ORDER #25 CONFERENCE in this matter, as well as discovery ....

When he was told to do so by Donny "BOB" Ford, ESQUIRE, of the Albany-based Thuillez, Ford & Gold Johnson law firm ...

Who were representing the hospital and doctor who had violated New York State law by certifying PLAINTIFF for direct admission to the secure mental health facility of the Albany, New York Stratton VA Hospital ...

When PLAINTIFF had never been to Samaritan Hospital ...

Or was ever seen or examined ...

By John Christian Braaten, the CORPORATE DOCTOR for Northeast Health, Inc. ...

Who had certified the direct admission ...

Completely sight unseen ...

Because REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County Executive Kathleen Jimino wanted it done that way ....

In violation of PLAINTIFF's rights to due process of law ...

Here in OUR America ....

The RULES OF EVIDENCE, indeed, Judge Bing-Newton .....

The RULES OF EVIDENCE, indeed .....

Talk to us about the RULES OF EVIDENCE ....

And why you, a judge yourself, would be afraid to go to court without a lawyer ...

For we would all be very interested to know ....

And I believe the answer as to why you, a judge,. would be afraid to go to court without a lawyer ...

Is because you know better than anyone else what a crock this statement about the RULES OF EVIDENCE really is ....

The statement really should be, "When you tell a lawyer he or she will be held to the rules of evidence, you may as well be saying 'blah, blah, blah, blah'" .....

And that goes for this case ...

In spades .....

Let's see ....

There is the statement of New York State Police BCI Investigator Chris O'Brien as to what he observed transpiring in connection with this matter on August 22, 2001 .....

That LAWYER and New York State Attorney General Eliot "Big EL" Spitzer had suppressed from the record ....

Despite any alleged rules of evidence to the contrary ....

And then ....

There is the sworn statement of the Albany, New York Police Officer ....

"Big EL" the LAWYER had that suppressed ....

And then ...

There are the false statements made to and false reports filed with the VA Police at the Stratton VA Hospital by New York State Veterans' Service officer William "BUCK" SHEA and nurse Andrea Gallerie ....

Despite their falseness, lawyer Spitzer defended these as though they were true ...

Despite being in possession of absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support them ...

And while possessed of evidence of their falseness ...

Which evidence "Big EL" suppressed ...

And this is the top law-enforcement lawyer in the State of New York .....

If the big guy lawyer is willing to do the "hokey-pokey" here ....

And he is ...

Then all the small fry follow, and so .....

Judge Bing-Newton, a judge herself, is afraid to go to court without a lawyer ....

And it is not because the rules are complex ....

That is a crock ....

The course of the law in the State of New York has been to codify ...

And simplify ....

So that the New York State Civil Practice Rules ..

Or the New York State Criminal Procedure Law ....

Are really quite easy to understand ...

And to follow ....

As they would have to be ...

For the law to mean anything at all ....

BUT ....

In reality ...

What is printed in those books ....

Is just a bunch of twaddle ...

To the lawyers ....

And so ...

No wonder Judge Bing-Newton is afraid to go to court without a lawyer ...

And no wonder that we common law-abiding citizens up here in Rensselaer County in the State of New York are so disgusted by this whole BID-NESS .....

Ladies and gentlemen ....

I don't know what it is like where you are ...

In terms of what is called "law and order" ....

But up here where I am ...

When the New York State Attorney General gets involved in a case of where a citizen's rights have been violated by the state, itself ...

The law is the first thing to go out the window ..

And the RULES OF EVIDENCE follow ...

And so ...

This thread .....

And good morning, America ....

And the candid world, as well ....

For those of you just coming by for the first time, what we are talking about in here is real ....

Which is to say ....

I am "reading" in here from what is the PUBLIC RECORD ....

Documents that are available and accessible to members of the public ...

As opposed to simply ranting ....

Which I would hope stays out of this thread ...

As it is generally not productive in the long term ....

And what we are talking about is the "STATE OF THE LAW" in the State of New York ....

And why that might be so ....

And this indeed is a difficult topic to discuss ....

Not because the law is complex or complicated ....

AS IT IS WRITTEN ....

But because it has degenerated down to being little more than a game, at least where I am here in the middle of things, as it were ....

And to calmly and rationally discuss that without it becoming nothing more than a tirade or jeremiad against or about lawyers and politicians is a challenge ....

The real challenge being staying with the subject of an overt threat to OUR constitutional rights up here in the State of New York ....

While at the same time, demonstrating or discussing how lawyers, judges and politicians are THE DIRECT THREAT ....

As opposed to being the safeguards that we might naively think they are, because we believe in our hearts and minds that they are supposed to be, forgetting as we do that they are simply human like us ...

And thus ....

Not "perfect vessels" at all ...

Which is why WE here in America are supposed to be living in a nation of laws ...

And not men ...

As was the case before OUR independence from the tyranny of England, back in the days of OUR nation's beginnings ....

And while the immediate focus of this thread when I began it was an adverse ruling by a BUSH APPOINTEE FEDERAL DISTRICT COURT JUDGE in the federal Northen District of New York, what I have been doing is "painting" in the "rest of the picture", so to speak ....

Which covers a period of time of some twenty or so years .....

And I am doing that for a number of reasons .....

Primarily, I am doing that BECAUSE these types of civil rights matters that I am discussing in here do not just "start" and "end" cleanly and simply .....

To the contrary, these types of matters begin ....

And then they FESTER for a while ...

And there are communications back and forth ....

Until one day ...

It becomes clear, as was the case herein, that the civil rights of an American citizen, or a group of citizens in actuality in this case, were simply going to be ignored by what I will call, for the moment, a POWER STRUCTURE ....

And by that, I do not necessarily mean a political party ....

Although there is that element in this case ....

By POWER STRUCTURE, I am really referring more to collections or COMBINATIONS of people in various capacities who have aligned themselves to effect a common end FOR THEMSELVES ....

In violation of laws, rules and regulations to the contrary ....

And to the detriment of those who were to be "protected" by those very laws, rules and regulations ....

And here I will say that I am referring to the Constitution of the State of New York, which Constitution is unique and specific to New York State and no other state in this union of ours ...

And I will state the laws primarily as the New York State Public Health Law and the New York State Environmental Conservation Law ....

So as to keep this discussion in its proper context ....

Where we have gotten to in here today is kind of hard to say, actually ....

Because while one might lose a specific battle in court ...

As was the case here ....

While the STRUCTURE remains in place, as it has, and while that STRUCTURE continues to violate the rights of the citizens, the "fight" goes on ...

And so ....

And you never know what that is going to be ...

You can only wait and see ....

Because the law in OUR America does not allow one to get an order restraining a public official from taking a future action ....

We, the common citizens, anyway, can only act once we have been harmed ...

And so ....

During these last so many months, and especially today, with Attorney General Gonzales being called to testify before a United States Senate Committee on George W. Bush's apparent un-constitutional usurpation of legislative powers and arrogation of authority unto himself to be able to do so, we hear much about these government lawyers not being to openly discuss in public what they have discussed in private with their "client" ....

And as is apparent from this thread, and this 1993 OSTROV MEMORANDUM above, that is complete balderdash ....

