How did they get the pimp to pay $2 million for tax advice?

I can't wait to see what bullshit stories this blog churns out today.

You can bet that the ACLU won't be defending the activists against ACORN on this one.

You can bet that the ACLU won't be defending the activists against ACORN on this one.

The worst of the recession is over for most law firms. The misery remains for Latham survivors.

Yeah, 60k for doing nothing must really be miserable.

doj honors news anyone? anyone?

7, what?

Judge Posner: "I can has SCotUS nomination?"

Eleven. One louder.

9 - see 6.

HTH

7 - trolling this blog day after day and posting on every unrelated story about the unbearable misery that Latham has inflicted on the youth of America can hardly be called "doing nothing."

7- Until there is a sex offenders registry for law firms, we will not rest.

What happened at Latham? I thought it was a top firm. Didn't it win the ATL contest for best firm last year?

Posner is getting embarrassing, as more and more of his writing focuses on his personal intellectual development instead of ideas. A few months ago we learned that he prizes pragmatism more than originalism. Now he breaks the news he has become a Keynesian. What's next -- he once favored 'toe-may-toe' but now favors 'toe-mah-toe'? O share your brilliance Judge Posner!

Please don't link to the third page of an article, idiot.

That's some mighty fine strategy there, counselor. What a great idea it is to have ACORN, and the employees it fired for "helping" the pimp and prostitute cheat on their taxes / set up a brothel together sue the folks who set them up. What an even better idea it is to ask the court to enjoin the folks from distributing the recording they made, which show the employees to be utterly willing to help commit multiple felonies. Yeah, a judge is going to issue that injunction. Plus, here is the special verdict at trial, "We the jury find that Pimp and Hooker violated the Maryland Wiretap statute and award damages to ACORN in the amount of $.01 and to the employees who got fired for being criminals in the amount of absolutely friggin' nothing."

Actually that same wiretap law also got Linda Tripp indicted back in the day. Maryland requires both parties of a recorded conversation to be aware of the recording, absent a wiretap warrant.

(Ah, to relive the late 1990's!)

A liberal trail mix: ACORNs with sour grapes.

I love how everyone is calling these two "conservative activists," though O'Keefe has made clear that he is not a "conservative," but a "progressive radical." Anyone who exposes corruption on the left must be some crazy conservative...right?

"Plaintiffs Tonja Thompson and Shera Williams say they lost their jobs because of the recordings ..."

That's like a murderer saying that he is not responsible because it was the victim who ceased living. Before we have Reform can we have some Responsibility?

I love how everyone is calling these two "conservative activists," though O'Keefe has made clear that he is not a "conservative," but a "progressive radical." Anyone who exposes corruption on the left must be some crazy conservative...right?

Not to focus on weasel-words too much, but the statute prohibits the "interception" of oral communications, not the "recording" of oral communications. This suggests that it only applies to non-parties to the conversation.

Conservatives are such pussies these days.

ACORN was punked, a la Ashton Kucher, Alan Funt or Borat. These people weren't engaged in criminal behavior; rather, some "filmmaker" invented a bizarre scenario that would likely have never occurred otherwise. People react to bizarre scenarios in bizarre ways. I think they have a pretty good case here.

Yeah I remember that one time a pimp and prostitute came up to me and asked me how to evade taxes. Man, that was bizarre! If they hadn't presented me with such a bizarre situation, I wouldn't have told them how to evade taxes and run an illegal prostitution ring. Good thing I told the judge, "hey, it was a bizarre situation."

Or that one time a guy came up to me and asked me if I'd sell him drugs. Well, I WOUDLN'T have done it if he didn't ask me, so I feel like I have a pretty good case.

Can someone confirm that a panel of U. Penn State Law Profs helped draft the Stimulus and Obamacare?

"Not to focus on weasel-words too much, but the statute prohibits the "interception" of oral communications, not the "recording" of oral communications. This suggests that it only applies to non-parties to the conversation."

Any case law cites, please?

