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Reading the "victory letter" a white nationalist sent to his followers after getting $2.5m from UNC,
YesMalarkeyHat RetweetedReading the "victory letter" a white nationalist sent to his followers after getting $2.5m from UNC, it's obvious why he tried to censor it
Link to tweet
bOiNG / CORY DOCTOROW / 8:41 AM TUE DEC 3, 2019
Reading the "victory letter" a white nationalist sent to his followers after getting $2.5m from UNC, it's obvious why he tried to censor it
Last week, just before everything shut down for Thanksgiving, the Republican-appointed Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina handed $2.5m to the white nationalist Sons of Confederate Veterans, claiming it would settle a lawsuit over the removal of a Confederate "Silent Sam" statue from campus -- but as local litigator T Greg Doucette sleuthed out, the lawsuit was filed after the governors voted the settlement, and the Sons of Confederate Veterans appeared to have no standing to sue, as it wasn't their statue, and even if it was, the university would not face legal liability for its students removing it.
After the holiday weekend, Doucette went to the courthouse and scanned all the documents about the giveaway, including a "victory letter" sent by SOCV "commander" Kevin Stone to his followers, which Stone then had Dropbox remove from the internet by falsely claiming copyright infringement.
Now, Doucette has published the letter to Twitter, and it's easy to see why Stone didn't want it in the public eye. In addition to being peevish, longwinded, petty and sectarian, the letter makes it clear that the Sons of Confederate Veterans and UNC's Board of Governors knew that they wouldn't have standing to sue the university over the Silent Sam statue. It also makes it clear that attempts to push legislation to allow SOCV to sue the university were dead on arrival, that the objective of the litigation was to hurt UNC to punish it for failing to defend white nationalism, and that UNC President Bill Roper and UNC General Counsel Tom Shanahan engineered the payout, greasing it through the Board of Governors.
The letter also reveals that UNC insisted on secrecy about all of this, including and especially the matter of standing, in a bid to prevent its own stakeholders from learning that the $2.5m did not have to be transferred to white nationalists.
....
Reading the "victory letter" a white nationalist sent to his followers after getting $2.5m from UNC, it's obvious why he tried to censor it
Last week, just before everything shut down for Thanksgiving, the Republican-appointed Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina handed $2.5m to the white nationalist Sons of Confederate Veterans, claiming it would settle a lawsuit over the removal of a Confederate "Silent Sam" statue from campus -- but as local litigator T Greg Doucette sleuthed out, the lawsuit was filed after the governors voted the settlement, and the Sons of Confederate Veterans appeared to have no standing to sue, as it wasn't their statue, and even if it was, the university would not face legal liability for its students removing it.
After the holiday weekend, Doucette went to the courthouse and scanned all the documents about the giveaway, including a "victory letter" sent by SOCV "commander" Kevin Stone to his followers, which Stone then had Dropbox remove from the internet by falsely claiming copyright infringement.
Now, Doucette has published the letter to Twitter, and it's easy to see why Stone didn't want it in the public eye. In addition to being peevish, longwinded, petty and sectarian, the letter makes it clear that the Sons of Confederate Veterans and UNC's Board of Governors knew that they wouldn't have standing to sue the university over the Silent Sam statue. It also makes it clear that attempts to push legislation to allow SOCV to sue the university were dead on arrival, that the objective of the litigation was to hurt UNC to punish it for failing to defend white nationalism, and that UNC President Bill Roper and UNC General Counsel Tom Shanahan engineered the payout, greasing it through the Board of Governors.
Link to tweet
The letter also reveals that UNC insisted on secrecy about all of this, including and especially the matter of standing, in a bid to prevent its own stakeholders from learning that the $2.5m did not have to be transferred to white nationalists.
....
2 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
TwoArticleHat Retweeted
The Ram has Touched the Wall - Wikipedia
Did y'all know @Popehat still had a blog?
And that @marcorandazza is one of the contributors?
