I remember when the media consensus was that Patrick Fitzgerald was a "straightshooter".

My guess is that the Libby prosecution spells the end of his career. Sure, the far-left is still cheering him on, but rational people on both sides of the aisle are casting furtive glances, holding their nose and fleeing for the exits.

It all has that Nifong stink about it.

Like the Duke rape case, the left seem to have this compulsion to tilt at windmills--even as it was increasingly obvious that the rape charges were bogus, the bobos charged right in on the principle that white boys are rapists on principle. In the Libby trial you have the same thing--a freak show of wild-eyed nutters fishing for salmon in a bucket of water. Meanwhile, several obvious targets of prosecution go begging.

I've ranted about this before, but this time no less a figure than former chief counsel for the Senate Intelligence committee weighs in an amplifies my thoughts.

Prosecutorial misconduct isn't all that rare in North Carolina. Nine years ago, two prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence in a murder case which resulted in the defendant being put on death row. The prosecutors suffered no disciplinary action.

The national attention the Duke rape case has gotten and the obvious prosecutorial misconduct with reference to the DNA evidence has created the need for an "example to be made". Nifong is almost certainly going to be disbarred and perhaps worse.

The State Bar alleges, among other things, that Nifong and DNA Security Director Brian Meehan improperly agreed last year to give defense lawyers an incomplete scientific report. As a result, the lawyers were told that no DNA matches to their clients or any other lacrosse players had been found, but they weren't informed of genetic links involving other men, the bar complaint says.

Prosecutors, however, have an ethical and statutory duty to surrender information that could be considered favorable to criminal defendants.

Testifying at a preliminary hearing in December, Meehan admitted he and Nifong agreed to give the lacrosse defense team only positive DNA matches involving their clients or other lacrosse players.

But he said Nifong did not instruct him to deliberately withhold information about other DNA links.

Either way, defense lawyers found out what they needed to know only through a laborious data analysis of their own, they contend.

Scooter Libby has been found guilty on four of five counts and could be sent to prison for 25 years.

[I expect to be revise this through most of the day...]

There is a cloud over the verdict since the jury was asking very basic questions even yesterday, which makes a very good argument for the fact that the jury was confused, even very confused. Further supporting that view is the inconsistency of the verdict--lying about his conversation with Tim Russert but not his conversation with Matt Cooper. The judge may in fact throw out some or all of the verdicts of guilt on the basis that the jury are morons.

In the event that the judge upholds the verdicts, Libby can appeal, but he'll have to spend at least a year in jail waiting for that process.

The left will be partying tonight for having destroyed the life of a Republican official. I suspect that the political war in this country has just been escalated. This is the politics of personal destruction writ large. It will now become standard procedure to try to send as many officials as possible to jail for the rest of their lives. Twenty-five years for not remembering!

Patrick Fitzgerald - Javert with a 1.4M budget to chase bread thieves

"Scooter" Libby - Val Jean who stole a loaf of bread but didn't need to feed anyone

The Wallstreet Journal is joining a growing chorus asking that Scooter Libby be pardoned now, rather than later.

Slow blogging day today--swamped with work trying to get ready for a meeting tomorrow.

Its hard to compete with the left where it concerns outrage. I simply don't know how lefty-bloggers survive past their thirties in such a perpetual state of apoplexy.

The latest "outrage" is the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, who by the way, serve at the pleasure of the president.

The idea that prosecutors -- who have the power to decide whose life gets to be made hell on earth by being subjected to an investigation, and whose does not -- are being leaned on by Congresspeople, political operatives, and the like to prosecute Democrats is just wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

You mean like Patrick Fitzgerald? The outrage is intense but rather selective.

Frankly I have long accepted that ALL criminal prosecutions are political in nature.

Did we really protect the free world from imminent destruction with the conviction and imprisonment of the arch-criminal Martha Stewart? Is it really justice to put Bernie Ebbers in jail for 25 years?

