Father and son, Charles Fried (former solicitor general of the United States under Ronald Reagan, legal scholar at Harvard University and author of Modern Liberty) and Gregory Fried (chair of the Philosophy Department at Suffolk University and author of Heidegger’s Polemos) have undertaken the daunting task of examining the limitations and excesses of modern day Presidential power to gather intelligence by torture and surveillance. In order to reach their ultimate conclusions as to the interplay of law, morality, civil community and political leadership, the Frieds review sources and thought from Aristotle to Machiavelli to the Bible, including principles from epieikeia to “dirty hands” to religious and secular precepts relating to human dignity. They have deliberately kept the conversation, “as wide as possible” in recognition that “ours is a nation founded in philosophy.”

It’s most encouraging to find that judges appear to be disinclined to let lenders run roughshod over homeowners, and are finding new and creative solutions to allow homeowners to bargain with creditors to modify their loans.

I am sick to death of listening to people who have no freakin’ clue what they are talking about, go on and on about how reading someone their Miranda warning means they won’t give you action-able intelligence.

Please shut up now.

Anytime a criminal defendant wanted to change the venue of his trial, all he has to do is arrange for a credible threat to the neighborhood around the courthouse. Yeah, that’s really smart.

Where would humor be if you couldn’t tell the one about a priest, a rabbi and a witch walking into bar or watch an episode of South Park about a litigious, celebrity-filled space alien cult or their classic “All About Mormons“?

They are:

big-firm partners and associates, sole practitioners, federal public defenders, lawyers for public-interest organizations, law professors, lawyers with extensive experience in criminal and civil rights litigation, lawyers with no prior experience in those fields, young lawyers, old lawyers, lawyers who are Democrats, lawyers who are Republicans and lawyers who are independents.

Ahmed Ghailani’s lawyers argue that, since he is being tried on an indictment that was pending through the entire period of his detention, he has been deprived of his right to a speedy trial.

The Washington Post’s Michael Gerson wrote the most cowardly chickenhawk op-ed I have seen in a long time. Perhaps he’s really afraid a fair trial will reveal more than KSM’s criminality?

NOTE: We have a live chat with ACLU National Security Project Director Jameel Jaffer today at 3 pm ET, noon PT. In John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, arguably an influential philosopher for the Founders of this nation, he asserts plainly and without equivocation that “[w]herever Law ends, Tyranny begins.”

Absolutely no shame, no remorse, no public pangs of conscience…and none expected: Karl Rove, deputy chief of staff to former President George W. Bush, spoke last week at Loyola Marymount University as part of a campuswide 1st Amendment Week. In his remarks, he reiterated his belief that government leaks can cause serious harm, and that newspapers should respect government secrecy….