Video: President Obama's Inaugural Address

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Video: January 20, 2009 - Inauguration Day

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Inauguration Day - The Obama Era Begins

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Are You With Us, Or With the Torturers?

Glenn Greenwald presents another compelling argument today at Salon that the 1988 Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment legally obligates the Obama administration to prosecute Bush administration officials who authorized or participated in the use of torture:

Article 2

1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.

2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture. . . .

Article 4

1. Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture..

Greenwald urges that, based on its treaty obligations, the U.S. has no prosecutorial discretion and must, as a matter of law, proceed to bring those who authorized torture to justice.

In the waning days of this Administration, its highest officials, including the President and Vice President themselves, have virtually lined up to preemptively - and unrepentently - acknowledge their roles in the direct authorization of so-called "enhanced interrogation methods."

It seems pretty clear this parade of admissions was coordinated in a parting effort to define the parameters of the debate that may follow. It may or may not work, particularly if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has her way on investigations.

Once the dust settles, I'd suggest that America will come to acknowledge that its standing in the world - and in its own eyes - will largely be determined by how it addresses the Bush legacy of torture.

As new information emerges as to the unimagined extent of these practises - and it will - the U.S. will have to decide a simple question that may well define the nation for generations to come:

Are you with us, or with the torturers?

In the meanwhile, the good news is that Bush, Cheney and their cronies appear to be already gone.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

UPDATE - January 20, 2009

See Keith Olberman's Special Comment on this topic: They're guilty of this, Mr. President-Elect. They're guilty as sin

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The Girl Who Silenced the World at the United Nations

This one comes via our own Rachel Spence:

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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2009

Now that we're back after a bit of a blog break, it'll probably take a a few days to ramp up to our usual posting pace.  

I'll begin this year's offerings simply, then, with a happy new year to all.  

I've got quite a few topics saved up for attention in the days and weeks ahead, so stay tuned.

Best wishes for 2009.  

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Season's Greetings from Wise Law Blog

 

With the festive season upon us, we'd like to wish all our readers, clients, friends and colleagues the happiest of holidays.  

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah and Season's Greetings to everyone from all of us at Wise Law Office.

(Special thanks to our own Justine Hamilton for creating the artwork above.)

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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The 2008 Canadian Law Blog Awards

The Canadian Law Blog Awards

Steve Matthews, the mastermind behind the Canadian Law Blog Awards, has asked members of our nation's 'blawger' community to help him by proposing our nominees for this year's ClawBie Awards, presented to Canada's top law bloggers.

As a very appreciative recipient of such recognition last year, I want to speak for a moment about the award, itself.

The ClawBies are a different sort of award.

Unlike most other awards, including the Canadian Blog Awards and the current ABA Top 100 Awards, which are essentially crosses between popularity contests and voter-turnout drives, the public does not currently participate directly in the outcome of the ClawBies.

Rather, with Steve's call for nominations, they may be emerging as a straw-vote among law bloggers ourselves.

In this way, the Clawbies may perhaps be seen as the 'Oscars' of the relevant blog awards, to the extent that it is our yet-unnamed and largely-unformed 'academy' that will acknowledge those most deserving of cudos.

Steve's decision to ask the blawger community for nominations this year should represent a next step toward a conscious recognition that Canada's law bloggers do cumulatively represent a voice of increasing relevance within the legal profession and in the eyes of the public.

Influence

No Canadian blogger has more ably demonstrated the influence of our new medium in the greater public discourse than Michael Geist, my first nominee for a 2008 ClawBie.

As a vocal and persuasive critic of ill-conceived copyright reform legislation proposed last year by Stephen Harper's Conservative government, Mr. Geist successfully mobilized grass-roots opposition to the legislation via his law blog, media articles and the social media phenomenon, Facebook.

In the process, however, Mr. Geist emerged as significantly more than an online organizer.

When the dust settled and the impugned copyright bill was ultimately put to pasture in December 2007, it was apparent that Mr. Geist had not only assumed the role of the nation's moral conscience on intellectual property concerns - he essentially became the nation's unofficial Official Opposition on these issues, a role that continues to date.

