This website moved Sunday, Feb. 10, to a new address – http://www.folo.us. Please go to http://www.folo.us to enter your comment! Thanks.
As you’ll see on folo’s About page, when I started this blog, I expected to be using and critiquing reporters’ work, not doing it. But yesterday afternoon that expectation became, as Tricky Dick Nixon’s press secretary Ron Zeigler once put it, “inoperative.”
According to my email program, at 2:45 PM (EST) yesterday afternoon, PACER-equipped folo commenter NMC sent me the pdf of the Scruggs defendants’ joint motion for continuance. As I raced to read and begin writing a post announcing it, folo’s webmaster (a true godsend to non-techy me) was transforming it into a file even I could handle. Because folo posts are date- but not time-stamped, I can’t prove this within-the-four-corners of the site, but the email I sent (after some uncounted minutes of wowing) to NMC — “See the new post!” is time-stamped 3:03 PM (as NMC can confirm).
I checked David Rossmiller’s site to see if he had it. He did (in a then-two-sentence post), but because his aren’t time-stamped either, I couldn’t tell which of us had hit “Publish” first. If Rossmiller beat folo by a few minutes (none of the other Scruggs sites then stirring), ’tis no bloggy embarrassment.
But it IS, I submit, the professional media’s embarrassment. Near’s I can tell, the Wall Street Journal‘s Law Blog was the first online news-provider to run the story — and their time-stamp of 3:58 PM (EST) lagged Rossmiller/folo by, at minimum, an hour.
By the way, those WSJ folks have been strangely AWOL from Scruggsiana for days (note “OXPATCH”‘s cross advice to them, “You guys must be getting over your Little Easy hangovers from the Scruggs Christmas party! WSJ is being left in the dust on this story! Get to work!”).
As for the Mississippi papers . . . well, Anita Lee of Biloxi’s Sun-Herald, Alyssa Schnugg of the Oxford Eagle, and Tupelo’s NEMS Daily Journal have all performed well (um, usually). But these good reporters are too often confounded by the utter lousiness of their papers’ websites.
That’s already a shame, but as U.S. v. Scruggs heats up on its way to trial, we can only hope north Mississippi’s editors and publishers are awake and willing to do something to help their reporters get the biggest local story in decades OUT. For chrissakes, either stir your old web guys or get new, more capable ones, y’all! Sheesh, you gonna keep letting little ol’ biddies in Florida eat your lunch?
Here we’ve ended up with the gawd-awfullest state and national governments imaginable — in no small part because our state and national media have been doing their gawd-awfullest job in living memory. THAT’s what accounts for the rise of the blogs, you know: millions of citizens looking at lazy, fractionally-complete, bought-off MainStreamMedia excretions and saying, “I know better than that, and by damn, I’m gonna say so!”
Mississippians, look at your local paper’s website right now. My dollar to your doughnut, it’s running (if any Scruggs story at all) the AP‘s report on yesterday’s developments instead of its own home-cooking. No wonder you’re here instead!
Well, welcome one and all, and help us out here — our do-it-yourself collaborations are keeping us much better informed than those sclerotic assemblages calling themselves “newspapers”!
/rant
lotus
P.S. I can cuss better’n that, by the way — but not to Mississippi.
Moved - to http://www.folo.us
Total agreement here!
(high-fives jim)
I, too, am amazed at the lack of national coverage on this case. I honestly expected to see some of the lawyers on Larry King. And I realize Nancy Grace is recovering from the birth of her twins, but I can’t believe she isn’t screeching about this!!
And you are right – many Mississippians will turn to this site and others to get the coverage not provided on a timely basis from their media outlets!!
Well, I’m not into teevy screechers (only thing I consider worse is talk-radio screechers), so not sure who Nancy Grace is, but my best to the new fambly.
And I know it’s hard to run a small newspaper — in fact, I know it’s harder THAN I know — but if they’re gonna have websites, they better understand that readers expect something different — fresher — online than they’ve been getting from newsprint once a day.
But bless their hearts, the papers still can’t be as louche and funny as blogs.
The BEST thing blogs have going is this community-collaborations aspect. Can’t tell you how delighted I am to see more folo readers deciding to pipe up this week. Whether you’ve got “intell” or opinion or a question to share, what you say is apt to trigger a thought for someone else, and (as old Polonius put it), “by indirections, [we] find directions out.”
‘Senough to make a person go “W00T!“
You are so blessed to have never been exposed to Ms. Grace. If your curiousity gets the better of you, turn on CNN at 7 or 8 or sometime like that and look for the big haired, painted up hussy. You want have to look far – you will hear her before you see her. She will be the one blasting lawyers in general and criminal defense lawyers specifically!!
All seems quiet around N. Miss. other than the motion to continue. There is usually a rumor or two circulating but not much this morning!!
Oh, I think I may kinda remember her — Southernish accent? Used to be (?) a prosecutor? Bleh indeed, if that’s the one we’re talking about.
