I'll slip in some interesting misc. items below that you won't see elsewhere... but first there's the most obvious potential failure mode for our entire civilization, that's being pushed hard by vile men...
Pay attention when Kremlin-lackey traitors like Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort and Steve Bannon rave about violence being the next step, if they don't win it all.
The closer we come to ending this madness at the ballot box, the more desperate will be those who see this as their only way out.
== Better late than never? ==
Gen. John Kelly, former chief of staff for Donald Trump, offered his harshest criticism yet of the former president with on-the-record confirmation of a number of damning stories about statements Trump made behind closed doors, attacking U.S. service members and veterans.
“A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family – for all Gold Star families – on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.”
Kelly continues: “A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women,” Kelly continued. “A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason – in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.
“There is nothing more that can be said. God help us.”
It isn't just Trump dismissing those heroes buried at a D-Day/Normandy cemetrery as "suckers and losers of course. In fact, the entire modern Republican Party now wages all-out war vs ALL fact-using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.
Still, thanks, Gen. Kelly. Better late than never, I guess. But is it all that helpful?
Nah. Our gone-brownshirt neighbors will shrug off any one... or two, or ten... such fellows as traitors. As Defectors from righteousness who fooled their saintly former casino mafioso boss and betrayed him.
So? Then make that the issue! How easily he was fooled.
Show your MAGA the long, long list of appointees - each of whom Trump formerly called "a great, terrific guy!!" - who later joined the long list of those denouncing him. At least a hundred former 'great guys,' who DT now call "terrible!"
It's a list far longer than ALL previous U.S. presidents... combined. He himself says so "No one was ever betrayed as much as me!"
Agree with that!. Then follow up with this killer:
"Completely aside from all policies and party loyalties, and all the rest...
...doesn't that long list of those he appointed and later denounced prove one thing with absolute perfection?
"That Donald Trump is a lousy judge of character?"
== Reid Hoffman dishes on Rich Fools ==
Some rich dopes recently raised millions of dollars in support of Donald Trump, helping a known monster under the theory that somehow it will work out for them personally. Tech maven and brilliant investor/speaker Reid Hoffman wrote a by-invitation essay in The Economist explaining their error.
“American business should not empower a criminal, says Reid Hoffman: No rational CEO would want a capricious strongman in the White House, argues the entrepreneur.”
Reid’s denunciation of such rich fools is cogent, incisive and worth your time! It is also far more polite than I would be.
In fact, I have observed that fanatics of the entire Mad Right (and the loopy farthest Left) are all effectively immunized against mere argument. They are immune because the trend in lobotomizing modern cultism is to dismiss ALL assertions as equivalent. All assertions are just battling incantations that bear no relationship to objective reality.
In other words:
“You assert something and I assert something… and those incantation assertions cancel each other out! I believe you are delusional… and you think that of me.
"Hence we are left undisturbed – both of us – in our beloved smug assurance, while nothing at all can ever be disproved.”
Read that again. It is exactly the deal, the arrangement between left and right, screaming at each other, while leaving in place a tacit arrangement of reciprocal sanctimony addiction.
Alas, we can’t afford this deal, anymore. Especially since allowing political polemic to be left in that condition gives the Putinist/fascist/commie/confederate cult an advantage that they should be denied. (And also the far smaller and less harmful, but still-noxious loopies of the very-far-left.)
There must be a way to FORCE comparison of the factual verifiability/falsifiability of assertions!
== One method works... and no one will try it ==
Of course… you all know that I have pushed (in utter futility) just such a technique, one that worked well for our ancestors, for centuries. Anchoring fact-checkability in actual CONSEQUENCES that blowhards fear most. And here I am referring specifically to the aristocratic fools addressed by Reid Hoffman.
What'd work, making them flee in shame, is to demand actual cash wagers over explicitly verifiable/falsifiable facts! Truly explicit true-or-false assertions, like:
Which party has better economic outcomes across the last 40 years of administrations.
Which party has a record of being far more fiscally responsible re debt.
Which party supports US science.
Which party has forty times the rate of high officials indicted and convicted for felonies, including child predation.
Which party wages all-out war vs ALL fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.
This list goes on and on... assertions that are absolutely fact-checkable with utter explicitness. (In 1st comment, below, I will append a further list of fact verifiable wager demands.)
Moreover, the cash wager aspect is crucial! Because it focuses on actual consequences, instead of blowhard incantations.
Of course there’s another thing Reid could demand of his delusionally GOP-supporting peers. Have them watch the last 5 minutes of the movie CABARET and then ask the following question (uttered by Michael York in the film) about today's aristocratic fools, supporting brownshirt MAGAS:
"So, you still think you can control them?"
== What happens if the masters grow desperate? ==
And finally... Vladimir Putin appears eager to rewrite the past. Recently, he... signed a decree rendering the sale of Alaska to the U.S. illegal!
Like declaring void all treaties guaranteeing Ukrainian independence... or merging Soviet flags and emblems with the Czarist escutcheons that his younger self ritualistically spat on, back when he was an 'idealistic' Leninist KGB agent. Only now he and his fellow 5000 "ex" commissars wear different lapel pins and raise statues to Nicholas II, whom Lenin 'righteously' murdered.
And you wonder where Orwell got his ideas for the Ministry of Truth?
It's all very chuckle-worthy. Till tou wonder... what happens when Vlad starts getting desperate? Faced with astonishing and devastating losses at the battlefront and plummeting morale. he speaks often and with passion about the Soldier's Revolt of 1917 that toppled the Czar and brought Lenin to power. And he speaks of that event with a rising sense of dread, now frantic to evade the same fate.
He has one great hope.... the November US election. Hence, it must be with horror and dismay that he sees his favorite tool, Donald Trump, rapidly deteriorate, before the world's eyes.
No one is talking about what the secret masters of the gone-undead Republican Party might do about Donald Trump, if it looks like their asset is dragging down down their prospects in 2024. But we must consider what they might do, in order to salvage their situation... by eliminating the liability in such a way that advances their central goal. Their core goal of dissolving the United States into chaos and self-immolation.
One approach would be the "Howard Beale Option"... referring to the last 5 minutes of another great film... NETWORK. In other words, martyrdom... get rid of your asset-turned-liability and blame the dems, inciting a volcano of McVeighs, burning and destroying across the land. A win-win for Putin and the casino mafiosi and others in that anti-enlightenment Cabal.
Hence I recite this mantra, again and again:
“God bless the United States Secret Service. Stay on your toes, guys.
"Keep him safe.”
187 comments:
Dr Brin in previous comments:
I have lost track of what you are talking about LH. Perhaps it's senility.
I meant this bit:
"I'd send him $500 if he'd bow out of the race."
How about offering ME that as wager stakes - with odds - whether he makes it to November?
While check the front page every day to see whether the sunovabitch I'm looking for has died, I honestly don't expect it to happen. The universe just doesn't do what I want that often. So I'm willing to take that bet and offer $500 that says DJT will still be alive on November 5. For whatever odds you think is fair.
I just want to make sure that "Trump survives through election day" is actually the terms of the bet that we'd be agreeing to.
Well, the SS managed to keep Pres. Obama alive for eight years. I thought that was a miracle. I'm actually more worried about rumpt's personal medical staff. It may be easier for a doctor to kill someone through omission that an assassin to do it through commission, and TIFG (the Indicted Former Guy) has an unhealthy lifestyle with stress-laden chickens coming home to roost, no matter what his genes may say.
Nevertheless, I'd lay $50 on TIFG surviving til Nov 5 in a condition that is distinguishable from comatose. After Tue all bets are off.
I haven't had much converse with the MAGA world of late, but I wonder what they respond to the question - "Why did so few of rumpt's family come to support him at his trial?"
PUTIN is certainly praying, if he actually does pray, for rumpt's health. His own longevity may be linked to whether rumpt can extricate him from his 'short victorious war'.
Pappenheimer
Hi Larry
I would not take your bet as it's not something that we disagree on!
We both would be "in favour" of the Orange one surviving until after the election.
The sort of thing that I would bet on against a political opponent are outcomes or actions - number of laws passed or the effects of those laws.
The survival of the Orange Cockwomble - is betting on the competence of the SS
45 surviving to the election is one thing, inauguration is another. Personally I strongly hope he just loses the election and lives long enough to be convicted (if guilty)* of all the other charges he is facing. It would be nice for the rule of law to be reaffirmed with gusto.
*I say 'if' because all I know is what I am told via intermediaries. I am in no position to 'know' if he is guilty. I strongly believe he is guilty, but that's up to a jury.
duncan cairncross:
I would not take your bet as it's not something that we disagree on!
I was accepting Dr Brin's wager on whether Trump survives to the election. At least that's how I interpreted the potential terms.
I know he also said "Duncan is correct", but I'm not sure how a bet would work on that. There's no control experiment for whether a different Republican fares better than Trump would have in a theoretical election.
We both would be "in favour" of the Orange one surviving until after the election.
Not at all. I'm like the guy in the 1930s cynical joke that my brother made me aware of. "When the sunovabitch I'm looking for dies, it will be on the front page!" Because I think the only thing that could possibly break the MAGA fever is for the cult leader to be unavailable for comment.
But I don't think it will happen. I'm willing to put up wager stakes because winning will somewhat (though only slightly) offset the disappointment. In fact, I'd be happier losing such a bet than winning.
arborman:
45 surviving to the election is one thing, inauguration is another.
The bet I'm willing to take is that he survives through the election. Where I disagree with duncan is that I don't think another Republican is more likely to win than DJT. If he's "Howard Beale"-ed after winning the election, we'd get another Republican president by default, one who wasn't tested in that cauldron. In that scenario, I agree with duncan that a more competent Republican would be dangerous.
I'm not betting on what happens after the election. "The sum of the angles of that rectangle are too numerous to contemplate."*
* speaketh Commissioner Gordon in the 1960s Batman
I'm a furriner - so no direct stakes in the game and no direct experience with today's American voters.
BUT
My belief is that a significant percentage of Americans are dopey enough to vote Republican but also smart enough NOT to vote for Trump or "his party".
Those people will flood back to the GOP after Trump dies.
IMHO Trump is just the symptom - the "illness" is todays GOP.
America needs to have a proper landslide election to enable the Dems to FIX a lot of the crap.
Even if the Dems are very right wing compared to people like me
Putin isnt desperate at all. Just because you think it so, doesnt make it so. "I think, therefore it is" isnt a good philosophy to operate on
Ukrainian casualties are 5 times those of Russia. Its in ukraine where recruiters are being killed by locals, in Ukraine where housewives are being payed to turn in their husbands who avoid the draft, and in Ukraine where amputees and young men with downs syndrome are forced into the trenches. Its in Ukraine where the military admitted their men are now "being trained at the front".
The solution of course is to allow Ukraine to settle for peace, take our lumps and learn from our mistakes. But the colonial overlords of American Manchukuo and their bizarrely psychopathic cheerleaders here in the American Empire and its vassal states want to drag things out until the next election at least, in the vain hope some miracle can happen.
