Blog of law articles

Oy.

I'd like to write about exciting South Florida civil legal news, such as the fact that Lew Freeman is investigating lap dancing receipts.

But I see Glenn Garvin has graced us with another column, filled with high-larious insights never before seen on the intertubes. These include:

1. Joe Biden makes gaffes!

(Never heard that one.)

2. It is "dishearteningly true" that Obama is really smart.

Wait, did I just write that? Is Garvin actually "disheartened" that the President of the United States is so smart?

Oh, I see. He's upset because everyone else Obama hired is really, really dumb. Because that's what smart people do!

Like Rosa Brooks, the new undersecretary of defense. According to Garvin, Brooks thinks that Al Qaeda are little more than "an obscure group of extremist thugs."

Garvin pulled this, not surprisingly, from a Washington Times editorial, which badly misstated Brooks' views:

In an April 24 editorial titled, "A disaster for Defense," The Washington Times distorted a quote from Rosa Brooks, an incoming Defense Department official, as evidence that Brooks has "hard-left, rabidly ideological positions on defense matters." The Times claimed Brooks "has called al Qaeda 'little more than an obscure group of extremist thugs.' " In fact, Brooks used that phrase in a July 20, 2007, Los Angeles Times op-ed to refer to the view of Al Qaeda in 2001 held by "most experts." She further wrote that the group was "well financed and intermittently lethal" in 2001 and that, since then, it has become a "vast global threat."

Garvin also thinks Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is really dumb because she said ''crossing the border [without a visa] is not a crime per se.''

Glenn stole this one whole cloth from Michelle Malkin, but what Napolitano actually said was this:

What we have to do is target the real evil-doers in this business, the employers who consistently hire illegal labor, the human traffickers who are exploiting human misery.

And yes, when we find illegal workers, yes, appropriate action, some of which is criminal, most of that is civil, because crossing the border is not a crime per se. It is civil. But anyway, going after those as well.

She didn't say "crossing the border illegally." Approximately 45 percent of illegal immigrants are visa overstays, which is largely treated as a civil matter. These are people who in fact crossed the border -- with a visa -- "legally."

And Michelle, I mean Glenn, needs to read the rest of the law:

Improper time or place; civil penalties

Any alien who is apprehended while entering (or attempting to enter) the United States at a time or place other than as designated by immigration officers shall be subject to a civil penalty of—

See what happens when you add words to quotes!

We lawyers do it all the time, but we're a lot better at it.

Glenn, if you are going to cobble a column together from discredited stories that have been circulating on the tubes forever, at least do Herald readers a favor and acknowledge your (discredited) sources.