The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

EXCLUSIVE: Copy of Restraining Order in Palin vs. Gawker Copyright Lawsuit

Posted on | November 20, 2010 | 27 Comments

Click here to see the order by U.S. District Judge Thomas P. Griesa (PDF).


UPDATE: Background from Associated Press:

A federal judge on Saturday ordered Gawker Media to pull leaked pages of Sarah Palin’s forthcoming book “America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag” from its blog.
The injunction prohibits Gawker from “continuing to distribute, publish or otherwise transmit pages from the book” pending a hearing on Nov. 30.
HarperCollins Publishers had sued Gawker after it published images on Nov. 17 from Palin’s book before its release next week. . . .

Read the rest. A source familiar with the case e-mails:

The judge found probable cause that Gawker violated copyright and ordered Gawker to pull the leaked pages and appear in court to defend themselves and explain why this wasn’t a violation of copyright and why the leaked pages shouldn’t be permanently removed. This temporary restraining order prevents Gawker from potentially further violating copyright by keeping the pages up until the court date. Date set for Nov. 30th. This is a huge victory for HarperCollins’ lawyers.

UPDATE II: Remember that when Palin complained via Twitter about Gawker’s unauthorized excerpts, Gawker’s Maureen O’Connor presumed to lecture the former Alaska governor about copyright law.

Hey, Maureen, how’s that workin’ out for ya, sweetheart?

UPDATE III: Palin has offered her own “sneak peek” at her new book on Facebook. And let me see if I can explain — for the benefit of Maureen O’Connor and anyone else who doesn’t get it — why the judge issued that injunction. Politico reports:

Gawker’s scoop, “Sarah Palin’s New Book: Leaked Excerpts” . . . included 14 images of partial pages from the book, scheduled for publication Tuesday. . . .
The disputed Gawker post began: “Well, look what popped up five days early: leaks from Sarah Palin’s forthcoming memoir/manifesto, America By Heart, in which the reality TV matriarch rants against ‘talent deprived’ reality TV stars, lauds daughter Bristol’s chastity, and celebrates not aborting Trig. . . . The book is currently in distribution centers, awaiting its official release on Tuesday. We got our hands on some of the pages . . . Here’s an annotated guide to our favorite parts, featuring rants against the media and new material about Bristol and Levi.”

Your first clue: “14 images of partial pages.” To quote or paraphrase a book — even without authorization, five days prior to the book’s release date — yeah, you might get away with that. But publishing page-scans online? See you in court, buddy.

Something else: In any fair-use situation — which is what we’re talking about here — it’s important to think about your potential liability and who you might be going up against if you should have to defend yourself in court. 

It’s one thing if you’re running some piddling little personal blog and you’re pushing the limits of “fair use” against some low-rent outfit with a minor book or article by an obscure author.

It’s another thing altogether when you’re running a major commercial Web site and you’re going up against a gigantic company like Harper Collins that has invested a  million bucks in a big-name author for an expected bestseller they’re counting on to make 2010 a profitable year for them.

This is about incentives, you see. Palin’s publisher has a huge interest in protecting this product — not to mention the consideration of keeping their author happy — and Harper Collins can afford the legal costs of pushing a court case a lot more than Gawker Media LLC can.

Even if Gawker could ultimately win the case, Harper Collins could make it a very expensive victory — and any Web site editor in the future who thinks it would be cute to attempt similar shenanigans will have to keep that in mind.

Now a Memeorandum thread.

UPDATE IV: “Did Gawker read those fair use links they suggested Sarah Palin read?”

UPDATE V: Welcome, Instapundit readers! I asked Professor Reynolds if he ever considered becoming a federal judge. He said, “Bah. Federal judge from law professor? Why take a demotion?”

Yeah, but what about the cocaine and lap dances?

Category: Books, Culture, Sarah Palin

Convicted Felon Stripper Gives Lap Dance, Gets Cocaine From Federal Judge

Posted on | November 20, 2010 | 11 Comments

You can’t make this stuff up:

A veteran federal judge who was arrested on charges that he bought and used drugs with a stripper pleaded guilty Friday to two-drug related charges, including a felony count of giving her cocaine even though he knew she was a convicted felon.
U.S. Senior Judge Jack T. Camp pleaded guilty to the felony charge of aiding and abetting a felon’s possession of cocaine when he bought drugs for the stripper, who was secretly cooperating with authorities. He also pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors: possession of illegal drugs and illegally giving the stripper his government-issued laptop.
Judge Camp, 67, faces up to four years in federal prison when he is sentenced March 4 . . .
Judge Camp’s relationship with the dancer . . . appears to have begun earlier this year when he received a lap dance from her — along with her phone number — at an Atlanta strip club, according to the affidavit.
Authorities say when they met the next day, he paid her to have sex with him and the two used cocaine together. Over the next few months, the two used cocaine and other drugs together at strip clubs and other places, and the judge would pay $40 to $50 to join her in getting high, according to the documents.
The relationship grew closer over the months. Prosecutors say the judge startled the stripper by following her to a suburban Atlanta house where she was buying drugs one day in June. She told authorities that he brought a semiautomatic handgun with him in case she needed protection, the affidavit said.