On the other hand, how the hell does Sandy Burglar manage to get away with a fine and the middle-finger salute to the court's mandate that he take a lie-detector test? Powerful Democrats like Harry Reid enrich themselves at the expense of the public and he will likely never even see the inside of a courtroom.

The North Carolina Attorney General will announce today that all charges against the Duke Lacrosse players have been dropped.

The office of North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper will announce that he is dismissing all charges against three Duke Lacrosse players, ABC News has learned from sources close to the case.

Cooper will announce his decision regarding the case at the North Carolina Attorney General's office in Raleigh, N.C., at 2:30 p.m.

"Cooper's decision follows a thorough review of the case by attorneys in his Special Prosecutions Division," according to a release from the attorney general's office.

The state AG's office reviewed the entire matter from scratch to come to the conclusion.

Meanwhile, you have three young men whose families have spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorney's fees and whose lives have been completely disrupted. There will probably be a book deal, etc... to defer some of those expenses, but ultimately you can't get back the life you had before some ambitious attorney general gets it into his head to sacrifice you on that altar of his political career.

Its unlikely that the accused can even sue to Attorney Generals office of Nifong personally since as an officer of the court, he is covered under the doctrine of judicial immunity--or maybe not.

Judicial immunity isn't absolute. The central question is whether Nifong exercised discretion comparable to judicial decision-making. There is an expectation of "reasonableness" in this process, and clearly Nifong has been completely unreasonable in every aspect of this case. The fact that the state AG reviewed the case and laid no charges really hurts any prospective claim by Nifong of a reasonable difference of opinion resulting in his actions.

Personally, I think judicial immunity has to be challenged if for no other reason than to establish a clear bright line for what the Supreme Court has already decided--judicial immunity has its limits. Too many prosecutors are abusing their offices for political reasons and we need to metaphorically shoot a couple to get them back into line.

The attempt to jail Rush Limbaugh on drug charges was pretty flagrantly political, but travi County, Texas attorney Ronnie Earle's jihad against Tom Delay probably exceeds even Nifong's excesses.

About a year ago, the Texas 3rd court of appeals dismissed the charges against Delay--Earle predictably appealed.

Rosemary Lemberg, an asst. DA in Earle's office recalls Earle's single-mindedness on "getting" Delay.

"Ronnie was the only person in maybe a group of six or seven lawyers in a room who thought we ought to go ahead and investigate and look at those things," Lemberg says. "We got sued every time we turned around, we got taken to court over this, and Ronnie was the one who just kept pushing forward with it, and saying 'I'll put more resources on this, just keep hacking at it.'"

Earle participated in the making of a film called "the Big Buy", in which critics rather mildly suggested he is ill-suited for legal work.

Though the film's tone is admiring, the filmmakers allow Earle's critics to suggest that, given the sometimes highly politicized nature of his opinions, he should perhaps work in some field other than law enforcement. "The problem that Ronnie has is that he sees something that he believes is wrong," says Roy Minton, an attorney for one of the organizations investigated by Earle. "If you ask him, when he says, 'They're doing this' and 'They're doing that,' you say, 'Alright, let's assume they're doing that, Ronnie, is that against the law?' He will say it's wrong. You say, 'Well, OK, let's assume that it's wrong. Where is it that it is against the law?'"

The Democrats loved it of course, and hordes of left-wing nuts rushed to defend prosecutorial abuse when it achieved what they considered a desirable political end result. Setting aside the moral retardedness of the left--the country needs a check on these kinds of blatant political prosecutions or we're no better than Russia or a host of third-world countries.

Nifong should get sued and he should lose--big. It won't cure the problem of malicious prosecution, but it will certainly produce a remission.

What do you think would happen to you if you had three accidents in two years, a DUI and a charge of cocaine possession?

Yeah--it would not be pretty.

Lindsay Lohan however, is not you. I'd say the chances of her going to jail are virtually nil--it might even enhance her career. Welcome to the world of elite Democrats.