Consistency

One common thread that runs through the best blogs is exceptionally good writing by commentators who speak their minds fearlessly, utilizing intelligent, challenging and highly entertaining voices that make you wonder what they'll have to say about any new issue as soon as it arises.

Although Law Is Cool is a collective that doesn't have a single, defining voice, I think it generally delivers the goods as Canada's most consistently interesting and entertaining law blog.

With subject matter that ranges wildly from strictly-student concerns to advocacy and politically-partisan treatises, Law is Cool is often first-out-of-the-gate with most legal and political developments of general concern, and is probably the site I click through and read most frequently.

Aside from that, its writers have been called more names by Mark Steyn than I have.

For that, I am eternally appreciative, and I gladly name Law is Cool as my second ClawBie nominee.

Access to Legal Information

The 'blawger' enjoys a special opportunity, apart from other blogs, to bring the law to the people.

It never ceases to amaze me how adept my clients now are at sourcing high-level information about their legal concerns online. As a practitioner I can vouch that answers to my own research questions are often but a click away.

Increasingly, the legal information required by the public and the profession can be found free of charge at the many Canadian law blogs whose raison d'etre is exactly that - to get information "out there."

Lots of law blogs do this well. Hull and Hull's Toronto Estate Law Blog does it best.

With ever-refreshing content in multi-media formats, I can't imagine that there is a better estate law resource in the nation for clients and lawyers alike.

As a trailblazer that sets the standard for providing timely, topic-specific legal information to the public-at-large in various media formats, Hull and Hull has my third nomination for a 2008 ClawBie.

Canada's Law Bloggers

Given the task of naming three nominees, those are mine. But are they really Canada's best law blogs, worthy of mention apart from their many peers?

Not necessarily.

I suppose I cast my votes for Canada's overall best law blogs when I launched Wise Law Reader a few short weeks ago, featuring many of the key writers I follow regularly.

And even so, I haven't finished adding sites.

The Court, Slaw, and Jordan Furlong's Law 21 are among the most frequently-recognized and discussed law blogs in Canada. All three are must-reads.

But comprised largely of academics, legal marketers and legal philosophers, these sites don't always provide the ears-to-the ground immediacy found at practitioner blogs like Stan Rule's Rule of Law, the ICBC Law Blog,  Canadian Privacy Law Blog and the indispensable Cavanaugh Williams Insurance and Litigation News blog, easily Canada's smartest lawyer-to-lawyer case law blog.

Also worthy of mention is Donna Seale's Human Rights in the Workplace, one of the many newer blogs that is becoming an important, contributing voice to Canada's online legal landscape.

It's increasingly tough to consider Canada's legal 'blawgosphere' as a monolithic entity, as there are now so many different types of offerings.

There are practitioner blogs, such as our own, written primarily by practising lawyers. There are academics' blogs and law student blogs.

There are those written by journalists, and those by professionals who provide important support services to the legal profession.

Our common thread is simply that all sites' discussions focus largely on trends in the law and developments in the legal marketplace, as a whole.

Cumulatively, there is a lot of good reading out there. And it keeps getting better.

Congratulations to all on a great year for Canadian law blogs, and our best wishes to Steve Matthews as he begins his 2008 deliberations.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Constructive Dismissal: Employers Beware

It is often said that people are assets and human capital drives the organization. But unfortunately the same assets and capital are the first to bear the brunt as part of cost-cutting exercises by businesses.

As per Statistics Canada, the Canadian economy lost 71,000 jobs in November 2008, 66,000 of which were here in Ontario. With a slowing economy, more job losses are expected in the months ahead.

However not all employers resort to cutting jobs immediately. Many business will try to manage the slowdown using a combination of different measures like rationalizing salaries, freeze wage increases, cut perks, and try cutting costs wherever possible, be it switching off the lights or economizing on travel.

Some employers see a certain virtue in cutting salaries rather than jobs. My wife's employer, a major travel company, has already started exploring ways of reducing employee costs without actually laying off people. These include employees working lesser hours per week and taking additional vacation time (unpaid). If the organizational culture is good, employees will understand that these are difficult times and will be willing to take these cuts.