And malarky .....

IF REPUBLICAN RENSSELAER COUNTY ATTORNEY ROBERT A. SMITH COULD BE PUT ON THE WITNESS STAND IN RENSSELAER COUNTY IN 1989, AND BE CROSS-EXAMINED WHILE UNDER OATH ABOUT CONVERSATIONS THAT HE HAD BEHIND CLOSED DOORS WITH REPUBLICAN RENSSELAER COUNTY EXECUTIVE JOHN L. BUONO ABOUT "GETTING RID OF" THE RENSSELAER COUNTY HEALTH DISTRICT ASSOCIATE PUBLIC HEALTH ENGINEER, THEN WHERE DOES ALLEGED "PRIVILEGE TO SILENCE" FOR MR. GONZALES DERIVE FROM, IF THE UNITED STATES SENATE IS LOOKING INTO ALLEGED WRONG-DOING IN OFFICE BY THE EXECUTIVE, GEORGE W. BUSH, THAT WAS ALLEGEDLY COMMITTED BASED UPON ADVICE FROM GONZALES THAT IT WOULD BE "ALRIGHT" TO DO SO?

SO .....

Benson wanted a New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Waste Management Facility Operating Permit to "FLIP" ....

Which is to say, sell to a "HIGHER BIDDER" ....

And so ....

According to the public records up here in the corrupt State of New York ...

Benson went to Stockli the LOBBYIST LAWYER ....

With a bag of money .....

And then ....

Stockli went to his "CONTACTS" in New York State government ...

Where he did the HOKEY-POKEY, as it is called up here ....

He threw his left leg in, he threw his left leg out, he threw his left leg in and then he shook it all about ...

And LO AND BEHOLD ...

Out of that little dance ...

He walked away with a permit from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation .....

Of course it was as BOGUS as a thirty-two-and-a-half dollar bill ....

But what the hey ...

Who wants to quibble about small details like that .....

SO .....

America ....

And the candid watching world ....

WHAT DO GOVERNMENT LAWYERS REALLY TALK ABOUT, WHEN THEY ARE BEHIND CLOSED DOORS WITH THEIR CLIENTS?

And that answer is simple ...

A) GETTING CAUGHT; and

B) GETTING RID OF SOMEONE .....

So that they don't get caught again ....

That's what they really do talk about ...

In their own words ...

For Robert A. Smith, ESQUIRE, the REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County Attorney was not coerced in any way by the PLAINTIFF herein to mount that witness stand and have himself put under oath .....

No ...

That is Robert A. Smith, ESQUIRE, speaking out for all the candid world to hear, OF HIS OWN FREE WILL ....

As is the case with New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Regional Attorney Richard Ostrov above ....

Whose very words in that October 22, 1993 memorandum above demonstrate the underlying premise in this thread very amply .....

THAT IF THE PLAINTIFF HEREIN HAD BEEN WILLING TO DO THE "HOKEY-POKEY" LIKE THESE ENCON BOYS, AND THEREBY SELL OUT OUR COMMUNITY, HE TOO WOULD HAVE BEEN SURROUNDED BY SWARMS OF GOVERNMENT LAWYERS, AND THE NEW YORK STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL, AS WELL, TO PROTECT HIS UNLAWFUL ACTIVITIES .......

BUT INSTEAD, FOR HIS STAUNCH REFUSAL, HE ENDED UP ALLEGED TO BE MENTALLY ILL AND DANGEROUS INSTEAD ....

And Eliot Spitzer the LAWYER has a piece of phoney paper from a doctor in Troy, New York to prove it ....

And so it goes ....

And then ....

They lament ....

About not drawing a crooked judge ....

When they do get caught ....

And that's what it's all about .....

The HOKEY-POKEY, I mean .....

It is about "ACCESS" .....

Access to blank government permits ....

Fraudulent instruments ....

Or false instruments ...

Which you then immediately turn around and sell ...

So someone new can come in and make an immediate amendment request ...

And thereby "launder" the bogus permit back through the very "system" that issued it in the first place to "legitimize" it .....

So that no citizen can then challenge that permit ...

Because the record becomes so confused ....

On purpose ....

So that the NYSDEC can then claim a defense of STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS to get the case thrown right out of court in the case of a challenge ....

And everyone is "home free" .....

EXCEPT ....

It was done to us in OUR town ...

And the PLAINTIFF called them out on it in court ...

And he won ...

Which then caused a ****-storm ....

Because of what had been exposed ...

And what had to be admitted to by the New York State Attorney General while under oath before New York State Supreme Court Justice Williams in that hearing that DEC LAWYER Ostrov makes mention of, right above here, in his October 22, 1993 memorandum to his "CREW" ....

And here a reader has asked me how this Ostrov can be so open, as he is, about these things, especially this allegation of bias on the part of the judge when it is clear from his own admissions that the DEC and his "CREW" had violated the law in the State of New York when they handed Benson a NYSDEC Solid Waste Management Facility permit for a garbage dumping station in the Town of Poestenkill, Rensselaer County that he wanted to build and then sell to trash giant Waste Management out of Texas as an alleged "approved" REGIONAL FACILITY ....

All based on a DEC permit that was as bogus as a thirty-two-and-a-half-dollar bill .....

And the answer to that is that up here in the State of New York ...

These lawyers like Ostrov are immune from prosecution ...

They can openly advocate that DEC employees violate the law ...

And if the employees then do so ....

As the evidence shows Clarke and Henningson did so in this matter ....

Then Ostrov's alleged immunity wraps around his "CREW", and so ....

The New York State Attorney General steps in and protects the lot of them ....

And so ....

What does Ostrov have to fear?

And that answer is nothing ...

Absolutely nothing at all ....

Despite something called the law ...

And so ....

I can actually remember a time in my community when all was really at peace .....

People got along ....

And there was no strife ....

And then ...

That all changed ....

The why and how would take forever to explain ....

And since that is outside the scope of this thread, I will refrain from going further than that statement, for this moment, anyway .....

Since the real issue in this thread is the relationship that citizens should have with the law in the State of New York specifically, or any state in the union, generally, AS A RESTORATIVE DEVICE ....

To keep OUR democratic processes on track ...

And they are OUR democratic processes ....

Not some lawyer's ....

And certainly not some judges ...

To dish out or hold back ...

As they please ...

On any whim that might come in to their head ...

At that moment .....

And so ....

What exactly is this "thing" of "due process of law"?

And maybe more to the point, from where does it arise?

From whence does it come?

The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, perhaps?

Did we "invent" due process of law, here in OUR America?

Is it an American "thing", such that it can be taken back by those who gave it to us in the first place, which would be the government of the United States of America?

Is due process of law something that a federal district court judge can dole out, if he or she is in the mood to do so?

Which of course would make it something that they can also withhold, when the mood strikes them ........

"It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped ....."

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal ...."

"Or acts to improve the lot of others ....

"Or strikes out against injustice ...."

"He sends forth a tiny ripple of hope ..."

"And crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring ..."

"Those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

- Robert F. Kennedy, US Attorney General 1961-64, assassinated in Los Angeles while campaigning, 1968.