They have fixed their identity to this struggle, and turned what was a border dispute into an existential struggle they will, barring a black swan event, lose. And in losing it, the entire western liberal order, already rotting under the weight of economic decline, creeping totalitarianism and social disintegration will be shaken to its core.
Meanwhile the stupid blundering of our semiliterate and a-historical elite class has given rise to a nightmare scenario where Russia is forging a military association with two of its four natural and historical rivals..china and Iran, and now Saudi Arabia will likely not renew the agreement that established the petrodollar.
(Better buy boomer rocks, you might need it.)
But of course despite Democratic dominance of the managerial class, academy, tech lords, mediacrats, NGOs and 3 letter agencies this is all the fault of MAGA deplorables.
Our Kremlin troll is back with his complete bollocks as usual
Who left himself an Out:
“barring a black swan event”
Dr. Brin,
You mention false equivalences when you say " lobotomizing modern cultism is to dismiss ALL assertions as equivalent. All assertions are just battling incantations that bear no relationship to objective reality."
That's the BigLie, that BothSidesDoIt™. The media is the biggest propagator of the BigLie, because the media is interested in selling advertisements and raking in cash. To rake in the most cash, you want to pretend to be a fair arbiter while also not upsetting the most amount of customers as possible.
You also mention that cash wagers could objectively qualify fact vs fiction.
All that remains is a platform and format to turn the objectification of politics into something that is entertaining and definitive.
You've got the resources and I'm sure there are thousands of people willing to help with research and production. And you know there are thousands of people with more cash than sense who would be willing to make fools of themselves and lose their money all to defend their cult.
Hell, let's invoke Adam Smith and really get out in front with the defense of capitalism as a way to truly optimize society, and society can only be optimized if objective observable reality can be delineated. Cash wagers is one way to punch oligarchs and their collaborators where it hurts, and perhaps the last way in which we can save society from the BigLie that oligarchs are harnessing to steal the last bits of wealth from everyone else.
Speaking of raving Kremlin trolls, see this guy... and his map of a Man in the High Castle partition of America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Panarin?
Same as Pappenheimer... when suggesting a future event that NO ONE else is talking about, ten to one odds seem fair. Willing to pay $50 if (as seems likely) if I prove wrong. OTOH I am not joyous about taking $500 from LH in profit over another human's demise. (Perhaps still alive and on ballots, but no longer deemed the viable alternative to Biden or likely to take office.)
Note however, the only fellow with the GUTS to take me up on a wager dare is a freaking liberal! The very most hypocritical trait of MAGAs is that they are ALL cowardly weenies. (see below)
" Where I disagree with duncan is that I don't think another Republican is more likely to win than DJT. If he's "Howard Beale"-ed after winning the election, we'd get another Republican president by default, one who wasn't tested in that cauldron."
If he names Haley or another Bushite as VP, his chances of subsequent survival are very slim, having terrified the aristos with talk of another Night of the Long Knives. He must pick someone who is life insurance, and thus unhelpful with the middle.
Duncan is right in all respects. The Pelosi 2021-22 bills saved the nation... but on an interim basis. (Get any frippy lefty preeners you know to actually see those bills and what they did.). But another round is absolutely needed. This time ending gerrymandering and other cheats and showing John Roberts he needs to sever his ties to Moscow.
--------
"Ukrainian casualties are 5 times those of Russia".
OMG what a raving, pyrotechnically masturbating delusional Kremlin boy! Hysterical. His cult's enemies list is identical to Putin - who called the fall of the USSR 'history's worst tragedy'. And hence Ronald Reagan woulda spit in his eye.
Putin's 5000 "ex" commissars - with new lapel pins - now control a US quisling cult that has driven ALL fact professions out of the GOP, leaving a masturbation circle jerk across the old confederacy and the idiocracy.
Oh, for the rest of you, not the cultist. Dig one thing... Since October, Ukrainian military doctrine has been to "lure, pound and then retreat a hundred meters... repeat." Trding slivers of land for massive Russian casualties. There is absolutely no way that such a method, skillfully executed, can disproportionately lead to higher DEFENDER casualties. Given Putin's frantic meat assaults - no longer backed by armor - EVERY credible analyst gives the very opposite casualty estimates.
Of course they flee from wager demands, crying over their shoulders that there are NO credible persons to adjudicate such bets. Certainly not retired members of the senior military officer corps... hated by Vlad.
Cinesias I appreciate your comments about Adam Smith and especially my (alas rare) project to get the left to abandon hatred of the word 'competition' and the right to abandon its hatred of fairness/flatness and the 'regulation' needed to achieve flat-fair/creative competition.
Alas, if I read you right, you seem to be asserting that I believe fact-evasion is equal on both sides. I have made it very clear that one 'side' is desperately and volcanically attacking even the very concept of 'facts.,' waging all-out war vs ALL fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.
Meanwhile the other GENERAL side includes all fact-using professions.
Alas, our 'Union" side in this civil War INCLUDES a wing that hates facts just as billiously in favor of masturbatory sanctimony incantations. The difference is that our livid sanctimony junkies do not control a major party, nor will they EVER control the USA. They do tremendous harm with their frippy behaviors that then serve Foxites every evening. "See? ALL libverals are like THOSE jibbering morons!"
But no, my point in this essay was more subtle. Even the sane MAJORITY of the blue coalition have given up on any possibility that facts can be used AGAINST the MAGA madness. They assume the mad right is wholly immunized against refutation... and yes, they are... mostly... UNLESS a silver bullet is found that penetrates such armor.
I believe I found that bullet.. One that actually works, terrifying the confederate incantation cultists. In my experience, it sends them into utter panic... and no liberal to my knowledge... except Robert Reich and a couple of others... will ever, ever, try it.
BTW here's Jon Stewart BRILLIANTLY pointing much of this out and calling the Courts the last place where you have to actually prove things. I was delighted... and also angry! Because there is another.
It's called science.
You were warned.
Far Right wins bigly in EU parliamentary elections...
Macron dissolves French National Assembly, invalidating all of his pro-NATO promises, Le Pen gives victory speech.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Best
Dr. Brin,
I definitely know you're not a BothSidesDoIt™ champion.
I was just pointing out that the media is the reason the BothSidesDoIt™ BigLie is the default setting of modern US politics, at least for people who aren't paying attention. Horserace coverage is going to favor a sterile "he said, she said" version of modern politics because the media is interested in cash, not truth. And the people not paying attention aren't paying attention because there isn't a fast and easy way to see which side is packing facts.
Sure, there are people on the left who believe crazy things, but they run blogs that might influence up to 8 or 9 daily readers. They can be safely ignored, as you say, since they don't control anything. Meanwhile, the entire right-wing including sitting Senators, Representatives, and Supreme Court Justices believe that a Strongman is OK as long as it's their Strongman. Liberal vs Conservative craziness will never be an apples-to-apples comparison.
I think you have the ability to mobilize people who read your blog and read your books into a force to change minds of people who still have minds capable of change. It just needs a platform like Youtube (or others), and a format that is entertaining enough to hold the attention of the Changeable Mind Class (I'm not sure there's really a "middle class" with binding features anymore).
Platform, format, and using cash wagers. Calling out the loudmouths that are easily identifiable on TikTok, Instagram, Youtube, etc., with cash wagers that can be easily tracked via visible online things such as Venmo, acting as a clear transparent escrow. That kind of thing. A lot of right-wing bullies would ignore the wagers, but there are enough of them that wouldn't, that would provide a very entertaining introduction to reality...all out in the open and visible to the public.
I guess it'd be similar to a business venture, but the proceeds that would be won by you versus the cultists could go to charities...and again, competition through cash wagers and transparency via any number of online escrow accounts that viewers could see in real time would be the way to prove, definitively, that there are observably objective facts...and that those facts are antithetical to what the right claims as the reality they are merely reacting to.
Just a thought. And I'd love to see it live.
Barring a black swan event.
MAGA's new message to the cult: Let's be like Europe!
Duncan Cairncross, 100% with ya, Mate! I'm also a "furriner".
Here's my FB comment on David Brin's Post and a comment thread:
David Brin - one typo: "Till tou wonder...". Other than that, great food for thought, but I still don't think it is possible to reason (or argue) with the irrational, cash wager or not. That is the tactical mistake that those who typically vote Democrat make, wondering 'Why?' anyone would support/vote for Trump when virtually 💯% of everything about him is false, a lie, and criminal. And those are his good qualities. Well, I assert that it is simply because they do Not think, only feel. And anger is the greatest motivator of our survival oriented limbic system. I am 🇨🇦 and can be a little more objective as our politics on the right would barely fit into the US socialist-left, near Bernie Sanders territory. If you have any experience with Canada, you know what I mean. So, what are Democrats to do about it? For one, stop giving Republicans ammunition: stay in the center and dismiss your own extremists. AOC, the Squad, anything Clinton. Obama has been prudent to avoid sticking his head up and content to rake in the Netflix bucks. Then there are real issues, like the border. Wtf was all that about closing it once 2,500 people arrive, and only re-opening it when it drops to 1,500? Is Biden just asking to be defeated in November, by Democrat voters? Anyone who lives in a city, including those well away from the border, is more than tired of asylum seekers. Canada craves centrism too, yet we are following in a very watered down way, the polarization of left-right politics. No one is being reasonable because they listen to their highly vocal fringe. There used to be a term, The Silent Majority, that one does not hear any more, perhaps because it was most closely identified with Nixon and his 1968 landslide victory. It existed then, and it exists now - believe it or not - and is quite possibly a plurality of citizens, meaning that if it were tapped into by any political leader, they would likely win an election. The lunatic fringe can either be absorbed, as the Tea Party has been into the Republican Party, or eliminated, as the Democrats should do with their extreme left flank. Men have periods? Trans males (at birth) in female change rooms, and competing in women's sports? Endless PRIDE month into eternity? I choose the fascist dictator who will stomp that shit right out and end all the woke bullshit, even if he has to destroy the country to do it, Thank You very much. Which is the conclusion you came to, Mr. Brin, in your analysis
Dr Brin:
OTOH I am not joyous about taking $500 from LH in profit over another human's demise.
The sum of $500 originally came from my saying I would give Trump $500 if he dropped out of that race. That in turn referred back to someone's earlier statement I would have to look up. Then you said, "Why don't you offer me $500 in wager stakes that he makes it to November?" So I did.
If that now reeks of something like Romney's betting $10,000, I'm willing to go with a more reasonable amount. $100? $50?
I'm not doing it for the money. I'm willing to bet in order to demonstrate how certain I am that DJT will survive until the election, even though I wish it weren't the case. I'm putting my money where my mouth is. Or keyboard, anyway.
Want to sleep on it for awhile? Get back to me with an amount you are comfortable with if you want to play this out. You can name the odds. I'll even send my stake directly to you via your site's "Donate" button, and trust you to pay out if I prevail.
"I choose the fascist dictator who will stomp that shit right out and end all the woke bullshit, even if he has to destroy the country to do it..."
Whatever the rest of that was, this sentence is the distilled essence de MAGA.
It's also amazing that centrism is 'exactly where I stand'.