However, before employers implement any such cost cutting measures that modify the terms of employment, they have to be careful as to not trigger constructive dismissal claims. Generally speaking an employee is considered to have been constructively dismissed where there is a breach of a fundamental term of the employment contract by the employer.

The principles of constructive dismissal are well established in Canada. As to what constitutes constructive dismissal has been explained in an old English decision, In re Rubel Bronze and Metal Company and Vos, [1918] 1 K.B:

"Dismissal may be effected by conduct as well as words. A man may dismiss hisservant if he refuses by word or conduct to allow the servant to fulfil his contract of employment. The refusal must of course be substantial in the sense that it is not a mere repudiation of some minor rights of the servant or of non-vital provisions of the contract of employment. The question is ever one of degree. If the conduct of the employer amounts to a basic refusal to continue the servant on the agreed terms of the employment, then there is at once a wrongful dismissal and a repudiation of the contract."

The leading Canadian case on the issue of constructive dismissal is the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Farber v. Royal Trust Co. [1997] 1 S.C.R. 846.

"Where an employer decides unilaterally to make substantial changes to the essential terms of an employee's contract of employment and the employee does not agree to the changes and leaves his or her job, the employee has not resigned, but has been dismissed. Since the employer has not formally dismissed the employee, this is referred to as "constructive dismissal". By unilaterally seeking to make substantial changes to the essential terms of the employment contract, the employer is ceasing to meet its obligations and is therefore terminating the contract. The employee can then treat the contract as resiliated for breach and can leave. In such circumstances, the employee is entitled to compensation in lieu of notice and, where appropriate, damages.”

However each constructive dismissal case must be decided on its own facts, since the specific features of each employment contract and each situation must be taken into account to determine whether the essential terms of the contract have been substantially changed.”

Accordingly, it is not every change that gives rise to constructive dismissal - the change must be substantial and must be to an essential term of the employment contract.

Generally it has been held that a demotion and a unilateral reduction in an employee's income by an employer amounts to constructive dismissal.

When asking employees to work fewer hours, employers must be aware that they cannot unilaterally implement such changes. Employers must get the employees prior agreement in writing before implementing such changes.

Some employers resort to a temporary lay off, permitted under the provisions of the Employment Standards Act. However, the courts have held that if the employment contract does not allow the employer to lay-off the employee, such temporary lay off amounts to constructive dismissal.

Following are some examples, where the courts have found constructive dismissal:

• The employee was demoted and his salary frozen where there had been an agreement
  that it there would be no salary freeze;
• The employee was not paid a 10% bonus when it was found that this was an integral part of his employment contract;
• Withdrawal of use of a company vehicle, which was of significant value to the employee in the context of the overall contract;
• A unilateral change of territory for a commissioned salesman which resulted in an immediate decrease of 25% of the employee’s compensation;
• The employee was demoted and changes were made to his reporting relationship, responsibility and support, all of which were held to be fundamental changes going to the root of the contract;
• Unilaterally imposing a cap on the bonus of the employee where there had never been one previously.

- Shashi K. Raina, Toronto

Disclaimer: Nothing in this article should be considered legal advice. Readers are advised to speak to an Employment Lawyer to discuss their specific situations.

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About That Shoe-Throwing Incident in Baghdad...

Here's the video.

Luckily for the President, the 'assailant's' aim ranks as Cheney-esque... 

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Video: Glenn Greenwald on 'Tragic Legacy' of Bush

Constitutional lawyer and leading progressive blogger, Glenn Greenwald, visited Bill Moyers this week, and discussed 9-11, unitary executive theories, and the constitutional excesses of the Bush Administration.

Mr. Greenwald asserts that failing prosecution of high-ranking Bush government officials who broke the law by engaging in warrantless wiretapping, torture and suspension of habeas corpus rights, America will essentially have adopted a two-tiered justice system that subjects ordinary Americans to the harshest form of "three strikes" criminal sanctions but wholly exempts the ruling elite from any criminal accountability at all.