Without LAW grounded in the concept that justice is based upon the rule of law grounded in respect for the dignity of the individual and the capacity of the individual through reason for enlightened self-government .....

Individual rights become subject to unrestrained power, respect for law is destroyed, and rational self-government is impossible .....

And that is what we are talking about in here, actually ....

We are talking about a real place in the United States of America of where individual rights in Rensselaer County in the State of New York are now clearly subject to unrestrained power ....

And as a direct result of the March 31, 2005 federal District Court decision under discussion in this thread, respect for the law has been destroyed ....

To be replaced by utter contempt .....

And so ...

For us, the affected citizens, RATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT has indeed become impossible ..

For without law, there is no stability ....

And without stability, rational self-government is impossible ...

Because the "government" of one's surroundings, one's community itself is no longer rational ...

And so ....

Rational self-government is impossible when you have no idea from moment to moment how a certain law will be interpreted ...

Or enforced .....

Whether for you this moment ...

And against the next ....

Despite the same set of actions performed ....

Or what it even means ...

Since it never is interpreted or enforced in the same way twice ....

That is madness ...

And yet ...

That is what we have up here ...

And so ....

"NASA 'folk hero' will speak - Scientist who says bosses tried to muzzle him joins climate forum at Albany Law School"

By MATT PACENZA, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Friday, February 17, 2006

ALBANY -- The NASA scientist who charged the Bush administration tried to prevent him from speaking out about the dangers of global warming will address the issue of climate change in Albany this spring.

James Hansen, an expert in temperature data and one of the earliest researchers to recognize that the Earth is warming, landed on the front page last month for revealing efforts by NASA brass to stop his calls for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases.

On April 18, the chief of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies will join journalists, professors and attorneys in a one-day seminar at Albany Law School on "catastrophic climate change."

One of the conference's organizers, visiting professor Eleanor Stein, said the law school was thrilled to get Hansen on board even before the hullabaloo.

Now that he has become a "folk hero," she said, organizers expect a big turnout.

"It's like we scheduled a conference on evolution and Charles Darwin called and said, 'I'd like to drop by,' " Stein said.

Joining Hansen will be reporter Elizabeth Kolbert, who recently wrote a prize-winning series on global warming in The New Yorker magazine, and Amory Lovins, the energy efficiency guru and CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado.

The meeting, which is open to the public, is titled "Catastrophic Climate Change: The Science, the Social Costs, and the Race for Legal Remedies."

It will focus on the science of global warming and several recent legal efforts to address it.

In 2004, New York and seven other states sued the nation's five largest global warming polluters, all companies that own power plants, to force them to reduce greenhouse gases.

Then, in June 2005, Inuit hunters in the Arctic filed a petition with the Organization of American States accusing the United States of violating their human rights for contributing to global warming.

This is the law school's fourth annual symposium, held in conjunction with its Environmental Outlook Journal, a student-edited publication out since 1995.

There was widespread agreement among students and faculty that this was the right year to discuss climate change, given 2005's massive storms, which many argue were bolstered by global warming.

"In the Arctic, they're moving people away from the coasts," said Stein, a former administrative law judge.

"The sea levels are rising."

"We can see observable effects -- today."

Matt Pacenza can be reached at 454-5533 or by e-mail at mpacenza@timesunion.com.

ON THE WEB

Details of the climate change symposium are not yet finalized. For updates, check http://www.als.edu/

Without LAW .....

What does that mean to be without LAW?

As a combat veteran from the Viet Nam war ...

It certainly means a lot to me, of course ...

Or maybe that is not so obvious, after all ....

And that is alright ......

Since I am the narrator in here ...

And so ...

I should never assume that my intentions are always clear to the reader ..

Who has never met me ....

And so, knows not necessarily of what I speak ..

Until I make the effort to make it plain as day ...

As should be the case in here ...

If I am to present my subject fully for your consideration .....

For me, Viet Nam was a place of no law ...

Or at least ...

None that I could ever see ...

Other than over the sights of my own rifle ...

And that was the "law" ....

As set by me ...

And I would be the very first to say that that is totally unacceptable ....

CONTRA-SURVIVAL, as the ecologists and psychologists might say ....

I don't wish to live in a world like Viet Nam was ....

A place where absolutely no one was safe ....

A place where murder could be committed with impunity ....

Complete impunity ...

No fear whatsoever of any redress of that grievance committed on the Vietnamese people ...

BECAUSE THEY HAD NO CONSTITUTION ....

Is what we were told ...

And so ...

They had no protection of law in their own land .....

And believe me ...

They didn't ......

And that experience of a place with absolutely no law whatsoever is what really got me to thinking about this subject ...

And that is well over thirty years ago ...

And so .....

And here's a glimpse, perhaps .......

ESPECIALLY IN A NATION WHERE AN INNOCENT ENGINEER PRACTICING HIS PROFESSION IN A LAWFUL MANNER TO PROTECT AND SAFEGUARD LIFE, HEALTH AND PROPERTY IN HIS COMMUNITY CAN BE SO VERY EASILY "BRANDED" BY THE "GOVERNMENT" AS AN ALLEGED "DANGEROUS MENTAL PATIENT" AND HAVE HIS NAME PERMANENTLY PLACED ON THESE "GOVERNMENT WATCH LISTS" BASED ON NOTHING BUT OUTRIGHT LIES, AND ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER .....

AND NO "DUE PROCESS OF LAW", TO BOOT .....

"325,000 Names on Terrorism List - Rights Groups Say Database May Include Innocent People"

By Walter Pincus and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, February 15, 2006; Page A01

The National Counterterrorism Center maintains a central repository of 325,000 names of international terrorism suspects or people who allegedly aid them, a number that has more than quadrupled since the fall of 2003, according to counterterrorism officials.

The list kept by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) -- created in 2004 to be the primary U.S. terrorism intelligence agency -- contains a far greater number of international terrorism suspects and associated names in a single government database than has previously been disclosed.

Because the same person may appear under different spellings or aliases, the true number of people is estimated to be more than 200,000, according to NCTC officials.

U.S. citizens make up "only a very, very small fraction" of that number, said an administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of his agency's policies.

"The vast majority are non-U.S. persons and do not live in the U.S.," he added.

An NCTC official refused to say how many on the list -- put together from reports supplied by the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency (NSA) and other agencies -- are U.S. citizens.

The NSA is a key provider of information for the NCTC database, although officials refused to say how many names on the list are linked to the agency's controversial domestic eavesdropping effort.

Under the program, the NSA has conducted wiretaps on an unknown number of U.S. citizens without warrants.

The government has been trying to streamline what counterterrorism officials say are more than 26 terrorism-related databases compiled by agencies throughout the intelligence and law enforcement communities.

Names from the NCTC list are provided to the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center (TSC), which in turn provides names for watch lists maintained by the Transportation Security Administration and other agencies.

Civil liberties advocates and privacy experts said they were troubled by the size of the NCTC database, and they said it further heightens their concerns that such government terrorism lists include the names of large numbers of innocent people.

Timothy Sparapani, legislative counsel for privacy rights at the American Civil Liberties Union, called the numbers "shocking but, unfortunately, not surprising."