Tom Maquire doesn't take Fitzgerald's assurances at face value.

If Plame was indeed covert, it would show up on her pension record.

Lewis Libby is going to jail for 30 months, must pay a quarter million dollar fine and will be on probation for 2 years when he gets out.

This would be ridiculous if it wasn't so chilling. Libby will in effect be a political prisoner.

As of this writing, the Bush administration is on record as feeling "terrible" for Libby's family, but Dana Perino, a deputy spokesperson said flatly that, "He's (Bush) not going to intervene."

A host of notables wrote letters to the sentencing judge attesting to Libby's character, including Henry Kissinger and Donald Rumsfeld. Notably absent was one from Dick Cheney.

Bush is correct to wait for the appeal, but will Libby be free in the interim? It may be smart for Libby to start serving his sentence even as he appeals--the sooner in, the sooner out.

The left is so invested in the lies they've told about the Plame affair (they insist, against the mountain of contrary evidence, that Plame was covert), that they have little choice but to go all in an countenance a political incarceration. Ironically, Fitzgerald could be and probably should be accused of the obstruction of justice as well.

All during the trial, he maintained that Plame's covert status was irrelevant, but during the sentencing phase, he recommended that the sentence reflect the seriousness of outing a covert agent. Fitzgerald is a bastard. I hope he goes to hell.

The judge actually sentenced Libby beyond the recommended guidelines for a maximum sentence, which is 21 months.

Its a scary country when Democrats use the courts to advance their political interests (Nifong) and punish their "enemies" (Libby). What's next? Closing down television stations (or cable channels) that are insufficiently complimentary of Democrat officials.

Can assassinations of political rivals be far behind?

Nifong wasn't working alone...

It would be interesting to know what Paris Hilton did to get out of jail after a mere three days of a 23 day sentence. Unfortunately, as someone for whom the rules have never applied, she neglected to consider what the effect of embarrassing the Los Angeles justice system would be.

Judge Michael Sauer put her back in the klink for the full 45 days mandated by the her judgment.

Presumably, the Sheriff, who seems to be "a good friend", still has the ability to lop off 15 days of that incarceration.

Justice is politics.

Wikipedia:

Giuliani was criticized for embracing illegal immigrants. Giuliani continued a policy of preventing city employees from contacting the Immigration and Naturalization Service about immigration violations, on the grounds that illegal aliens must be able to take actions such as to send their children to school or report crime and violations without fear of deportation. He ordered city attorneys to defend this policy in federal court. The court ruled that New York City's sanctuary laws were illegal. After the City of New York lost an appeal to the United States Supreme Court, Giuliani vowed to ignore the law.

Former mayor Rudolph Giuliani sued all the way up to the Supreme Court to defend the city’s sanctuary policy against a 1996 federal law decreeing that cities could not prohibit their employees from cooperating with the INS. Oh yeah? said Giuliani; just watch me. The INS, he claimed, with what turned out to be grotesque irony, only aims to “terrorize people.” Though he lost in court, he remained defiant to the end. On September 5, 2001, his handpicked charter-revision committee ruled that New York could still require that its employees keep immigration information confidential to preserve trust between immigrants and government. Six days later, several visa-overstayers participated in the most devastating attack on the city and the country in history.

Fox News is carrying live, the testimony of Reade Seligmann concerning the experience of being falsely accused of rape.

It is very emotional testimony.

He describes the experience of being shunned on campus, betrayed by classmates (a study partner accused the Duke players of bring the country back to the days of Jim Crow...), having to change his habits and generally feeling besieged even before actual charges were filed. What strikes me is how easily the media can isolate a person or a group, or rather how easily stupid people accept what they hear from them.

When the actual charges were laid, Seligman describes it like death. As he is relating this experience, he is crying. His mother his crying, and I imagine anyone who went through this with him would be crying to.