I've embedded Part II of the interview, below, which sets out the nub of Mr. Greenwald's argument:

Also see Part I  and Part III of the interview at YouTube.

I've previously tacked this issue in our November 4th post, On Greenwald, and Kerr and the Chicanery of the Intellectual Right.

I continue to ponder the degree and kind of accountability that must be demanded of the soon-to-be-former Bush administration for its reckless disregard of basic human rights in the guise of the marketing operation formerly known as the War on Terror.

I have great concern that if the new Obama administration pursues such accountability via congressional investigations or criminal law processes, it will tie itself, Congress and the nation in all-too-familiar knots. Beyond that, by doing so it may simply re-energize the partisan warfare that has so embarrassingly eroded the effective working of the federal government since the Clinton impeachment fiasco.

The international standing of the United States, however, will not be restored by an Obama America that turns a blind eye to the Bush administration's legacy of torture, unlawful detention and rendition, domestic and international invasion of privacy and ongoing manipulation of the civil and military judicial systems.

In the absence of an unambiguous and total rejection by American lawmakers and Courts of the outrages that have blackened America's standing among its greatest allies, the world will properly be entitled to assume that not much has really changed, at all.

...I do not anticipate that Mr. Obama will seek to restore America's place as a shining beacon by way of an international charm offensive, alone. America is beginning to wake up to the reality that among his many gifts, their next President has considerable skill in walking the walk.

One of his many challenges, however, will be to establish a process for review of the sins of the past that will not limit the country's ability to move forward toward the promise of a better tomorrow.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Britain's Shariah Courts

Divorce, Sharia Style, a British TV documentary, looks at Britain's Sharia councils and asks "whether religious laws should be recognized by the secular British legal system:"

(h/t: Tarek Fatah)

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Ontario Small Claims Court Limit to be Upped to $25,000 in 2010

Significant changes were announced today by Ontario Attorney General Chris Bentley that may revolutionize the way civil claims are handled in Ontario's court system.

The amendments, to come into effect in January 2010, will provide that:

• The monetary jurisdiction of Ontario's Small Claims Courts will increase to $25,000.00 from the current $10,000.00 limit;
• The streamlined simplified procedures in Ontario Superior Court's will apply in cases where up to $100,000.00 is claimed, up from the current $50,000.00 ceiling.

The new regulations will also establish limits to a party's entitlement to extended examinations for discovery in Superior Court proceedings. Under the proposed legislation, all discovery by a party is to be confined to one day, unless agreement is reached or an Order is obtained permitting extended discovery.

See the Attorney General's news release on the initiative, for additonal backround.

The proposed changes are intended to tackle the access to justice problems that have plagued the Province's court system.  

The Toronto Star reported on the Attorney General's announcement of the new procedures:

"This will provide greater access to justice to all Ontarians and to all Ontario businesses," Bentley said during a news conference at the Law Society of Upper Canada. It was attended by several high-ranking judges and prominent litigators who have been pressing for reforms to the civil justice system to make the cost of going to court more affordable.

I can respect the good intentions behind this initiative.  I am not particularly sold, however, on the notion that a leaner justice system will ultimately prove to be a wiser system. 

Certainly, the Small Claims Court sytem will require a massive overhaul, in terms of infrastructure and court procedures, to prepare for the exponentially more complex and voluminous caseload that lies ahead.  

Will mandatory mediation be preserved for cases in the new system?  Certainly, there has been no tool more effective in achieving expedited and cost-effective dispute resolution.

I'll review the new legislation in entirety before commenting further, but for now, I'm more than a bit skeptical of a civil procedure system that elevates cutting corners to the level of a primary, organizing principle.

Are there really any shortcuts to justice?

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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About Neil Young

Neil Young, the ageless Canadian rocker who made two sold-out appearances at Toronto's Air Canada Centre this week, isn't well-known for factoring in his audience's preferences when choosing his set-lists.

This year's edition of Mr. Young, however, sent no-one home unhappy.