(Via Clarion Advisory.) As a general rule, any time you see the phrase “lap dance” in close promiximity to the phrase “federal judge,” don’t expect that story to have a happy ending.

May I should rephrase that . . .

Category: Crime

Da Tech Guy on Da Radio 5 p.m. ET

Posted on | November 20, 2010 | 1 Comment

During this year’s campaign in Massachusetts, the Blogfather of the Axis of Fedora began making occasional appearances on WCRN-AM 830, a 50,000-watt news/talk powerhouse in Worcester. After talking to the station management, Pete realized that a weekend show was a feasible proposition, hustled up advertisers to support it and will debut his own show today at 5 p.m. ET. (Regular time for the show will be 9 p.m., but he’s on the air early today because the 9 p.m. slot got pre-empted by UMass basketball.)

Pete has been phenomenally successful in the past year. He’s traveled to CPAC, ridden the Tea Party Express, went to Georgia to cover Liz Carter, made it to BlogCon to cover the 9/12 rally, and went out on the campaign trail with me to cover Ann Marie Buerkle in NY-25 and Tom Marino in PA-10. He writes a regular column for the Examiner and now has his own talk radio show.

All of this phenomenal success, BTW, started just 10 months ago, in January, when I spent a week crashing on Pete’s sofa while covering the Scott Brown campaign (see my “Breakfast in Fitchburg” post for a good wrap-up of that trip). During that week in January, Pete demonstrated one basic aptitude necessary to success as a reporter: A willingness to ask questions to complete strangers. (In the photo above, you see Pete at a Tea Party rally during the Brown campaign interviewing Vietnam vet Randy May, whom I also interviewed.)

Over the years, I worked with a lot of newspaper interns — college kids who thought they wanted to be journalists — and saw how difficult it was for some people to overcome ordinary self-consciousness. It requires a real effort to get past that, to be aggressive, to call up people on the phone or walk up to them in person and start asking questions.

Pete’s got that exceptional quality in trumps. And he’s also got a great love for Ordinary Americans. It’s almost embarrassing at times to go to a restaurant or store with Pete, because he’ll just start interviewing a sales clerk or a waiter — “Would you mind if I ask you a few questions?” — with a real interest in their answers. The stories he gets that way are often amazing: While we were in Newton, Mass., to cover the Sean Bielat campaign, Pete started interviewing the waitress who served us breakfast — and it turns out she’s an immigrant from Haiti, who admired Ronald Reagan and did not vote for Obama.

Pete’s got the kind of optimistic can-do attitude that can accomplish miracles, and I think his radio show is going to be a smashing success. Please tune in at 5 p.m. You can listen on line and check in on Pete’s Tweets during the show.

UPDATE: Hey, that was fun! What’s amazing is to hear about stories like this state legislative election in Massachusetts:

 Republican Peter J. Durant maintained the slimmest of margins — one vote — and declared victory over state Rep. Geraldo Alicea in the 6th Worcester District race yesterday afternoon, based on the last of five recounts held this week.

Lots of shenanigans in that recount that haven’t made the MSM. And, at the end of the show, I was surprised to learn that people in Massachusetts hadn’t heard about the Logan Airport TSA agent accused of raping a 14-year-girl.

Category: Da Tech Guy, Massachusetts, Roxeanne de Luca, Talk Radio

Will Republicans Let SPLC Run RNC?

Posted on | November 20, 2010 | 6 Comments

During the Nov. 9 American Spectator gala in Washington, I had a chance to talk briefly to my friend RNC Chairman Michael Steele. There is, of course, a movement afoot to replace Steele, and Michigan’s Saul Anuzis has already declared himself a candidate for the chairmanship. Liberals are doing everything they can to demonize Anuzis:

[T]his week, the Southern Poverty Law Center revealed that Anuzis has defended and endorsed a vocal right-wing extremist named Kyle Bristow, who was the head of the Michigan State University chapter of Young Americans for Freedom (MSU-YAF). “This is exactly the type of young kid we want out there,” Anuzis said on a radio program in May 2007. “I’ve known Kyle for years and I can tell you I have never heard him say a racist or bigoted or sexist thing, ever.” . . .
Thanks to Bristow’s leadership, the SPLC — which tracks extremist groups — designated the MSU-YAF as a hate group in 2006. . . .
It should be noted that Anuzis’ defense of Bristow came almost a full year after MSU-YAF’s exploits were made public, and after the SPLC designated him as the leader of a hate group.