No rumors, huh? Dang. I’m still wanting the nooz on Coghlan (taps foot) . . .
I heard a couple of Coghlan theories yesterday. One was that Patterson didn’t want to pay the requested fee. I also heard that the other defendant were insisting on a joint defense and that Coghlan would not go along with it b/c he didn’t think it was in his client’s best interest.
Eastland is tighttighttight with this group so he may be more inclined to go along with the proposed joint defense. .. .
Yum — theories! And not mutually-exclusive ones, either!
Well, whaddya think, Orchid — do you, on the basis of prior acquaintance with our principals, favor one of those spins over the other, or are they equally plausible to you?
Nothing I’ve learned of Patterson suggests high intelligence, so (to my mind) he’d be susceptible to either or both errors.
And what more would you like to tell us of Eastland and his history? We’ve had some controversy among commenters on that around here lately.
Lotus, it does appear Patterson is dumber than dirt , He was Mississippi State Auditor when he was caught switching tags.. This goes to ones own self in thinking I’m better and smarter than the average guy.OH and he’s not only dumb he looks the part[seen his picture]…
I have, magnolia. Once was enough — but I’m sure that can be said of a lot of us.
Good on ya, my Flowah!
Ain’t it grand, the national media?
Ya know damn good and well if a young white girl had been missing as part of this case you wouldn’t be able to escape anywhere to avoid it.
Fuckers.
Alas, Busted, I do know that.
But it still just beats me that a case as juicy as this doesn’t have (for instance) TPM all ovah it. I mean, it’s got textures and characters ya just can’t make up! And our accents ain’t THAT hard to cut through (kinda pleasant, in most cases). I just shake my head-petal, man.
OT: Any luck with duplicating yo’ momma’s beans yet?
My info is strictly hearsay and rumor. I have met Eastland but never really dealt a lot with him. I really think he coasts by on his name and his connections. I know he allegedly had experience at DOJ but I think that was years ago. It is a relatively small bar in the Northern District and I never hear his name or anything about him as far as a law practice.
SO – I think he is in because of his connections to the other players.
I also think it is plausible that Patterson wouldn’t pay up.
I heard that the four remaining defendants have signed a joint defense agreement.
CRAZY, if you ask me.
I have dealt with Tony Farese on numerous occasions. It may be a “joint defense” now, but only if his client’s defense is the same as the others. If Tony ever once feels that he is jeopardizing his client’s interest, I can tell you he won’t. He would walk away before he would allow anyone to tell him how to represent his client.
And with good reason. He is the best of the best.
Orchid, your views of these people entirely accord with my set of impressions-from-a-distance — which could only indicate a solid consensus in the discussions we’ve had here so far.
As to your view of the joint defense agreement’s craziness, I agree with that out of my own human and (brief) crim-def legal experience.
Patterson sounds completely out-of-his-league (as much so as Balducci), and clearly doesn’t know it.
I read somewhere (Y’allP?) several days ago someone claiming that Dickie asked TF to represent him and got turned down before TF agreed to represent Zach. What’s your sense of the likelihood of that?
BREAKING (upstairs): Lott resigns “tomorrow or Thursday” — spokesman
That would surprise me about TF and Dickie. May have happened, but Dickie and Joey are so tight, which makes me think he would go to Joey first and then get TF for Zach.
And I don’t know why TF would turn him down and then turn around and represent Zach.
I heard today that Keker is calling all the shots at this point. I assumed as much.
Has Judge Biggers ruled on the motion to continue? I am sure he will continue it; I just wonder until when – my guess would be April or maybe the latter part of March.
That is a beautiful time in Oxford, so all the out of towners will enjoy it!! Lots of gorgeous spring flowers on the square, etc.
Shoot, Orchid, WE don’t gotta wait for pilgrimage time for OUR gawjus spring blooms. We already got you, me, and magnolia — and any minute now I expect Lily, Rose, Cape Jasmine, Dogwood, li’l miss Tea Olive, ol’ Jonquil, and who knows but Ragged Robin too.
It’s Folo’s Field Guide to Suthun Flowahs you see right here!
Haven’t heard on the motion to continue, but Alyssa tol’ me today that he did let Coghlan go in peace.
Guys. Think circles. Think cycles. Do you really think the $10million went to PL? Do you really think the remaining $40 million is going to Pl? Why all of a sudden does old RS want all of this money to go to PL? That is not nor has it ever been RS SOP! Think circles and cycles!
A joint defense agreement is a great deal for the defendants that the government has the strongest case on. It is not such a great deal for a defendant who believes he is innocent, and halfway through the trial, realizes the guys he has thrown in with, aren’t.
That’s when you see attorneys and clients all start scooting their chairs a little farther away from each other, and whispered fights at the table about who is going to take the stand in their own defense, and who isn’t.
Because at the end of the government’s case, the guys who think they have beat the rap, aren’t going to be wanting the ones who are afraid they haven’t, but still have a chance to explain their actions away, to take the witness stand.
I can’t wait for this trial!
You speak for allus, observer!