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Federal Construction Law for Construction Professionals

Any firm intent on benefitting from the boom in federal government construction contracts must navigate an increasingly complicated and demanding set of laws, regulations, and practices that govern these projects and the contractors performing them. To help guide you through this maze, here is the updated edition of the easy-to-understand guide to the practical reality of these special requirements, and how managers and owners of construction industry firms can use them to effectively avoid pitfalls on current projects and compete successfully for new projects.

Smith, Currie & Hancock's Federal Government Construction Contracts, Second Edition walks the reader through actual federal contracts, highlights critical clauses, and simplifies governmental and legal jargon to provide ease of use by the nonlawyer.

Updates to this Second Edition include:

• Coverage of the newly enacted American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

• Specifics of federal government grants to state and local public construction contracts

• New insights on Design-Build, Early Contractor Involvement (ECI), BIM, Green Construction, and Web-based project management techniques used by the federal government

• A revised look at the increasingly detailed business ethics and compliance program requirements for contractors and subcontractors as mandated by the federal government for its contractors

• A unique Web site at www.wiley.com/go/federalconstructionlaw provides the user with a Table of Acronyms and Terms commonly found in federal government contracts, an extensive list of Web sites of interest to federal government construction contractors, checklists, sample forms, as well as specifications related to innovations in project delivery

By making transparent the many rights, risks, and legal responsibilities involved in a federal government construction project, Smith, Currie & Hancock's Federal Government Construction Contracts, Second Edition provides construction industry professionals—from general contractors, subcontractors, and designers to surety bond agents—with the insight and understanding they need to avoid problems and run a successful project from start to finish. ... Read more

Product Description
AMERICAN CONSITITUTIONAL LAW provides a comprehensive account of the nation's defining document. Based on the premise that the study of the Constitution and constitutional law is of fundamental importance to understanding the principles, prospects, and problems of America, the text puts current events in terms of what those who initially drafted and ratified the Constitution sought to accomplish. Each volume examines the interpretations of a variety of sources, including the founding generation, the Supreme Court, lower federal courts and state judiciaries, and extrajudicial materials of constitutional significance (such as congressional acts and resolutions).Volume I focuses on federal rights and powers, and is appropriate for the first semester in the two-semester course sequence in Constitutional Law. Volume II focuses on individuals' rights and responsibilities and is appropriate for the second semester in the two-semester course sequence in Constitutional Law commonly called Civil Rights and Liberties. ... Read more

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An analysis of the process of adjudication and the role of the US Supreme Court in interpreting the constitution. The author tackles questions about the role and function of public values in the elaboration of constitutional provisions, especially the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. ... Read more

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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

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The Founding Fathers wanted the judicial branch to serve as a check on the power of the legislative and executive, and gave the Supreme Court the responsibility of interpreting the Constitution in a way that would safeguard individual freedoms. Sadly, the Supreme Court has handed down many destructive decisions on cases you probably never learned about in school. In The Dirty Dozen, two distinguished legal scholars shed light on the twelve worst cases, which allowed government to interfere in your private contractual agreements; curtail your rights to criticize or support political candidates; arrest and imprison you indefinitely, without filing charges; seize your private property, without compensation, when someone uses the property for criminal activity--even if you don't know about it! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (27)

No Audio Version
This looks like a fantastic book! But even us wonks don't have the time to sit down and read all the books that we would like to.
I have a lot respect for the work that both Bob Levy and Chip Mellor are doing within their respective institutes. Please, add an unabridged audio edition.

The Worst of the Worst of the Worst
The Dirty Dozen are twelve of the worst Supreme Court decisions from the New Deal through the present.The book gives some background info leading up to the Court hearing the specific case, and then explains what's at stake and the consequences. It shows the justices reasoning through the majority and dissenting opinions, and where the court went wrong in their thought process.

Some of the cases will leave you shaking your head in disbelief.Others will leave you shaking your head in total disgust.These decisions go against any rational thinking. After reading the first case, I figured that was the worst decision I had ever read.Not so.Each one is an abomination in its own right.

The book really reveals a much greater problem than twelve bad decisions: the framers intended for elected reps not the Supreme Court to change the Constitution.Instead we have we have justices, political appointees for life with no accountability to the people, rewriting the Constitution. The Supreme Court has been moving further and further toward restricting individual freedoms, and there is nothing we can do about it.

