We're moving our reporting of the Howell School e-mail FOIA lawsuit over to OutsideLansing.com, even though it began here 17 months ago, since it fits that topical site better. But for those of you following it - the Livingston Circuit Court ruled in favor of us and the schools over the Michigan Education Association. There's plenty to follow, so stay tuned.

Is this ever ironic. Especially for regular readers of ZR.

The Michigan Civil Rights Commission issued this odd press release on 5-21. Their releases come straight to ZR's inbox:

Civil Rights Department Affirms Right To File Complaints Without Retaliation

Lansing, MI * The Michigan Department of Civil Rights (MDCR) released the following statement today in response to a report issued last Wednesday by the Judicial Tenure Commission (JTC) recommending the suspension of Lansing Judge Beverly Nettles-Nickerson.

“While neither the Commission nor Department has any current involvement or legal interest in the matter involving Judge Nettles-Nickerson, it is imperative to clarify that the legal right of Michigan residents and visitors to file complaints with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights is protected. Both the Elliott-Larsen and Persons With Disabilities Civil Rights Acts explicitly provide protection from acts of retaliation for civil rights activity, including filing a complaint with MDCR.

It is our sincere hope that the JTC did not intend to imply that Judge Nettles-Nickerson should be disciplined in any way for exercising her right to file a civil rights complaint if she believed that she was being subjected to illegal discrimination. A suspension for filing an allegation of illegal discrimination would violate state and federal civil rights laws designed to protect those who stand up against discrimination from any acts of retaliation. Such a message from a legal authority would have a chilling effect on the state’s ability to protect persons who legitimately believe they may be victims of illegal discrimination.

While we take no position on the veracity of any fact claimed by any party in this matter, we ask the Judicial Tenure Commission to amend its complaint to clarify that they are not seeking to discipline Judge Nettles-Nickerson for the act of filing her complaint with the Michigan Civil Rights Commission and Department.

We further call upon the Supreme Court and any appointed Special Master to clarify that, regardless of what decision they may ultimately reach in this matter, their ruling is in no way predicated upon the protected act of filing a complaint with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights."

I mean, who could be for allowing retaliation against people who file complaints?

But what if the complaint is provably fraud? Whoa. Isn't this the same Commission that chastised the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) for alleged-signature-gathering "fraud" (even as it agreed in March 2007 with the premise of MCRI arguments about the limitations of Proposal 2, thereby contradicting the substance of its previous fraud allegations) and declared that it had the right to investigate such fraud. And if a sitting Judge corruptly abuses the Commission by filing a fraudulent complaint against her cohorts, shouldn't she be disciplined as a result? The Commission "takes no position on the veracity of any fact" claimed by anyone ... yet it takes a position that the complaint is entitled to unlimited deference? If I file a frivolous lawsuit - or commit perjury, I'm going to face a serious set of consequences. So too should someone who abuses the Commission's process, if it is provably the case that it was knowingly abused.

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ZR just picked up this upbeat news release from the United States Department of Justice. Apparently, they just convicted some true nutcases in a conspiracy case involving classic KKK-like activity, and attempts to burn down the homes of an African-American family.

Apparently, the convicted conspirators had been making threats as early as 2002 (long-before MCRI existed), which may explain some of the activity witnessed during the campaign.

FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2007

FEDERAL JURY CONVICTS MAN FOR VIOLATING THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF A MICHIGAN FAMILY AND CONSPIRING TO OBSTRUCT JUSTICE

WASHINGTON – A federal jury in Detroit today convicted Wayland Mullins, of Taylor, Mich., of violating the civil rights of an African-American family by attempting to burn down the family’s house. Mullins was also found guilty of conspiring to violate the family’s housing rights, conspiring to obstruct a federal investigation, and using fire in the commission of a felony. Mullins faces a maximum of 25 years in prison on the civil rights violations and obstruction charges, and an additional mandatory 10 years in prison on the use-of-fire count. Mullins is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 23, 2007.

