Moe clarifies his opinion on the timing, on torture, and on the possible dangers of releasing such a report.
Moe resigned his commission over the use of torture to obtain information while he was the chief prosecutor at Gitmo.
Further explanation from Moe about where he stood and why he resigned his commission.
The federal agency that will play a pivotal role in guiding the sentence of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell has recommended that the onetime Republican rising star spend at least 10 years and a month in prison, according to several people familiar with the matter.
The guidelines recommended by the U.S. probation office are preliminary, and even if finalized, U.S. District Judge James R. Spencer is not required to follow them. But experts said that Spencer typically heeds the probation office’s advice, and judges in his district have imposed sentences within the recommendations more than 70 percent of the time in recent years.
“It’s of critical importance,” said Scott Fredericksen, a white-collar criminal defense lawyer. “The fact is, the vast majority of times, courts follow those recommendations closely.”
The matter is far from settled. The probation office recommended a punishment from 10 years and a month to 12 years and 7 months. Calculating an appropriate range of sentences in the federal system is a complicated, mathematical process that takes into account a variety of factors, including the type of crime, the defendant’s role and the amount of loss. The judge has yet to see the arguments from each side.
This sentencing threat is overkill. The stark reminder is that McDonnell broke no Virginia laws. I will be outraged if he receives a 10 year sentence.
Washingtonpost.com:
If you are a fan of the patriarchy, you should tremble at this fact: Over the past half-century, women have consistently dominated men at school.
Starting with people born in the 1950s, American women have been more likely to graduate from high school; starting with people born in the 1960s, women have also graduated at higher rates than men.
Saying Prince William County residents are more concerned about overcrowded classrooms than their annual real-estate taxes, Board of Supervisors Chairman Corey Stewart proposed a change in local tax policy Tuesday that would focus more on raising needed revenue for schools and county services and less on capping tax hikes.
Stewart, R-At Large, floated the idea during a joint meeting of the county Board of Supervisors and School Board held at the Edward L. Kelly Leadership Center.
Pointing to the recent two-year county survey, as well as a separate survey his office conducted for political purposes, Stewart said increasing traffic congestion and school overcrowding are more immediate concerns for many residents than taxes.
“Regardless of your political stripes, people are more concerned about their quality of life at home than they are about keeping tax bills so low, I mean 30 percent lower than in Fairfax and Loudoun counties,” Stewart said. “There’s a price we are paying for that.”
Thanks goodness Corey Stewart sees that going on the cheap just isn’t a winning ticket for Prince William County. He is correct. Quality of life issues and education are important to the people of Prince William County. People want more parks and open space, smaller classrooms, better roads, and responsive public safety.
With doubts now clouding the gang-rape allegation at the core of the Nov. 19 article, many fraternity and sorority advocates are asking why the university must continue a seven-week suspension of social activities at the Greek-letter organizations, which U-Va. President Teresa A. Sullivan announced on Nov. 22.
The leadership of the Sigma Chi International Fraternity, which has a chapter at U-Va. that dates to 1860, is saying the university is considering proposals to give police “unfettered access” to private fraternity houses and to require that chapters make alcohol-detecting breath-test devices available during parties.
In a letter to U-Va., the Sigma Chi leaders asserted their opposition to any police-access proposal that would violate members’ constitutional protections.
In addition, requiring undergraduates “to assume the role of policing their friends with breathalyzers is an unnecessary elevation from the responsibilities they presently have when they consciously decide to invite other students into their homes for social gatherings,” wrote Michael A. Greenberg, grand consul/international president of Sigma Chi, and Michael J. Church, executive director.
RICHMOND — The anything-goes gift culture that once dominated Virginia’s Capitol is giving way to a game of legislative limbo, with state lawmakers and the governor competing to take the value of acceptable handouts ever lower.
Republican leaders of Virginia’s House of Delegates made their move Wednesday, proposing a $100 cap on gifts of any sort, including meals and travel. That standard would be tighter than what the legislature imposed on itself earlier this year — and what an ethics panel appointed by Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) recommended just nine days ago.
The announcement prompted McAuliffe to declare that he, too, would propose a $100 gift cap — and to suggest that the Republicans had gotten the idea from him.
All of these proposals and counterproposals stem from a gifts scandal involving former governor Robert F. McDonnell (R) and his wife, Maureen. McAuliffe and legislators made an initial series of reforms in the General Assembly session that began last January. Now comes a second push, triggered by the shock of the McDonnells’ conviction on federal corruption charges in September.
Is Bob McDonnell corrupt or just dumb?
A suspiciously large public grant from the controversial Virginia tobacco commission to a natural gas project in the southern part of the state should add to citizens’ misgivings over how business gets done in the Old Dominion.