This book has certainly changed my view of the Supreme Court justices.Excellent book.It is very easy to read and understand for a book examining legal proceedings.

A Primer On Conservative (At Times Double-)Think
I thought this would be an insightful exploration of where the judiciary, through flawed Supreme Court decisions, has eroded the integrity of Constitutional protections.. .... and in ways, it is ---- But not always with an eye to the citizenry, or the rights of the individual.

The thesis of the book is that Court decisions have altered the power toward the Federal government, and many of the authors' conclusions are sound ones. I agree with a lot they say. But at times they leave me cold, their logic somehow removed from commonsense reality.

Their arguments contradicting Court decisions are sometimes housed in that strangest of psychical phenomena: the ability to say that freedom exists in money and property--------the conflation of rights to the individual with the rights of power and influence, an artificial and unsustainable mixture.

I want to look at one decision they examined to explain what I'm saying.
In the case of McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003), a challenge to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (McCain-Feingold), the court held that limiting the quantity of money being fed to political candidates made sense in the greater interest of fairness in the electoral process.

But NOT to the authors. . . .

"Money preserves and protects the free discussion of political ideas."
"Regulating the money that politicians raise and spend is a direct restriction on political speech, in the same way that regulating printng presses is a direct restriction on freedom of the press."

. . . who obviously are quite intellectually content to conflate money and freedom, money and free speech, without any acknowledgement that the conflation is not only illogical, but perversely so.

To the authors, the Court's differentiation in McConnell v.FEC of 1st Amendment-protected speech from the money used to pay for the speech is unsupportable: because to the authors, the money and the speech are one and same. To them, if you have the money, you have the speech, or at least the right to the speech; if you don't have the money, you don't have the speech, or, in realistic terms you don't have the right to the speech. By conflating speech with money, and protecting both equally under the Constitution, the authors are affirming that speech can be purchased.
Yet any thing that can be purchased is NOT free.

So equating free speech with purchased speech the authors contend is valid argument.
Consequently, Freedom = Wealth.And those who have the wealth have the right to speech. Those who do not have the wealth do not have the right to speech.
Not only is their conflation wrong, but their affirmation of the Constitutionality of such conflation leads to even further obfuscation of what freedom represents: to the authors freedom involves having power, and wealth defines that power.
This is NOT the ultimate freedom of a document which sought to mitigate the invested power of those who would gain power and use it constantly to their own ends.....or maintain that power over the struggles of those who would attempt to nationalize it to entrust it the the democratic citizenry.


Their Constitution is one predicated on wealth, and property, and patriarchal rights, not on quaranteed freedoms regardless of wealth or gender.
And while I found myself agreeing at times with some of their conclusions which ran counter to my established thoughts, I was still bothered by a certain lack of empathy in the authors with those who are disenfranchised from political equality from long-running social patterns. At times, social reparations mean softening the rules to allow a greater participation for minority members. The hard-and-fast Constitutional interpretation the authors at times espouse does not recognise this: rather it is whoever got there first deserves to have the upper hand.

On the plus side, the authors are quite clearly on the side of the limitation of governmental intrusion into legitimate ownership, and particularly against expanding the governments' ability to use police force against those who are not a threat or whose actions have not put others at risk. The right to seize property when there is evidence of wrongdoing constitutes excessive and unConstitutional punishment according to the authors, and I agree wholeheartedly with them.

It is unfortunate that the current SC has completely sided with the authors in the case of Citizens United v Federal Election Commission and proclaimed that yes, indeed, money does equate to free speech while reaffirming that corporations are not only persons, but persons with greater freedom of speech, bigger persons than regular citizens who are only people persons.
I can only imagine that Roberts & Company read this book, at least the part dealing with McConnell v. FEC.

And we are poorer for it.

trying to run France with a constitution intended for the European Union
This is a great highly readable book (I read it on an airplane). Stepping back from the details one realizes that the founders of the U.S. envisioned something like the modern European Union: a unified currency but most laws that touched one's life would be made locally. A citizen would have one voice among perhaps 5 or 10 million, as indeed a citizen of Sweden does today.

Starting in the 1930s, however, the U.S. has been trending toward the highly centralized government of the states within the European Union, e.g., France or Sweden. Laws that touch a citizen of California's daily life are made 3000 miles away and the citizen has one voice among 310 million if he or she wishes to change the law.

