I've been getting a lot of emails lately from previous and current readers who've learned of plans to make the whole Isabella V story into a movie. I think it's only fair to add my two cents to the whole story at this point so late in the game. But I need to remind everyone of the ground rules I agreed to in the beginning when the story first landed, so to speak, in my lap. It was a difficult time for me and The Agonist back then. And when I started writing about Isabella my credibility was challenged, for obvious (and quite reasonable) reasons. (I hasten to add that the quality of work here since then speaks for itself.) The contact who first approached me about Isabella laid out the ground rules for me: that I would not betray her identity, first and foremost and that I would not betray the identity of the contact either. I will honor those rules until such time as Isabella outs herself, or is outed by someone else. I may have faults, but when I give my word, it sticks. But I am not bound, nor was I ever bound by any rule that said I had to believe the entire story. I think some portions of her tale might be true. But too much of it is too far fetched and the evidence I've uncovered--remember, I know who she is, who her 'families lawyers' are, etc. . . And there is too much that is too fishy for my taste. I always assumed it was a ploy of sorts, based on a kernel of truth, to get a book deal, or a movie and create some notoriety and/or celebrity for a wealthy, attractive young woman with a rather unpleasant family life and far too much money and time on her hands. A perfect plan to break out and make a name, so to speak, for herself. And I certainly sympathize with that.
But over the years my skepticism has only grown. I've gotten many weird emails along the way from people claiming to know her, or to have met her, or seen her (too much like Elvis sightings, if you ask me) but I believe one person actually did, which only confirmed my suspicions, as the emailer in question had info I'd never published before. (I neither confirmed or denied what the emailer claimed.) Remember, I do know who she is, or at least who she purports to be. And I do know who her contact/cutout is, lawyers are, etc. . .
All that being said, if you are unfamiliar with Isabella (and barring any quick miracle work by Jay to restore the archives regarding Isabella) the best story on the origins of the whole Isabella saga is by John Richardson, at Esquire, who is also writing the screenplay, I believe.
After three server moves and several software upgrades much of the original reporting I did on Isabella has disappeared. Perhaps that is for the best. I might be embarrassed by what I wrote at the time. And yet, perhaps Jay can help us recover some of what was lost. We're trying to do so now.
Last note: I did break this story. I also held my skepticism about her and the story as a whole in check at the time I originally reported on it. I probably shouldn't have, but I did. Furthermore, I've not been contacted by any media folk since I spoke with John Richardson at length several years ago. Will I be in the future? I could really care less. I'll be happy to share my thoughts about the story with any who inquire, but I won't break any confidence.
And still, I'll be interested in seeing the movie. Could be fun. The whole saga always had great potential for a movie. That much was always certain. The rest, well, it's pretty much speculation, isn't it?
WASHINGTON (AP) ― Attorney General Michael Mukasey collapsed during a speech Thursday night and lost consciousness, a Justice Department official said.
The 67-year-old Mukasey was rushed to George Washington University Hospital, where his condition was not immediately known.
Mukasey was delivering a speech to the Federalist Society at a Washington hotel when "he just started shaking and he collapsed," said Associate Attorney General Kevin O'Connor. "They're very concerned."
Mukasey was 15 to 20 minutes into his speech about the Bush administration's successes in combatting terrorism when he began slurring his words. He collapsed and lost consciousness, said O'Connor, the department's No. 3 official.
Mukasey's was noticeably shaking during his speech before he collapsed shortly before 10:20 p.m. EST. His security detail called 911. Mukasey was on the stage for 10 minutes being attended to by his FBI detail before medics arrived, according to a Justice Department official who was there.
UPDATE: The Justice Department released a statement tonight:
The Attorney General is conscious, conversant and alert. His vital statistics are strong and he is in good spirits. He is receiving excellent care and appreciates all of the good wishes and prayers he has received. The doctors will keep him overnight for further observations.
Mukasey was still breathing at the time, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to talk to the media.
An FBI official said Mukasey got stuck on a word during his speech to the conservative legal group, repeated it several times and then "went down hard."
A senior law-enforcement said Mukasey appeared to be talking when he was taken away. That official also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the situation.
He was conscious during part of the ambulance ride to hospital, the official said.
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said President George W. Bush was informed about Mukasey's collapse.
"The president has him in his thoughts and will be kept apprised and hopes that he will be back up and at 'em again soon."
Mukasey Collapses From TPM: "Attorney General Michael Mukasey collapsed this evening while giving a speech to Federalist Society in Washington, DC. (...) As best we can tell no news service has any new substantive information about the AG's health, other...
washingtonpost.com - David S. Broder -- Washington Post Politics Writer
It may be moot and it certainly is presumptuous, but I would be less than honest with readers if I did not say what I believe: Making Hillary Rodham Clinton the secretary of state in Barack Obama's administration would be a mistake.