Pappenheimer
scidata:
MAGA's new message to the cult: Let's be like Europe!
It's not all that new. That's the essence of the whole "Blood and soil" argument. Or the argument against birthright citizenship.
American jingoism at least used to be about how special, how unique, how exceptional we are. Not about how we wished we hadn't crossed the Atlantic.
For a more knowledgeable take on Ukraine from an American who is there, I've been listening to this guy for a few years now. Philip Ittner (one "l", two "t"s).
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=philip+ittner
The Man:
I choose the fascist dictator who will stomp that shit right out and end all the woke bullshit, even if he has to destroy the country to do it, Thank You very much.
And thus, this crap below is a real possibility. Myself, I choose the Democrat who will stomp this out, even if he's old and stutters:
https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2024/06/conservative-plans-for-next-trump.html
The nutzoid right-wing Heritage Foundation (motto: "Putting 'White' before 'Heritage' would be too obvious") has this thing called Project 2025, which is a bunch of extremist lunatics saying that a next Trump presidency would be a "unique opportunity for conservatives to start undoing the damage the Left has wrought and build a better country for all Americans in 2025." In other words, rawdogging democracy and freedom until they're festering with fascist syph.
They've created an 887-page (no, really) guidebook of the MAGA hell that they want to ensue if the Retrumpening comes to fruition. Titled Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, it's nothing less than a complete tearing down of the modern government and rebuilding it in the image of the worst motherfuckers who appear on Steve Bannon's shitty podcast of doom. It's filled with all kinds of fuckery, from firing long-term civil servants and replacing them with MAGA-certified drones to fucking up the climate even more to destroying anyone who even breathes about diversity to way more. Again, it's 887 pages of this shit.
And some of it gets downright weird.
...
Stonekettle on Threads:
https://www.threads.net/@stonekettle
MAGAs want what Democrats are doing, they just want a Republican to do it.
And Republicans won't. So to keep their base, Republicans have to claim they did it even though they not only opposed it but are actually running on REPEALING it.
"Myself, I choose the Democrat who will stomp this out, even if he's old and stutters:"
If we would, and if he could.
Instead, we get "brilliant" policy like closing the border if 2,500 asylum seekers show up, and re-opening it once there are 1,500.
Who do you think pushes those ideas on Biden? His far-left fringe, and no one else is happy about it - including most Democrats.
Thanks for clarifying, Cinesias. Alas, I have learned that - despite relentless efforts - I get little traction outside my lane.
2019 I self published a book of 100+ tactice to win today's political knife fight. Maybe 7 people on Earth ever read it.
Polemical Judo, by David Brin: http://www.davidbrin.com/polemicaljudo.html
Russian* casualties have been running at around 40,000/month of late. The dirty nappy chappie has got his nouns muddled.
If you want black swans, Australia can provide...
*many of whom are dragooned immigrants. Whatever the numbers, Putin's bonfire of vanities is a tragic waste.
The Man:
Who do you think pushes those ideas on Biden?
Well, there was a bipartisan immigration deal that both sides seemed to like until Trump told them to cut it out, because he'd rather have chaos at the border to run on.
Sounds like that strategy worked on you. Republicans prevent a good deal from becoming law, and you are ready to reward them in order to punish Biden.
I said:
The sum of $500 originally came from my saying I would give Trump $500 if he dropped out of that race. That in turn referred back to someone's earlier statement I would have to look up.
Didn't have to look it up after all. I just remembered that it was after some congressman proposed putting Trump's portrait on a $500 bill.
The idea of people emigrating to Russia for economic reasons may seem strange, but compared to places like Kyrgyzstan, Russia actually does have a developed economy.
Emigrating to Russia from the US because you can't stand the 'woke' is seriously messed up, but if being drafted into the Russian infantry is your bag, go for it.
Pappenheimer
P.S. I understand current Australian immigration policy is to decrease both permanent and temp slots for now? Is this a Labor issue?
Dr. Brin - before I put my $50 down, what odds are we giving here? Even up?
Also, if someone named Pappenheimer says "I know myselves", would that be funnier in German?
Pappenheimer
...this is all the fault of MAGA deplorables
The first true thing dirtnap ever said.
This episode of "Reporting from Ukraine" features the legion of foreign volunteers, I didn't know about before:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTzGMtzNJ-s
2019 I self published a book of 1i00+ tactice to win today's political knife fight. Maybe 7 people on Earth ever read it.
BTW Dr. Brin, just so you know, I'm one of the 7. I bought it about 2-3 weeks ago and started working through it, but got distracted.
See....the KC Royals started winning, and well...I not only got very happy sports fan warm-fuzzies, but also I've belatedly realized I should be seriously active on Twitter.
Anyway, I will say I really liked the idea that the LW should accept voter ID laws IF and ONLY IF they come with an agency tasked with helping the disenfranchised meet the requirements.
Totally reasonable.
I REALLY HATED when Dems kept saying, "No one's done that in the past, so there's no problem."
This is incredibly short-sighted. Allowing an election to get stolen is sort of a death knell for a Democracy, and it won't truly survive many instances before we get some kind of late-Roman fake republic.
Just because something hasn't happened in the past doesn't mean it can't happen in the future. Conditions change rapidly in a tech-driven world such that 4 years ago might as well be a different eon. In such a world, data from four years ago can be completely obsolete.
We actively need to anticipate such changes and create mechanisms that prevent the soul-destroying event that an obviously stolen Presidential election would be.
This episode of "Reporting from Ukraine" features the legion of foreign volunteers, I didn't know about before:
I've been absolutely fascinated with the conduct of the Ukraine War.
I must confess, this interest has created A LOT of cognitive dissonance. After voraciously consuming military history as a tween, I came to believe war is usually about rich old men convincing young men to die in a war that doesn't really benefit them (and often, doesn't benefit the country they claim to be defending).
And yet, how wars are fought and won very much interests me.
WHO IN THE HECK even anticipated we'd see a return to WW I-style trench warfare? It's just nuts. Tanks and armored vehicles have become much more vulnerable than in the recent past due to the deadly combination of drones, smart weapons, some dumb weapons, and innovative tactics.
And drones!?!?!? Look at what Ukraine has achieved in the Black Sea with naval drones.
Further, this war has exposed the widespread corruption in the Russian military, and has shown them to be something of a paper tiger. Even so, as Putin has reminded us, their nukes still work.
Which is why cooler heads need to prevail and we need to stop playing radioactive brinksmanship. There's just too many ways this thing can go wrong. Of course, given my residence in Tucson AZ, well maybe that makes me a bit of a cowardly lion.
[Start tossing nukes and I'm going to glow. Tucson is home of the US Air Force "graveyard," which has the third largest air fleet in the world in mothballs. BTW, the Air Force can put one of those platforms back in service in about 24 hours. Oh, and yeah, 40% of the world's missiles are manufactured in Tucson (home of Ratheon). I'll last roughly a nanosecond in most WW3 scenarios.]
John,
I used to forecast the weather at Davis-Monthan back in the old days - I think we were flying Spads at that time. Had a rented house in Rita Ranch, roadrunners on the neighbor's rooftop, tarantulas taking midnight strolls on the sidewalks.
The boneyard was impressive - you expected to see a slightly larger vehicle out there marked NCC-1701. Hope you've been to the museum - they've done some good restoration work there, and there were some very weird aircraft on exhibit. I did like the Pregnant Guppy, and the backpack helicopter.
Pappenheimer
With regard to brinkmanship and the N-word*, do you have any suggestions? The only one threatening the use of nuclear weapons except in response to the same, so far as I can tell, is Putin, and his minions have plainly stated they do not plan to stop at Ukraine. Western (including US) support for Ukraine has been, in fact, quite timorous, partly because of the possibility of a nukefight**. Otherwise there would be a no fly zone over Ukraine yesterday.
Pappenheimer
*nuclear
**also because certain portions of our country and Congress would rather have Putin in charge of the US than Biden. I remember the t-shirts.
Hmm, Putin may rattle his kryptonite at the West, but China's wagging a finger, and Ukraine's already stepped over several red lines. I'm not so sure that Russia's nukes do still work, although enough may... so don't go targetting any more EW radars, perhaps?
@John I still use Twitter. It still has some good sources, but there's no doubt Musk has been trashing the place. If you're thinking of getting back on it, I'd recommend taking some protection like the Firefox add-on 'Control Panel for Twitter'. This one not only strips out those tedious 1 in 3 ads, but also removes the algorithmically generated 'For You' stream, giving you the time ordered tweets from those you follow. Sound familiar? Tweetie's back as well!
Thanks Tony,
My purpose for being on Twitter is, well I'm a guy trying to get a baseball novel published. I set my fictional team in KC and am a lifelong Royals fan. For the first time since Football Jesus Patrick Mahomes has been a Royals part owner, the team is relevant.
Well....if I could get lucky and get Mahomes to notice me....well...just that could get my bb novel published. Not holding my breath, but stupid not to try it. So I'm sharpening my snark and waving my fandom from the Twitter rooftops.
Immigrants and Bidens numbers
My understanding is that he is talking about refugees - people who cross the border and ask for asylum
American LAW says that those people should be admitted!!
By putting limits on the numbers Biden is skating close to the edge!
So the numbers have to be reasonable - cannot be draconian as that would trigger a court case and the elimination of the limits.
Complaining about the numbers misses the actual point
I used to forecast the weather at Davis-Monthan back in the old days - I think we were flying Spads at that time. Had a rented house in Rita Ranch, roadrunners on the neighbor's rooftop, tarantulas taking midnight strolls on the sidewalks.
Such a small world! My house is in Rita Ranch.
Haven't been to the museum in a LONG time, but you bet I've been there. I used to fly one of the first big air combat sims on the net (Air Warrior) so I'm completely interested in aircraft and air combat.
Read Shaw's (USN) book "Fighter Combat" countless times b/c the guys in the game sort of used it as our ACM bible. Felt stupid when I only recently heard about John Boyd who wrote a similar work for the Air Force's Red Flag group, b/c Boyd has become a crazy influential military thinker in the league of von KLauswitz and Sun Tzu according to the War College types.
My understanding is Boyd's fame comes from not from his tactical air combat stuff, but instead from his strategic OODA loop work.
American LAW says that those people should be admitted!!
Duncan,
The situation is considerably more nuanced than that. Yes, US immigration law makes provisions for people seeking asylum. The policy is heavily influenced by the US (and most of the world's failure) to accept refugee Jews during WW2.
So, what generally happens is that when they get caught by Border Patrol, (BTW, I live in Tucson AZ, which right on the Mexican Border. I'm right at ground zero for where this border stuff happens) the immigrants will then claim to be seeking asylum (they're coached up by various groups in Mexico before crossing).
So, then they're taken to a hearing, where they're issued a summons to a proceeding that will consider their case. Then they are released into the United States. This policy is called "catch and release."
The vast majority, of course, somehow fail to appear at their immigration hearing. (What a shock!)
This reality throws cold water on the legal fiction that such people are in fact, seeking asylum. Their "request" is a mere legal pretense that enables them to turn US immigration law into a complete joke.
