Free Republic

by Mark Finkelstein January 3, 2006 - 07:58 Katie Couric's just-completed interview with NY Times Reporter James Risen, who broke the NSA surveillance story and is now publishing his book on the matter, 'State of War,' offered a treasure-trove of insights into the matter. And give Katie a gentlelady's 'C' for her questioning. Couric earned the bulk of her credit by posing this seminal line of questioning: "Did [the leakers] have any sympathy or understanding about this new climate this country finds itself in and the criticism the Bush administration took prior to 9/11 for not putting the pieces together...

New York Times reporter James Risen is facing prison if he doesn’t reveal sources that gave him highly classified information on U.S. intelligence in Iran. Gabriel Schoenfeld says no reporter is above the law.

A New York Times reporter will be subpoenaed to answer questions ahead of an upcoming trial of a former CIA officer accused of leaking classified information, though a Tuesday hearing indicated there is much confusion about what the journalist may be asked to reveal. Prosecutors say they will not ask James Risen if ex-CIA man Jeffrey Sterling was his anonymous source for part of the 2006 book “State Of War” that detailed a botched CIA effort to cripple Iran’s nuclear program. However, they do want to know if the two had a prior, on-the-record source relationship. Risen’s lawyer, Joel Kurtzberg,...

Donald Sterling's former assistant claims she never had sex with the billionaire bigot because he’s homosexual — and she was his beard. V. Stiviano made the bombshell allegation in court paperwork filed Thursday as an answer to a prior lawsuit filed by Sterling’s wife, Shelly Sterling, a source told the Daily News.

Donald Sterling railed on the witness stand Tuesday against the doctors who deemed him mentally incompetent, the executives who bounced him out of the NBA and the opposing lawyer who struggled to get him to answer a question. Sterling was consistently combative during his hourlong testimony that came as he fights to keep ownership of the Clippers. He briefly cried when he professed his devotion to his wife, Shelly. He predicted he would win a $9-billion judgment in an antitrust case he filed against the pro basketball league and would one day sell the team for as much as $5...

Shelly Sterling's potentially record-breaking deal with Ballmer was struck after Donald Sterling's racist remarks to a girlfriend were recorded and publicized.In this Nov. 12, 2010, file photo, Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald T. Sterling, right, sits with his wife Rochelle during the Clippers NBA basketball game against the Detroit Pistons in Los Angeles. Shelly Sterling's attorneys will ask a judge Thursday to order Donald Sterling and his attorneys to stop threatening, harassing or intimidating his wife's legal team and the doctors who determined the Los Angeles Clippers' co-owner was mentally incapacitated. A person with knowledge of the legal proceedings told...

Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling has pulled his support from a deal to sell the team to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and will pursue his $1 billion federal lawsuit against the NBA, his attorney said Monday. "We have been instructed to prosecute the lawsuit," said attorney Maxwell Blecher. He said co-owner Donald Sterling would not be signing off on the deal to sell.

L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling seems to be sitting pretty. Sure, he endured bad press and probably would not have sold the team were it not for the NBA action. He may not even get to do his own negotiating, since the NBA stepped in. But a $2 billion sale to Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer isn’t half bad. Still, taxes could eat a big piece of his outsize profit. With these high numbers and Sterling’s advanced age, income and estate taxes look bleak, but are they? First, let’s take income tax. Mr. Sterling only paid $12.5 million for the Clippers in...

Donald Sterling officially announced Wednesday that he, the NBA and his estranged wife Shelly have agreed to sell the Los Angeles Clippers to Steve Ballmer for $2 billion and various additional benefits, Sterling's lawyer told NBC News. All disputes and outstanding issues have been resolved, and the $1 billion lawsuit against the NBA Sterling filed last week has been dropped, Sterling's lawyer Bobby Samini told NBC News exclusively. Sterling told NBC4 in an exclusive interview on Tuesday he was ready to "move on" from the team. "I feel fabulous, I feel very good. Everything is just the way it should...

So they said on TV today that Donald Sterling is suffering from dementia and had diminished cognitive abilities. Doesn't this mean that he is a sick and cannot comprehend what is currently happening with his situation. So lets break it down: a mentally handicapped person is secretly taped making statements that he may or may not understand and goes on TV and does the same. Shouldn't the concern be with his health and mental well-being. If he was a drug addict or alcoholic (ok, lets face it, and not white), that's what the media would be focusing on. I feel...