Judge Patricia Wald, former chief judge for the D.C. Court of Appeals and jurist on the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, writing in the new report "Guantánamo and Its Aftermath" (pdf):
There are bound to be casualties when any nation veers from its domestic and international obligations to uphold human rights and international humanitarian law. Those casualties are etched on the minds and bodies of many of the 62 former detainees interviewed for this report, many of whom suffered infinite variations on physical and mental abuse, including intimidation, stress positions, enforced nudity, sexual humiliation, and interference with religious practices. Indeed, I was struck by the similarity between the abuse they suffered and the abuse we found inflicted upon Bosnian Muslim prisoners in Serbian camps when I sat as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, a U.N. court fully supported by the United States. The officials and guards in charge of those prison camps and the civilian leaders who sanctioned their establishment were prosecuted—often by former U.S. government and military lawyers serving with the tribunal—for war crimes, crimes against humanity and, in extreme cases, genocide.
The dramatic decision to deliver Milosevic to the tribunal in defiance of an order by the Yugoslav Constitututional Court staying any extradition threatened to plunge the Balkan country into a political crisis.
Milosevic's successor, Vojislav Kostunica, denounced the handover as ''illegal and unconstitutional.'' Others accused Serb Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, who spearheaded the decision, of ''treason'' and knuckling under U.S. pressure....
President Bush praised Yugoslavia for handing over Milosevic, saying the move showed the Balkan nation wants to turn away from ''its tragic past and toward a brighter future.''
U.S. officials said the administration planned to make a pledge in the range of about $100 million for a Yugoslav assistance package, to be discussed Friday in Brussels at a conference of international aid donors.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair hailed the handover as ''a thoroughly good thing.''
I applaud today’s transfer of indicted war criminal Slobodan Milosevic to the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. This very important step by the leaders in Belgrade ensures that Milosevic can finally be tried for his war crimes and crimes against humanity. During various visits by Yugoslav authorities to Washington, they pledged that Yugoslavia was committed to cooperating with the Tribunal. Milosevic’s transfer is a strong sign of that commitment. We are confident that the government of Yugoslavia will continue down the path of cooperation with the Tribunal.
The transfer of Milosevic to the Hague is an unequivocal message to those persons who brought such tragedy and brutality to the Balkans that they will be held accountable for their crimes. Milosevic’s transfer further signals the commitment of the new leadership in Belgrade to turn Yugoslavia away from its tragic past and toward a brighter future as a full member of the community of European democracies.
The United States stands ready to assist the people of Yugoslavia as they continue to take the difficult steps to advance its democratic and economic reform.
(Suggested by Glenn Greenwald's reference here: "there were early statement from the Bush White House in 2001 about how critical it was to prosecute these Yugoslav leaders for war crimes...")
Yahoo and T-Mobile jointly announced that Yahoo oneSearch will be the default mobile engine to power Internet search made through T-Mobile's new Web2go service. The new Web2go service is basically a customizable home page on a mobile phone that makes it easier to view and navigate the Internet on the handheld device.
From NBC's Andrea Mitchell Democratic sources say that former Bush 41 National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft is one of the people whom Barack Obama has been consulting about how to craft his national security team. Knowledgeable sources say Obama reached out to Scowcroft two days ago to discuss defense and national security issues.
Scowcroft, who first served as President Ford's national security adviser, was an early and vocal critic of the Iraq war -- starting in August 2002. That criticism cost the retired Air Force General his position as head of President Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
Scowcroft is very close to Defense Secretary Bob Gates, who is considered a possible holdover for the cabinet.
Another key adviser to the president-elect on defense matters -- Sen. Jack Reed -- is a leading member of the Armed Services Committee who traveled with Obama to Iraq and Afghanistan. Reed is also very close to Gates.
Had he lost this month's election to Bruce Lunsford, Mitch McConnell apparently was all set for a new career as a stand-up comedian. Because a good portion of his speech at the annual convention of the Federalist Society would have had any other group rolling the aisle. The FedSocs, however, took it all seriously. The part about how Barack Obama should be bipartisan, something McConnell has been so very good at. The part about how Obama should govern from the center, defined, of course, by McConnell and the crew that gauges the center with a heavy thumb on the scales. And the funniest part of all, about how Obama shouldn't appoint judges based on ideology.
McConnell argued that Senate Democrats had completely distorted the confirmation process. He recalled that in 2001, two of Obama's legal advisers, the Harvard law professors Cass Sunstein and Laurence Tribe, suggested changing the judicial nomination hearing process to take into account political as well as legal philosophy. Much to his chagrin, he said, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) held hearings on the idea, including one titled, "Should ideology matter?"