"We have lists that are having baby lists at this point; they're spawning faster than rabbits," Sparapani said.

"If we have over 300,000 known terrorists who want to do this country harm, we've got a much bigger problem than deciding which names go on which list."

"But I highly doubt that is the case."

Asked whether the names in the repository were collected through the NSA's domestic intelligence intercept program, the NCTC official said, "Our database includes names of known and suspected international terrorists provided by all intelligence community organizations, including NSA."

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that he could not discuss specifics but said:

"Information is collected, information is retained and information disseminated in a way to protect the privacy interests of all Americans."

The NCTC name repository began under its predecessor agency in 2003 with 75,000 names, and it continues to grow.

The center was created as part of a broad reorganization of U.S. intelligence agencies after the failure to disrupt the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

It is the main agency for analyzing and integrating terrorism intelligence and is under direction of Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte.

Its central database is the hub of an elaborate network of terrorism-related databases throughout the federal bureaucracy.

Terrorism-related names and other data are sent to the NCTC under standards set by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 6, signed by President Bush in September 2003, according to a senior NCTC official.

The directive calls upon agencies to supply data only about people who are "known or appropriately suspected to be . . . engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism."

"We work on the basis that information reported to us has been collected in accordance with those guidelines," Vice Adm. John Scott Redd, the center's director, said in a statement.

Analysts at the NCTC review all incoming names and can reject them if they do not have an apparent link to international terrorists, officials said.

"That is not common, but it does happen," an NCTC official said, citing as examples a domestic or foreign drug dealer or a member of a U.S.-based extremist group, when neither has any sign of international terrorist connections.

The NCTC then sends a subset of the repository list to the FBI's screening center, and each entry includes a reference "to how the individual is associated with international terrorism," according to a June 2005 report by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine.

This reference is assigned one of 25 codes such as "Member of a Foreign Terrorist Organization," "Hijacker" or "Has Engaged in Terrorism," according to the report.

The report also notes that the codes are split in two categories: "Individuals who are considered armed and dangerous and those who are not."

Fine's office criticized the TSC for including nearly 32,000 records of people in the "armed and dangerous" category but giving them the lowest handling code, which means that no report needs to be sent back to the FBI if they are encountered in the United States by law enforcement officers.

The TSC consolidates NCTC data on individuals associated with foreign terrorism with the FBI's purely domestic terrorism data to create a unified, unclassified terrorist watch list.

The TSC, in turn, provides, for official use only, a version giving each person's name, country, date of birth, photos and other data to the Transportation Security Agency for its no-fly list, the State Department for its visa program, the Department of Homeland Security for border crossings, and the National Crime Information Center for distribution to police.

Shannon Moran, a spokeswoman for the FBI screening center, declined to answer detailed questions about the center's work, including how many names are on its list, how many U.S. citizens are included and whether the FBI database includes names linked to the NSA program.

Fine's office reported last year that the FBI database contained more than 270,000 names, including a large number of people associated with domestic terrorist movements such as radical environmentalists and neo-Nazi white supremacists.

"If being placed on a list means in practice that you will be denied a visa, barred entry, put on the no-fly list, targeted for pretextual prosecutions, etc., then the sweep of the list and the apparent absence of any way to clear oneself certainly raises problems," said David D. Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who has been sharply critical of the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies.

The growth of terrorist-related data networks within the U.S. intelligence community has greatly accelerated since Sept. 11, 2001.

Before the al Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, there were databases containing terrorist identities at the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, FBI and State Department.

In addition there were 13 independent watch lists, but the lists or databases were not interoperable.

Currently, according to an NCTC official, there are 26 classified data networks carrying terrorism material.

In a December 2005 interview on Federal News Radio, Redd said his agency "is really the only place in government and certainly in the intelligence community where all counterterrorism intelligence comes together."

He also said that analyses of terrorism issues from all 15 intelligence agencies come into the NCTC, which then puts them on its Web site.

"What that means," Redd said, "is about 5,000 analysts around the counterterrorist intelligence community can pull up that Web site and see . . . what every other agency has as well, assuming they have the clearances."

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the size of the NCTC list and other terrorism-related databases underscores the severity of the "false positive" problem, in which innocent people -- including members of Congress -- have been stopped for questioning or halted from flying because their names are wrongly included or are similar to suspects' names.

"One of the seemingly unsolvable problems is what do you do when someone is wrongly put on this watch list," Rotenberg said.

"If there are that many people on the list, a lot of them probably shouldn't be there."

"But how are they ever going to get off?"

The answer is ...

THEY NEVER WILL ....

Which is what this case clearly demonstrates .....

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO MECHANISM IN OUR CONSTITUTIONAL BODY OF LAW, SO SAYS THE FEDERAL COURT, THAT CAN PREVENT ONE FROM HAVING ONE'S LIBERTY STRIPPED FROM ONE WITHOUT DUE PROCESS OF LAW .....

ABSOLUTELY NO MECHANISM WHATSOEVER ....

You can be denounced by someone whose identity can be kept secret from you ...

As was the case with the TRASHMAN in this matter ...

REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County Director of Central Services Timothy Holt ...

Whose name was never disclosed to PLAINTIFF ...

Until this matter was on appeal up to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City ....

And by then ...

It was much too late ....

And you can never confront this witness against you ...

In a court of law ....

And the federal court will be the very first to enforce that "standard" against you ...

IF YOU HAVE BEEN FALSELY BRANDED ....

As was the PLAINTIFF herein ....

And yet ...

Based upon this "secret" person's "word" .....

An individual in the State of New York .....

Can have their entire identity stripped from them ....

To be replaced by a set of lies ...

Which then enter these government data bases ....

FOREVER ....

Which is exactly what happened in this case ...

When Doctor John Christian Braaten at Samaritan Hospital in Troy, New York ....

Signed and executed that "direct psychiatric admission" paperwork ....

Pursuant to New York State Mental Hygiene Law sections 9.39 and 9.40 on August 22, 2001 ....

Doctor John Christian Braaten of Samaritan Hospital in Troy, New York "used" his "status" as a medical doctor in the State of New York on August 22, 2001 to "enter" the PLAINTIFF in this matter into the New York State computer system that tracks and records the names of those in the State of New York who are deemed to be mentally ill and dangerous ....

A database which is kept on a secure computer ....

A database which cannot be challenged ...

EVEN WHEN THE BODY OF EVIDENCE DEMONSTRATES CONCLUSIVELY THAT THE DOCTOR, BRAATTEN IN THIS CASE, VIOLATED THE LAW WHEN MAKING THIS CERTIFICATION .....

As the Second Circuit Court of Appeals said in this case .....

SO WHAT ...

BIG DEAL .....

WHO CARES?

And so .....

"How to select judges - The best way remains an appointed system, despite objections heard in the Legislature"

Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Monday, February 20, 2006

To hear the reactions of some state legislators, U.S. District Court John Gleeson is asking the impossible.

The judge has ruled that the old system of choosing judicial candidates at political conventions is unconstitutional.

So he has ordered that judges be selected through primaries until the Legislature agrees on a new system.

But now some legislators, along with some county political leaders, are complaining that there isn't much time to arrange primaries and they're expensive as well.

