THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Updates To Previous Posts
† Living In These Mad, Mad, Madoff Times: If you think debtors’ prisons went the way of indentured servitude, think again. The Wall Street Journal reports that “[m]ore than a third of all U.S. states allow borrowers who can't or won't pay to be jailed,” and that :sloppy, incomplete or even false documentation that can result in borrowers having no idea before being locked up that they were sued to collect an outstanding debt”:
In interviews, 20 judges across the nation said the number of borrowers threatened with arrest in their courtrooms has surged since the financial crisis began. …
The debt-collection industry says … warrants usually are sought only after all other efforts to persuade borrowers to pay have failed. …
At the national level, the Federal Trade Commission began scrutinizing in July the use of arrest warrants in debt-collection lawsuits. An FTC spokesman declined to comment on whether the inquiry has led to formal investigations by the agency, which oversees the debt-collection industry and enforces a U.S. law that restricts how borrowers can be pursued for debts.
Arrest warrants generally can be issued if a borrower defies a court order to repay a debt or doesn't show up in court. Retailers, credit-card issuers, landlords and debt collectors are the most frequent seekers of such orders, according to court filings and interviews with judges and lawyers. …
Some judges are worried that the jump in debt-related arrest warrants is creating a modern-day version of debtors' prison. The practice ended in 1833 after decades of controversy, since borrowers owing as little as 60 cents could be held indefinitely in squalid jails until they paid off their debt.
† Every Bubble Bursts Eventually: On the eve of Amnesty International’s 50th anniversary, during which Joan Baez will be honored for with an eponymous award for helping start chapters of the human rights organization in the Bay Area and other humanitarian works, Politico interviewed the ‘60s folksinger/songwriter/activist:
Politico: The president campaigned on the promise of closing Guantanamo. What does this move mean to someone like yourself, who supported his candidacy in 2008?
Baez: He's a Nobel Peace Prize winner - as kind of silly as that was and premature - but he could meet with Nobel Peace Prize winners who have moved mountains and he could do extraordinary things by not falling into the trap that I think he is: of waking up in the morning and meeting with the military. So that's all he gets for input, unless we can make ourselves heard somehow.
† Jilted At The Bridal Show: Karen Tucker, who admitted cheating advertisers and exhibitors out of thousands of dollars for a fake Boston bridal show has been sentenced to nearly 5½ years in prison on charges of wire fraud and identity theft, reports The Associated Press:
Federal Judge Richard Stearns turned down a request for leniency from Tucker's lawyer, who asked for a 3-year sentence. …
Prosecutors described Tucker as a longtime con woman who also conducted bridal show scams in other states, including Ohio, Florida, Maryland, Nevada and Texas.
The Pittsburgh woman was also ordered to pay $117,000 in restitution.
† All The News That’s Fart To Print: Writing in the Caledonian Mercury (Edinburgh, Scotland), former reference book editor Betty Kirkpatrick describes what it takes to keep fairies - which, in the Celtic tradition are “dead set on causing as much harm as possible to humans and … a powerful force for evil” – from stealing a yet-to-be-baptized baby and replacing it with a changeling:
[S]omeone in the household where there was a new-born baby might hammer a row of iron nails into the headboard of the bed where the new mother and baby were lying.
In some parts of Scotland, a pair of trousers belonging to the baby’s father was thought to frighten off fairies. The trousers were hung at the foot of the bed in which mother and baby slept. …
Human urine was another weapon used in the battle against the fairies. Presumably this could be supplied by a member of either sex. The urine was sprinkled on the doorposts of the front door or on the doorposts of the room where the baby lay. Apparently fairies found the smell of human urine extremely offensive and were likely to give it a wide berth. It cannot have been very pleasant for the humans in the house, either.
[Hat Tip: OpinionJournal]
† Updates To Previous Posts (fifth item, Dispatch From Bizzaroland): The Washington Times indignantly sputters, “[i]f the world is in crisis, you wouldn't know it by watching President Obama's spring break”:
Between golf, basketball and the president's upcoming trip to Rio de Janeiro, the White House is projecting a disinterested aura of business as usual. For this administration, "tuned-out" is the new normal.