If we want to run the U.S. like this in the long run, we should probably scrap the Constitution and make a new one that explicitly limits the powers of the states and gives most power to a central federal government. Then we could affirmative decide what we wanted the federal government to do, instead of having everything squeezed in via the interstate commerce clause. We might also rethink our system of divided responsibility and finger pointing between the president and Congress, moving toward the parliamentary system that prevails in most of the world's democracies.

If we want to run the U.S. in some manner that at least vaguely resembles the constitution, we should stop asking the federal government to run our lives, e.g., spending more than half of the health care dollars.

Where We Went Wrong
How did the US political machine grow to such proportions?
Why are their regulations in nearly every aspect of American life?
How did the true intentions and selective wording of the constitution become so distorted?
How did this all happen, and why was it done?

If you are looking for any of these answers you will find them in "The Dirty Dozen".

This was an educational enlightenment on the role the Supreme Court has played on shaping modern day politics over the past eight decades.Worded for those who work outside the legal field, the facts are provided and explained in an excellent effort to narratively show the progression of the political floodgates being opened.
... Read more

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That American forces should torture prisoners in their “war” on terror is disturbing, but more shocking still is that the highest officials of the Bush-Cheney administration planned, authorized, encouraged, and concealed these war crimes. When the Supreme Court ruled that the officials were bound by the Geneva Conventions, a Republican Congress responded by granting amnesty to all responsible, from lowly interrogators to the president, while conservative judges erected a wall of secrecy to protect them even from civil liability. Meanwhile, timid Democrats have shown little stomach for repealing the amnesty law and bringing those responsible to justice.

Many Americans, including those who endorsed torture to find “ticking bombs” that never were, are now embarrassed by credible reports of CIA kidnappings for purposes of torture, secret prisons into which prisoners have disappeared without a trace, and rigged tribunals to convict al Qaeda’s criminals on evidence obtained by torture. But the problem is not just embarrassment; it is the widespread acceptance of unaccountable, secret government that now threatens to destroy the very foundations of constitutional government. The moral standing of the United States will not be restored, Christopher Pyle argues, until a concerted effort is made to bring our secret government under the rule of law. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Fine study of the US state and torture
Christopher Pyle, who teaches constitutional law and civil liberties at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, has written a strong indictment of the US state's use of and connivance in torture.

He points out that there were 70 renditions before 9/11. Vice-President Gore said, "Of course it's a violation of international law; that's why it's a covert operation." There is no right to kidnap fugitives: extradition treaties were developed to stop illegal abductions by covert foreign agents.

Bush secretly authorised the CIA to kidnap suspected terrorists from European countries and turn them over for interrogation under torture to Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Morocco, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pyle comments, "That unprecedented development was strong evidence that the rule of law no longer mattered to American officials in power." Torture is a form of terrorism: it is illegal under US law and US military law. There were more than 150 renditions between 2001 and 2005.

He writes, "The old adage that `no man is above the law' is no longer valid. American courts, supported by three Republican attorneys general, have made it abundantly clear: high government officials who secretly authorize the kidnapping, torture, or murder of foreigners abroad cannot be prosecuted for the crimes the officials commit or sued for injuries they cause."

After 9/11, Congress authorised the President to use military force only against `those responsible for the recent attacks'. It did not license an endless `war against terrorism' or a limitless war against `States that harbour or support them' (as per John Yoo's Memo 25 September 2001). Under this absurd ruling, the USA could attack Britain.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said that the US treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay was `an intentional system of cruel, unusual, and degrading treatment and a form of torture'. As Pyle notes, "more than 90% of the men and boys tormented at Guantanamo Bay had not been captured in combat but had been sold to the United States for large bounties."

The CIA has or had secret prisons in Thailand, Afghanistan, Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Macedonia and Ukraine. Pyle comments, "the CIA made suspected terrorists `disappear', as if the United States were little more than a Latin American dictatorship. Many of these prisoners still have not been found."

He writes, "the torture, cruelty, and degradation revealed in those Abu Ghraib pictures were not merely the work of a few bad apples but were the result of a conscious policy of the Bush administration." The USA's highest officials `authorized, approved and encouraged the torture and degradation of suspected terrorists'.
Bush refused to grant POW status to captured Taliban fighters. Hitler's Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel refused to grant POW status to Soviet soldiers - he was hanged as a war criminal. Pyle proposes repealing the amnesty for Bush, Rice, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell and Tenet.