Kyle Bristow is a big, rowdy kid who is now in law school in Ohio. Anuzis’s defense of Bristow in 2007 — more than three years ago, when Bristow was still an MSU undergrad — cannot be plucked out context as evidence that Anuzis endorses everything Bristow has said or done.

Let’s hope that RNC delegates are smart enough to ignore such a cheap guilt-by-association trick.

Whether or not Steele is replaced — by Anuzis or anyone else — Republicans have got to stop letting their enemies exercise a veto. What the RNC needs as chairman is someone who speaks for the party and can raise a lot of money. Without prejudice toward either Steele or Anuzis, I nominate Ann Coulter.

Just to see the SPLC go completely batshit insane.

UPDATE: Dan Collins at Piece of Work in Progress informs us that Steele has reportedly hired his former personal assistant as “liaison” to the 2012 GOP convention in Tampa. For $15,000 a month.

UPDATE II: Brian Bolduc of National Review interviews Anuzis:

“There are literally thousands of major donors who have left the party and haven’t given to us in some time . . . I think we need a nuts-and-bolts person.”

Category: Ann Coulter, Republicans

FMJRA 2.0: Not really a new beginning

Posted on | November 20, 2010 | 6 Comments

Hi. This is my first FMJRA. I’m not as creative as Smitty, so you won’t be seeing creative backronyms any more unless you want to suggest some. You also won’t be seeing links back to sites on Blogger unless you submit them to me; please e-mail those no later than Friday so I can add them to the appropriate FMJRA post, just as you would your Rule 5 links.

LIVE AT FIVE – 11.13.10

‘The Demagogic Bloggers on the Right’

Professor Palin and the Class of ’12

‘President of the Back of the Bus’

Ezra Klein Is a Liberal. Is It Redundant to Say That Ezra Klein Is Also Insane?

Buying Gold? Caveat Emptor

Kill the Rich!

What’s the Very Best Thing About Republicans Winning the Election?

LIVE AT FIVE – 11.15.10

What Causes Islamophobia

Keith Olbermann and Sam Francis

Team Obama: No Moderates Allowed

Sarah Palin and ‘Feminism’

‘As I Am Big-Busted and Like to Have Fun, Guys Are Instantly Interested in Me’

Wait Until Glenn Beck Sees This!

EUROPE IN CRISIS: Sudden Financial Emergency Strikes EU Zone
UPDATE: Götterdämmerung?

Not Just No, But Hell, No! John Cornyn Uncontested in Bid for NRSC Chair?

Europe: ‘Crisis? What Crisis?’

Behind-the-Scenes Video: Fox News Colleagues Mocking Sarah Palin

Charlie Rangel: Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!

Great News: Treacherous Bastard Cornyn Unanimously Re-Elected as NRSC Chair

The Wheel Turns

Bolsheviks for Monarchy

Shocker: Sarah Palin’s Teenage Daughters Act Like Teenage Girls on Facebook

LIVE AT FIVE – 11.17.10

Worst. Headline. Evah.

Post-Weigel Journalism? Impossible!

Andrew Sullivan: Does the Phrase ‘And the Horse You Rode In On’ Ring a Bell?

‘By Any Means Necessary’

LIVE AT FIVE – 11.18.10

Emergency! Democrats Trying to Shove DREAM Amnesty Through Lame-Duck

Is Marriage Becoming ‘Obsolete’? Women, Children, Minorities Hardest Hit

Remember When Nancy Pelosi Promised Democrats Were Going to Clean Up the ‘Culture of Corruption’ in Washington?

A Year in Detention

LIVE AT FIVE – 11.19.10

More Lame-Duck Madness

BREAKING: Renee Ellmers Wins Recount; Bob Etheridge to Concede; UPDATE: In Concession Speech, Dem Says He Was Victim of ‘Dirty Politics’

Ann Marie Buerkle Win in NY-25 Would Give GOP Biggest Majority Since 1949

Please Permit Me to Remind You . . .


Compiled by Wombat-socho with a lot of help from Smitty.