The evidence at trial established that on July 28, 2002, Mullins and several of his neighbors gathered together and discussed burning down the home of an African-American family that had recently moved into the neighborhood. Following this conversation, Mullins broke a window in the family’s home, poured in a flammable substance, and lit the substance on fire while a co-conspirator, Michael Richardson, acted as a lookout. After the fire, Mullins and Richardson attempted to obstruct a federal investigation into the arson by lying to federal investigators about their knowledge of the crime. The jury found that Mullins’ actions were racially-motivated.

Richardson, who pleaded guilty in federal court to civil rights and obstruction of justice violations in connection with this incident, testified against defendant Mullins at trial. A third defendant, Rick Cotton, also participated in the discussion before the fire and in the cover-up afterward, and was convicted by a jury for lying to federal investigators and a federal grand jury and for obstructing justice. Cotton also pleaded guilty to conspiring with Mullins, Richardson and others to violate the family’s housing rights. Cotton and Richardson face a maximum of up to 10 years and 35 years in prison, respectively, and both will be sentenced on April 25, 2007.

“These despicable acts were bred of ignorance and hate,” said Assistant Attorney General Wan J. Kim for the Civil Rights Division. “The federal government will continue vigorously to prosecute individuals who engaged in such bias-motivated violence.”

“Every American should be able to live in any community in our land without fear of racial intimidation or reprisal,” said U.S. Attorney Stephen J. Murphy. “Such hatred has no place in our society, as today’s jury verdict shows. But if it does arise, it will be met with the full force of the federal law enforcement power to stamp it out.”

Prosecuting the perpetrators of bias-motivated crimes is a top priority of the Justice Department. Since 2001, the Civil Rights Division has charged 165 defendants in 105 cases of bias-motivated crimes.

This case was investigated by the Taylor Police Department and the Detroit Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Hurley from the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Trial Attorney Michael Khoury from the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

It's great to see these perps get their justice, and ZR applauds the efforts of DoJ and jury in putting these stains on humanity where they belong.

Flint's ABC affiliate is running this wire story about the Reverend Al Sharpton's insistence on using the governmental powers of the FCC to quash what he considers racially-charged speech.

Don Imus will appear on the Rev. Al Sharpton's radio show on Monday, five days after Imus made racially charged comments his own show about the Rutgers women's basketball team, Sharpton and MSNBC announced Sunday. Despite Imus' scheduled appearance, Sharpton said his position was unchanged: He wants Imus fired and intends to write the Federal Communications Commission about the matter. "Somewhere we must draw the line in what is tolerable in mainstream media," Sharpton said Sunday. "We cannot keep going through offending us and then apologizing and then acting like it never happened. Somewhere we've got to stop this."

Apparently, Jesse Jackson has entered the fray too:

The Rev. Jesse Jackson said his RainbowPUSH Coalition plans to protest Monday in Chicago outside the offices of NBC, which owns MSNBC, over the remark Imus made last Wednesday during his show. Imus said members of the mostly black Rutgers University women's basketball team were "nappy-headed hos." The team, which includes eight black women, had lost the day before in the NCAA women's championship game.

While ZR strongly disapproves of Imus' statement, it is clearly outside the bounds of the current FCC rules (so any censorial action would be an ex post facto revision of the rules) and should remain so, since even "offending" speech should generally be protected speech.

The Oakland Press here notes the drinking and driving troubles State Representative John Garfield, a Republican from Rochester Hills here in Oakland County. Garfield is term-limited in 2008 anyway.

Garfield faces his second drunk driving conviction as a legislator, and this one, at .14, doesn't appear to be close to the limit.

Democrat Party Chair Mark Brewer has used the opportunity to call on Garfield's resignation or "at least censure" by the Republican caucus. While Brewer is playing crass politics here, Republicans have always held themselves to higher standards and consistency requires it (as Garfield's own platform suggests) and Garfield should be condemned and Republicans should make it clear we don't expect to see him running for any higher offices after his term expires. He should spend the time getting his life in order. If his term hadn't been up, a solid primary challenger would be appropriate.

A word of advice to any future ZR clients - don't drink and drive, but especially if you plan on running for office. While some politicians overcome it, it's both a bad thing and bad politics.

Public official corruption makes the news again today as Kristofer Karol of the Livingston Daily - Press Argus reports here:

A former Fowlerville Village Council member pleaded guilty to one count of health-care fraud Friday in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids.

U.S. Attorney Raymond Beckering III said Rosemary Pushies faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the charges.