Their discontent was reported in an article last Monday by our Capitol reporter, Elizabeth Benjamin.

The complaints are groundless.

Judge Gleeson's order is not only reasonable, but also recognizes what most New Yorkers knew all along -- namely, that choosing judicial candidates at political conventions puts the process totally in the control of the party bosses.

To hear the outcries at party headquarters, and in the Legislature, however, the cost of running in a primary will only make candidates beholden to deep-pocket contributors.

What about public financing, then?

Sen. John DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is cool to that idea, noting that lawyers who are interested in running for the bench are able to raise more money than "someone who wants to be a town supervisor, village mayor or legislator."

Sen. DeFrancisco's counterpart in the Assembly, Helene Weinstein, D-Brooklyn, suggests that screening panels composed of members of nonprofit organizations review judicial candidates.

But it's difficult to fathom how these panels would be an improvement.

True, the members might not have partisan interests at heart.

But their groups have interests that would likely influence candidate selection.

What all sides are missing, or perhaps intentionally ignoring, is what has been apparent for ages: New York needs an appointed judiciary -- one that selects judges on the basis of merit, not connections to the local party bosses.

Regrettably, even the Feerick Commission, which recently made recommendations for reforms, seems oblivious to this.

Instead, it has proposed tinkering with the current, flawed system.

Just as discouraging, both Sen. DeFrancisco and Assemblywoman Weinstein reject an appointed system on the grounds that it would be too time consuming because it would require a constitutional amendment that would have to be approved by two successively elected Legislatures before it could appear on the ballot.

How ironic.

Nothing stopped the Assembly and Senate from trying to wrest budget powers away from the governor last year, even though that required a constitutional amendment as well.

Nor is it stopping a new attempt by the Legislature this year.

So why is the time factor such an obstacle when it comes to judges?

Could it be that both parties want to tout reform ....

While keeping as firm a grip on political power as before?

"After Bush election, nation saturated with lies"

Letters to the Editor
Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Friday, February 17, 2006

Since President Bush's election in 2000, our country has become as saturated with lies as a baklava with honey.

The mantra we keep hearing from on high is that the truth doesn't matter.

Anything goes, and no amount of spinning, exaggerating or misrepresenting is unjustified as long as it does the job.

The "job" may be winning an election.

It may be covering up after some mistake.

It may be convincing a skeptical public.

The lying goes on, and there is never any hint of moral compunction or twinge of conscience to interfere with it.

No wonder the Democrats are so helpless.

They are still playing by the old rules.

They still believe in pre-2000 standards of good government, civility in public discourse and respect for the law.

And no wonder the public is so apathetic.

We disengage.

What's the use of trying to sort the truth from the lies when the lying is so overwhelming?

What's the point in feeling outrage, even, when there's never any sign of contrition or desire to change?

We stand back and watch it all as though it were TV.

What will their next tall tale be?

What way will they find this time to cover up?

How will they extricate themselves from this one?

The day will come, no doubt, when we look back on this sorry era as though it were a bad dream.

And then we'll wonder how we could have ever let it happen to us.

ANTON G. H.
East Greenbush

And so, indeed ....

PROSCRIBED: In the CIVIL LAW, among the Romans, a Man was said to be "proscribed" when a reward was offered for his head; BUT ....

The term was more usually applied to those who were sentenced to some punishment which carried with it the consequences of civil death ....

SENATUS CONSULTUM: In Roman law, a decision or decree of the Roman senate, having the force of law, made without the concurrence of the people ....

These enactments began to take the place of laws enacted by popular vote, when the commons had grown so great in number that they could no longer be assembled for legislative purposes ....

CIVIL DEATH: The STATE of a person who, though possessing natural life, HAS LOST ALL CIVIL RIGHTS AND AS TO THEM, IS CONSIDERED CIVILLY DEAD ...

- Black's Law Dictionary

Lucius Cornelius Sulla (138-78 BC)

Lucius Cornelius Sulla stemmed from a good, though not very wealthy Roman family.

He came to prominence most of all in the Social War (91-89 BC).

When in 88 BC Mithridates, King of Pontus, attacked the Roman province of Asia, where a alleged 80,000 Romans and Italians were massacred, the senate decided on Sulla, who was then one of the current consuls, to be commander of the army against Mithridates.

But the Tribune of the People Suplicus Rufus called for the command to be given to Marius.

The concilium plebis backed this proposal.

But Sulla proved a man not to be messed with.

He marched on Rome at the head of six legions and forced the reversal of this decision.

This type of action was to prove typical of Sulla's methods.

After successfully completing his campaign against Mithridates Sulla returned back to Italy.

Other than having command of a battle-hardened army he held no office.

Sulla was not to wait for anyone to offer him any political position.

He simply marched on Rome and took it by force.

The consuls Gnaeus Papirius Carbo and Marius the Younger could not raise an army powerful enough to fend him off.

And so Sulla took charge.

He was not to take power as an elected consul, but in the position of dictator, a post specially set aside in the Roman constitution for times of military crisis.

Though this was not a military crisis and Sulla hardly cared.

The position simply allowed him complete power.

He now introduced a new judicial device called "proscription".

This meant the publication of lists of any people he deemed undesirable.

Rewards would be made to those who brought them in, be they dead or alive.

It goes without saying that Sulla used this device in order to annihilate any political opposition, rather than to track down any real criminals.

40 senators and 1600 equestrians supposedly died in this first wave of gruesome proscriptions.

Sulla undoubtedly had all the hallmarks of a Stalin, Mussolini or Hitler.

He even revelled in calling assemblies at which he would hold grand speeches, threatening and intimidating all those he claimed to be his enemies, as well as his own audience.

But dictators like Sulla don't just stop killing because the names on the list are exhausted.

Instead he began adding new names of people who had become "enemies of the state".

There was no place people, once on those lists, were safe.

Even those who took refuge in temples were killed.

Some might have been hauled before him and thrown at his feet.

They were killed nonetheless.

Others fell victim to the mob, being literally lynched by a bloodthirsty crowd.

Those suspects who only had all their belongings confiscated and were then thrown out of Rome were indeed the lucky ones among those who felt Sulla's wrath.

And should any have managed to flee, then an intricate network of spies sought to track them down overseas.

Alas, Sulla was not only to be remembered as a butcher.

He also used his position to reform the constitution.

Strangely for a man who himself ignored the senate's wishes and who killed an unprecedented number of its members, he did much to restore its authority.

After the damaging conflicts with the Gracchi brothers and their infamous use of other assemblies, the senate was now reaffirmed as the highest body, entitled to veto any decision reached by another assembly.

The power held by the Tribunes of the People was virtually abolished, as they now no longer possessed the power to challenge the senate.

Membership to the senate was roughly doubled, many equestrians and magistrates of other cities being added to their ranks.

Further he introduced a law by which any new member to be admitted to the senate had at least to have held the position of quaestor beforehand.

This was no doubt to assure the senate remained a body of political and administrative experience.

Also, in order to prevent the re-emergence of serial office holders like the Gracchi, Sulla restored the ten year waiting period before one could hold the same public office a second time.