He sums up, "The United States is no longer a constitutional government under law. Thanks to helpful legislators and judges, its president is now an elected monarch who can, if he chooses, commit criminal acts with impunity. He need not think of himself as a constitutional officer pledged to uphold the Constitution and laws against all enemies, foreign and domestic. He can operate like an Afghan warlord with legions of kidnappers, covert paramilitary units, and clandestine prisons at his disposal.

"At the moment, no one has any timely or effective legal protection against this warlord. Neither Congress nor the courts is disposed to confront this elected monarch until the terrorist threat, which the Republican Party has recklessly striven to make perpetual, has passed.

"As a result, the United States is in the worst constitutional crisis in its history. Many of the wrongs for which the American colonists went to war in 1776 now pale in comparison to the crimes the Bush administration committed. Even during the bitter Civil War, neither side instituted a policy of torture."

Masterful!
Mr. Pyle presents a masterful overview of the legal subterfuge perpetrated by the culture of torture.His erudition conveys how profoundly contradictory to our legal and historical heritage the policy of torture really was.The sadism that became pervasive through out this campaign of revenge was only matched by the astuteness of the perpetrators in making sure that they were able to get away with their crimes.The individuals involved in these crimes against humanity knew full well that their actions provided no positive outcome within our historical framework, yet they nevertheless continued with their agenda.The futile policy for me exhibits both the paradox of their behavior and the social pathology that infected our government officials.It is difficult reading the book at times because a state of hopelessness begins to press upon you as you come to realize that these individuals involved in the torture-matrix are going to carry out their monstrous agenda and get away with it.Mr. Pyle is a perfect example of a man who clearly demonstrates that there are still sane people in this country and good and conscientious attorneys.At the end of the book Mr. Pyle comments on how another book needs to be written on illegal surveillance. I would strongly recommend writing one if he is so inclined.He would be providing us all a great service if he did write one.

For further reading on this subject I would recommend Alfred McCoy's book "A Question of Torture" which provides a further testament to just how wide spread and pervasive this culture of torture really is. In my opinion, this culture has infected many institutions in this country and many private citizens show remarkable skill in the use of the "no-touch" torture developed by the CIA. ... Read more

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Project finance is used to build projects such as large-scale energy, infrastructure, toll roads, ethanol, and recycling projects, as well as many others.Project finance requires careful analysis and structuring of a wide variety of risks.This completely updated third edition addresses these risks and their resolution, and details the necessary elements of a successful project financing.Mirroring the structure of an actual project finance deal, this all-in-one handbook examines each step of the process. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An extremely valuable book for project finance professionals
Although this book is meant to be an introduction to the world of project finance, it serves as a comprehensive primer / reference guide on the subject. Importantly, it contains valuable case studies of the real projects written in language everyone can understand. Highly recommended.

Part I. An Introduction to Project Finance: 1. An introduction to project finance;
Part II. Risk Identification, Allocation, and Mitigation: 2. Project finance risks; 3. Project finance cross-border risks; 4. Project finance commercial risks;
Part III. Project Finance Structures: 5. Project finance participants and their roles; 6. Project finance structures; 7. Selecting the project finance ownership structure; Part IV. Technical, Political, and Economic Feasibility: 8. The feasibility study and needs assessment; 9. Host country business environment for project finance; 10. Economic feasibility; 11. Environmental regulation and environmental feasibility of the project;
Part V. Project Finance Documentation: 12. An overview of project documentation; 13. Representations and warranties in project finance credit agreements and contracts; 14. Preliminary host country agreements; 15. Construction contracts; 16. Input contracts; 17. Operation and maintenance agreements; 18. Project finance off-take sales contracts; 19. Power sales agreements;
Part VI. Credit Enhancement: 20. Project finance credit enhancement;
Part VII. Debt and Equity Financing: 21. Financing sources for the project; 22. The offering memorandum; 23. Project finance debt commitment letters; 24. Credit and related documentation for project finance transactions; 25. Export credits documentation for project finance transactions;
Part VIII. Collateral: 26. Project collateral;
Part IX. Project Sponsor and Investor Agreements: 27. Governing the project company: stockholder, partnership, joint venture, and management agreements;
Part X. Special Topics in Project Finance: 28. Bankruptcy; 29. United States laws affecting foreign investments; 30. Local lawyers and overview of local laws; 31. Dispute resolution in project finance transactions; 32. Multilateral agency prohibitions on anticompetitive activity; 33. Merchant facilities: project finance without contractually-assured revenue flows;