29--Do your own legal research or pay my special ATL billing rate of $525/hr. PE and JE are subject to quarter-hour billing increments. Others will be billed in 1/10th-hour increments.

Hey 27-- If a guy came up to you who was not working for the police and asked you to sell him some drugs, that guy would be guilty of a crime. Every citizen is not entitled to conduct their own sting operations and then say they should not be held liable because they were only acting. Soliciting a crime -- as the "filmmakers" have done here -- is a crime, in addition to their illegal recording.

27 -- If there were a criminal charge brought against the ACORN employees, I think it would be a complete defense to show that the whole situation was made up by the filmmakers.

Does anyone have any idea how long it will be before my son writes an article how racist it was of Massachussets not to give Henry Gates the Senate seat? I mean he is a Black man and a white man got the job. This is SOOOO racist. Please educate the masses my son.

It's not a tax, dammit!

I'm Barack Obama?

FUCK ACORN- they are lucky to have avoided criminal charges so far. The film-makers exposed an organization which was breaking the law

ACORN should bomb you losers back to the stoneage!

-DOJ Secure

18 is a fucking moron law student. the law is very clear. i think acorn will likely win. whether or not they get the full damages claimed will depend on actual damages shown from publication to third parties (for which there is a law providing a separate civil cause of action, on top of the crime of illegal wiretap).

the "activists" are lucky that the local DA isn't prosecuting - though he still could.

people forget that the law is value neutral on shit like this, and should be.

lol @ lawyers thinking this suit has merit.

lol @ 38 who doesn't realize that the suit will be decided by judges on summary judgment based on a statute, rather than on FOX News by biased commentators and their dittoheads, and the filmmakers don't have a leg to stand on.

39 for the win. 38 is clearly a 1L member of the young republicans.

We'll see how people on this site, from both the Left and the Right, feel when some Michael Moore wannabe pulls a similar stunt at some NRA meeting.

I wonder if ACORN has considered what they might be forced to produce in discovery? How much dirt laundry of theirs might come out if they pursue this claim?

>>>>We'll see how people on this site, from both the Left and the Right, feel when some Michael Moore wannabe pulls a similar stunt at some NRA meeting.

I have never known Mr. Moore to use a hidden camera. He is recognizable, fat, and has a very visible camera crew with him at all times. That is why he gets doors slammed in his face a lot.

>>>I wonder if ACORN has considered what they might be forced to produce in discovery? How much dirt laundry of theirs might come out if they pursue this claim?

It probably depends on the nature of the damages they claim. There does not seem to be a lot of relevant dirty laundry on the basic claim for an illegal recording -- that is a pretty narrow issue.

37, 18 here. I'm neither a fucking moron nor a fucking law student. Several things boggle the mind about plaintiffs' complaint, among them: (1) both the fired employees and ACORN itself are plaintiffs in the same action, (2) they are seeking a prior restrain on publication of the moron-conservative-activists' tapes, (3) they demanded a jury even though they agreed, on tape, to help set up a brothel for teen hookers, and (4) the complaint is so idiotic as to allege that the individual plaintiffs lost their jobs as the "proximate result" of the actions of the defendants (rather than, you know, because they agreed to help the moron-conservative-activists-posing-as-criminals evade taxes and traffic in girls).

I don't pretend to know Maryland juries, but somehow I suspect they won't be terribly sympathetic to people who agreed to help traffic in teenage hookers, even if they were lied to about who was doing the asking. I also suspect that no judge will be eager to issue an injunction preventing the dissemination of newsworthy tapes of employees of a controversial organization agreeing to help criminals.

45, you are apparently not a lawyer then you fucking moron. go read the motherfucking statute and leave your petty conservative values out of this shit. seriously.

46: Good luck on finishing law school, seriously. Also, good luck on giving clients realistic advice about about what juries on claims for money damages are likely to do and what judges are likely to do on equitable claims (even if moron plaintiffs demanded a jury). Even what statutes provide for money damages, sometimes judges and juries strive to do what they think is fair.

Oh, and good luck on learning to write complete sentences and use proper punctuation and capitalization.