The U.S. stock market is trading at all-time highs, the yields on U.S. government bonds are at eye-popping lows and the nation’s professional basketball teams are selling for more than most observers previously thought possible. That the U.S. economy shrank in the first quarter of the year is the disturbing backdrop for this stunning surge in asset prices—call it the basketball bubble. Forbes first reported early on Thursday that former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had submitted a $1.8 billion bid for the Los Angeles Clippers and that the team could go for $2 billion before all was said and done....

I imagine Donald Sterling is going to fight this one too, but… Shelly Sterling has been granted the authority to sell the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers to Steve Ballmer because her husband and co-owner Donald Sterling has been declared mentally incapacitated under the terms of the trust the couple owns the team through. That made her the sole trustee and decision maker. That according to the tapped in Ramona Shelburne of ESPN. There have been reports and rumors that Donald Sterling has been battling dementia, which is the reason his former mistress claimed to make the recordings that sparked the...

Let's say tha someone owned a chain of hotels (be they whatever number of stars), and this individual was caught on tape uttering a string of racial expletives. Let's say furthermore that this individual had signed a contract that if they were to ever bring harm to the company or impugn its name, that within the contract clause for owners this individual could be forced to sell. That I could see and understand. But let's say that this individual sold his string of fancy hotels, and later wanted to rent a room in a hotel that was far away from...

The billionaire bigot allegedly surrendered ownership to his estranged wife, Shelly, so she could negotiate a better sale of the NBA team.In a shocking development, disgraced L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling has agreed to sell the team. The 80-year-old billionaire has agreed to allow his wife, Shelly, negotiate a deal with a buyer, sources said. The NBA has yet to formally accept the arrangement, but if does the arrangement will avoid what was expected to be a long, messy legal battle. Sterling made the decision because he felt if he remained in control, NBA officials would force an involuntary sale...

Secretary of State John Kerry told a private audience in April that US ally Israel may wind up becoming an aparthed state. So it’s OK to bash the Jewish state.But Kerry joked about Donald Sterling this weekend in his address to Yale graduates.CNN reported: Secretary of State John Kerry slammed Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling in address to graduates at Yale University on Sunday.“You are graduating today as the most diverse class in Yale’s long history,” he said. “Or as they call it in the NBA, Donald Sterling’s worst nightmare.”Kerry made his remarks as the featured speaker at Yale’s...

Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling has sent a letter to the National Basketball Association telling the league he won't pay his $2.5 million fine and rejecting his lifetime ban, according to multiple media reports.

A letter from Donald Sterling’s lawyer reveals that the Los Angeles Clippers owner is refusing to pay the $2.5 million fine levied against him by the NBA. USA Today reports that his attorney, Maxwell M. Blecher, wrote in a letter to the NBA that Sterling has no intention of paying the fine. Moreover, the letter argues Sterling doesn’t deserve "any punishment at all" for his racist remarks that were made public last month. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is currently working to force Sterling out of the NBA.

Shelly Sterling defended her right to hold onto her stake in the Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday, telling NBC’s Savannah Guthrie it's sexist for the NBA to punish her for the actions of her husband, who she claimed suffers from dementia. The Clippers have been operating under a cloud in the weeks since the celebrity website TMZ released an audio recording in which Donald Sterling, 80, told frequent court-side guest V. Stiviano that he did not want to see her at games with black people. Days later, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver fined Sterling $2.5 million, banned him for life from...

as her 'lengthy rap sheet' is revealedV. Stiviano, the woman at the center of the Donald Sterling racism scandal is allegedly being investigated for allegedly extorting the embattled LA Clippers owner by demanding money to keep more audio recordings secret. A senior official with the LA County DA's Bureau of Investigation contacted Donald Sterling's wife Rochelle on Tuesday asking to interview her in connection with alleged blackmail, a report has claimed. The investigation is said to be focusing on Stiviano's claims to have more than 100 hours of recordings of conversations between her and Sterling and whether the disgraced billionaire...