Enjoy ☺️
#murumariesattigityall
Link to tweet
Murum Aries Attigit, Y'all
DECEMBER 13, 2019 BY RANDAZZA 10 COMMENTS
Tell them boys they can have the statue and $2.5m… US dollars, that is.
This here case is a pretty good story.
It all starts in Orange County, North Carolina. Folks there, well, everywhere, say the wheels of justice turn slowly. But, a few weeks ago, Lady Justice traded in her robe and blindfold for a pair of short cutoff jeans, tossed her scales into the kudzu on the side of a dusty road, and grabbed the keys to a bright orange 1969 Dodge Charger. She jumped in one window and Mendacius rode shotgun. The two of them let out a cry that bystanders called “a foxhunt yip mixed up with sort of a banshee squall.”
She pushed the pedal to the metal and made those 426 cubic inches growl through Orange County (North Carolina, that is) at such a speed that I do say that ol’ road’s hills flattened and its curves straightened for her. She screeched on up back to the courthouse hoping to return before anyone noticed her joyride had taken her from her post. She skidded to a stop, but those wheels were spinning just a bit too fast for her to brake in enough time to avoid running right over poor Veritas, who ironically was waiting outside for her daddy – who always did seem to dawdle when he was in that building. Lady Justice crawled out of the car window and put her blindfold back on, lest she see with her own eyes the consequences of leaving her post to go on such a joyride. And while she blindly wept, Mendacius grabbed her robes and scales and ran right in that courthouse to set things just the way he liked em – dirty.
Now Mr. Doucette ain’t no Greek god, but he might be mistaken for one mythological figure – Mr. Clean. Acts like him too – at least in this story. He’s a lawyer in North Carolina now, but once upon a time, he was on the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina (“UNC”).
Way back, more than a hundred years ago, a group of ladies went around calling themselves the United Daughters of the Confederacy and putting up monuments to that lost cause. Now this was pretty darn ironic, since General Lee, himself, believed memorials like this would just keep the wounds of the Civil War open. He famously said “I think it well, moreover, not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered.”. Well who am I to argue with Robert E. Lee?
I might not be nobody to argue with the General, but a bunch of folks down South didn’t have so much respect for what he wanted. And those former slaves around that time were getting a bit what folks called “uppity.” It was right about 1908 when the started the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or as you know it, the NAACP. They started asking for things like “rights” and “equality.” So those nice ladies went around with smiles as wide as their hats and didn’t have to work too hard to convince the powers that be all across the South to start putting up monuments to General Lee’s lost cause, and nobody paid any mind to what he said about ‘em.
....
DECEMBER 13, 2019 BY RANDAZZA 10 COMMENTS
Tell them boys they can have the statue and $2.5m… US dollars, that is.
This here case is a pretty good story.
It all starts in Orange County, North Carolina. Folks there, well, everywhere, say the wheels of justice turn slowly. But, a few weeks ago, Lady Justice traded in her robe and blindfold for a pair of short cutoff jeans, tossed her scales into the kudzu on the side of a dusty road, and grabbed the keys to a bright orange 1969 Dodge Charger. She jumped in one window and Mendacius rode shotgun. The two of them let out a cry that bystanders called “a foxhunt yip mixed up with sort of a banshee squall.”
She pushed the pedal to the metal and made those 426 cubic inches growl through Orange County (North Carolina, that is) at such a speed that I do say that ol’ road’s hills flattened and its curves straightened for her. She screeched on up back to the courthouse hoping to return before anyone noticed her joyride had taken her from her post. She skidded to a stop, but those wheels were spinning just a bit too fast for her to brake in enough time to avoid running right over poor Veritas, who ironically was waiting outside for her daddy – who always did seem to dawdle when he was in that building. Lady Justice crawled out of the car window and put her blindfold back on, lest she see with her own eyes the consequences of leaving her post to go on such a joyride. And while she blindly wept, Mendacius grabbed her robes and scales and ran right in that courthouse to set things just the way he liked em – dirty.
Now Mr. Doucette ain’t no Greek god, but he might be mistaken for one mythological figure – Mr. Clean. Acts like him too – at least in this story. He’s a lawyer in North Carolina now, but once upon a time, he was on the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina (“UNC”).