Selected bibliography; Glossary of project finance terms; Checklist of due diligence considerations for project financing. ... Read more

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Local Government Law provides an overview of the operations and the inter-relationships of the various levels of government in this country, with the emphasis on local units. First, there is a discussion of local governmental units. Attention is then turned to the forms of government within such units. The text goes on to cover the relationship of local governments to the state and federal; local units, including the units, powers, limitations on those powers, and forms local legislative action may take; the three most important ingredients in the local government-territory, people, and money; the activities of local government; and finally, means for holding local governments liable and/or making them responsive to their citizens.In each of the 31 chapters, an effort has been made to discuss those topics most often covered in law school courses in Local Government Law. Reynold's Local Government Law provides an exhaustive, yet single-volume, treatment of the development of American law of local government, the current laws, the major existing problems, and the discernible trends. ... Read more

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The first five editions of this well established book were written by Colin Turpin. This new edition has been prepared jointly by Colin Turpin and Adam Tomkins. This edition sees a major restructuring of the material, as well as a complete updating. New developments such as the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 and recent case law concerning the sovereignty of Parliament, the Human Rights Act, counter-terrorism and protests against the Iraq War, among other matters, are extracted and analysed. While it includes extensive material and commentary on contemporary constitutional reform, Turpin and Tomkins is a book that covers the historical traditions and the continuity of the British constitution as well as the current tide of change. All the chapters contain detailed suggestions for further reading. Designed principally for law students the book includes substantial extracts from parliamentary and other political sources, as well as from legislation and case law. As such it is essential reading also for politics and government students. Much of the material has been reworked and with its fresh design the book provides a detailed yet accessible account of the British constitution at a fascinating moment in its ongoing development. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

British Government and the Constitution
British Government and the Constitution: Text and Materials (Law in Context)

The Constitution of the United Kingdom: A Contextual Analysis (Constitutional Systems of the World)

This is one of the best books on UK's concept of constitutionalism. It deals with everything that one must know to understand the subject. As a text book, it deals with all nuances of constitutional politics that an academiic must be interested to know. The paraphas in boxed, especially of the great constitutional thinkers, judges and others, help the readers know the background of most of the topics included in it. For me, it was a great work updating all about what happended in this area in the United Kingdom since the last ten years - especially the changes brought about by the Constitutional Reform Act of 2005. I must say it has helped me a lot as a foreign lawyer. ... Read more

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This acclaimed dictionary is the most comprehensive of its kind, with over 4,200 concise, informative entries on all aspects of English law, with 200 entries new to this volume. The Dictionary defines all the major terms, concepts, processes, and organization of the legal system - with new coverage of important recent legislation and expanded coverage of criminology and law enforcement. International in scope, the book includes terms taken from European law, international law, human rights law, and environmental law. This edition offers highlighted feature entries that discuss key topics in detail, such as adoption law or the Terrorism Act. There is a useful Writing and Citation Guide that specifically addresses problems and established conventions for writing legal essays and reports and the book features entry-level web links which are accessed and kept up to date via the Dictionary of Law companion website. This classic dictionary is an invaluable source of legal reference for lawyers, law students, and anyone else needing succinct clarification of legal terms. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

decent
Should have more american law entries.I guess I should have realized that considering it was published by Oxford.

Oxford Dictionary of Law
As for the dictionary itself, it's really good. Contains lots of information useful for any lawyer civil or criminal or etc. Contains any term you might need to know in law. So for it's content I'd give it 5 stars. But the reason I gave 3 stars is that the edition quality really dissapointed me. The paper quality is very poor - I honestly didn't expect this. If the paper quality gets better, for it's content, dictionary definitely deserves 5 stars. ... Read more

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An authoritative assessment of the new laws of war and a sensible and sophisticated roadmap for the future of liberty in the Age of Terror

America is losing a crucial front in the ongoing war on terror. It is losing not to Al Qaeda, but to its own failure to construct a set of laws that will protect the American people during this global conflict. As debate continues to rage over the legality and ethics of war, Benjamin Wittes enters the fray with a sober-minded exploration of law in wartime that is definitive, accessible, and nonpartisan. Outlining how this country came to its current impasse over human rights and counterterrorism, Law and the Long War paves the way toward fairer, more accountable rules for a conflict without end. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Law and the Long War
While still an avid Bush-hater, after reading this book, my views are tempered with a better understanding of the laws of war, the difficulty of meting out justice to terrorists and the reasons why one might be tempted to implement a national security court.The book is a non-partisan, thoughtful analysis of these topics and I highly recommend it.