For Mike Nifong, this was merely his job and perhaps a political opportunity, but Seligmann's testimony makes it clear how unbelievably cruel it was.

It occurs to me that the entire situation is a reflection on the monstrous cyncism that goes into creating political polarization, whether its race-baiting or anything else--there is the full realization that people's lives will be destroyed in the pursuit of political advantage. You have to be one cold sonofabitch to engage in this kind of crap with knowledge that you are accusing innocent people.

If I have any thing good to say about Mike Nifong, its this--he took it like a man.

No publicists, no photo op with Al Sharpton, just an admission of his mistakes, an expression of regret and a calm acceptance of his fate.

Herein lies the path to redemption.

What he did though was terribly, terribly wrong--not just for the accused Duke players, but for the justice system. He did however do us a service by blundering through his hijacking of the courts in such a way that we could get such a clear an unambiguous conclusion with a maximum of publicity. The reason I say this is because what Nifong did goes on everyday in this country with varying degrees of public awareness. Rush Limbaugh's problems down in Florida were clearly political, not to mention Tom Delay's ridiculous indictments (the case is "stalled", or otherwise round filed because the political benefit from it no longer exists...) and on and on.

Its high time we held corrupt prosecutors accountable.

Conservative Alternative. Not done with him yet. I'm not so sure about Nifong personally, but certainly the DA's office and the state will have to settle civil suits.

Freethinking Americans

Daily Pundit

Richard Cohen of the Washington Post hits the Scooter Libby prosecution issue nail on its head.

With the sentencing of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald has apparently finished his work, which was, not to put too fine a point on it, to make a mountain out of a molehill. At the urging of the liberal press (especially the New York Times), he was appointed to look into a run-of-the-mill leak and wound up prosecuting not the leaker -- Richard Armitage of the State Department -- but Libby, convicted in the end of lying. This is not an entirely trivial matter since government officials should not lie to grand juries, but neither should they be called to account for practicing the dark art of politics. As with sex or real estate, it is often best to keep the lights off.

Read the whole thing.

The thing I find remarkable is the irrationality of the left that cheered the Libby prosecution for no better reason than they hate half the citizens of this country and our elected leaders. While decrying the Patriot act, Guantanamo and other infringements of civil rights, an obvious political prosecution was no problem--highlighting the obvious--the left has no principles, just friends and enemies--a thoroughly medieval sensibility.

I don't want to go to jail...-->

It was predictable that Tom Delay was going to get the charges against him dismissed. Now the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has done exactly that and upheld a 2005 dismissal by a lower court on the charge of conspiracy. I have no doubt that the other ridiculous charges of money laundering will go the same route.

Ronnie Earle needs a little Nifong treatment--disbarment, fired, criminally charged and sued into poverty. It is an outrage that Democrats consider the abuse of the justice system for political ends a routine tactic and it must be punished with maximum severity.

Sadly, one must indict the entire Democrat party apparatus for their willful complicity in this travesty. I didn't read a single post by a lefty blogger saying, "hold on here, this is ridiculous..." Blood was in the water and the constitution be damned.

These bastards are destroying the country, but first let's clean out the Republican chicken coop and then send the lot of these a-holes to remedial civics classes.

Delay comments:

“The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals today ruled that I was wrongfully indicted by Ronnie Earle, the Mike Nifong of Texas, on laws that didn’t even exist. The court affirmed the decision to throw out the conspiracy indictments because they were based on laws that weren’t even on the books. What Ronnie Earle accomplished is no rookie error – it’s a political attack using our legal system as the primary weapon.

“Ronnie Earle’s politically motivated indictments cost Republicans the leader of their choice, and my family hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. The damage he has done to my family and my career cannot be rectified, but the courts have recognized a significant portion of the injustice and ruled accordingly. For nearly two years I have been willing and eager to go to trial and with this ruling, we are thankfully closer to that day.