Guess who Pushies pulled one over on?

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MESSA, the Michigan Education Association's (MEA) private-health-care-insurance-monopoly:

According to court records with the Western Michigan District of U.S. District Court, Pushies billed the Michigan Education Special Services Association, which provides health coverage to school district personnel, for services not rendered in 2000-2004.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan administered the claims for MESSA — an arm of the Michigan Education Association, the state's largest teachers' union.

The document specifies one case in August 2004, where Pushies submitted a false claim to MESSA, overcharging a client for massage therapy.

In addition to the jail time and a fine, Pushies will be looking at other financial repercussions.

While MESSA can't be blamed here, it does present a series of interesting questions, and makes one wonder where the tip of the iceberg begins. But it's still a public corruption story - although Pushies committed the fraud in her private practice, she was a Fowlerville City Council member.

Pushies resigned from her council position in February 2006, saying the decision had to do with family obligations. She has since left the area and Fowlerville Chiropractic Clinic, where she once practiced.

United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas lambasted the media and "diversity industry" in this Los Angeles Times account of a Business Week interview. He denied that he was a "beneficiary" of "affirmative action," or specifically that the College of Holy Cross "recruited" in him in an outreach program.

Here's a clip:

"That was the creation of the politicians, the people with a lot of mouth and nothing to say, and your industry," Thomas told a writer for Business Week magazine. "Everything becomes affirmative action."

In 1968, shortly after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Rev. John Brooks began recruiting young black men to enroll at College of the Holy Cross, a Jesuit school in Worcester, Mass.

The initial class of 28 included Washington lawyer Theodore V. Wells Jr., who is representing former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby; Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Edward P. Jones and investment banker and former New York City deputy mayor Stanley Grayson — as well as Thomas, the high court's only African American.

In an interview that accompanied the magazine's profile of Brooks, Thomas insisted he was not recruited to go to Holy Cross. After dropping out of a Missouri seminary in 1968, Thomas returned home to Savannah, Ga.

"A nun suggested Holy Cross. That's how I wound up there," he said. "Your industry [the news media] has suggested that we were all recruited. That's a lie. Really, it's a lie. I don't mean a mistake. It's a lie.

"That thing that has astounded me over the years is that there has been such an effort to roll that class into people's notion of affirmative action," he continued. "You hear this junk. It's just not consistent with what really happened."

Thomas expressed disdain for the news media several times during the interview.

"One of the reasons I don't do media interviews is, in the past, the media often has its own script," he said. "The media, unfortunately, have been universally untrustworthy because they have their own notions of what I should think or I should do."

I'm particularly fond of Thomas' clarity in the italicized portion. "I don't mean a mistake. It's a lie." I'm also not sure he just means [the news media] where the "Your industry". I suspect he understands that the diversity industry (which he refers to as politicians) and media are part of the same machine - although there are certainly exceptions.

File this one in the "There is some law" category.

Readers may recall from 2005 a group called "In the Hood Research", with notable individuals Carl Williams, Percy Harris, Jr., and Hassan Aleem, intervened in the case MCRI filed in August 2005 against the Board of Canvasser's to secure access to the ballot.

These undistinguished individuals decided to flood the Court with wierd and odd motions, and finally insulted it on December 5, 2005. Days later they were each slapped with $500 fines. They finally exhausted appeals (unbelievably filing an appeal with the Michigan Supreme Court that must have cost nearly as much as the fine would cost) in July 2006, and the Court issued this really cool order! It's importance is trivial to say the least, if for no other reason than the nature of the people involved, which is why it was lost in reporting of the time, but having just ran across it, it seemed so sweet as to require some attention.

No more Williams, Harris, and Aleem until they pay the Court.

Democrats rode a national wave of anti-Republicanism this year, in large part due to corruption scandals embroiling individual Republicans across the country. But here in Michigan Democrats are promising to protect a newly elected legislator who committed an armed robbery in 1993, despite a Michigan Constitutional provision that disqualifies felons convicted of crimes "involving a breach of the public trust." Here, the South Bend Tribune reports:

Democrats support Democrat Bert Johnson's intention to take office when the new House convenes in January, said Dan Farough, a spokesman for House Speaker-elect Andy Dillon, D-Redford.