"But her e-mails!" "But he's old!" "But I'm not sold on his xxx policy!"
Ok, so you're ok with this instead?
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Jun10-4.html
Nowadays, everything has a timeout. If you leave your electronic device on the table too long, it turns itself off. If the bank sends you an SMS code to log in and you don't use it within 10 minutes, it becomes invalid. Donald Trump thinks that ought to apply to the Constitution. It has been around for 235 years and should have timed out at the 200 mark.
Christian Nationalist Russ Vought, who is a possible chief-of-staff in a new Trump administration, is working on plans for destroying constitutional guardrails. In an influential 2022 essay, he wrote: "We are in a post-constitutional moment in our country." He doesn't like it and means to fix it by burning it all down. He is making plans for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and use the military to stamp out protests, to use the DoJ to prosecute Trump's rivals, and to refuse to spend money Congress has appropriated for programs Trump doesn't like. In short, he intends to greatly expand the powers of the presidency, knowing that Republicans in Congress won't stop him and neither will the Supreme Court, so de facto, there is no one to stop Trump from doing whatever he wants. Then the sky is the limit. His powers will make Vladimir Putin jealous.
...
John, this is old data, but I suspect it hasn't changed much...
"A study published last year in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review found that “88% of all immigrants in immigration court with completed or pending removal cases over the past eleven years attended all of their court hearings.” The analysis of government data also revealed that 95% of nondetained individuals who filed for asylum or other forms of relief from removal attended all of their court hearings over the same time period from 2008 to 2018, the authors said."
"The government … does not report immigrants’ appearance rate,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel for the American Immigration Council, wrote in a July 2019 Wall Street Journal opinion piece. “Instead it reports a related figure called the ‘in absentia rate’ — the percentage of ‘completed’ cases closed each year because the person missed court. Because the penalty for missing court is an automatic deportation order, these cases are completed rapidly. As a result, that figure overemphasizes rapid deportations for missing court and leaves out the much larger number of cases that remain pending as the immigrant diligently appears for every hearing.”
https://www.factcheck.org/2021/04/factchecking-claims-about-asylum-grants-and-immigration-court-attendance/
Pappenheimer
Isn't Republican Senator Tom Cotton accusing "Genocide Joe" of being too pro-HAMAS?
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4659155-tom-cotton-joe-bidens-de-facto-hamas-victory/
...
“No, it doesn’t make any sense at all, Margaret, it sounds like a bunch of weaselly, mealy-mouthed politics,” [Senator Tom] Cotton said. “He said it’s ‘reasonable to assess,’ he said that like three or four times, it’s like he was coached to say that, as if it was some magic talisman to help them walk the political line they want between the pro-Hamas wing of their party and the vast pro-Israel majority of the American people.”
Blinken was referring to a recent State Department review, which raised “serious concerns” about Israel’s actions in Gaza.
...
Pappenheimer,
U forget I live in Tucson.
My next door neighbor is a retired Tucson police detective and another guy a few houses down is Border Patrol. According to them, the numbers u cite are very massaged.
https://www.fairus.org/blog/2021/02/17/fair-fact-check-do-95-percent-illegal-aliens-show-their-court-dates
This is from what I am sure must be a right wing source that addresses this 95% claim, however it does seem to echo what I've been told by Border Patrol agents whom I know personally.
The vast majority of immigrants crossing the Mexican border do not qualify for asylum (roughly 15%). Of those that do, significant numbers do not appear.
Ask a Border Patrol agent about that 95% claim and they'll laugh, and point out that such stats will include "incomplete cases" in their 95% claim. Basically, if they've been apprehended, appeared at an initial hearing, and then have a pending court date, they don't issue a deportation order.
Plus, they also count instances where only the lawyer appears. On top of that, case backlog can get crazy such that there are years-long delays before that initial proceeding in many places.
However, most on the ground Border Patrol officers don't have a good big picture view. They'll know what things are like in their local area, and those granular views can have big sample size issues.
Regarding the recent discussion of bets relating to Two Scoops I want to point out something in a small effort to diffuse the conversation.
Our host uses the 'bet me' language for a purpose… most of the time. It is meant to call out the cowardice of blind followers using incantations to defend the beliefs. "Bet me!" cuts through the incantation and questions their manhood. (Come now… most of the Two Scoop fools using incantations are guys. Not all, but most.)
Occasionally our host slips in the 'bet me' line in other conversations that don't involve such fools. Most everyone here doesn't qualify as an incantation-using coward. Not all, but most.
We can have reasonable disagreements about whether Two Scoops will make it to various events in the election timeline without being incantation-using cowards, so the "bet me" method is a little off target when used here. Not entirely, though. Some of us can also be blind and/or inclined to shy away from thinking about possible consequences. If you all want to bet on that… go for it. I'm interested in seeing what odds people offer for various positions. However, I don't want to use our host's challenge technique to do it. There are very few here on whom it should be employed.
Alfred Differ: diffuse the [bets] conversation
It's possible that Alfred meant 'defuse', but I kind of like twisting 'diffuse' into a verb because I want to dilute the conversation by taking it into another dimension. I think there was a Commissioner Gordon line about that too, but I don't have time to dig for it.
RFK looks like he's taking considerably more votes from DT than JB, particularly in swing states (just my observation, no supporting links). Does he get Secret Service guarding? I hope so.
On a totally different topic, I have been reading reports about decline in population growth and how this will be a major problem in developed countries. IIRC, South Korea's current birthrate is 0.81 births per woman - they may be the country in the worst shape. The replacement rate is something like 2.1.
I remember science fiction tales dealing with major overpopulation as a problem. Obvious, MAKE ROOM, MAKE ROOM is one. Larry Niven's Known Space stories dealt had their birthright lotteries. I have not read the fiction going in the other direction, CHILD OF MAN and the like.
Just musing.
Alfred Differ:
We can have reasonable disagreements about whether Two Scoops will make it to various events in the election timeline without being incantation-using cowards, so the "bet me" method is a little off target when used here.
I was not invoking nor fending off charges of cowardice. Dr. Brin seems quite certain that DJT will be "Howard Beale"-ed before the election. I seem equally certain that, despite my fondest wishes, he will still be alive. So I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is.
That and he explicitly asked me to put up as wager stakes the money I had humorously offered as a bribe for Trump to drop out.
That said, I mean no antagonism toward him or anyone here with this conversation. I'd feel just as guilty about taking his $500 as he would about taking mine. I'm willing for the bet to be smaller, or to simply be that I get to scream "I told you so!" when Cheetolini is still on this earth come Guy Fawkes Day. Either way, I'd be happier to lose the bet than to win.
That's my strategy for thwarting a hostile universe--making sure I at least get a consolation prize no matter what it throws at me. :)
scidata:
I think there was a Commissioner Gordon line about that too, but I don't have time to dig for it.
If I knew a little more specifically what you were thinking of, I could probably come up with it without looking it up. :)
Does he [RFK Jr] get Secret Service guarding? I hope so.
He can afford to pay for his own protection detail. Like Romney.
GMT:
On a totally different topic, I have been reading reports about decline in population growth and how this will be a major problem in developed countries
With automation and AI taking all the jobs, is that actually a problem?
@Larry Hart re Commissioner Gordon
I think it was a pithy remark about dimensions. Maybe he had a geometrical mind. But I'm not even sure, don't waste time on it. Gosh that was a great show. I was watching "Ford vs Ferrari" recently and in the background of one scene was the theme from "I Dream of Jeannie". The web says that Barbara Eden (92) is a descendant of Ben Franklin.
Actually, finding such nuggets is why I try not to get started on searches because they can sometimes wind on for hours.
BTW I'm with Alfred Differ, CB long-timers shouldn't qualify for wagers.
“Putin's 5000 "ex" commissars - with new lapel pins - now control a US quisling cult that has driven ALL fact professions out of the GOP, leaving a masturbation circle jerk across the old confederacy and the idiocracy.”
Uh-huh. As I have stated before...your class honestly believes that anyone who dissents from your worldview falls into the following categories:
1) Stupid
2) Deluded
3) Evil
4) Some combination of the above.
And as such they are incapable of exercising agency and either be ignored or actively suppressed.
The idea that you may be wrong, or that informed people can honestly dissent creates a huge blind spot, and that blind spot prevents you from the same self examination and self critique you demand from others.
“Oh, for the rest of you, not the cultist. Dig one thing... Since October, Ukrainian military doctrine has been to "lure, pound and then retreat a hundred meters... repeat." Trding slivers of land for massive Russian casualties”
That is NOT the Ukrainian doctrine. Firstly, Ukraine lacks the indirect firepower to conduct it properly. Secondly Ukraine has not been building the line after line of defenses needed to conduct this. Instead, Ukraines strategy has been to hold onto to every bit of land to the death. What you are describing was how Russia dealt with the Ukrainian counteroffensive last year.
If Ukraine was trading space for time, they would have a rear areas filled with endless lines of prepared defenses and they would withdraw once the enemy came to CQC and then hammer the attackers with artillery and perform a counterattack.
“There is absolutely no way that such a method, skillfully executed, can disproportionately lead to higher DEFENDER casualties. Given Putin's frantic meat assaults - no longer backed by armor - EVERY credible analyst gives the very opposite casualty estimates.”
Yes there is Dr. Brin. The ratios you talk about only hold if there is a parity or near parity in firepower, where the defender has strongly prepared defenses. Which does not apply in the current areas of contact. Ukraine’ main defense lines are largely breached.
But in a position where Russia has a 5-1 artillery advantage, a growing advantage in drones and is lobbing hundreds of glide bombs a week, being the defender just means you are a sitting target.
This is a war where 70% of the casualties are caused by artillery, and Russia has a 5-1 advantage. The math should be obvious. Ukraine is only holding its position in Kharkiv because they have denuded other fronts to outnumber the Russians 3-1.
A useful rule of thumb is the number of POWs reflects the casualty ratios. Russia currently holds 5 times more Ukrainian POWs as compared to the number of Russians held by Ukraine
Finally, Putin ‘frantic meat assaults’ are an adaptation to the current battlefield. Your mind is still stuck on ww2 and desert storm and doesn’t seem to fully take in the effect of the omni-surveillance, drones and precision munitions.
In such a battlefield its impossible to mass large forces to conduct vast maneuver operations. If you do, they are spotted, and hit. Forces have to be dispersed, and assaults are conducted as a steady rain of small units supported by small numbers of armoured vehicles.
Advances are done at the speed of walking, which allows the defender time to being in reinforcements.
Ironically, this was all predicted in 2005 by an American named Stephen Biddle in a book called Military Power who predicted peer level conflicts would revert to this exact same pattern and used math to demonstrate that advances would rarely exceed more than a km a day until one side had been exhausted.
He was of course, ignored.
(Ukraine tried it the NATO way last year, and look what happened. NATO has no experience dealing with peer level conflicts. Their armies are not trained or equipped for it)
The web says that Barbara Eden (92) is a descendant of Ben Franklin.
'I Dream of Jeanie' Barbara Eden was one gorgeous woman. I remember seeing pictures of her into her 70's and thinking she has aged unusually well.