Additional to this, perhaps to prevent any meteoric rise to power by people like the Gracchi brothers, he introduced a rule by which anyone holding office would have to wait at least two years before he could be nominated for the next higher office.

Of course such restrictions were to make the struggle for power among the ambitious young sons of powerful families all the more intense.

Sulla also instituted legal reforms, which created new courts for particular types of crime.

Also his reforms highlighted between civil and criminal legal procedures.

Here, too, the senate found its authority strengthened, as Sulla's reforms allowed only senior senators to sit as judges.

Unusual for a tyrant, Sulla retired in 79 BC.

He spent his last years on his country estate, writing his memoirs.

Within a short time he died of old age.

http://www.roman-empire.net/republic/sulla.html

And here, a reader has stopped me and asked me, "Whoa, Livyjr, where are you going with this now, this business about Sulla of Rome" ...

And my answer is that I am kind of drawing a line in here ....

Making connections, as it were ....

In an attempt to arrive at a point ....

To then be able to clearly demonstrate, through what took place in this case, exactly what that point is ...

And why it does need to be made ...

Especially today ....

Where OUR liberty is under attack in this country as I have never experienced before, and that includes the Viet Nam times .....

Which in many ways ...

Were a direct precursor to what is transpiring today ....

Where in the State of New York, according to the Federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City, "PROSCRIPTION" is once again "LEGAL" .....

Just as it was in Sulla's time ...

And for the same end purposes .....

Namely ....

For the "unitary executives" here in OUR America ....

To be able to "rid" themselves of whomever they consider to be a threat ...

To their unbridled power as "unitary executives" ...

Like Sulla was .....

And so ....

For a long time, I was one of those who took OUR United States Constitution for granted .....

Which is to say ....

That regardless of our other differences as human beings ....

It was my thought ...

That we all shared a common understanding of OUR United States Constitution ....

How we came to have it ....

For what purposes it was enacted ....

What it provided for us, the common citizens of OUR America ....

And since then ...

I have learned exactly how naive I really am ...

For OUR Constitution is pretty much worthless ...

To us up here, anyway ....

And DUE PROCESS OF LAW is an absolute JOKE ....

Right now, to us common citizens up here in the federal Northern District of New York, the United States Constitution is little more than the OPIATE OF THE MASSES ....

Which is to say ...

Just confusing smoke ....

And my question ...

As a veteran who took an oath to protect and defend that Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic ...

Is how did it come to be that way ....

And a part of that answer, of course ...

Is that people take the Constitution for granted ...

It is there ...

The ones in power have sworn an oath to the Constitution ...

And so ..

EXCEPT ....

It is not ...

In fact ...

Despite all these sworn oaths ...

I have yet to meet a politician who even knows what the Constitution is supposed to provide for ...

On paper, at least ....

And the interpretation that I always get goes along the lines of the Constitution gives them immunity from the law, which means that they can do whatever they want, while in office, with impunity ...

And so it goes .....

IN REALITY ....

BUT IS IT REALLY SUPPOSED TO BE THAT WAY?

Were we sold a BILL OF GOODS way back when?

Back in 1787, when the Constitutional Convention was in session?

Was the Constitutional Convention nothing more than one great big SHAM, intended to gull the ignorant masses?

One school of thought says YES to that .....

And I say no ....

And so ....

Since I am but a pipsqueak here, myself, in OUR America, does that make me wrong?

Does the faction with the lawyers, guns and money get to call the tune, regardless?

I don't think so .....

BUT ....

That is not enough ....

And so .....

Section 1 of Article I of OUR United States Constitution:

All legislative Powers .....

HEREIN GRANTED .....

Shall be vested ......

In a Congress of the United States .....

Which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives ....

"Herein granted" .....

How many ways can those two words be interpreted?

The question of the morning .....

"Herein granted" means exactly what it says, of course ....

It is what WE, THE PEOPLE of the United States gave to OUR government .....

And there is something that seems to have gone by the wayside, here in OUR America these days ...

This idea of exactly who answers to whom ...

Here in OUR America ....

Which is why I have this thread running ...

So as to have a format in which to discuss this matter ...

Since we, the people, are largely frozen out everywhere else .....

And to be truthful ....

If it were not for this format, where I am able to kind of "squeeze" this subject out like toothpaste ......

I don't think it would be possible to develop this topic ...

And so ...

As I said above, I am one of those people in OUR America who did take OUR Constitution for granted ...

Because of that oath that I took upon voluntarily entering the United States Army in 1968 ....

An oath to protect and defend the United States Constitution ...

Which meant to me ...

That I ought to know what I was swearing to do ...

And so ....

The mistake that I made was in believing that the oath means the same thing to all who swear it ...

Which includes politicians ...

And judges .....

But that is a digression .....

For here is where I wish to take this discussion right now ....

To Section 9 of Article I of OUR United States Constitution .....

Where WE, THE PEOPLE stated in clear and unambiguous language that:

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed ......

And then ....

To Section 10 of OUR United States Constitution ....

Where again, WE, THE PEOPLE stated in clear and unambiguous language that:.

No State shall ... pass any Bill of Attainder .....

And here I shall pause for a moment ....

To let this sink in ....

And so ....

Attainder .....

Attainted ....

Proscribed .....

These somewhat archaic sounding words probably mean exactly nothing to most Americans today ...

And so be that .....

HOWEVER .....

If you were to go a find a copy of the United States Constitution right now today, and if you did open that copy of the United States Constitution up to Section 9 of Article I, entitled LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT, those words that I have posted above would be in there ...

And so .....

What is attainder ...

And why don't we have it here?

OR ...

WHY WEREN'T WE SUPPOSED TO HAVE IT HERE?

Since the practice did not die, simply because of some words on a worthless piece of paper called the United States Constitution ...

Which is largely worthless ...

Because OUR politicians and judges have made it be so ...

The politicians, because they do not wish to be limited in their excesses in any way ...

And the judges ...

Because they are the creatures of the politicians ...

Rather than the law ....

Which as lawyers ...

They are supposed to be the guardians of ....

As for me, I am older now ...

And in that time, I have had a lot of chats and conversations with various people about this subject, or topic, to include lawyers and judges ...

And so ...

I am not just drawing from empty space in here when I make that statement ...

CONVERSELY ....

My conversations with these various individuals has of necessity been limited in size and scope to certain geographical areas of OUR America ...

And so ....

I cannot and will not say that all lawyers and judges everywhere in OUR America feel the same ...

And I would hope, as an American, that they would not ..

And so ...

But again ....

That is a digression .....

Over in another thread, a while back, I was accused of having something called "regional arrogance", because in a discussion, I was talking about being born and raised in the shadow of the Saratoga Revolutionary War battlefield in the State of New York ....

And how that history affected my views of the law and the Constitution .....

And after a lot of further thought on the matter, I come back and say that where we all are from in this America of OURS affects our point of view on these matters ...

BECAUSE HISTORY proceeded across this country from east to west .....

Wars ...

Skirmishes ....

Death ...

Destruction ...

Expansion ...

More death ...

More destruction .....

So that someone in Illinois, or Iowa, or Minnesota, studying their state history will be starting at some further point in time, and so ....