A Tough Topic to Broach
The law of terrorism is a difficult topic to broach, no matter what your political affiliation, and given the history of the last eight years since 9/11, it has become even more difficult.However, even as a non-lawyer, Wittes provides some interesting and compelling ideas.His evaluation of what has happened provides engaging discussion of not only how the Congress and President Bush have tried to grapple with the new and difficult issues presented by terror in a globalized world.Terrorists don't fall under the normal classifications of enemy soldiers, who are acting as instruments of the state, nor do they quite seem to qualify as criminals, and therefore for all the rights and procedures that come with the US criminal procedure regime.

SO what system of law do you apply?Obviously, detainees for terrorism cannot be kept incommunicado indefinitely, but neither can they be treated as common criminals.A hybrid system?And lead by whom: the executive or the Congress?And why hasn't the judiciary taken a more leading role in preserving the basic human rights of detainees.

No easy answers, but Wittes does a good job of examining what has happened to date, and what might be the course of action Congress (who he believes should take the lead) might take in the future to remedy some of the failings of the Bush Administration.

Best Book on Enemy Combatant Legal Issues
This is the best currently available treatment of the legal issues attendant to holding and interrogating prisoners in the war on terror.It stakes out a middle road between unchecked executive autonomy and unworkable judicial review.It benefits from detailed examination of actual evidence and the stories of many detainees, to make the point that our standard criminal justice system is not capable of dealing with terrorists presenting an imminent danger, captured on foreign soil, but that an unchecked executive branch system will likewise result in unacceptable error in detaining some individuals who do not present a threat.The solution is clear and workable standards imposed by the Legislative branch, as noted by another reviewer.

Law and the Long War
First rate logic.The author has wrapped a very keen mind around a very difficult subject area and produced a highly readable book that is nothing less than a public service.

Read this book, if you wish, but only after you anaesthetize your conscience.
It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that occasionally, a creature is born with a face that only a mother could love. If we extend this premise to the world of books, it is quite easy to understand and accept that occasionally, a book is published - a book which only a lawyer could adore. Written mostly in legalese, in prose stripped of elegance and charm and the innate splendor of the English language, reading this book was for me an experience akin to having a literary nightmare.

I know that several professional reviewers have written glowing reviews of this book; and the fact that the author is a lawyer has prompted me to write with utmost care and use a great deal of caution, and to think clearly before putting words on paper and, above all, to be fair.

Even though the publisher of this book states emphatically that "Benjamin Wittes offers the first nonpartisan critique of a crucial front in America's war on terror," and several reviewers have praised the author's "refreshingly nonpartisan perspective", it is possible, never the less, to see through the thicket of verbiage and to discern and understand where the author's sympathy lies, and where exactly he stands in the matter of the reprehensible torture and unspeakable horrors that the detainees have endured in Guantanamo Bay prisons: in Dick Chaney's yard, fist-bumping with the Vice President. I was quite shocked to read also that the author believes that many of the administration's nefarious deeds were far more defensible than its critics believed, and that he thinks the unconscionable deeds of the Bush administration, the deeds that shocked even our allies in the UK, France and Germany, actually warranted congressional support!

Mr. Wittes states that terrorism is fundamentally different from all other crimes, since it "involves horrors on an altogether different scale." And he believes that we owe dramatically less judicial protection to nonresident aliens than to U.S. citizens, even if the aliens are held incommunicado, in long-term military detention, without any charges against them. "No society can afford inviolable principles and inflexible rules concerning those steps on which its ultimate fate or interests depend," he states.

This is what he has written regarding his opinion on torture: "The stark reality is that absent an interrogation tactic that "shocks the conscience," Hoess--like his colleague Josef Mengele--might well have escaped justice, Nuremberg lost an important witness, and history denied his crucial accounts of the factory where more than a million people died. If the tactic--and the absence of any judicial review of its use--does not suddenly seem more defensible, you have proven yourself both a principled opponent of abusive interrogation and truly committed to judicial oversight of legally dicey wartime practices."