At those hearings, McConnell claimed Schumer and other [D]emocrats said it would be important to have "ideologically moderate" judges on the bench, which McConnell took to mean judges who sympathized with certain groups rather than sticking to the law in front of them. He bashed Senate Democrats for holding up Bush's judicial nominees when Bush was doing nothing but sticking with the ancient criteria of ensuring that his nominees were competent and intelligent jurists. With a look of horror, McConnell quoted Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), who said during the nomination hearings for Chief Justice John Roberts, "Whose side is he on?" (Of course, the Federalists and their Republican allies also ask that question of GOP judicial nominees, particularly on the issue of Roe v. Wade, but that, apparently, is not an ideological question but simply a legal one in this crowd.)
McConnell observed that Obama has said one quality he would seek in a judicial nominee is empathy, a view that McConnell derided as "unorthodox." He warned that Republicans would not sit quietly if Obama nominated judges based on ideology — i.e., which side they're on — as opposed to fealty to the law (at least the law as McConnell sees it). "We can't countenance a process where judges would favor one side in litigation," he roared.
He related this whole routine deadpan.
As if Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush did not spend their entire presidencies doing their utmost to pack the federal courts with extremist ultras, some of whom would, among other things, reverse decades of public interest legislation like child labor prohibitions, block environmental regulations as unfair "takings," reject civil rights not specifically spelled out in the Constitution, and generally rule in an "originalist," "textualist," or "strict constructionist" manner.
There are few factors that are more critical to determining the course of the Nation, and yet are more often overlooked, than the values and philosophies of the men and women who populate the third co-equal branch of the national government--the federal judiciary.
As Dawn Johnson wrote in the August 2002 Washington Monthly:
To hear Republicans tell it, senators shouldn't take into account such factors as the details of one's judicial philosophy or views on particular legal issues. (If they do so, critics accuse them of "Borking.") Former Reagan and Bush administration officials Douglas Kmiec and C. Boyden Gray both testified to this effect last year before a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Gray put it most succinctly: "Should ideology matter? I can answer in one word: No."
Of course, ideology was precisely the reason GOP senators often gave for blocking President Bill Clinton's nominees, declaring them to be too "liberal." It is an odd sort of hypocrisy: President Bush recently renewed his pledge to continue to appoint "conservative" judges in the model of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. What at least some Republicans seem to have in mind is a constitutional double standard that would allow only a Republican president to consider the views of judicial nominees--and not a Democrat-controlled Senate.
Obviously, it's not ideology per se that McConnell objects to in making court appointments. Just the ideologies that the Federalist Society members find objectionable. And when the approved FedSoc ideology that seeks a return to a pre-FDR view of government regulation combines with narrow corporate interests, the joke's on us.
The investigation reveals that more than a third of President Bush’s nominees to these federal courts – 21 of 59 nominations since 2001 – has a history of working as lawyers and lobbyists on behalf of the oil, gas and energy industries. Eighteen of the 21 have been nominated to the Appellate Courts in the 4th, 5th, 9th, 10th and District of Columbia circuits where those same industries frequently battle over cases with huge financial interests at stake. These five circuit courts are at the forefront of establishing judicial precedent on matters involving conflicts over natural resources. The placement of the nominees suggests an administration strategy of nominating corporate friendly judges in circuits where they will make the greatest impact. In many cases, these same corporations and industries are also major campaign contributors to the Bush Administration and the Republican Party.
Too bad you didn't give up your day job, Mr. McConnell. Comedy's loss.
Norm Coleman's lead over Al Franken is down to 136 votes from the original pre-recount deficit of 215. To get an idea of where this is going let's break Minnesota down into three roughly equal parts:
Part of the Minnesota Vote
Original Votes
% Recounted
Franken Margin
Still to Come?
Big pro-Franken counties
905000
38% in
+72
+118?
Big pro-Coleman counties
724000
46% in
+18
+21?
Small counties (Coleman)
793000
55% in
-11
-9?
The Big pro-Franken counties are Hennepin, Ramsey and St. Louis and he has netted 72 votes there so far. If he continues at the same pace he can pick up another 118 in the days ahead.
Continues after the jump.
The Big pro-Coleman counties are Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Olmstead, Scott, Stearns, Washington and Wright. Even though they have all tilted Coleman in the original voting, Franken has picked up 18 votes there during the recount. Most of that is due to Dakota county (+32 for Franken) where 27% of the vote has been recounted. If Franken continues at the same pace he could gain another 21 votes in those counties.
The rest of the counties are smaller and tend to favor Coleman. He has netted 11 votes from these so far but the good news is that 55% of these votes have already been recounted. In the remaining he is on pace to gain another 9 votes.
All together Franken is on pace to gain 130 more votes which would leave him 6, yes 6, votes short of Coleman. Then it would come down to to the challenged ballots, currently 414 challenged by Franken and 409 challenged by Coleman. There's also the uncounted absentee ballots that the courts there must rule on.
At any rate, it's going to be close. I hope we don't lose by one vote for Lizard People.