Category: FMJRA Award

Science Proves I’m a Genius

Posted on | November 20, 2010 | 6 Comments

As if any further proof were needed:

Researchers from the London School of Economics say that human beings used to all be day-oriented, and that eveningness is an “evolutionarily novel preference” made by people with “a higher level of cognitive complexity.” Basically, smart people evolve to stay up later. . . .

On the other hand:

Night owls tend to be less reliable, more emotionally unstable, and more likely to have problems with addictions and eating disorders, according to a 2008 study by psychologist Marina Giamnietro. They are also more likely to drink alcohol and smoke, says Dutch psychiatrist Walter van den Broek.

OK, so the main course of genius — “cognitive complexity” — comes with a side order of crazy. But you didn’t need further proof of that, either, did you?

Category: Science

Washington Times Fires Editor; ‘National Search for a Permanent Replacement’

Posted on | November 20, 2010 | 10 Comments

Interesting news about my former employer:

Sam Dealey will be stepping down as editor of the Washington Times, following the sale of the paper to a group led by members of the paper’s old guard who were ousted a year ago, sources close to the paper tell POLITICO.
Dealey was informed this afternoon. The change is scheduled to be announced tonight. Sources say that Managing Editor Chris Dolan will step in as acting editor-in-chief while the paper’s new owners conduct a national search for a permanent replacement. . . .

Probably looking for someone with reporting and editing experience who knows how to boost online traffic, stuff like that.

UPDATE: Fishbowl DC: 

[I]t remains unclear what kind of talent the struggling paper can attract.

You’re freaking kidding me, right? Editor of a daily newspaper in the Capital of the Free World?  Lots of people would crawl through glass for a chance like that.

UPDATE II: Romensko has the press release from the newspaper:

A national search for a new editor will take place in the coming weeks to identify and recruit a newsroom leader to carry out future plans for The Washington Times.
These plans call for The Washington Times news coverage to expand with the return of sports, metro and entertainment sections. These will complement the Times’ respected coverage of government, politics, national security, intelligence, economics, geopolitics, culture/religion and opinion that has been its strength over the past 28 years.
The Times also will increase the availability of its content through multiple media channels, including washingtontimes.com, radio and television.

Permit me to offer six simple suggestions:

  • First things first: Hire an editor-in-chief, with authority over the whole paper, like Wesley Pruden had. When they hired John Solomon (which was when I quit), they split the job, so that Solomon was only in charge of the news side of the operation, while the opinion/commentary sections were under separate editorship. This diminished the stature and authority of the top editor, who no longer spoke for the paper as an institution, as had been the case when Pruden was the boss.
  • Second: Run lean and mean. Rather than hiring a bunch of full-time staffers, hire freelancers under contract — and short-term contacts, at that. Offer a 90-day contract at, say, $2,000 a month plus productivity bonuses based on the number of articles published, the number that make the front page, the number that get Drudge-linked, etc. You can get a heckuva lot of reporting a lot cheaper that way — saving money on health insurance, benefits, etc. — and the reporters who make a good showing under those terms could then be considered for full-time openings if and when those become available.
  • Third: Bring back Andrew Breitbart as a weekly columnist. The stupidest thing that John Solomon ever did was to let Breitbart go.
  • Fourth: Hire Shirley & Banister to do your publicity. They’re the best, and the total cost will be less than whatever you were paying your “marketing” department. Exactly what the heck that department was supposed to be doing all those years, I honestly don’t know, but it wasn’t working.
  • Fifth: Give Victor Morton a raise. God knows he deserves it.
  • Sixth and finally: Stop getting scooped on your own beat. Why is it that the best place to learn about personnel decisions at The Washington Times is always Fishbowl DC? If who gets hired and fired at the Times is so doggone newsworthy, why isn’t the Times reporting this stuff first?

Just some suggestions. Not that I know anything about the newspaper business or anything like that . . .

Category: Journalism

TSA: Teen Sexual Assault?

Posted on | November 20, 2010 | 2 Comments

What kind of people get government jobs as Airport Junk-Touchers?

WHDH-TV via Gateway Pundit:

A Transportation Security Administration worker at Logan International Airport is accused of assaulting a 14-year-old girl.
Sean Shanahan, 45, of Winthrop is being held on $50,000 cash bail following his arraignment in East Boston District Court. He is charged with statutory rape, enticement of a child and indecent assault and battery on a person 14 or older.

Your tax dollars at work!

UPDATE: “Ron Paul to TSA: Stop Irradiating Our Bodies and Fondling Our Children!“

Category: Crime, Massachusetts, Sex, Terrorism
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