Did Donald Sterling ever try to use the power of the state to annul the marriages of thousands of people he never met because he disapproved of them? Ex-Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich did.We’ve heard a lot recently about what constitutes “going too far” when it comes to holding people accountable for their offensive beliefs—a lot of stuff about “freedom of speech,” a lot of stuff about “tolerance,” a lot of stuff about “political correctness run amok.” Predictably relatively little of this has been said about Donald Sterling, of the Los Angeles Clippers. Sterling bears the dubious honor of being The...

Los Angeles Clippers guard J.J. Redick says that owner Donald Sterling was hesitant to sign him last summer because he’s white. Speaking to USA Today, Redick went into detail about how his four-year, $27 million sign-and-trade deal almost fell apart despite being initially agreed upon. “I’ve been told both ways: one, that he didn’t want to pay me because I was white, and that he didn’t want to pay me because I was a bench player,” Redick, the former Duke University star told USA Today. “I didn’t know until after the face. I just got a weird phone call from...

Personally? I think racism — true racism: the devaluation of people because of their skin color or bloodlines — is an intellectual nonsense and a moral transgression. The arguments about dysfunction in minority communities won't wash, and neither will any of the half-baked genetic claptrap. Read Zola or Dickens and you’ll see that the pathologies of industrial poverty are no different in today’s inner cities than they were in the slums of the past. Read the racist tracts from those days and you’ll find the same hateful pseudo-scientific theorizing about the Irish and the Jews that is now sometimes turned...

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO: urge NBA commissioner to issue lifetime ban for Carmelo Anthony and agent Jay-Z for wearing black racist medallions; Pursuant to the action of NBA Commissioner Adam Silver in the lifetime ban of Clippers' owner Donald Sterling, Silver should be urged by the White House to stop all aspects of racism, including those by black racists. The rapper known as Jay-Z was a former part owner of the Knicks and is now a sports agent. Carmelo Anthony currently plays for the Knicks. Jay-Z was seen wearing a black supremacist medallion in the first row of...

Three years ago, I wrote in National Review: Let us accept for the sake of argument that racism is bad, that homophobia is bad, that Islamophobia is bad, that offensive utterances are bad, that mean-spirited thoughts are bad. So what? As bad as they are, the government’s criminalizing all of them and setting up an enforcement regime in the interests of micro-regulating us into compliance is a thousand times worse. Likewise, as bad as Donald Sterling is, what the NBA is doing is a thousand times worse: “The views expressed by Mr. Sterling are deeply offensive and harmful. That they...

los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling is battling cancer, sources have confirmed to ESPN.com. The news was first reported by the New York Post. The Post, citing sources, reported that the 80-year-old Sterling has been battling prostate cancer for an extended period of time. Sterling was banned for life from the NBA and fined $2.5 million by commissioner Adam Silver earlier in the week after racist remarks he made were published by TMZ. Silver has urged the league's owners to force a sale of the Clippers, which they can do with approval from three-fourths of the league's 30 owners.

(CNN) -- Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling is banned from the NBA for life. Sterling has confirmed it is his voice expressing racist views on audio of a private conversation that was leaked to the media. Some who have followed Sterling over the years say he had shown this side before and the leaked audio led to public outcry too loud for the NBA commissioner to ignore.

Leon Jenkins - #96406 Current Status: Disbarred This member is prohibited from practicing law in California by order of the California Supreme Court. See below for more details. Profile Information The following information is from the official records of The State Bar of California. Bar Number: 96406 Address: 14005 Palawan Way #206 Marina Del Rey, CA 90292 Phone Number: (310) 904-8371 Fax Number: (310) 397-1179 e-mail: leonjenkins@verizon.net County: Los Angeles Undergraduate School: Howard Univ; Washington DC District: District 2 Sections: None Law School: Wayne State Univ Law School; Detroit MI Status History Effective Date Status Change Present Disbarred 10/19/2001 Disbarred...

The president of the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP resigned Thursday, following scrutiny of his plan to give Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling an award for promoting civil rights. ... Jenkins explained that Sterling had been selected owing to his history of donating to minority charities and giving game tickets to inner-city children. The Donald T. Sterling Charitable Foundation gave $5,000 to the NAACP’s Los Angeles chapter in 2010, according to tax records, and Sterling was listed as his foundation’s only contributor. There were no records of further NAACP contributions in 2011 or 2012, the latest years for...