UNLESS THEY FOLLOW THAT HISTORY BACKWARDS, there will be gaps in their "records" ...

So that this subject of attainder likely would mean nothing to them, at all ....

Since those states came after the United States Constitution ......

And so ....

When they were "formed", and then admitted to the union, they had no experience of attainder .....

As by then, supposedly, the "DEVICE" was gone from OUR "usages", here in OUR America .....

BUT NOT BACK HERE IN THE EAST .....

Or specifically, the State of New York ....

And more specifically, the County of Rensselaer in the State of New York ...

Where "feudalism" persisted up into the 1800's .....

With more bloodshed and strife associated with the eventual demise of that "concept" .....

And that is what these "things" really are ...

Things like "due process of law" ...

They are "concepts" ...

And not actualities at all ..

Especially when a judge is hostile to the concept ...

Or to the individual that happens to be appearing before the bar at that moment ....

All of which enters into why the thirteen individual colonies back then eventually severed their ties with England and its peoples, and then fought a bloody war for independence from England ......

Which revolution then gave us OUR United States Constitution ...

Wherein WE, THE PEOPLE told OUR federal government what it could and could not do ...

TO US, ITS CITIZENS .....

And that includes ATTAINDER ....

Which despite its Constitutional prohibition back in 1787 ...

Still lurks around today ....

As the facts in this case under discussion in here on this thread might just well demonstrate ...

And so .....

WHAT IS ATTAINDER?

AND WHY DID OUR FOREFATHERS IN LIBERTY TAKE PAINS TO BANISH THAT PRACTICE FROM OUR LAND AT THAT TIME, BY INSERTING POSITIVE LANGUAGE IN THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION THAT PROHIBITED NOT ONLY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FROM CONTINUING THAT PRACTICE, BUT THE STATES THEMSELVES?

The question for the morning ...

And so ....

I have had the good fortune to have been able to travel some, here in OUR America ...

And so ...

I have experienced life in a few different places other than in New York State ...

And out of that experience, I have observed that life does not appear to be the same for all of us everywhere here in OUR America ...

And so ...

Which is to say that government does not appear to be totally corrupt everywhere we have government in OUR America ...

BUT ....

Whether or not that is true, I have no way of knowing or proving ...

And so ...

And in any event, if life in some other place than this is "good", what does that benefit me here, if I am faced with a corrupt government in the place where I live and reside?

I could move, of course, as that FBI Special Agent "recommended" all those years ago ....

That is always an option ....

Or I could accept the corruption ...

And become a part of it ....

Which is another option ....

OR .....

And here is the real question, is it not?

WHAT IS THE THIRD OPTION?

Or isn't there one?

And while I have that thought hanging out there this morning, I want to go back to this subject of "attainder" ......

Because it most definitely is tied into this question of "options" available to us as American citizens .....

IF YOU HAVE BEEN "ATTAINTED", HOWEVER UNCONSTITUTIONAL IT IN FACT MAY BE, WHERE CAN YOU THEN GO, WHERE THAT WILL NOT FOLLOW YOU, TO YOUR DETRIMENT, ESPECIALLY IN THIS DAY AND AGE OF COMPUTER FILES THAT SPREAD THIS WORD OF YOUR BEING "ATTAINTED" FASTER THAN YOU WILL EVER BE ABLE TO TRAVEL YOURSELF?

Especially in today's world, where in a news article above on these "government lists" of who is being PROSCRIBED today, and who was yesterday, Vice Adm. John Scott Redd, the center's director, said in a statement that "We work on the basis that information reported to us has been collected in accordance with those guidelines" ......

Now, according to Attorney General Gonzales in that same article, those "guidelines" are a secret ....

So that neither OUR Congress nor ourselves can hope to know what they are ....

Which means that neither OUR Congress nor ourselves can challenge them ....

Which leaves us with the simple translation that has been born out in this specific case under discussion in here, which is that once the false charges are made and entered into a computer, YOU ARE LEFT WITH NO RECOURSE ....

And regardless of where you go ...

Those false charges are there ahead of you ...

And they will affect every aspect of your life ...

And so ....

You end up being NOT QUITE HUMAN .....

Which takes us back to ATTAINDER ...

AND WHY WE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE IT HERE ....

BILLS OF ATTAINDER

(from the Annotations to the United States Constitution)

"Bills of attainder . . . are such special acts of the legislature, as inflict capital punishments upon persons supposed to be guilty of high offences, such as treason and felony, without any conviction in the ordinary course of judicial proceedings."

"If an act inflicts a milder degree of punishment than death, it is called a bill of pains and penalties . . . ."

"In such cases, the legislature assumes judicial magistracy, pronouncing upon the guilt of the party without any of the common forms and guards of trial, and satisfying itself with proofs, when such proofs are within its reach, whether they are conformable to the rules of evidence, or not."

"In short, in all such cases, the legislature exercises the highest power of sovereignty, and what may be properly deemed an irresponsible despotic discretion, being governed solely by what it deems political necessity or expediency, and too often under the influence of unreasonable fears, or unfounded suspicions.''

J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Boston: 1833), 1338.

AND SO ....

A beginning ....

To "understanding" ....

And so ...

First of all, I want to thank all of you who have had the patience to follow this thread along ....

And it is something that does require patience .....

And fortitude ....

For this thing of "citizenship" here in OUR America can be a daunting thing, indeed ....

As we can certainly testify to up here, anyway ....

BUT WHAT REALLY ARE THE ALTERNATIVES?

For us, I mean?

And of course, ATTAINDER as a weapon never dies ......

Nor does PROSCRIPTION ....

"Yet another big lie Bush won't admit"

Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Thursday, February 23, 2006

There is no use wasting words to urge the Bush administration to close the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

No amount of international embarrassment, no pleas from the United Nations or from European governments -- not even a ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court -- changes the way the United States conducts itself there.

We must assume that the shame of Guantanamo is with us for as long as the shameless George W. Bush is president.

So who is being held at this camp, where detainees have no real hope of release, or of being formally charged, or even of seeing what evidence there may be against them?

Who are these men in such despair that many resort to hunger strikes, but are force-fed by tube -- strapped into restraining chairs, if necessary -- lest the United States suffer the additional humiliation of creating Muslim martyrs?

Our government tells us the prisoners at Guantanamo are "the worst of the worst," to use Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's phrase.

"They're terrorists."

"They're bomb-makers, they're facilitators of terror."

"They're members of al-Qaida and the Taliban" is the description from the ever-reliable lips of Vice President Dick Cheney.

"They were there to kill," the President has asserted.

That is what our political leaders say.

But it is not what officials who are actually in charge of holding the prisoners say.

The government produced documents on 517 Guantanamo detainees for Combatant Status Review Tribunals -- military reviews of detainees' cases that were prompted by the Supreme Court's order that they be afforded some sort of legal process.

The documents became publicly available because of separate litigation.

The findings were analyzed by Seton Hall University law school students, led by Mark Denbeaux and Joshua Denbeaux, lawyers who represent two Tunisian detainees.

What do the official findings of the U.S. military show?

More than half of the so-called enemy combatants at Guantanamo were determined to have committed no hostile act against U.S. or coalition forces.