“Ronnie Earle may think this case is about campaign finance, but in the end it will be a case about his own prosecutorial misconduct.”

I think that's a pretty good indication that Delay will sue, and sue he should. Predictably, Earle is digging in his heals--just like Nifong did. The press of course "reminds" readers that other charges are still pending, that Delay is still a crook...

It has been interesting to read the commentary of conservative bloggers who just happen to be lawyers as well...

You do the crime, you do the time. The jury said Scooter Libby did the crime. He should do the time.

The Republican Party is going to pay a huge, huge price for this.

Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy

Nonetheless, I find Bush's action very troubling because of the obvious special treatment Libby received. President Bush has set a remarkable record in the last 6+ years for essentially never exercising his powers to commute sentences or pardon those in jail. His handful of pardons have been almost all symbolic gestures involving cases decades old, sometimes for people who are long dead. Come to think of it, I don't know if Bush has ever actually used his powers to get one single person out of jail even one day early. If there are such cases, they are certainly few and far between. So Libby's treatment was very special indeed.

Glenn Reynolds remains noncommittal, but correctly, IMO, calls the political reaction.

My prediction: Bush will rise in the polls as estranged conservatives warm to him in light of lefty indignation.

Lawyers may be the last individuals in the country to retain confidence in the justice system. The left simply wanted to see a Bush administration official go to jail--they wanted a lynching and they got one. Bush simply cut Libby down.

For the rest of us not suffering from Bush derangement syndrome, the pardon was an attempt to redress the imbalance.

Politically, it appears that reactions are predictably partisan, but I believe on balance, Bush comes out the winner on this for one overriding reason--the Duke rape case. The Duke 88 called the alleged rape a social disaster and in hindsight, they were largely right although for the wrong reasons.

Mike Nifong is the goat in all of this, but in the final analysis, he was simply riding the wave of the white hot anger of the lynch mob. The black community in Durham had all their prejudices confirmed in what to them, appeared to be a completely plausible tale of an innocent black girl raped by monstrous white oppressors.

Democrats appear to foster the lynch mob sensibility in its constituencies. The left-wing of the party was foaming at the mouth at the possibility of eating the liver of Karl Rove. Lewis Libby was the consolation prize, but their prejudicial invention of Bush administration crimes demanded that he pay the highest price possible. Thus Libby was convicted for a non-existent crime and sentenced far beyond recommended guidelines.

The Duke rape case has ignited a new awareness in parts of American society that we are dealing with the same kind of irrationality that saw black men hanging from trees on the merest allegation of improper behavior towards white women.

George W. Bush had a choice--follow the example of Teddy Roosevelt in the Brownsville affair, or try to rehabilitate the scales of justice.

I think Bush once again demonstrated the moral courage that I admire him for, even though I disagree strongly on some of his positions. The public may or may not see it that way, but they will view the Libby affair in the context of the bogus Duke rape case prosecutions.

The social disaster here is the subordination of civil order to political ambitions. It is nothing short of mob incitement. The ultimate victim in all of this is public confidence in American institutions.

Libby should never have been indicted.

Gina Cobb: Some presidents have used the pardon for reasons of political patronage. Others have used it more wisely and justly, to temper harsh justice. Given that Bush left most of Libby's sentence in place except for imprisonment, it is clear to me that Bush has used the pardon judiciously.

Macsmind: The Bush statement in its entirety.

Patrick Fitzgerald comments:

We fully recognize that the Constitution provides that commutation decisions are a matter of presidential prerogative and we do not comment on the exercise of that prerogative.

We comment only on the statement in which the President termed the sentence imposed by the judge as “excessive.” The sentence in this case was imposed pursuant to the laws governing sentencings which occur every day throughout this country. In this case, an experienced federal judge considered extensive argument from the parties and then imposed a sentence consistent with the applicable laws. It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals. That principle guided the judge during both the trial and the sentencing.