In his review of this book, Professor CURTIS A. BRADLEY, Professor of Law and Professor of Public Policy Studies at Duke University, has written(Foreign Affairs, July/Aug 2008):"Yet when it comes to the issue of torture, Wittes appears to waver in his approach. He makes clear that he supports the interrogation tactic that the British used in 1946 with the wife of Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, in which they threatened to send her sons to a country where they would likely be killed."

I felt a deep sense of revulsion as I read this book, and then I was quite shocked. Read "Law and The Long War", if you wish, but only after you anaesthetize your conscience.

... Read more

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Copyright laws of 22 Middle East and Arabic Countries ... Read more

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"And the serpent case out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman and went to make war with her . . . to devour her." -- Revelation 12:15-17 and 12:4.The Endtime Beast is a system of law borrowed from the law of the sea implemented inland so that the "ecclesia" (the remnant) are forced into earnest demonstration.This system of law is patterned after the maritime trust that transfers the commercial interests of the people, called "suretyship," to alien strangers wherein commerce knows no bounds and is typified by a flood.The woman is non other than the real true bona fide seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob -- their progeny of today. ... Read more

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The New York Times bestselling author of America's Dumbest Criminals takes on the Feds on this unofficial guide to the hilarious screw-ups the government doesn't want anyone to know about: i.e. a federal computer once listed everyone in Hartford, Connecticut, as dead and 80,000 buttons promoting safety were recalled because they were small enough to be swallowed, the pin was too sharp, and the paint was toxic. 20 line drawings. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Well, first of all, it's not like you can't find funny and foolish things that state, local, and federal government officials do just by opening a newspaper or a news website. That being said, it's also nice to keep a volume of direct-to-the-point examples of this foolishness by one's bedside as a great way to go to bed entertained. Filled with quotes and stories, this is a great chuckle and a definite way to bring your mood up.

Mike Saxton, Author of "7 Scorpions: Rebellion"

Leland Gregory Hits Yet Another Home Run

After reading a string of Gregory's previous works I truly began to wonder who else he might successfully pick on. Fortunately - or, perhaps sadly - our government makes for a terrific followup target. One can scarcely fault the author for insulting those brave men & women who help shape American society - for they do indeed provide tons of ammunition to be used against them.

Like many excellent works, "Great Government Goofs" is entirely capable of making the reader laugh AND cry, often at the same time. As a medical professional, I was already aware that "death by Coke machine" was a legitimate category for military KIAs. I am certainly glad to know there are states where it's only legal to take a picture of a rabbit "in season." But learning that the Pentagon spends $8,612 per second? Well, that's downright scary.

Author Gregory has another hit on his shelf with this one. As a medical researcher, I now realize there is at least one other profession as prone to outrageous behavior as medical maniacs. Thanks, Leland, for the great research.

Goofy and Funny! A quick enjoyable read.
90 Snazzes on the 100 Point Snazz-o-Scale.

Great Government Goofs is a thoroughly enjoyable book. I don't give it a perfect 100 only because some of the author's little jokes don't work. But many do. And the stories themselves will leave you stunned and amazed, outraged, laughing, and shaking your head in disbelief.

Great Government Goofs tells many ridiculous tales of our Government in action. Or inaction. From silly quotes by politicians. To colossal wastes of time, money, and manpower on ridiculous studies. To just out and out stupidity.

The illustrations by Scott Stantis are few but very well done and funny.

The author also wrote "America's Dumbest Criminals." I thought Mister Gregory shouldhave called this book "America's Dumbest Criminals Part Two," for all the politicians in this book are absolute crooks.

Here's an example: "The Pentagon spends $8,612 per second, about $271.6 BILLION a year." And that was ten years ago!

I hope the author does another book like this, for surely the government has become a lot stupider.

Easy reading.
I'm not crazy about the format of this book, but it's an interesting skimmable "bathroom reader" sure to make you chuckle (sadly) at the state of things. Heard this author interviewed - very credible, interesting guy.

Funny
This is a hilarious look at our country's leaders and their "human side".Mistakes are common place for most of us and our government has made a lot of big ones!A fast and easy read. ... Read more