The Mideast crisis is continuing, and Hillary Rodham Clinton has been the one taking the 3 a.m. phone calls. The secretary of state has been dealing with political reform in Egypt, a military crackdown in Bahrain and the continuing civil war in Libya. However, she is hampered by a chief executive who can't make up his mind which course of action would best secure his place in history.
His place in history just may be “the weakest president,” argues the Daily Express (London):
Ineffectual, invisible, unable to honour pledges and now blamed for letting Gaddafi off the hook. Why Obama’s gone from ‘Yes we can’ to ‘Er, maybe we shouldn’t’...
Obama’s campaign slogan was mesmerisingly simple and brimming with self-belief: “Yes we can.” His presidency, however, is turning out to be more about “no we won’t.” Even more worryingly, it seems to be very much about: “Maybe we can… do what, exactly?“ The world feels like a dangerous place when leaders are seen to lack certitude but the only thing President Obama seems decisive about is his indecision. What should the US do about Libya? What should the US do about the Middle East in general? What about the country’s crippling debts? What is the US going to do about Afghanistan, about Iran?
What is President Obama doing about anything? The most alarming answer – your guess is as good as mine – is also, frankly, the most accurate one. What the President is not doing is being clear, resolute and pro-active, which is surely a big part of his job description. …
[I]t is starting to look as if Obama and the Democratic Party have but one aim in mind for the rest of this presidential term: to get elected for a second. That means not doing anything that might upset any number of special interest or niche groups, which in effect means not doing very much at all.
For its part the Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ont.), calls Obama a “spectator president”:
When upper-case headlines become the daily rule, you know you are living in exceptional times. But from the disaster in Japan to the rebellion in the Middle East, the most powerful man in the world seems oddly uninvolved.
As Congress lurches from budget deadline to budget deadline – funding government operations for only three weeks as it fights over the size of spending cuts for the rest of the fiscal year – the President has stood to the side with his arms folded. …
[T]here are risks for the President in appearing too passive. When asked who is taking a stronger leadership role, respondents to a Washington Post/ABC News poll released on Tuesday named Republicans in Congress over Mr. Obama, 46 per cent to 39 per cent.
Even if playing it safe does help Mr. Obama win re-election, it could come at the cost of building a legacy worthy of his promise.
At the risk of mixing metaphors, a U.S. president who reacts to global crises like a yearling caught in the headlights might have been considered another black swan the world has to deal with, were it not for the fact that Obama’s ridiculously thin resume and obvious lack of qualifications should have predicted his ineptitude. In other words, he’s a lame duck.
† Updates To Previous Posts (sixth item, The TSA Emperor Wears No Clothes: Part II): Aaron Tobey, the 21-year-old University of Cincinnati architecture major who took his shirt off at a security checkpoint at Richmond International Airport to reveal the Fourth Amendment written on his chest and was detained for questioning for about 90 minutes and charged with disorderly conduct, is suing the government (pdf) for violating his First, Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights and for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution, reports Legal Blog Watch:
Tobey has requested a declaratory judgment, an injunction prohibiting the TSA from treating anyone else as he was treated, and $250,000 in compensatory damages and attorney fees. Due to the considerable leeway granted to the TSA regarding air travel safety, Techdirt does not expect a judge to be sympathetic to Tobey's plight. The Rutherford Institute, which filed the lawsuit on Tobey's behalf, is also naming Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and TSA Administrator John Pistole as defendants. † Updates To Previous Posts (last item, Rearranging The Deck Chairs): Johnson & Johnson’s board compensation committee reduced CEO William Weldon's 2010 compensation 7 percent, as compared to the previous year. Weldon's total compensation was valued at $28.7 million for 2010 versus $30.8 million for 2009, according to J&J's proxy statement filed Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. His performance bonus was also reduced 45 percent for 2010 to $1.98 million. Weldon took the hit for a series of product recalls, two consecutive years of a decline in overall sales and a four percent decline in the price of J&J shares in 2010. But hey, the company is meeting its environmental sustainability goals! † Updates To Previous Posts (Hunting Hokies): With the state House Homeland Security and Public Safety committee approving a bill allowing students holding gun licenses to carry their weapons on college