Ok guys, fess up
Jeanie or Samantha Stevens?
John,
I'd say 'porque no los dos' but read somewhere long ago that the old Chinese pictogram for 'trouble' is 2 women under 1 roof. Probably not a good idea to have to worry about magical fallout if those 2 did not get along.
Pappenheimer
Getting back to the immigration appearance issue, I must confess my first inclination was to accept the University of Pennsylvania Law Review as authoritative. It's an Ivy League law school and one would expect their scholarship to be impeccable.
However...
The problem is what the on-the-ground Border Patrol types tell me. What makes me tend to believe them is that the 95% claim doesn't make sense from a human behavior perspective.
Consider the percentage of people who don't have a viable asylum case. What incentive do they have to show up? Seems to me what is going to happen is people whose lawyers say, "Yeah, you've got a real shot here." are going to show up, while the one's whose lawyers say, "Not much chance." are going to "forget" to show up.
John Viril:
Jeanie or Samantha Stevens?
Elizabeth Montgomery, no question. From what I remember, she was also well-preserved for a long time.
Neither of them is quite Julie Newmar, who was also remained quite attractive for longer than one would have assumed.
As a trumpet player, one of my earliest favourite scenes was Barbara Eden doing her trumpet dance on the Seaview in "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea". Fun fact, the ice-stranded mystery man was played by her husband, Michael Ansara, who appeared in "I Dream of Jeannie" too. I recognize him as Kang in Star Trek TOS, playing a reluctant Klingon peacenik.
SF film casting has known what sells ever since "Forbidden Planet".
Larry,
That and he explicitly asked me to put up as wager stakes the money I had humorously offered as a bribe for Trump to drop out.
Yah. I saw that. It looked a little out of place, so I figured he skimmed over what we'd been saying. Quite understandable since none of our bribes will ever happen. 8)
That said, I mean no antagonism toward him or anyone here with this conversation.
Yah. Got that too.
Since neither of you are Two Scoops voters with aunts and sisters who might be peeled away to vote for sanity, the 'bet me' language isn't needed. Both of you are pretty sure of what you believe and certainly could establish a bet on it, but I don't see that there is a purpose for doing so. "Bet me" is for peeling away possibly sane relatives and friends from the coward we challenge.
That's my strategy for thwarting a hostile universe--making sure I at least get a consolation prize no matter what it throws at me. :)
Ha! You'd have a bit of cash to buy the gun you might need.
[Yah. Dark humor. Two Scoops does that to me.]
scidata,
I actually DID mean diffuse, but if you listen to be pronounce those words they are almost identical. The stressed syllable is the same and the unstressed vowel is only slightly different. 8)
I learned a while ago not to volunteer for bomb defusing duty unless I'm getting paid for it. The social variety occasionally arrives neatly packaged at work when two peers get upset at each other… and I'll make some attempt to resolve the issue* before people get fired. Not always, though, as there are times when it is best to let it explode.
I'm the eldest of four kids in my family and used to think it was my duty to defuse tensions. Eventually I learned to stop and let my siblings learn how to do it themselves. I've been much happier ever since.
———
* Oddly enough, the best method I've found usually involves diffusion. I don't have to find a solution if the combatants calm down enough to find it themselves. Spreading things out over time can help.
Alfred,
I have to agree re: bets. The points is to challenge and possibly convert, not to win pocket money. I guess my point is that rumpt not making it to 11/5 is not as sure a thing as all that.
If he were to find a MAGAist to take that bet, and rumpt keeled over halfway to the election, I think it's good odds that the latest theory would be that TIFG was kidnapped and replaced with a dead clone or something. His idea of verifying ocean acidification runs into similar issues, and the idea that 'nonpartisan military officers' would not be seen as tools of the Deep State is on shaky ground. Not sure how much communal reality is left any more a fellow USAF member told me she didn't think anyone had ever visited the moon, even after I pointed out that the Sandia Labs experiment I'd given weather support for* needed a physically assembled laser reflector at the other end - on the Moon. Data from that experiment was iirc a key in adjusting for atmospheric turbulence in ground-based telescopes. (Details hazy because I don't have the background and it was a LONG time ago.)
*For what it was worth. IR imagery from back then wasn't great for estimating cirrus cloud cover - the Mk I eyeball was about as good, assuming a low cloud-free night in central NM.
Pappenheimer
Alfred,
Sorry I was wrong about 'diffuse'. I was actually doubly wrong because it CAN be a verb, no twisting required. I was the fourth of seven in my family, so I constantly tried to guide them out of crises. Maybe a Seldon complex, but with a much lower success rate.
Our host uses the 'bet me' language for a purpose… most of the time. It is meant to call out the cowardice of blind followers using incantations to defend the beliefs. "Bet me!" cuts through the incantation and questions their manhood.
Hmmm...must confess, getting challenged to bet just makes me more analytical. Then again, I'm a math based poker player who tries to play "Game Theory Optimal" when faced with tough opponents and "Exploitative" if I can identify a glaring weakness in an opponent's game.
It always kills me how many good poker players will lose their poker room winnings in the casino. HELLOOOO...you're a poker player. You darn well know odds. How can you not see that while poker is a game you can win if you're more skilled than your opponents, those casino games are long-term losers?
Betting (to me) has nothing to do with manhood. I'll only bet when I KNOW I've got a knowledge, skill, or statistical edge.
On the other hand, I DESPISE risk that I can't quantify.
“Even so, as Putin has reminded us, their nukes still work.”
Well… enough of them likely still work so that the world could have a very bad day.
“Oh, and yeah, 40% of the world's missiles are manufactured in Tucson (home of Ratheon). I'll last roughly a nanosecond in most WW3 scenarios.]”.
Um… they might get around to you, in weeks. I’m in San Diego.
Putin MIGHT panic and go nuke… but recall that 2+ times Soviet officers stepped in and the next one might use a pistol. I fear – more likely – he might order Low Earth Orbit effectively destroyed.
Good luck with the novel JV! These are fraught times for publishing, alas.
LH ;-) all’s good and yes, the wager thing is primarily a weapon to expose cowardice and I think it’s telling that the only fellow with any guts is a liberal!
I did say that my utterly lonely scenario of a Howard Beale martyrdom or other prevention of inauguration by frightened oligarchs is an ‘out there’ crackpot raving and hence, I am justified in asking for odds. I agree that hundreds$ is inappropriate among friends. Will 5:1 with $25:$5 at stake satisfy honor? Again… ;-)
Declining birthrates will have to go a LOT farther before I start viewing them as anything other than a very, very good thing. Still, I do not exclude the possibility aliens are spiking water supplies all over the planet.
-
Note that dirtnap’s hysterical whine and counterfactual plaint don’t address at all the pure facts that:
- his cult is at all-out war vs ALL fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.
- that his enemies list is absolutely identical to the list of western institutions Putin DIRECTLY BLAMED for ‘history’s worst tragedy’ the fall of the USSR.
- that Trump fell ‘im love’ with the worst vommunist tyrant, helped the Big Neighbor in a myriad ways, and surrounded himself with Kremlin agents like Bannon, Flynn, Manafort and dozens of others.
As for Ukraine, I couldn’t care less about his insane spewing of Kremlin drool about casualty figures. I get my info from the wide diversity of skilled, pro level senior retired military officers at places like the Institute for the Study of War… a diversity that is too wide to be suborned and too fearless to be threatened, like all the other nerd castes that dirty’s cult desperately fears and maligns.
Idiot.
-
JV Jeannie! Only what’s with the ‘master or husband’ shouting “no magic!” Jeepers, what male would say that!
Alfred thanks I must try again to revive “Two Scoops.”
Since the Ninj tells us that advances in modern warfare are conducted at walking pace, I note that Donetsk to Lviv is about 1200km, which could be covered in about 2 months at a comfortable walking pace of 20km/day. Taking more than twice that time (with the assistance of some fifth columnists in the US Congress, and an admitted fumble by the UA), Russia has achieved an advance (Adviika - Ocheretyne) of about 20km on a (generous) 10km front.
Vodka soaked snails could do better.
'Achieving' this has also cost them something of the order of 100,000 casualties: nearly the size of the initial invasion force, and about the number of recruits that Russia can raise in a year. (Total casualties to date are over half a million. Even Stalin gave up on Finland after 400,000)
All of which goes to say that Russia isn't advancing very well.
Pappenheimer,
I guess my point is that rumpt not making it to 11/5 is not as sure a thing as all that.
I have to agree. I think the Howard Beale scenario is unlikely, but a 5:1 payoff (bettor 1 pitches in $5, bettor 2 pitches in $25, then winner takes the pot) is mildly attractive. I suspect the odds for it happening are closer to 10:1, but that's just a gut feeling. Much more likely is a stroke or heart attack from election and indictment stresses. Elections are rough on old farts.
…I think it's good odds that the latest theory would be…
No doubt. People actually compete to have their conspiracy theory be adopted and there is no shortage of supply to meet demand.
Data from that experiment was iirc a key in adjusting for atmospheric turbulence in ground-based telescopes.
Pick the right frequencies and you spot water vapor in the air through attenuation of the signal. Wonderfully accurate nowadays because solid-state IR detectors are wildly better. So are the lasers.
Those little corner reflectors are wonderfully useful.
scidata,
Maybe a Seldon complex…
I was told years later there tends to be one sibling who does it once their family has a few children. If the kids are spread out over years, the odds go way up that two do it because the eldest stops or leaves.
I like that you caught the connection. In hindsight I think I meant both, but 'diffuse' came out though my keyboard. Connotations are funny like that. 8)
John Viril,
…getting challenged to bet just makes me more analytical.
Which is precisely why 'bet me' isn't needed to deal with you when your POV seems wild to the rest of us. We CAN talk about it without you relying on incantations for defense. I've learned a thing or two from you as a result.
It always kills me how many good poker players will lose their poker room winnings in the casino.
I finished high school and then did my college years in Vegas. I get it. The House makes a small amount form poker in their rake, but if that was all they made they wouldn't host large poker rooms.
Some have the willpower to get in and out with a pocket full of money, but the House doesn't need to get everyone to play. Some suffice.
Betting (to me) has nothing to do with manhood.
It does for many, though. It is the cultural residue of our old tolerance for dueling... mostly illegal now.
Larry,
Note our host's language.
Will 5:1 with $25:$5 at stake satisfy honor? Again… ;-)
See the dueling terms? Satisfy honor? That's between you and him, but ask yourself if that is how YOU see it.
Satisfy honor? That is a WONDERFUL example of what "bet me" is for when we go after the Maggots. They offend our sense of honor, do they not?
"Bet me!" is a glove slap challenge… that I think got misused in your case. Most of us are on the same side with honor equally offended by our actual opponents.
Seriously. How far apart were Burr and Hamilton anyway?
Looks like primary sources differ on how far apart Burr and Hamilton stood, but weather played a part - wiki has the sources mentioning mist. Duelling pistols were often rifled, so quite accurate in the hands of a trained duellist. Thirty paces was a traditional distance, but the seconds would have agreed on the distance - and they disagree in the record.
