One of the things during Ken’s trial that the ARDC didn’t like, and it was pretty much the main theme– and what I pretty missed during my original reading of “Citizen’s United” a year ago, (and Ken has been right about this all along) is that content oriented speech that is private in nature is fully protected by the First Amendment.

And then, of course he told me an old war story, a story about how for some odd reason he was given an immigration case that was “deemed hopeless”.

Turned out the gentleman was an engineer.  He was from China years ago.  To summarize, when the “Reds” came thru his hometown,  many of his relatives were murdered. That was the “first wave”.  Second wave, third wave, well you get the picture, everyone was gone and he was hiding in the forest, cellars, haystacks, where ever to survive.

Eventually he made his way to Hong Kong, worked hard, managed to get a degree in engineering by climbing a lot of barbed wire and lived there for awhile as a young boy and then a young man. Then he made his way onto a merchant marine ship when the Reds were after him again (for being from the wrong town, the wrong family, who knows).  He worked on the ship for about 7 years and then came to the US.  He lived there for many years, until the US got caught him and said he had to leave.  Ken got the case because many other attys turned it down, saying it was hopeless, so how could he screw it up knowing nothing about immigration.  So Ken studied the laws.  Determined that because Mr. Engineer lived in the US for more than 7 years, his case was a priority.  BUT the USG atty said, you didn’t read the full act.  This guy doesn’t get priority because the act specifically exempts people who came off a boat acting as seaman.  So, Ken argued before the court, well, the man was an engineer before he got on the ship, he worked as a seaman, but that never changed the fact he was an engineer because he held a degree in engineering.

The court held with that argument,  the man was entitled to priority as a refugee seeking political asylum.  Now, that does not mean the rest of story made his immigration easy, because in the US we have decided that while most of us WERE immigrants who had NO immigration policy when our ancestors came here without highly restrictive (and ridiculous) laws, NOW we have to piss on the rest of the world, but I digress.

Getting back to the case at hand, the ARDC proposes that because lawyers take an oath of office to “uphold the US and Illinois constitutions” we can no longer speak about corruption.  Imagine all that.  We give up our Free Speech rights and the right to be a member of the Free Press–deemed essential to the preservation of a solid democracy, as stated in the First Amendment.

As many of your oldsters might recall, there was a cute old movie that won many prestigious awards about “Mr. Smith goes to Washington” and what did Mr. Smith find? Corruption.

Turns out, mentioning the fact back in that era of 1939 if you mentioned that Washington DC was corrupt, it could get your movie banned! Yep, that’s right.  And that fact is even mentioned in the Citizen’s United case.  I love it when the US supremes talk about a movie!

I don’t recall from the movie if Mr. Smith were a lawyer, but according to the ARDC if he mentioned the word corruption or let that movie be produced and distributed, he would be guilty of misconduct, violations of Rules 8.3 and 8.4 and disbarred.

I simply cannot imagine anyone in their right mind disbarring Jimmy Stewart, but if I had to choose someone to do it under gunpoint, I would definitely anoint the team of attorneys Jerome Larkin, Leah Black, Melissa Smith and Sharon Opryszek and Mr. Apostol.

I don’t get it.  President Clinton gets disbarred for lying during a deposition that a BJ with an intern isn’t “sex” (it’s private oral massage) BUT certain miscreants get a free pass when they lie to deprive a certain elderly woman of service, notice and her elderly sisters of notice, so Mary Sykes has no liberties, property rights, human and civil rights.

All ex Pres did was get a BJ and he gets disbarred.  Attys in Illinois stand idly by while millions disappear, lie about serving subpoenas according to the Record on Appeal, lie about service on the alleged disabled and the sisters, lie about all sorts of things DIRECTLY TO THE COURT, and they get free parking money of $2000, a couple of “get out of jail” cards,  they pass go and get their $200 income for the year, and benefist and health care.  Leah Black got a promotion for prosecuting an honest attorney, if you look at the record–or was that just a convenient coincidence for looking the other way (“gambling? there’s gambling going on in here?” whisper “sir, here’s your winnings”).  All the while I work for almost no money for victims of corruption and I have little heat during the winter, BUT I DON’T CARE.

But I can get disbarred or suspended for misconduct?  Something’s amiss in River City, that’s for sure.

All good questions, now where are the answers.