Current House Speaker Craig DeRoche, R-Novi, had promised to block Johnson, of Detroit, from taking office because of a 1993 armed robbery to which he pleaded no contest.

"Bert Johnson will be seated," Farough told the Detroit Free Press for a Wednesday story. "This was a political issue drummed up during campaign season to divide people."

The Michigan constitution bars people from the Legislature who have been convicted of a felony "involving a breach of public trust" within the previous 20 years.
...
DeRoche or another lawmaker still could force a vote to block Johnson, but DeRoche hasn't decided whether to press the matter, a spokesman said.

So its a "political issue drummed up during campaign season" when it would harm Democrats, but its not when admittedly corrupt individuals like Tom Delay and Mark Foley have to withdraw from races. The sad thing is the Democrats could have easily found someone else to replace Bert Johnson in a non-competitive Democratic seat, but they have opted for their own stubborness in interpreting the law to protect their own. It seems to be a pretty plain reading of the law that using a gun to rob someone is a "breach of the public trust." Johnson does not belong in the legislature, but apparently new speaker Andy Dillon doesn't have the courage to admit it.

Power and politics as usual.

Greg Toppo at USA Today reports on major new federal rules on single-sex education. These changes are important, and since Dick DeVos and Michael Bouchard have cited single-sex education as their reason for avoiding the MCRI issue, it is important to understand the changes in the context of MCRI.

The argument goes as follows. Since MCRI prohibits "discrimination and preference", it might prohibit the adoption of single-sex education as an alternative method of improving results in some schools. The whole legal field is murky though, and its murky at the federal level as well. The "normal" opponents of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI, Yes on Proposal 2) such as the American Civil Liberties Union, One United Michigan (OUM), and others, oppose single-sex education because they see it as "traditional" discrimination (that is not just preferentially favoring "protected" groups, but through its segregation discriminating against those protected groups). Conservatives and cross-over liberals (Hillary Clinton, among others) favor it as a potentially successful mechanism to overcome problems associated with real learning-style differences or the "sexual tension" distraction created by the presence of the opposite sex at that particularly sensitive age. The irony however, or hypocrisy, is that the ACLU and OUM favor "girls only" summer camps for math and science, and similar programs that are even more targeted than single-sex education. As such, the issue presents a tangled web of political alliances and and non-traditional political relationships, such as the ACLU fighting against Hillary Clinton and many conservatives on her side.

In a moment, I will explain why single-sex education, as it is now currently allowed, would still be permitted in a post-Yes on Proposal 2 environment. First, let's see what the Bush administration actually approved.

School districts across the nation this fall will have unprecedented freedom to open up all-girls' or all-boys' schools and classes under sweeping new regulations announced on Tuesday by U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings.
The shift is the biggest in 31 years and for the first time allows schools to separate students by gender if they believe it helps — a standard that is under debate in the existing research.

Participation in such programs would be voluntary, but schools choosing to separate a class for one sex wouldn't have to provide an equivalent class for the other sex. They'd simply have to offer a "substantially equal" coed class in the same subject.

The rules, which take effect Nov. 24, also clarify rules on creating entire single-sex public schools.

Since the current rules went into effect in 1975, single-sex classes have been allowed only on a limited basis, such as in charter schools, sex education courses or gym classes involving contact sports. The Bush administration, supported by both Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Democratic New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, has favored loosening the rules....

Critics, such as the American Association of University Women and the American Civil Liberties Union, call the changes troublesome....

Spellings said research shows that "some students may learn better" in single-sex environments, but other administration officials on Tuesday admitted that the best research offers only tepid support. A 2005 analysis of current research, cited on the department's website, noted that "any positive effects" of single-sex schooling on long-term academic achievement "are not readily apparent."...

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Stephanie Monroe, who heads the department's civil rights office, minimized the research, saying that as a parent she'd want all options available to her child.

"The department believes that this is an option that should be made available," she said.

Very much like the educational benefits of diversity, the science on benefits to single-sex education are quite mixed, and without the key element of parental choice such a policy could not be justified.