Pappenheimer
P.S. Lois Bujold has a comment on duelling - "a skilled soldier kills your enemies, Roya, but a skilled duellist kills your own officers."
Ah. Further wikiing suggests the pistols were unrifled - the English style of the time, as opposed to the French, who considered using inaccurate weapons cowardly*. Assuming poor visibility and a reasonable distance, Burr was lucky to have gotten a hit.
Pappenheimer
*I really do not understand why the French have the modern rep they do. I think it stems from 1940, but I tell thee three times, if there had not been a Channel, there would have been no England.
Heh. Sorry. I meant to question how far apart they were ideologically. Burr vs. Hamilton. No doubt one of them was smarter than the other.
Interesting twist, though.
Worth considering what the unintended consequences of "Bet me!" are. Our challenges are rifled, right? 8)
Intellectual, visionary Federalist Hamilton vs. practical, unscrupulous Jeffersonian Burr? That's the shorthand Gore Vidal provided in his novel. As usual, the truth is probably more complicated.
Hamilton was dumb enough to tell his friend he planned to delope* but not make sure Burr knew that. This honor stuff can lead to very foolish actions.
*by all the gods, that's a word you don't see much anymore.
Pappenheimer
I'm totally a Jeannie guy, BTW. But, it's a question that doesn't have a bad answer.
In fact, if I had the opportunity to choose between the two, I'd be thanking the almighty that those ladies are sufficiently psychologically damaged that they'd consider me a viable boyfriend.
JV Jeannie! Only what’s with the ‘master or husband’ shouting “no magic!” Jeepers, what male would say that!
Has to be a schtick to create conflict. and maybe a pretext to explain why Tony Nelson and Darren Stevens aren't some kind of Genghis Khan megalomaniacs.
Dr Brin
Will 5:1 with $25:$5 at stake satisfy honor? Again… ;-)
Again, in this particular case, honor is not in question. My reason for betting would be to demonstrate to one and all how certain I am that--despite my fervent hope--the universe will not relieve us of the responsibility of rejecting DJT at the ballot box by removing him from the chessboard.
I'm assuming you mean that I'd put up the $25 and chance winning $5. If so, that itself tells me that you think my position is more plausible than you've let on. I'm willing to simply play for bragging rights as to who gets to "I told you so!", but if the mood strikes me, I'll send the $25 your way.
JV Jeannie!
Am I the only one to prefer Samantha to Jeannie? I figured there was more of us. To me--and this was in my formative years--Samantha seemed like someone I could actually love, and who would notice and appreciate that. Jeannie was more like...well, a dream. Someone who was supposed to be alluring, but seemed ultimately out of reach, both physically and emotionally.
TMI?
Only what’s with the ‘master or husband’ shouting “no magic!” Jeepers, what male would say that!
It's just the fantasy equivalent of a husband not wanting his wife to work outside the home. My dad was that way. Many men of that era were.
Both shows were products of their time in which every tv married couple was Lucy and Ricky. The husband had to feel threatened by a powerful wife and had to put his foot down to assume control over her power.
Dr Brin:
- that Trump fell ‘im love’ with the worst vommunist tyrant,...
If "vommunist" was a typo, it was a humorously apt portmonteau. :)
Alfred Differ:
"Will 5:1 with $25:$5 at stake satisfy honor? Again… ;-)"
See the dueling terms? Satisfy honor? That's between you and him, but ask yourself if that is how YOU see it.
I hope I've already made clear that I don't consider there to be a question of honor between Dr Brin and myself.
I didn't say "Bet me." He did, although it was more convoluted than that makes it sound. I take his phrase, "satisfy honor", to refer to the fact that he brought up the idea of a $500 bet and I actually took it seriously. "Satisfying honor" means neither of us has to back down.
If someone is serious about the face slap, they have to spell "honour" with a u. :)
Alfred Differ:
"Bet me!" is a glove slap challenge… that I think got misused in your case. Most of us are on the same side with honor equally offended by our actual opponents.
I disagree that that is the only context for betting. Surely, there are "gentlemen's bets" in which the two are on friendly terms, but each is sure that the other is wrong about some trivial matter. A work colleague of mine bet an entire bar that the White Sox wouldn't win the World Series in 2005--and he went back and paid everyone up when he lost. But he was certain enough to put money on the line. And it was all in fun.
Seriously. How far apart were Burr and Hamilton anyway?
If the backstory of the musical can be believed, they were good friends until they weren't. Gore Vidal's novel Burr suggests what the insult was that honor demanded they duel over. I don't want to spoil it, but his fictionalized depiction seems obvious in retrospect.
Burr and Hamilton ...
My daughter, then a huge fan of the Hamilton musical, named our two new kittens Hamilton and LaFayette. Later, we thought the second cat should have been Aaron Purr.
At the time, my in-laws acquired a used cat who was already named Miss Piggy, but they didn't like that name, so they shortened it to Missy. Should have gone with Miss Peggy.
RE dueling with unrifled pistols, I once spent a day shooting an assortment of black powder pistols. A couple of different types of revolvers and a flintlock. OMG, the revolvers were a pain in the ass to load. Took forever. The flintlock was much easier, just a single load to load, but much more difficult to shoot.
For reference, I had years before qualified as marksman first class standing, kneeling and prone and though I had not shot many pistols before, and all modern ones, I was a good shot the few times I had.
But that flintlock? It was hilarious. Took me several shots just to train myself to deal with the delay between trigger pull and actual firing. When you pull the trigger on a flintlock it doesn't fire instantly like with a modern gun, or even more modern black powder guns that use percussion caps. If you are used to modern guns and then shoot a flintlock, you aim, pull the trigger, relax, and then the gun fires. You have to retrain yourself to stay aimed for an extra count or two because it takes that long for the spark mechanism to spark, ignite the charge in the pan, and then for that to ignite the main charge in the barrel.
But even once I retrained myself? Still could not hit shit with that thing, at least not compared to the revolvers. So I'd feel pretty safe shooting at myself from 30 paces away. But if you do manage to hit your opponent? That would surely be very messy. Huge ball of lead. One shot I actually hit the top frame member of the target stand and the impact tumbled the stand backwards as if it had been kicked.
Alfred Differ:
Much more likely is a stroke or heart attack from election and indictment stresses. Elections are rough on old farts.
You'd think so. Natural causes are going to get him sooner or later if unnatural ones don't intervene first. However, if natural causes were going to save us, they would have done so already. The universe just isn't that friendly.
Back in the 70s and 80s, there was a theory about "the zero factor"--that all presidents since William Henry Harrison who were elected in years ending with 0 died in office. I wanted so much to be done with that one, and then in 1980 we got Ronald Reagan--then the oldest man ever elected to the office. As much as I hated his presidency, I was going to have to root for him to stay alive for four, possibly eight years in order to be done with the theory. And then he gets shot two months in.
And somehow, he did survive.
I'm afraid Trump will defy the odds as well. God doesn't save us from ourselves that way.
Darrell,
My online research yesterday pointed out that many duelling pistols had a 'hair trigger' assembly that was supposed to prevent hanging fire and misfires.
Sam Clemens claims that he was a witness to a 19th C duel in France and was offered a chance to inspect the weapons. He 'returned one and hung the other on his key chain'. Apparently if you'd lived out West, the size of a late 19C European dueling pistol did not impress.
Pappenheimer
P.S. re: smoothbore accuracy, even with a musket, U. S. Grant opined that a man with one 100 yards away could load and fire one at you all day without you noticing it (assuming you were deaf, I suppose).
Re: Jeannie vs. Samantha Stevens.
BTW, no magical powers required to interest me.
I was thinking about the movie Liar Liar, and I wondered what a congressional debate would be like if all of Congress were afflicted with such a curse.
John Viril:
BTW, no magical powers required to interest me.
They had powers? Hadn't noticed. :)
Another rigged trial conducted by the Biden crime family.
Oh, wait...
Larry,
Am I the only one to prefer Samantha to Jeannie?
Nah. Samantha.
Might have something to do with the fact that my mother did her hair that way back then. 8)
But the one I found more interesting was... Mary Tyler Moore.
Darrell E,
But that flintlock? It was hilarious.
Explains so much about massed infantry from back then.
Alfred Differ:
But the one I found more interesting was... Mary Tyler Moore.
I watched the show, but for some reason didn't find MTM that personally alluring. The female lead in that vein who I found intriguing was Marlo Thomas in That Girl. Possibly because I never actually watched the show itself, but it was on right before something I did watch, so I'd catch the last five minutes or so. Wanted to see more of her, but at that age it would have been too embarrassing to have my parents know.
female lead in that vein who I found intriguing was Marlo Thomas in That Girl.
This. MTM seemed kinda weepy in her eponymous show. That Girl doesn't get remembered as much as MTM's show, but I found that lead much more appealing.
In her defense, MTM was much more attractive in The Dick Van Dyke show.
That Girl doesn't get remembered as much as MTM's show,
Maybe if her name had been in the title.
Now you guys are bringing back memories of my old tv crushes, from before I understood what that feeling was.
Aside from those already mentioned, there was Phoebe from Nanny and the Professor.
Strangely enough, neither Ginger nor Mary Ann.
As a kid, I was totally a Ginger.
As I grew up and looked back at Gilligan's Island, boy did Mary Ann hold up well. Plus, the actress was far more glamorous than her character. She was a Miss some state before Gilligan's Island.
As a tween just starting to notice girls, I guess I bought into the glamour schtick that Ginger did.
I have no memory of Nanny and the Professor.
scidata:
Another rigged trial conducted by the Biden crime family.
They really suck at rigging, don't they?
BTW, the reason I am totally in the Jeannie camp is that I liked how she would prank her "Master." Seems like she'd be more fun.
JV
Why would a border patrol officer have any knowledge of the percentage of immigrants that reported to their hearings?
Surely the hearings are NOT connected with the border patrol - they have done their jobs - the hearings would be conducted by a different branch
His "knowledge" would be the percentage that he EXPECTED to report in - not the actual numbers.
On a separate subject our Kremlin Troll has joined Locobranch on the list of comments that are NOT read
Barbara Eden's Trumpet Dance in the Seaview Officer's Mess:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZNcOklSilI
QED
I just watch it for Frankie Avalon's trumpet.
Re: Hunter Biden conviction
Haven't seen any coherent response yet from Magaland, but I do think I smell smoke.
My vote for the new national anthem if it's Donald Trump's America. Roger Whittaker singing "Why?":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKjhtN6iUX0
And will the grass be gone from underneath the sky?
Will the golden flower wither soon and die?
Will the fire fill up the land?
Will the sea fill up with sand?
Will the last word ever spoken be 'Why?'
Will the last word ever spoken be 'Why?'
I’m not sure Samantha would put up with any of the requests that a male would naturally ponder asking. She’s not obligated not to turn Darren into a newt. Whereas Jeannie… carumba! Tony musta got neutered in a solar storm before he landed and found her bottle.
LH: “Strangely enough, neither Ginger nor Mary Ann.”