This was so even though the definition of a "hostile act" was loose enough to include fleeing a camp that had been bombed, or being picked up in an area of Pakistan where others believed to be fighters had fled.

Evidence the government used as proof that someone was an "enemy combatant" included associating with unnamed individuals or groups purported to have terrorist ties -- or possessing a rifle, using a guest house, possessing a Casio watch or wearing olive-drab clothing.

"These are the government's words," Joshua Denbeaux said.

"These are the government's proofs."

Only 7 percent of detainees actually were captured by U.S. and coalition forces.

The rest were rounded up by Pakistani authorities, by the Afghan Northern Alliance or by other militias and armed groups -- some of whom were paid bounties for handing over men alleged to be terrorists.

Most detainees are being held not for fighting, but because they were found to have some "association" with a group suspected of terrorist ties.

No definition of association is supplied.

It could be, Joshua Denbeaux said, that "you once passed him on the street."

"Or you could be Osama bin Laden's cousin."

"You can't tell."

Pentagon spokesman Maj. Michael Shavers said the Seton Hall report is flawed because its authors didn't have access to classified evidence.

But the report doesn't claim to be based on evidence.

It analyzes the government's official findings -- determinations made by military authorities after they themselves reviewed all available evidence, classified or unclassified.

"We're holding them responsible for what they found," said Mark Denbeaux.

The portrait that emerges from the Seton Hall study is strikingly similar to the picture developed in a separate analysis of government documents by Corine Hegland of National Journal.

Hegland reviewed files on 132 men and review-board transcripts for 314 Guantanamo detainees.

She, too, found that relatively few were judged to have committed hostile acts.

She even uncovered "a few men whose most direct link to hostilities appears to be getting wounded by one of the thousands of American bombs dropped on Afghanistan."

No doubt there are dangerous men being held at Guantanamo.

But we do not, and cannot, know how many.

We know that government officials often lie, and that official documents can reveal a tale more true.

The essential truth about Guantanamo is now being revealed as tragic farce.

The Bush administration cannot and will not change course, because to do so would expose another gross error, and another big lie.

Marie Cocco's e-mail address is mariecocco@washpost.com.

Due process of law!

And equal protection .....

How long have these concepts been in existence?

And from whence came they?

Were we, the people, given "due process" by a wise and benevolent monarch somewhere along the line?

Did OUR United States Constitution "create" due process of law for us here in OUR America?

Or is the concept of due process much, much older than we, as a nation?

And while we are pondering this question of due process of law in here .....

"A man's home isn't a castle - Bills seek to curb public seizure of private property in wake of ruling"

By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Saturday, February 25, 2006

ALBANY -- More than two dozen bills to limit the government's right to seize property are on the table in New York this year, following last year's U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing the city of New London, Conn., to condemn a group of homes for economic development.

The landmark 5-4 decision, which upheld the government's right to take property from one private owner and give it to another, prompted states nationwide to look at the issue.

Proposals are emerging in New York to set new parameters on the use of eminent domain.

Condemning property for commercial use is not as rare as some might think.

One group that opposes eminent domain says it found 146 cases in New York state between 1998 and 2002 in which the process was at least threatened.

"New York was one of the biggest abusers," said Steve Anderson, an attorney at the Institute for Justice, a libertarian group that has defended homeowners in the New London case.

That case, he said, has served as a wake-up call to legislatures nationwide that the use of eminent domain is becoming a controversial issue.

It's not yet clear which, if any, of the ideas floating in New York may ultimately become law.

But the high court's decision, along with a spate of high-profile and controversial eminent domain fights across the state, including one looming in Albany's Park South neighborhood, have put this issue front and center.

Among the proposals:

Allowing only an elected body like a city council, rather than an industrial development agency, to take private property through eminent domain.

Forcing the condemning agency to pay 25 percent to 50 percent above market value for property it acquires by eminent domain.

Creating a commission to study the use of eminent domain.

Another proposal calls for an eminent domain ombudsman.

Increasing the public reporting and public review requirements for eminent domain proposals.

Requiring public referenda before eminent domain can be used.

Permitting eminent domain only to be used for public facilities such as hospitals or roads, but not for housing, retail or office projets.

"There's been a lot of activity and interest in this."

"I haven't seen every bill but I do know this: A lot of members have shown interest in becoming a co-sponsor," said Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski, D-New City, who is sponsoring one of the bills, which would make the use of eminent domain subject to local referenda if enough residents sign a petition.

In Zebrowski's own district, the village of Haverstraw wanted to take land and a building and give it to a group to build a condominium project and health care center.

"I think the (New London) decision got everyone's attention," added Assemblyman Paul Tokasz, D-Buffalo.

In his district, the town of Cheektowaga has proposed using eminent domain to buy homes in a neighborhood to be replaced with what Tokasz described as a "gated community."

Locally, the city of Albany plans to raze up to 89 homes and buy others in the troubled nine-block Park South neighborhood.

Boston-based Winn Development then wants to rehabilitate more than 200 homes and build over 400 new dwellings in the area.

Winn and the city want to negotiate home purchases, but haven't ruled out eminent domain.

While conservative groups generally oppose eminent domain, Sherry Appel, spokeswoman for the National League of Cities, cautions legislatures against enacting sweeping restrictions on the power.

It can be a useful tool to revitalize troubled urban areas, says Appel's group.

So does Peter Baynes, executive director of the state Conference of Mayors.

"It's really a tool of last resort," Baynes said, adding that only rarely is a condemnation completed and people are forced to sell their property.

Eminent domain, added Appel, should be decided on a local, case-by-case issue.

In some ways, the eminent domain debate has made for curious alignments in which groups normally thought of as liberal are advocating more local control, while conservatives such as the Institute for Justice, want state laws.

Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, D-Elmsford, who has a bill to study eminent domain, noted the issue has led to "a very strange political alliance between the left and the very hard right."

Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or by e-mail at rkarlin@timesunion.com.

Due process of law was a topic of some discussion way back in the Republic of Rome ......

Back in the days of SULLA, actually ...

Which is over 2,000 years ago, as we reckon time ...

Here in OUR America .....

And for the next thirty years .....

Until Rome dissolved in civil war ....

And the REPUBLIC for them was gone .....

For good ....

SENATUS CONSULTUM ULTIMUM .....

The Senate of Rome would decide that some citizen or other needed killing ....

For political reasons ....

And so ....

It would happen ....

IN VIOLATION OF THE DUE PROCESS RIGHTS OF THE CITIZENS OF ROME ....

Which Cicero, the great orator and Consul of Rome at that time, admitted when he went into voluntary exile rather than face trial under the lex Clodia for crimes against the citizens of Rome after ordering the execution of the Catiline conspirators without providing them with the benefit of a trial .....

And the point of this is that regardless of whether or not we know this, OUR forefathers in liberty certainly did ...

And so ...

DUE PROCESS OF LAW was one of OUR most elemental of rights .....

AT THE MOMENT OF THIS NATION'S BIRTH ....

And if that is the case ...

WHO TODAY CAN THEN TAKE IT AWAY, AS HAPPENED IN THIS CASE UNDER DISCUSSION IN HERE?