and we thought what a great addition to this program to have dick wesley talk about that. so with that, here he is, judge richard wesley. [ applause ] >> my presence here tonight is the result of a conversation that i had with albert about four months ago when he was telling me about coming and talking about lincoln and i got all excited about it, because i think most of us who end up judging become somewhat interested in history, because we're always taken into the historic context of the cases or the cases that we look to for guidance. so i got to immediately said to al, that's an interesting thing, because when i was involved with padilla versus rumsfeld, argued in october of 2003, one of the first cases in the united states to begin to examine the president's war powers and the joint resolution for the authorization for the use of force of september 15, 2001, i started babbling on about merriman and milligan. and al says this is great, you'll be terrific. you can do the final close and do it with no notes, because i was just rambling on. well, like john walker and like