He is correct--as far as it goes. Libby could have received 25 years under the sentencing guidelines, but a stricter reading incorporating various contingencies is conceded to come out to 15-21 months on the low end, and 24-33 months on the high end.

Considering that Fitzgerald knew who had actually leaked Plame's identity, he could not have realistically claimed the "great harm" to the investigation that would have merited the higher sentences.

Washington Post Editorial: Non sequitur. The Post makes a reasoned argument for leniency but then no argument at all for why they take the position that this was "too much leniency".

Opinion Journal: Not enough leniency.

n no small part because of these profiles in non-courage, it was Mr. Libby who found himself caught up in prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's hunt for the Plame leaker, which he and his masters at Justice knew from Day One to be State Department official Richard Armitage. As Mr. Fitzgerald's obsessive exercise ground forward, Mr. Libby got caught in a perjury net that we continue to believe trapped an innocent man who lost track of what he said, when he said it, and to whom.

The Journal editors are neglecting an important point--Libby was convicted by a jury of his peers. Would it really be wise to compound the political witchhunt character of the Plame leak investigation with even more disregard for an impartial system of justice?

Scott A. Masters, 41, is accused of shoplifting the pastry and pushing a store worker who tried to stop him. The worker was unhurt. But with that shove, his shoplifting turned into a strong-arm robbery. Masters, who appeared in court Friday, is stunned. The prosecutor shows no signs of backing down. In fact, because Masters has a prior record, he could get a sentence of 30 years to life.

I'm not a lawyer, which I guess for many people means that I have no business commenting on legal matters, but I can't help but observe that the courts are essentially a stage on which a stream of social dramas are played out to affirm a mythology.

Society is just.

The wicked will be punished

The reality, in my opinion at least, is something far different, but I don't discount the value of such social drama. Deterrence is a proven strategy for keeping social order, yet for it to succeed, the perception of "fairness" has to be there, and a man going away for 30 years plus for donut heist and a shove just doesn't meet the standard.

Thad Jesperson is a San Diego native married for 20 years with four children. Until 2004, he was a popular elementary school teacher in Murrieta and an active member of his local Mormon ward.

In 2005, he was sentenced to life in prison.

...for inappropriate "touching"

Jesperson underwent three trials as the ambitious district attorney attempt to build a reputation and a possible political career for being "tough on child molesters". The lessons of the McMartin day-care scandal in nearby Manhattan Beach had been long forgotten.

Jesperson had the results of the first two trials thrown out because of jury "irregularities", and in September of this year, a three appellate judges threw out his conviction for similar irregularities.

Before you draw the conclusion that another child molester is on the loose because of a technicality, consider that child molestation is, along with racism, one of the last great societal sins. No one wants to acquit a racist or a child molester, effectively putting the burden of the defense to prove Jesperson's innocence.

The appeals court effectively dismissed the conviction because of juror misconduct.

The San Diego District Attorney is considering whether to mount a fourth trial.

I don't know Jesperson personally, but I do know some of his family, and I've been moved how so many of them have been so supportive to a man accused of one of the last great sins. Family members contributed financially to keep his family in their house and the issue before the community, and its doubtful there would have been an appellate review of the case (with its 10,000 pages of evidence), had so many people not stood up for justice when cynical, ambitious attorneys were building political careers on the ruins of other people's lives.

Jesperson being released is of course good news for him and his family, be he still has the possibility hanging over him that he could be charged and tried again at any time. Moreover, he is unlikely to ever work in his chosen profession again. There is light at the end of the tunnel, but its still pretty dark.

There is mounting evidence that as men discover the terms of marriage and divorce today, they are engaging in a marriage boycott or marriage “strike”: refusing to marry or start families, knowing they can be criminalized if their wife walks out and how attractive the divorce industry has made it easy for her to do so. ….Sonja Hastings of Fathers-4-Equality says that “no matter how decent, hardworking, and caring you may be as a father, that in the event of separation, you will more than likely not get custody of your child, you will lose up to 80% of all of your assets, you will have to pay up to five times the cost of raising a child, and most importantly you could never see your child again.” In Britain a fathers’ rights group tours university campuses warning young men not to start families. Even one attorney writes a book concluding that the only effective protection for men to avoid losing their children is not to start a family in the first place.