An attorney representing the woman Donald Sterling was talking to when he made racist remarks said Thursday that the hour-long conversation was taped by mutual agreement last September and provided to a friend for safekeeping, who then leaked it to TMZ. V. Stiviano sent two snippets of the conversation, recorded in her Los Angeles duplex, to a friend who released them without her permission, lawyer Siamak Nehoray said. He would not identify the friend.

On Tuesday, Adam Silver forcefully announced that his sport would not countenance a hateful racist. He banned Clippers owner Donald Sterling from the league for life and “will urge the board of governors to exercise its authority to force a sale of the team.” For Sterling to finally get his comeuppance, to feel the wrath of public opprobrium, and to lose his prime asset seems just. For the NBA, which was engaged in a decades-long battle with its longest-tenured, and worst, owner, this was a perfect opportunity to act swiftly and harshly.

When Chairman Mao was failing and about to lose his government, he initiated the Great Cultural Revolution. The documentary, Morning Sun, describes this as a Revolution on the revolution. I believe we are witnessing the "revolution" in America less than 60 years later. Yesterday's events have struck a disturbing cord within my heart and soul. While the meme is what happened to Sterling was right and just...while I still have the ability to speak freely regarding the matter, I shall raise my voice to question this idea of "social justice," as we witnessed it applied yesterday. What happened to our...

Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling reiterated to Fox News Wednesday that the team "is not for sale," likely signaling a looming legal battle with the NBA should his fellow owners try to force a sale over Sterling's racist remarks.

President Barack Obama is supporting the NBA’s lifetime ban against Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling. That’s according to White House press secretary Jay Carney. Carney said Wednesday that Obama believes the league did the right thing in response to Sterling’s racist comments. …

While Silver said he had not polled the owners, he expressed confidence there will be sufficient support to oust Sterlin. Silver's bold prediction suggests he has the necessary votes. That said, expect there to be some debate among owners. No owner will defend Sterling's racism... 1. Neither the Clippers nor Sterling is in financial trouble. Article 13 was designed as an extraordinary remedy for such a problem -- not other problems. While sponsors have dropped their deals with the Clippers and players have contemplated boycotts, the team appears to be in strong financial shape with a deep-pocketed, if reviled, owner....

LISTEN TO LARRY TALK ABOUT HOW THEY RAILROADED STERLING WHILE OTHERS (LIKE SHARPTON) HAVE ALWAYS GOTTEN A PASS

Last thread on this subject: If an NBA team owner said that he thought that certain statemnets from Louis Farrakhan were anti-Semitic or racially charged, did not want him to be the center of attention in his arena and have cameras and the media/televison's making a scene over him, could that NBA owner ban him from his arena? Could the NBA ban Farrakhan? Would Larry Johnson want him to be banned? I asked a question on another thread of mine and some said that the NBA could ban him. I countered (when McDonald's was brought up) that if Sterling owned...

If and when Sterling becomes an ex-owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, how can the NBA keep him from attending a Bulls-Knicks game in Chicago, for example, if he walks in just like everyone else? If Sterling can be banned, can some person who posts racially-charged epithets online on whatever online media platform be identified by the NBA as an "undesirable" - a persona non grata - and summarily "banned" from all NBA games? Are we now in the age where the owner of a "restaurant" who said no to blacks eating in his restaurant is booted out, his restaurant...

How? Are the two reconcilable? Secondly, should (not can) an owner of a team be forced to sell his team, and/or be banned from attending any NBA game as a non-owner - attending a NBA game like any other person? Example: Is the situation of an owner saying that blacks cannot eat in his restaurant different from someone saying that now the restaurant is under new management, and the racists will no longer be allowed to eat in that same restaurant? When hunting monsters should society be careful that it doesn't become a monster when doing so? I think so....

We know what Donald Sterling is. But what about the NAACP? How is it that the NAACP has repeatedly honored a guy who turns out to be the biggest bigot in America, and was about to give him his second lifetime achievement award? What’s that all about? As America learns what Los Angeles already knew, that the owner of the Clippers has a long history of screwing black and Latino people as their landlord and employer, how is it that the most storied organization in the black civil rights movement has repeatedly honored this man? Sadly, it’s for exactly the...