Why do I believe MCRI won't impact the single-sex education debate? First, the key battle is at the federal level. The ACLU will challenge the Bush relaxations under federal civil rights and equal protection rules, and that court battle will determine whether "discrimination" occurs as a result of single-sex education. I believe the central argument by which the current rules escape Constitutional suspicion is that the choice rests with the parent, and that since they choose, rather than the government, there is no discrimination (and likewise, no preference). Discrimination only occurs when a choice is made by someone against your wishes, and it is impermissable under the law when the choice is made on the basis of race, ethnicity, or gender. If you are the one making the choice, it is impossible for you to claim to be the one discriminated against (although you are certainly "discriminating", since the definition of that word is to choose). When government forces choices upon citizens, such as public school education styles, it is making the decision. In the current rules environment, schools are permitted to offer-single sex education only when the parents are given the choice between co-ed and single-sex education, and only when the excluded sexes accommodations are roughly equal. If single-sex education survives the federal challenge, those reasons should be mostly portable to state challenges even though they will be based on the term "preferential." It will certainly be ironic to see the ACLU using Michigan's Proposal 2, or the California Civil Rights Initiative/Amendment (CCRI, or Proposition 209, of 1996), in an effort to derail single-sex education, but it won't be surprising.

With parental choice however, I believe it is justifiable even without science since it promotes parental involvement and choice and since parents presumably know their children better than the government or even scientists who study aggregate trends, and as a result of the choice, single-sex education as the Bush administration has allowed is not discrimination or preferential.

And even if MCRI were to end single-sex education temporarily, one must remember it wasn't until yesterday that it was permissable anyway under federal rulemaking authority (and in Michigan, a separate 1930s law very specifically prohibited until this summer, when the Michigan legislature repealed the relevant portion precisely to allow some single-sex education, as they saw the trend coming and wanted to create some cover for Republicans avoiding MCRI). It certainly wouldn't be very difficult (it wouldn't be any more difficult for the legislature than it was to pass authorizing legislation in July) for the legislature to give the people of Michigan a voting option to amend MCRI, or create a separate Constitutional amendment allowing single-sex education. Indeed, this would be ideal in some ways - if the people Michigan had to actually approve of the technique directly, it would be a credit to our democratic process. So the argument that MCRI was poorly written because of the single-sex possibility simply ignores the easy solution - let the people vote on that issue straight up.

(As a side note or clarification, I do not begrudge any politician from avoiding the MCRI issue or citing single-sex education as a concern. ZR fully endorses a number of candidates, including Dick DeVos, who are against MCRI for this reason. Given the political intimidation on the issue, and the need to focus on the real issue of the job creation environment, it may indeed have been the right move.)

Campaign reports will be upon us in the next week, but ZR is the first to report on yet another anti-Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI, Yes on Proposal 2) ballot question committee that was formed this summer.

And this one isn't small beans. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed its own ballot question committee in July, but its still too early to see any dollar amounts. Apparently, they filed it late too, by 2 weeks from the 10 day deadline (10 days after the first expenditure or contribution), suggesting, if truthful, their first activity occurred in June or early July.

Expect this one to be worthy of following. It brings to 5 the known number of anti-MCRI committees.

Pictured above and at right are examples of an illegal Granholm - Cherry sign. The red and yellow lettered sign, which says "Union Laborers" at the bottom, is quite different from the normal signs put out by the central committee for the Granholm campaign. But the sign fails to comply with the Michigan Campaign Finance Act (MCFA)(see the close-up only of the Granholm sign, the Levin sign in the distance shot complies with a fine print that can't be seen in the distance photo).

The Act requires that all printed material, with a few exceptions due to size or shape (balloons, pins smaller than a certain size, etc.) have a "Paid for by [identity, address]" statement somewhere on the printed material. Yard signs are explicitly included in the Secretary of State's guidebooks as requiring identification.

Of course, the Governor's campaign is not the likely source of the signs - but unions are typically fully aware of campaign regulations, and whomever is sponsoring this sign has simply failed negligently (if this is a mistake, I urge the sponsor to correct it honestly by appending some form of identification on their signs) or refused to comply with the law.

ZR reports the error as a matter of interest, and in hopes that the error will be corrected. We will attempt to identify the source of the signs, as well.