His two-hour-plus concert Thursday evening featured a retrospective of career highlights, including the classics Everybody Knows this is Nowhere, Cowgirl in the Sand, Needle and the Damage Done, Old Man, Heart of Gold, the anthemic Rocking in the Free World, a hypnotic Cortez the Killer and his signature ode to punk rocker Johnny Rotten, My My Hey Hey.

But songwriting prowess aside, it was his unyielding tenacity on stage that was most remarkable.

At 63, and apparently recovered from serious medical challenges in recent years, Mr.  Young remains possessed of an intensity that simply defies his age.

Unlike his contemporary, Bruce Springsteen, whose onstage toils often conjure up the illusion that rock and roll indeed is the elixir of eternal youth, Mr. Young simply transcends all notice of chronological age and passage of time.

He just is what he is.  And always has  been.  

He remains wholly remarkable.  Capping off a week that brought a Grammy nomination and the release of a new album, Sugar Mountain, he continues to inspire and grow creatively.

He was in rare form on Thursday, moving seamlessly from grunge to folk to twang and back, and while I've seen him more times than I can count, this will be one concert to remember.

The video below, found online, is a "highlight reel" from an October 2008 concert in Vancouver, earlier on this tour:

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Maddow On Prorogue-Gate

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow chimes in on Stephen Harper's efforts to "banish the enemy:"

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Coali-cious Canada...

What's going on in Ottawa?

At a joint press conference yesterday, Canada's opposition leaders lay out the rationale behind their declaration that they will defeat the minority government of Stephen Harper at the earliest opportunity, and seek thereafter to form a coalition government:

h/t - Jeff Jedras)

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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MySpace Ruling: Intentional Violation of a Website's Terms of Service is a Federal Crime

One of the many perversities to arise from today's misdemeanour conviction of Lori Drew in the so-called "My Space Suicide Trial" is summed up by Orin Kerr at Volokh:

The government's theory in the Lori Drew case is that it is a federal crime to intentionally violate the Terms of Service on a website, and that it becomes a more serious crime — a felony rather than a misdemeanor — if the Terms of Service are violated to further a criminal or tortious act. The tortious act the government alleged is intentional infliction of emotional distress, which in this case was alleged to have led to Meier's suicide.

The jury agreed that it is a federal crime to intentionally violate the Terms of Service on a website, and that Drew directly or indirectly did so, but it acquitted Drew of having violated Terms of Service in furtherance of the tortious act. That is, the jury ruled that Drew is guilty of relatively lower-level crimes for violating MySpacs Terms of Service (for being involved in the setting up of a fake MySpace account). It acquitted Drew for any role in inflicting distress on Meier or for anything related to Meier's suicide... (emphashis added)

A federal crime to violate the Terms of Service of a private website?

If this surprising ruling stands (it will be appealed, of course), each website's Terms of Service will effectively be elevated to a status of virtual equivalency with Criminal Code legislation.

Thus, noms de plume online may hereinafter land you in the slammer if used on websites such as MySpace that publish service terms requiring that an actual name be provided.

By extension, how about time behind bars for those who "finesse" their ages or weight on online dating sites?

Talk about slippery slopes.

Law.com also pipes in on the decision:

Drew was not directly charged with causing Megan's death. Instead, prosecutors indicted her under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which in the past has been used in hacking and trademark theft cases.

Among other things, Drew was charged with conspiring to violate the fine print in MySpace's terms-of-service agreement, which prohibits the use of phony names and harassment of other MySpace members.

"This was a very aggressive, if not misguided, theory," said Matt Levine, a New York-based defense attorney and former federal prosecutor. "Unfortunately, there's not a law that covers every bad thing in the world. It's a bad idea to use laws that have very different purpose."

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Intestacy and the Marketing of Wills

Carole Elefant's article at Law.com, Lack of Lawyer Marketing Blamed for High Levels of Intestacy considers an interesting theory:

It's not often that you hear that lawyers market too little. But that's apparently the premise of this recent abstract entitled "Marketing Wills" that appears in the Elder Law Journal. (H/T Mark Merenda,Smart Marketing Blog) The paper's authors, Michael McCunney and Alyssa DiRusso contend that intestacy levels (i.e., level of people who die without wills) remain high, in part because lawyers have not done a very good job of marketing wills to prospective clients. The authors suggest that lawyers use marketing experts to devise campaigns to educate clients on the need for wills

Ms Elefant disagrees with the premise.