Way back, more than a hundred years ago, a group of ladies went around calling themselves the United Daughters of the Confederacy and putting up monuments to that lost cause. Now this was pretty darn ironic, since General Lee, himself, believed memorials like this would just keep the wounds of the Civil War open. He famously said “I think it well, moreover, not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered.”. Well who am I to argue with Robert E. Lee?
I might not be nobody to argue with the General, but a bunch of folks down South didn’t have so much respect for what he wanted. And those former slaves around that time were getting a bit what folks called “uppity.” It was right about 1908 when the started the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or as you know it, the NAACP. They started asking for things like “rights” and “equality.” So those nice ladies went around with smiles as wide as their hats and didn’t have to work too hard to convince the powers that be all across the South to start putting up monuments to General Lee’s lost cause, and nobody paid any mind to what he said about ‘em.
....
The Ram has Touched the Wall - Wikipedia
Murum Aries Attigit: A Philosophy for Litigation
February 8, 2012 by Adrianos Facchetti 2 Comments
The other day opposing counsel in a case challenged me for having written in a letter that we would litigate the case according to the principle of “murum aries attigit.” Now, I want to make it clear that I did not invent this term, nor was I the first to use it in the litigation context. I want to give credit where credit is due. The first attorney (that I know of) to have used this term in the civil litigation context is First Amendment Lawyer, Marc Randazza.
So anyhow, I often get a strong reaction from attorneys and other opponents alike, when I include this language in a letter, so I wasn’t surprised. Yet, I don’t include this phrase in correspondence strictly to get a reaction–I do it because that phrase represents my philosophy on litigation.
Before I tell you what the term means, let me give you a little background on me (I never share personal information about myself on this blog, but I’ll make an exception here because it’s important). I have loved Roman history and warfare (strategy) since I can remember. I have studied those topics intensely before, during, and after college. I am utterly fascinated by these subjects as well as rhetoric and memorization.
So while I was in college, among other books relating to Julius Caesar, I read the Commentaries on the Gallic War. There, Caesar described the principle of “murum aries attigit,” which literally means the “The Ram Has Touched the Wall.” It referred to a Roman policy: surrender would be accepted before–but not after the battering ram touched a enemy’s city walls. Wikipedia explains the purpose behind the policy well: “The policy was to act as a deterrent against resistance to those about to be besieged. It was an incentive for anyone who was not absolutely sure that they could withstand the assault to surrender immediately, rather than face the possibility of total destruction.”
....
February 8, 2012 by Adrianos Facchetti 2 Comments
The other day opposing counsel in a case challenged me for having written in a letter that we would litigate the case according to the principle of “murum aries attigit.” Now, I want to make it clear that I did not invent this term, nor was I the first to use it in the litigation context. I want to give credit where credit is due. The first attorney (that I know of) to have used this term in the civil litigation context is First Amendment Lawyer, Marc Randazza.
So anyhow, I often get a strong reaction from attorneys and other opponents alike, when I include this language in a letter, so I wasn’t surprised. Yet, I don’t include this phrase in correspondence strictly to get a reaction–I do it because that phrase represents my philosophy on litigation.
Before I tell you what the term means, let me give you a little background on me (I never share personal information about myself on this blog, but I’ll make an exception here because it’s important). I have loved Roman history and warfare (strategy) since I can remember. I have studied those topics intensely before, during, and after college. I am utterly fascinated by these subjects as well as rhetoric and memorization.
So while I was in college, among other books relating to Julius Caesar, I read the Commentaries on the Gallic War. There, Caesar described the principle of “murum aries attigit,” which literally means the “The Ram Has Touched the Wall.” It referred to a Roman policy: surrender would be accepted before–but not after the battering ram touched a enemy’s city walls. Wikipedia explains the purpose behind the policy well: “The policy was to act as a deterrent against resistance to those about to be besieged. It was an incentive for anyone who was not absolutely sure that they could withstand the assault to surrender immediately, rather than face the possibility of total destruction.”
....