So… Luvvie Howell?
Again. And again. The purpose of the wager demand is neither collecting the money (which never happens) nor shaming the fleeing cowards - which happens often. The core aim of wager demand is to focus on the specifically refutable. Zooming in on ONE SPECIFIC and chomping down and NOT LETTING GO!
The whole notion that facts don't matter is based upon the failure of facts at achieving actual refutation of monstrously false assertions. And there is ONE and only on reason for that failure. That reason is the way that the fanatics move on, when they see inconvenient facts: they move the topic just enough to change the subject.
I have seen no one focus on the necessaryu tactic: that of utterly tenacious insistence on settling ONE verifiable /falsifiable assertion - even just one of the lies - utterly and completely.
Sure, there are so many! We drown in crazy assertions! And hence, the power of utterly demolishing one of them vanishes and folks assume that just one won't make any difference. But that is completely untrue! If the worst ravings are crushed, even just one at a time, then the raver suffers critical hits on credibility...
...and that is where the wager demand comes in! It applies a form of accountability for specificity, with CONSEQUENCES to the blowhard. I'd be happy to discuss other methods that might achieve that. But this is one that also knifes straight into the heart of the preening machismo that lies at the core of our 240 year national sickness called confederatism.
And by the way, sometimes just one is all you need. A wager over the specific climate calamity of OCEAN ACIDIFICATION will devastate the entie edifice of climate denialism. None of the methods they use to obfuscate global warming or rising sea levels, none of those methose avail when faced with the clear slope of changing oceanic Ph levels and accompanying harms to life at sea. If ONE rich/famous person were to make that wager a Big Deal, she/he/they could be utterly devastating.
Surely the hearings are NOT connected with the border patrol - they have done their jobs - the hearings would be conducted by a different branch
LE0s interact. Both the Tucson Police Detective and Border Patrol neighbor talk about crossing paths with ICE...and, of course, they talk to one another.
For example, people in custody would have to be handed off between agencies.
However, the granular POV each of those on the ground types can come into play, as well as their political biases.
Here, knowing the political landscape of Tucson does matter, I suppose. Southern AZ is pretty blue, largely due to U of A being located here. BUT...LEOs are more likely to be red than blue.
SO, sure, it's possible those granular LEOs could have how they interpret their experiences influenced by their political rhetoric of choice. It's surprising how much political bias can affect one's fact filter.
Notice I'm trying to provide all the pertinent facts as I perceive them, not just the ones that buttress my assertions.
Dr Brin:
So… Luvvie Howell?
"Thanks for loading me up with that image."
No, I just never liked Gilligan's Island in the first place.
Or The Flintstones for that matter. I know it's a cultural icon, but does (practically) every plot have to be about digging oneself deeper and deeper into a hole with lies until finally admitting the truth and being forgiven?
In this thread's font, upper-case i looks just like lower-case L. So "ai" is spelled just like "AL", which is short for Alan or Albert. So I'd recommend spelling it "Ai"; but really I'd recommend "AS" for "Artificial Stupidity", or "SI", for "Simulated Intelligence". You get evidence for AS every time you're stuck on a phone tree, and "SI" leaves open the possibility that our own intelligence is also simulated.
I'd prefer the short redhead witch to the tall blonde genie. The genie keeps saying "Master", which creeps me out, partly because I wouldn't trust myself with a willing slave. Also, genies are notorious for granting wishes the wrong way. The witch is spicier, and her own person, which I find appealing, though risky.
In either case, I'd ask them to teach me how to do magic myself.
Why would a border patrol officer have any knowledge of the percentage of immigrants that reported to their hearings?
To give you an idea how information flow between LEO agencies in a local area can work, I'll give you a specific example I've experienced.
My neighbor was a Tucson police detective and dropped this little nugget on me while we were talking about how 4th and 5th Amendment issues can play out in practice.
So my neighbor drops this little tid bit, Tucson Police will use video to record perp interviews in the jailhouse. However, oddlly enough, the FBI does not. They have an agent TRANSCRIBE (in writing) perp interviews.
He told me that FBI agents would get video from Tucson Police, then the agents would TRANScIBE the Tucson Police interview for FBI reports.
How interesting. While the FBI is generally perceived as the more "professional" LEO agency, think about all the information they're systemically losing by using this less precise method.
No demeanor evidence. PLUS, when you transcribe something in words, you'll inevitably create a spin just by the media used to record the information. As anyone with a brain knows, you can do a WHOLE LOT OF SPINNING through the means of a narrative.
At one time, the FBI method might have had a good rationale. Back when most video was analog, there could have been a logistical reason to insist on written transcripts of perp interviews. That rationale no longer holds.
Thus, the FBI IS INTENTIONALLY SPINNING their perp interviews in the reports, and they're doing it at a systemic level. The absurdity of an FBI agent going to Tucson Police for the video so they can transcribe it into a written report is a rather egregious example of them knowingly using a less accurate method in order to favor conviction rates.
Larry Hart: Roger Whittaker
IMHO, His "Mon Pays Bleu" explains the meaning of the cryptic "Blue, blue windows behind the stars" in CSNY's "Helpless" better than I ever could. It was included in an album he dedicated to the Quebecois, who have deep roots in Northern Ontario. It conveys the heartache of escaping some place only to discover you can't ever get back to it.
Hilton's "Lost Horizon" was a favourite of FDR, Asimov, and myself (of course). It ends with the hanging thought, "Do you think he will ever find it?"
The 1937 film struggled with multiple endings, not achieving perfection IMHO.
The 1973 file starred Peter Finch as Conway (Howard Beale in "Network"), proving that I always make at least a weak attempt to stay on topic here.
@Paradoctor, Lovecraft knew what 'AI' spelled backwards.
'Hturuggin bush? Ai! Ai!'
(Suddenly, the past quarter century makes sense...)
Those who are reminiscing on college springtimes should check out 'The Seven Faces of Doctor Lao'
Okay, I took their word for it that the super-heavy booster did a soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico and was thrilled. But now we have video from some buoy’s cam… and that means also that this soft landing was pretty much on target! Jeepers it's like bringing back a Saturn V for re-use! Will they actually try to land the next one on the ‘chopstix” tower-arms? Geez man, this one time spring for landing legs?
This footage coulda been edited better. Is any other available?
https://mashable.com/article/spacex-starship-super-heavy-booster-first-splashdown
In IDOJ, Jeannie eventually switches to “Tony” and their relationship verges toward Bewitched.
---
Join me for an online event: “Imagination and Prediction in the Age of Science” on Wednesday, June 12, 2024, 5 PM EST; 2 PM Pacific. Part of the Science, Religion, and Society series of webinars by the Institute for the Study of Religion in the Age of Science, featuring: David Brin, Author, Artist, Playwright, Futurist, and NASA consultant.
https://starisland-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_IO5g8CDrRZuWiLDlpS7Viw?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2Tci65tUUQXz9FSGK8euoNwWyog_PmJ4yJgqdRnP4W3R9GHSx5-6eTMow_aem_ASf3z-QYpNGdDEpFxX5sYytYgeWVlluoZ0pxdcDFDmGsw7efyPEiIqMqtuNU5zsqZWDoJcFGnerX2KPIER0FiMNR#/registration
My old assumption was always that the Professor had hidden Gilligan's Island from radar and visual contact by Science!, because the Howells had each other, the Skipper and Gilligan might as well be married, and that left the Professor with both Ginger and Mary Anne. Any would-be rescuers were met with a bamboo-powered disintegrator beam.
Pappenheimer
I sure hope this clickable… offering all of you 9 hours of stories from THE RIVER OF TIME… is a kosher release by Audible. It’s narrated wonderfully by my friend, the charismatic Stephen Mendel! And yes, one of the stories is a Hugo winner and a couple others were nominees. And nothing would go better with your commute!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rveq9Mxc8jg
The obvious...
...
At no point, you’ll notice, do Republicans deny that Trump is a criminal. They’ve made no effort here to defend his honor or to say he’s innocent of the charges levied against him. They almost seem to accept, as most Americans do, that the former president is guilty of fraud. But they don’t accept the verdict. They don’t accept the idea that Trump could be tried in a court of law on these charges. They reject the authority of the jury. For Republicans — no matter the law, no matter the evidence and no matter the testimony — the conviction is illegitimate. In their view, Trump is sovereign, and the law is not.
This gets to one of the real transformations in American politics since Trump came down that escalator to announce his campaign for president nine years ago this month. Trump ran as the embodiment of the legitimate people of the United States. He governed on behalf of those people — a narrow, exclusive people defined in racial, religious and ideological terms — deemed them “the People,” to whom the country rightfully belongs. He tied his authority less to the Constitution than to this quasi-mystical connection. He was “the people” and “the people” were him, and he could do anything on their behalf, up to and including an effort to overturn the constitutional transfer of power. What is an election — what is the Constitution itself — when set against the people as embodied in Trump?
This vision of Trump as tribune of the “real America” has trickled down from Trump’s most devoted acolytes to the rest of the Republican Party and the conservative movement.
...
The above was meant to be linked:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/07/opinion/trump-verdict-republican-party-trumpism.html
Re: Starship
Forty years ago, we had a passenger airliner that did Mach 2 and we considered manned Moon landings routine. We've been lowering expectations since then. Now we sift eye candy while our top researchers make generative mimicry instead of positronic brains.
Starship is like a pin stuck into a balloon. IFT-5 slated for mid July.
Starship also made a successful simulated landing then softly dropped into the ocean, though it was several miles off target. No doubt due to the partially vaporized control flaps.
Apparently SpaceX was already aware that the flaps were likely to be a problem during reentry. Starship v2 will have different flaps (the hardware has already been spotted) and they will be located more leeward compared to the v1 flaps.
The Starship that will be used for IFT-5, tentatively scheduled for July, will have a new heat shield tile design and a new ablative underlayment.
It is truly amazing to see how quickly SpaceX can implement changes. It is also amazing, and cool, to see how transparent they are.
One of the things that allows both the impressive resiliency of their prototypes even when there are major failures that would have resulted in RUD in any previous decade and also the ability to make quick changes is their highly adaptive control systems software.
One of the reflexes among mad MAGAs: Trump Derangement Syndrome is a reflex to cry 'Orange Man Bad!'
I see no one answering:
'You worship a vain boor in fake blond comb-over and makeup, who dyes his skin orange and raves proved deleriums... and WE are the deranged ones?'
---
addendum:
The standard Foxite tactic: accuse blue America of being like them. Nearly all electoral cheating is done by Republicans, so they point fingers without evidence. Nearly all turpitudes average worse in Red states (except Utah), yet cities are proclaimed to be cesspools. As for ‘weaponization of justice”? Well there’s this from Laurie Baron:
“Joe Biden reiterated that he would “accept the outcome of this case and continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal.” What he did NOT say was that the normal probation plea deal for such a first offense was refused by the US Attorney for Delaware David Weiss who was appointed by Donald Trump. The judge was Maryellen Noreika, another biased Trump appointee whose sole purpose in life is to hurt the President for ‘stealing’ the 2020 election from Trump.”