In response, and without wading into the debate, I'll simply note that Wise Law Office does, indeed, prepare Wills. It is a relatively simple process that can be done quite expeditiously in most cases.

And bottom line - it's a really good idea to take care of this long before you need to.

(This has been a public service announcement from Wise Law.  We now return to our regular programming).

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Bill 133: Ontario's Family Statute Law Amendment Act

Sweeping change will come to Ontario family law as a result of Attorney General Chris Bentley's introduction of Bill 133 yesterday in the provincial legislature.

The legislation includes major change to the calculation and distribution of employment pension plan entitlements between separating spouses. It also introduces new procedures for changing a child's surname, enhances availability and enforcement of restraining orders, and simplifies procedures for annual recalculation of child support obligations.

Under the Bill, the valuation, or "net family law value," of a pension plan member's entitlements will be provided to spouses directly by pension plan administrators on the request of either spouse. Additionally, up to 50% of a spouse's pension entitlement attributable to the period of a marriage may be paid out to his or her spouse from the pension plan itself, if the transfer is provided for by a Court Order, a family arbitration award or Separation Agreement.

This brings significant modification to the calculation of equalization entitlements under the Family Law Act and in most cases, will streamline the determination of spouses' net family property in family law negotiations and proceedings.

The Bill will also significantly reduce the expense of divorce proceedings, by apparently eliminating the current need for costly, actuarial valuations of each spouses' employment pension entitlements in most cases.

Other highlights of the Bill include:

• Provision for annual financial disclosure by child support payors and automatic recalculation by the Family Responsibility Office of the quantum of child support then payable for the subsequent year;


• Strengthened provision for restraining orders in short-term cohabitations;


• Amendments to provincial Change of Name legislation to permit a parent to apply to a Court to have his or her surname added to a child's name, if consent is refused by the other parent;


• Police checks, criminal record searches, current prosecution searches, and Children's Aid Society record searches will be mandatory for any non-parent who makes an Application for the custody of a child. These records will be admissible in evidence in custody Applications.


• The Bill enhances confidentiality of court records in custody and access applications under the Children's Law Reform Act by requiring courts to consider whether to make an order limiting access to the court file, or to prohibit the publication or the making public of information that identifies anyone referenced in the court file.


• The Bill excludes from the calculation of the value of property owned by a spouse on the date of marriage any debts directly related to the acquisition or significant improvement of a matrimonial home.

The full text of Bill 133 is online. See: Ontario's Family Statute Law Amendment Act, 2008

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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We've Been Nominated

I'm very grateful to see Wise Law Blog has been nominated for a Canadian Blog Award in the Best Professional/Career Blog category.

Voting continues until November 29.

Check out all the nominees, and cast your ballot here.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Launching Wise Law Reader

Funny how technology always seems to get the better of me.

It wasn't that long ago that I marvelled at the time-saving my RSS Reader brought to my professional life. Once I started using RSS, I suddenly was able as never before- and in virtually no time - to track news and legal developements in real time, as published in dozens of varied, online locations.

Instantly. Effortlessly.

But then...

As I added more locations and sites, the RSS trap slowly crept up on me. It began taking more and more time just to get through all those RSS feeds and stay up to date. Until it reached a breaking point.

Our solution has now arrived - the Wise Law Reader.

Wise Law Reader is a compendium of automatically-refreshing feeds from the leading Canadian and U.S. legal and political blogs - basically, its a one-stop hub for what is new and breaking in the legal and political blogosphere.

Check it out. It's still a work in progress, but it is now live online.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

Visit our Toronto Law Firm website: www.wiselaw.net

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Impeach Barack Obama???

A new wave of Facebook groups has suddenly sprung upon us, apparently aiming to save democracy from .... elections?