The tobacco commission dished out $30 million for a gas pipeline even though its staff calculated that the project merited just $6.5 million based on the commission’s own economic formulas.
Intriguingly, commission staff said the larger grant was made because of political pressure from the office of former governor Bob McDonnell, according to a draft report by the state inspector general’s office recently made public by the Associated Press.
Neither the commission’s acting head, Tim Pfohl, nor McDonnell’s lawyers denied that such lobbying might have occurred.
Pfohl insisted, however, that the larger grant was made to ensure that a $1 billion power plant and $300 million pipeline would be built in tobacco country, which the commission is supposed to serve, rather than in a competing location.
The enhanced interrogation report makes you sick to hear. The fact that Congress and the President were lied to is inexcusable–criminal even.
The report cost $40 million dollars and took years to complete. Was it wise to release the report? I guess it had to be. Are we now under greater terrorist threat? Apparently. Should those who broke the law be prosecuted?
Probably. This report is distressing and not reflective of America’s finest hour.
It’s 7:30 p.m. on Monday night, and the day’s most vilified blogger is driving somewhere in California, though he declines to specify where, and with whom. As he talks into the telephone, he confesses he feels hunted: He’s recording the conversation. Someone has already hacked him that day. He’s deluged with threats. His mom, he said, “is worried about me and worried about herself.”
This is Charles C. Johnson, the one-time Daily Caller contributor who just outed a woman he claims is Rolling Stone’s “Jackie,” whose widely-trumpeted gang-rape account at a University of Virginia fraternity has now come under suspicion. And today, Johnson sighed, has been quite a day. Jezebel called him “vile.” Slate called him a “vicious troll.” The Frisky called him a “complete piece of s–t.” Others, some of whom criticized Twitter for failing to censor his allegedly revelatory tweets, have been even less kind.
Whine. Johnson seems to be one of those who can dish it out but doesn’t know how to take it. He has been vile. He had defied acceptable public behavior. He has been called out.
Before the Rolling Stone article, I mercifully had no clue who Charles C. Johnson even was. I had never heard of him. In fact, the first I heard of him was on Moonhowlings.
A special tribute will probably always be held for those who lost their lives at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy. As long as there is a United States, Americans will pause and remember.
Captured Japanese film:
Washingtonpost.com:
CHARLOTTESVILLE — A University of Virginia student’s harrowing description of a gang rape at a fraternity, detailed in a recent Rolling Stone article, began to unravel Friday as interviews revealed doubts about significant elements of the account. The fraternity issued a statement rebutting the story, and the magazine apologized for a lapse in judgment and backed away from the article.
Washingtonpost.com:
RICHMOND — The Virginia Board of Health decided Thursday to move forward with a review of rules for abortion clinics, the latest step in a lengthy process that could roll back controversial regulations finalized last year.
The move was a victory for Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), who campaigned on a promise to reverse the rules, which regulate abortion clinics as if they were hospitals by dictating such details as hallway widths and the number of parking spots. Opponents of the regulations say they were intended to block access to abortion by closing down clinics that do not meet the requirements.
“These clinics provide essential preventive care and cancer screenings to many women and families and unfortunately were facing closure due to onerous regulations that were the result of politics being inserted into the regulatory process,” McAuliffe said in a statement.
However, groups opposed to abortion did not necessarily see Thursday’s action as a defeat; they said the review approved by the health board leaves open the possibility that restrictions on clinics could be strengthened. The restrictions, they said, are meant to protect women’s health and safety.
“We don’t know what will happen at the end of this process. This is simply a reopening and reviewing of the standards,” Victoria Cobb, president of the Family Foundation of Virginia, told reporters after the meeting.
The biggest bullshit in the world is out of Victoria Cobb’s mouth. TRAP laws (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) are for one reason and one reason alone–to stop abortion. That’s the only reason. Wide hallways and designer parking lots are just BS and help no one. Let’s face it, people having medical procedures not related to abortion can run into emergency problems. Can someone please explain to me why these laws aren’t in place for all medical facilities that provide out-patient services? They can’t. The requirements are bogus and help no one.
Good for Governor McAuliffe for prioritizing getting rid of these ridiculous laws.
The number of U.S. troops who reported that they had been sexually assaulted rose by 8 percent over the past year, Defense Department officials said, a statistic that will further fuel a debate in Congress over whether the military is effectively prosecuting sex crimes.
While most sexual-assault victims still are apparently unwilling to come forward, a Pentagon study that will be released Thursday found gradual progress in that area. The report estimates that 24 percent of all victims filed reports during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, up from 11 percent two years earlier, according to officials briefed on the details.
The Pentagon has been under pressure to show it has made progress in preventing and prosecuting sex offenses, amid threats by lawmakers that they may overhaul the military justice system and strip commanders of their power to oversee such cases