Dawson Bell of the Detroit Free Press reports here that By Any Means Necessary's (BAMN) appeal of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) signature collection process has been denied by the 6th Circuit.

The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals declined Monday to strike from Michigan's November ballot a proposal to ban affirmative action programs that provide preference to women and minorities.

That leaves one sole and last remedy for BAMN - the United States Supreme Court. Although I wouldn't mind seeing the case reach that location (it may just make it anyway if MCRI wins at the ballot box in an ex post facto attempt to repeal MCRI) since the Court might justifiably speak to the ballot language in MCRI's favor, but I would say the odds of that actually happening (cert being granted before the election) are as close to zero as a man landing on the moon tomorrow are. The main reason is BAMN's actual case in this iteration is that bad qualitatively, and the Supreme Court is slightly better than it was 3 years ago (although even O'Connor wouldn't have bought this one, as she not only "deferred" to university psuedo-science on diversity, but she also explicitly deferred to the lawful processes of the states, including voters in California and Washington.

So, with near certainty, I believe we can now say MCRI will appear on the November 7, 2006 ballot. Good luck. It's always been an uphill fight.

In another ZR exclusive, linked above and here is a PDF of the $2000 (maximum for being late) fine levied by the Secretary of State staff against One United Michigan (OUM) for a late filing (almost 10 weeks) of their most recent campaign finance filing. In its fight against the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, it has seemingly misplaced or hidden almost $470,000 at different times.

Unfortunately, ZR is late (although not later than any other known media, therefore, it is an exclusive) to report this do to a focus on other issues and clients, it was a topic that ZR had followed since the January 23, 2006 "hollow" filing by OUM where it claimed $1300 in expenditures and receipts for all of 2005. Apparently an analyst at the Secretary of State followed it too. In early April (4/5/06), OUM amended that filing to $291,708.00 in contributions and roughly $280K in expenditures, which is an order of magnitude in change suggesting (indeed, proving within reason) that the first filing was knowingly false (we're not just talking routine "amendments" where an extra expenditure or contribution was misplaced and found, which is common among campaign reports). On April 20, the SOS analyst, Crystal Thomas, notes why the late filing fine is necessary here. Thomas cites Section 34(7) as the reason - it reads:

(7) If a treasurer or other individual designated as responsible for the record keeping, report preparation, or report filing of a ballot question committee knowingly files an incomplete or inaccurate statement or report required by this section, that treasurer or other designated individual is subject to a civil fine of not more than $1,000.00.

Of that $291,000 reported in April, $260,000 (or %89.3) came from Detroit Renaissance, the American Federation of Teachers, the AFL-CIO, and UAW.

But wait, the story of OUM's finances gets better. On 7/10/2006, OUM filed ANOTHER AMENDMENT, finding an additional 180,000 in revenue from 2005 and 150,000 in expenditures!

You might think its hard to miss a $10,000 check from the infamous Barden Communications group (of Detroit gambling fame and cable TV franchising), but that's chance money compared to a misplaced $100,000 check from the Hartford Memorial Baptist Church of Detroit. But these aren't just "misplaced" checks - the expenses keep going up with each report - suggesting, indeed proving in my mind, that the ongoing changes in reports are not accidental, but designed to show a believable positive balance (remember, By Any Means Necessary [BAMN] had been slapped earlier in the year for showing an actual negative balance in one of its reports, which is possible with an error).

But it gets better. Following a rather lenghty "Error/Omission Notice" on 7/13/2006, detailing minor technical defects in the 7/10/2006 report, OUM filed its third amendment on 8/11/2006, appearing to correct the minor defects. This, in itself, would have been no big deal, but how could we trust this report when the first two were hundreds of thousands of dollars off-the-mark?

Some more analysis from the anonymous attorney/legal mind that occasionally emails me. I would note that I had this thought as well, but with so many other things in Tarnow's drivel to attack or focus, I simply didn't make a good point about it. The writer here does though. I've folded his entire analysis below the "tease" so that it doesn't take up too much visual space for other stories on this blog. I repost it because this central point - that decisions are to be decided on the narrowest possible grounds - cuts to the core of ethical difficulty "Judge" Tarnow exhibited in his 34 page ruling. As the writer points out, the decision could have been limited to pages 28-31, without the superfluous commentary.

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