campuses, TX “has become a prime battleground for a national campaign to open campuses to firearms, reports The Associated Press: Similar firearms measures have been proposed in about a dozen other states, but all have faced strong opposition, especially from college leaders. Texas would become the second state, following Utah, to pass such a broad-based law. Colorado gives colleges the option and several have allowed handguns. … Alice Tripp, lobbyist for the Texas State Rifle Association, which supports the bill, called college campuses "predator magnets" where violent crimes such as rape are underreported. Until the Virginia Tech killings, the worst college shooting in U.S. history occurred at the University of Texas at Austin, when sniper Charles Whitman went to the top of the administration tower in 1966 and killed 16 people and wounded dozens. Last September, a University of Texas student fired several shots from an assault rifle on a campus street before killing himself. Texas enacted its concealed handgun law in 1995, allowing people 21 or older to carry weapons if they pass a training course and a background check. The state had 461,724 license holders as of Dec. 31, according to the state Department of Public Safety. Editorial Note: Opponents of the bill fear that a student who is properly trained and licensed to carry a gun may use it against classmates or faculty “over a poor grade, broken romance or drunken argument,” reports AP. † Updates To Previous Posts (last item, Restorative Capital Punishment): TX announced that it would start using pentobarbital instead of thiopental to carry out executions, The Wall Street Journal reports. Death penalty opponents are already lobbying Lundbeck, the Danish company that makes pentobarbital, not to allow its use in executions, and the company released a statement saying it “does not condone use of [pentobarbital] or any product for capital punishment.” So it may be a matter of time before TX has to change its method for lethal injection executions again. Arizona has enough of the sedative for at least three executions and plans to use it while executing Eric John King on March 28 and Daniel Wayne Cook on April 5, Assistant Attorney General Kent Cattani said. … The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday denied two motions by King seeking to put his execution on hold, and it rejected a petition to review his case. One additional request for reconsideration is pending at the trial court. King, 47, was sentenced to death after he was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in a 1989 Phoenix convenience store robbery. On Wednesday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to stop Cook's execution, turning aside his arguments that the state's supply of sodium thiopental was possibly ineffective and could cause him pain. His attorneys have also filed last-minute appeals with the state Supreme Court, arguing Cook had post-traumatic stress disorder and organic brain damage and the trial court unjustly declined to hold a hearing about his recent diagnoses. On March 2, the 12th-grader at Rockville’s Richard Montgomery High School won the “Jeopardy!” Teen Tournament. March 2, at least, is when the finals aired, but the episode was actually taped in December. Most of the college applications Ray submitted were due in January. Such is the secrecy surrounding “Jeopardy!” that although Ray knew he had won it all, he couldn’t mention it. Oh sure, Ray was able to mention that he was a contestant, but he couldn’t tell them he was the champion, lest the news leak out and a vengeful Alex Trebek egg his Rockville home. “There’s like a contract I had to sign,” said Ray, who said he feels pretty proud that he didn’t spill the beans even when interrogated by his classmates (who, full disclosure, include my daughter). … Ray has been accepted at three of the five colleges he applied to, but he’s still waiting to hear from Oregon and top choice George Washington University. “I’m not sure the admissions offices know,” he said. (Hear that, GWU?) … Ray won $75,000, a nice sum but just enough for a single year at a top college with some money left over for a vacation and, maybe, a car.
Meanwhile, AZ said it legally obtained enough sodium thiopental from England to use in two impending executions, reports The Associated Press:
Should it become necessary, state law permits AZ to switch to another drug, as TX has, or to a one-drug procedure as OH has.
† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, 10 Reasons Michelle Obama Should Be Proud – Really Proud – Of America): This latest installment in The Stiletto Blog’s ongoing series meant to help instill the necessary pride of country in Michelle Obama’s consciousness to enable her to serve as an unofficial ambassador focuses on high school senior Raynell Cooper, who honored his contract to keep the outcome of the “Jeopardy!” Teen Tournament he won in December secret, even though including the achievement in his college applications would have gotten him into the school of his choice. The Washington Post reports:
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