Here are but a few of these choice Facebook selections:

• Impeach Obama
• Impeach Barack Hussein Obama
• Impeach Obama - Save American Democracy
• One Billion People To Impeach Obama

As one must have a Facebook account to view these groups, allow me to save you the trouble.

An all-caps snippet from IMPEACH OBAMA!!!!!!!! 1,000,000 STRONG!!!!, explains what the fledgling Facebook movement is all about:

LETS GET THAT IDIOT OUT FROM THE WHITE HOUSE!!! WE ARE SCREWED IF HE WILL BE THE LEADER OF THIS COUNTRY!!!!!! EVERYTHING WE HAVE EVER FOUGHT FOR WILL BE FOR NOTHING. THE WAR IN IRAQ WILL BE IN VAIN, GUN RIGHTS WILL BE JACKED UP! TAXES WILL SKY ROCKET! WE WILL HAVE A WEAK MILITARY! HE WILL WANT TO DONATE EVEN MORE MONEY TO HIS ACORN TERRORIST GROUPS!!!!!! STOP HIM!!!!!! I KNOW THAT THIS GROUP WILL NOT PUT MCCAIN AND PALIN IN THE WHITE HOUSE BUT AT LEAST WE CAN PROTEST AGAINST HIM! ALSO I DON'T KNOW ABOUT ANYONE ELSE BUT I AM ALSO SICK OF BEING CALL RACIEST FOR NOT LIKING HIM JUST BECAUSE HE IS BLACK! NO ONE CALLED PEOPLE RACIEST WHEN BUSH WAS PRESIDENT BECAUSE HE WAS WHITE! NOW WHY THE HECK ARE THEY DOING IT NOW???? EVERYONE IS NOW CONSIDERED A RACIEST IF THEY DON'T LIKE OBAMA! GET OVER IT AND QUIT GETTING ALL DEFENSIVE ABOUT US BEING RACIEST!!!

(Note that this group proudly boasts 669 members, and thus has a mere 999,331 to go).

The more cynical might prefer joining the flagship Impeach Barack Obama group, which borrows its raison d'etre from William Norman Grigg's Why Obama Will Be Worse Than Bush:

"I'm of the view that all presidents should be simultaneously inaugurated and impeached, and that there should be a streamlined procedure to expedite their conviction and removal from office upon each president's first documented violation of his constitutional oath."

Democrat-Bashing 2.0 has finally arrived.

Who says America's conservatives aren't savvy about the internets? (!)

(This, of course, is nothing - just wait until Hillary Clinton is named Secretary of State...)

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

Visit our Toronto Law Firm website: www.wiselaw.net

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Obama: "I Intend To Close Guantanamo"

Barack Obama tells 60 Minutes he intends to close Guantanamo, end U.S. torture, and immediately begin the process of drawing down troops in Iraq:

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Video: President-Elect Obama's First Weekly YouTube Address

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

Visit our Toronto Law Firm website: www.wiselaw.net

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The Bush Blanket Pardon Solution

In a post last weekend, I expressed concern about the exercise of the outgoing President's pardon-granting authority as a sheild against subsequent investigations into torture, among other offenses, under the Bush regime:

I anticipate much in the way of attempted pre-emptive defense by the outgoing President's soon-to-be-unleashed pardon machine. He will resist all subsequent efforts to impose accountability upon his disgraced, departing administration.

ATalk Left article also addresses this concern in depth.  See: Will Bush Issue Blanket Pardons for Rendition and Torture?  

More from Digby:

Evidently, there's talk of Bush issuing a blanket pardon to anyone involved in his torture regime before he leaves office and Salon is also reporting that there are some plans afoot in the Obama camp to initiate a broad congressional inquiry into the whole interrogation program, which would be even more amazing. 

As to the pardons, there is precedent for a president to pardon whole categories of people --- Carter did it for draft resisters and George Washington did it for those involved in the Whiskey Rebellion. The article discusses some moral distinctions, but it seems clear to me that Bush could do this and there would be nothing anyone could do about it. 

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

Visit our Toronto Law Firm website: www.wiselaw.net

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