Donald Sterling has been shamed, fined $2.5 million and banned for life by the NBA for his incendiary remarks about race. But none of that changes the fact that Sterling still owns the Los Angeles Clippers, which gives him options."This may set up nicely for him," said David Carter, executive director of USC's Sports Business Institute. "He could ride off into the sunset a la Frank McCourt."

In today's press conference covering the lifetime ban and $2.5 million fine against Clippers owner Donald Sterling over his racist remarks, a Fox News' The Kelly File reporter asked NBA Commissioner Adam Silver if he was on a "slippery slope." “Should someone lose their team for remarks shared in private? Is this a slippery slope?” Jovian Lien is not the first person to raise the question of freedom of speech in the handing down of punishment against Sterling. On Monday, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban asked the same essential question, also using the phrase "slippery slope." "I think there's a constitution...

RUSH: We're gonna start in Dallas. This is Neil. Neil, it's great to have you on the program, sir. Hello. CALLER: Rush? RUSH: Yeah. CALLER: It's so obvious of what's going on here with Sterling. It was construed. It was set up. Somebody infiltrated him through his girlfriend -- RUSH: Oh, no. Wait a minute now. CALLER: -- and told her what to do, told her how to do it. RUSH: Don't do this to me, Neil. (laughing) CALLER: They want his team, Rush! RUSH: Neil, don't do this to me. CALLER: They want his team. RUSH: Do you realize...

Spike Lee is likening Donald Sterling's racist and inflammatory remarks to those of a slave owner. Lee, speaking to CNN's Anderson Cooper, said that he believes the owner of the L.A. Clippers should be removed from his position within the NBA.

Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling received a lifetime ban from the NBA and a $2.5 million fine. NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced the discipline Tuesday...

The mogul, on CBS This Morning to promote her new tea line with Starbucks, said Sterling's comments remind her of "a plantation mentality in the 21st century, in 2014. It just doesn't fit."

This sure appears to say that the bimbo V. Stiviano by recording Sterling committed a crime: “California's wiretapping law is a “two-party consent� law. California makes it a crime to record or eavesdrop on any confidential communication, including a private conversation or telephone call, without the consent of all parties to the conversation. See Cal. Penal Code § 632. The statute applies to “confidential communications� — i.e., conversations in which one of the parties has an objectively reasonable expectation that no one is listening in or overhearing the conversation. See Flanagan v. Flanagan, 41 P.3d 575, 576-77, 578-82 (Cal. 2002)....

It's time to look at ourselves — and our collective moral outrage — in the mirror, says former NBA player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Moral outrage is exhausting. And dangerous. The whole country has gotten a severe case of carpal tunnel syndrome from the newest popular sport of Extreme Finger Wagging. Not to mention the neck strain from Olympic tryouts for Morally Superior Head Shaking. All over the latest in a long line of rich white celebrities to come out of the racist closet. (Was it only a couple days ago that Cliven Bundy said blacks would be better off picking cotton...

The NBA will announce the results of its investigation into racially insensitive comments allegedly made by Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling on Tuesday, but already his franchise is paying a price.

I just watched CBS This Morning cover the Donald Sterling story. There was lots of harrumphing, there was Obama lamenting, there was just one thing missing. Sterling's political party affiliation. He's a democrat. For anyone who ever had a doubt, this is as concrete proof as there is that the mainstream media is nothing more than an arm of the DNC. The NY Times fell all over itself telling us that Cliven Bundy is a Republican, as did pretty much everyone. So did WaPo. Paul Begala sent out a tweet: Paul Begala ✔ @PaulBegala Friendly tip to @seanhannity, @SenRandPaul, @SenTedCruz:...

Donald Sterling was a modest donor to several Democratic politicians, long before racist remarks were attributed to the owner of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers. Sterling donated a combined of $4,000 to Democratic Sens. Bill Bradley of New Jersey and Patrick Leahy of Vermont as well as then-State Controller Gray Davis of California in the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to a database on OpenSecrets.