Advice from a bitter divorced guy? Nope. Dr. Helen.

I'm not quite that down on the institution of marriage, but its inarguable that a man incurs significant legal liability the moment he says I do.

I suspect that part of the problem is that people are getting married later after getting "established". I got married very young before I had a nickle, and my wife was besides me every step of the way. There is a lot to be said for shared struggle.

I don't know whether its just my limited experience, but most of my friends had more problems with their second marriage than with their first. At this point in my life, if something should happen to the lovely bunny, If I did get married again, it would be with a hell of a prenuptial agreement.

[What a real hate crime looks like...-->]

Over the past few days, a number of news outlets have reported the FBI's hate crime statistics. Like most stories of this type--the conclusion comes before the facts, so Ted Kennedy whines about the rising number of hate crimes. The American Thinker and other sources point out that the FBI's hate crime statistics are basically whatever they say they are.

The FBI collects data regarding criminal offenses that are motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias against a race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/national origin, or disability and are committed against persons, property, or society. Because motivation is subjective, it is difficult to know with certainty whether a crime resulted from the offender’s bias. Moreover, the presence of bias alone does not necessarily mean that a crime can be considered a hate crime. If law enforcement investigation reveals sufficient evidence to lead a reasonable and prudent person to conclude that the offender’s actions were motivated, in whole or in part, by his or her bias, then the incident should be reported as a hate crime.

In other words--when in doubt, write it down as a hate crime...

Moreover, the way the statistics are used by the media grossly distort what hate crimes are actually occuring and against who. Hate crimes against blacks have risen not at all, while hate crimes against white have gone up 8%.

Even that accurate take on the statistics obscures an even more important fact--their are vanishingly few hate crimes in this country of 300,000,000 people. Less than 10,000 reported. By contrast the FBI calculates that there were slightly more than 1.4 million violent crimes in the U.S. and 10 million property crimes. As a percentage of the total, hate crimes represent 8/100ths of a percent of all crimes.

Not convinced that hate crime statistics are meaningless? Well consider that Suleiman Talovic, the young Bosnian immigrant who shot and killed six Utahns in a mall rampage, was given a hero's burial.

No law enforcement official termed the massacre a hate crime. Apparently it was a reasonable assumption, but not a prudent one.

They call themselves Richard and Edith now, but this time they have their eyes on Don and Susie Kirlin’s property:

Despite owning the land, despite living only 200 yards from the property, despite hiking past it every week with their three dogs, despite spraying for weeds and fixing fences, despite paying homeowner association dues and property taxes each year, someone else had taken a shine to it. Someone powerful.

Former Boulder District Judge, Boulder Mayor, RTD board member - among other elected positions - Richard McLean and his wife, attorney Edith Stevens, used an arcane common law called "adverse possession" to claim the land for their own.

David Harsanyi chronicles:

The story is so absurd, so unfair, so ludicrous, I had a difficult time believing that it could actually happen - even in Boulder.

Actually Boulder is a natural. Or any other locale leftists congregate. In Monterey County CA, for instance, they control property they don’t own “to preserve open space and their quality of life”:

While environmentalists and farmers battled and little new housing was built, immigrants suffered, with more and more workers living in difficult conditions.

Harsanyi finds this absurd. It is when measured against the Judeo-Christian ethics most of this nation shares. Stealing land is less likely to occur where these values are still respected. But it is not hard to believe left wing sanctuaries, such as Boulder, known for luminaries like Marxist Ward Churchill, have less compunction about it. Liberals have been liberating themselves from old fashioned virtues, but not without replacing them with even older vices.

More at boingboing.

h/t Instapundit