I cannot attest to the veracity of Baron’s assertions, nor should you take them as gospel. But combined with Aileen Cannon’s outrageous rulings in the classified docs case, it suggests that the Mad Right’s howls over their overly tanned leader’s convictions – ‘rigged & weaponized justice!” – should be shouted in a mirror.
Dr Brin:
I see no one answering:
You should listen to Stephanie Miller. A regular rant on her show is along the lines of, "Trump Derangement Syndrome? If you're not deranged by this guy, you're not paying attention. More people should have had Hitler Derangement Syndrome at the time."
Dr Brin:
‘rigged & weaponized justice!” – should be shouted in a mirror.
Yes, it's pretty obvious that Trump would be in a jail cell were he not the beneficiary of our two-tiered justice system.
Sigh,
Three ARE legit legal issues with Trump's NY convictions. In fact, they've been talked about in many places, but it's hard for the normal person to separate the wheat from the chaff...and the political spin crap.
I'm hardly going to cry for Donald Trump. But, this conviction is a bit hinky. There really are legit legal questions about it.
Did Col. Mustard use the Knife, the Candlestick, or the Rope?
How do you get a "beyond the reasonable doubt verdict" when the judge didn't make the jury decide exactly which of three possible crimes Donald Trump committed to elevate a falsified business record to a felony under NY law.
Under NY law, falsifying business records is normally a misdemeanor. It only becomes a felony if that falsification enables or aids in covering up another crime.
The judge instructed the jury that they could consider one of three possible crimes for this elevation: 1) Federal election law violations, 2) NY state election law violations, and 3) Federal tax law violations.
In simple terms, it's sort of like letting someone win a game of Clue by saying, "It was Col. Mustard, in the Kitchen, using either the Knife, Candlestick, or the Rope."
WTF?
Generally, criminal convictions require each element of a crime be unanimously proven "beyond a reasonable doubt." How is this standard met when it was entirely possible that 3 jurors thought that Trump violated Federal Election Law, 5 jurors thought he violated NY election law, while 4 jurors thought he violated federal tax law?
Off the top of my head, I can't think of any precedent, much less in NY state law (which I don't have a clue about).
How Did a Business Record Made In 2017 Win a 2016 Election?
Under NY state election law, it's a crime to contest an election using "unlawful means."
In what way did a 2017 business record help Donald Trump contest a 2016 election? Are we to believe NY voters in 2016 possessed the ability to peer into the future to examine Trump's private business records when deciding how to vote in November of 2016?
I guess AI is more capable than we thought.
However, the counter-argument to this seeming contradiction is that Trump conspired with Michael Cohen and the National Enquirer publisher to: 1) hide pertinent information from voters in 2015, 2) agreed to an NDA with Stormy Daniels in 2016, and 3) then made the business records in 2017. Thus, the business records were merely the last step in an unlawful conspiracy hatched in 2015.
Through the Looking Glass
However, this last legal theory opens up a whole can of worms.
Is a candidate who agrees to an NDA with a private citizen using "unlawful means" to contest a NY state election? From what I've read, there's no precedent in NY law on this point. Second, NY election law has NEVER been used to elevate a falsified business record to a felony under NY law.
These legal snarls lead to a related problem: did Donald Trump have the requisite intent to commit a crime under NY law?
see part 2...
Poor Donald part 2
Generally, criminals must have clear intent to commit a crime. But, this leads to some different standards that courts have applied in the past.
Sometimes, courts require that criminal defendants be aware that they are breaking a specific law. Other times, clear intent to perform the underlying action is enough, whether or not the defendant is aware that act constitutes a crime.
IMHO opinion, which approach a court should take will depend on the law in question. If a law is something that is generally considered morally wrong using a "natural law" standard, then the old common law saw of "ignorance of the law is no excuse" makes sense.
We all pretty much know that taking out a gun and shooting someone isn't usually a moral or ethical action. Or destroying someone's property, or stealing their stuff. These kind of violations shouldn't require specific awareness they're violating a legal standard to find criminal intent.
However, the picture is much less clear the more a legal standard is a construct that isn't wrong on its face. I recall a case of federal law where a fish market owner got a federal criminal felony conviction for selling a protected fish in his store. The kicker was that this sale was OK under US law, but that it was proscribed in a foreign country and then imported to the US. Thus, the fishing boat that caught it violated foreign law, who then sold it to an exporter, who shipped it to the US.
So, even though the fish passed US Customs, the importer violated US law by not ascertaining its status under foreign law. Such a rule seems more of a bureaucratic construct than something with a clear ethical basis.
In the second case, it seems to me that requiring specific knowledge of that a defendant is violating the law makes more sense.
So, should Donald Trump have been aware that agreeing to an NDA with Stormy Daniels was a crime?
We can go on and on about this issue. However, there is one obvious point that occurs to me here. Generally, agreeing to an NDA and paying "hush money" to cover up an affair isn't a crime. Private parties are allowed to do this in most common law jurisdictions.
I suspect a "catch and release" tactic to kill bad PR has been a regular feature of Donald Trump's life for decades.. He's been a public figure since the 80s, and I suspect he's had LOTS of affairs.
Before becoming a political candidate, such acts weren't a crime. Is it reasonable to expect Trump to know that such an action BECAME a criminal act when he decided to run for office in NY?
One could argue that "the public's right to know" has been widely seen as a public right for more than a century. Indeed, it's been touted as a fundamental feature of the US system of government. However, are we to believe that a legal hack like Michael Cohen would understand this and advise Trump of the distinction?
Probably not. Cohen doesn't strike me as some kind of erudite legal scholar. Instead, Trump likely selected him due to his willingness to do all kinds of unsavory things (hence the term "fixer"). I suspect Trump had no specific knowledge that his actions were now a felony.
How just this outcome is, well...I'll leave that for you guys to decide.
Has anyone noticed a resemblance between Steve Bannon and Rasputin?
JV, just my opinion, Trump's decision to run could be taken as evidence of dementia, how else to explain someone with so much... interesting history putting theirself in the spotlight? though if he had been able to transition his MO, the current indictments likely wouldn't have happened.
DG, I wouldn't wish Rasputin's end on Bannon, irrelevance would do nicely.
JV, your "legal issues" argument betrays your poor media diet.
Read Lawrence Tribe, or Dahlia Luthwick, or anyone not at Fox News for explanations of why none of your argument hold water under NY State law. Michael Cohen was convicted of the same crimes - Did you have the same problems with his conviction as Trump when they were announced?
Catch and Kill violates election law. David Pecker made quite clear that the catch and kill was to influence an election.
You should be complaining that the prosecutor went *easy* on Trump by not charging the violations of federal election law, yet, that is not what you're alleging here.
There is a two-tier system of justice, and the GOP politicians are in the tier that are constantly given the benefit of the doubt, yet somehow they get convicted of crimes by conservative-leaning juries at rates far exceeding the Democrats. David's Noble Protector Caste give the heavy benefit of the doubt to rich, white men to the point of utter corruption, and *still* the GOP gets convicted more.
John Viril,
One moment you say you know little about NY law and the next you are giving voice to legal theory involving it. I hope you can see the conflict there.
I thought it odd that the jury didn't have to agree on what elevates the crime from misdemeanor to felony when I first heard it, but after listing to people who DO seem to know a thing or two about NY law it began to make sense. The jury just had to decide that the elevation was warranted. As there were multiple paths that led to sufficient justification, any one of them would suffice… whether they agreed to the same one or not.
What your position expects as required is something closer to a logical 'AND' while NY State law apparently allows the logical 'OR'. I'm no legal scholar, so I'll defer to those who are in how they read NY State law. I'm very unlikely to include so-called legal theories from Fox/Right Wing legal pundits, though.
———
In all honesty, though, I'm not celebrating the NY convictions. I'm glad NY has moved to defend its laws, but I want Two Scoops hung by his testicles for violations of federal law… especially sedition. I think Amendment #14 should be in play, so I want federal convictions and a proper test of section #3.
You're more charitable than I.
The Mar el Lago case is open and shut. Any master sergeant who had done a tiny fraction of what the Extraordinary Pussy-grabbing Athlete had done would have been long since serving pretty much life in prison. If we can't get a criminal on murder, tax evasion will work.
Don,
If I, as a TSgt, had mishandled classified docs and refused to return them, my wife would be visiting me occasionally in Leavenworth*, long after AFOSI had wrung me dry of exactly which foreign nationals had access. If intel breaches resulted in US agents being uncovered and executed, or missions compromised and personnel lost, well...they don't actually hang people by their anythings any more in this military. But the should consider it. It's probable that TCFG still has docs stashed away! He doesn't care; he thinks he's untouchable and has been very nearly right.
Pappenheimer
*quoting Major Winchester: "My God, that's in Kansas!"
JV - here's a diagram courtesy of Asha Rangappa that might help you clarify your legal issues.
https://www.threads.net/@asha.rangappa/post/C5yTJkkLR6n
"[Trump] governed on behalf of those people — a narrow, exclusive people defined in racial, religious and ideological terms — deemed them “the People,” to whom the country rightfully belongs."
I see their point: the US Constitution has a mistype.
The preamble should commence with 'We, the Purple...'
Alfred Differ:
but I want Two Scoops hung by his testicles for violations of federal law… especially sedition.
But he himself, or any Republican president could parton him for a federal crime. Me, I'm glad he's convicted in New York state, where a presidential pardon doesn't apply and a Republican governor is unlikely.
It's a shame that that has to be a consideration, but here we are.
Read Lawrence Tribe, or Dahlia Luthwick, or anyone not at Fox News for explanations of why none of your argument hold water under NY State law. Michael Cohen was convicted of the same crimes - Did you have the same problems with his conviction as Trump when they were announced?
Matthew,
You seem to assume that I'm some kind of wingnut. I'm confident that the regs around, as well as our gracious host, will assure you I am not. I'm a guy with a law degree who is perfectly capable of making an independent analysis. I don't need Fox News (or any other pundit) to tell me how to analyse legal jurisprudence.
That being said, I haven't practiced law in a long time, and this isn't really my area of knowledge.
Even so, I'm perfectly capable of identifying legal issues. I'm not about to dismiss an argument just because Fox News (or anyone else) happens to agree with me. That's just giving morons negative power over your thinking---indeed, you're letting idiots control you if they become aware of your thought process.
To put it in pithy "pop-culture" terms, it's like hearing that Jeffrey Epstein predicted the sun will set in the west on July 10, 2024 and betting your house that the end of the world will come before July 9.s
It's just an alternative form of stupidity.
Laurence Tribe
I have most certainly read Laurence Tribe. In fact, pretty much everyone who has graduated from an accredited US law school in the last 40 years has read many thousands of pages of his analysis on Constitutional law. His treatise on the subject is required reading for most 1st year students and is assigned as a companion to the 1st year Con Law case book).
However, just bc Prof. Tribe makes some snarky comments on TV, doesn't mean it is so.
Tim H:
I wouldn't wish Rasputin's end on Bannon,
Rasputin was apparently a vampire, and if so, he might still be among us. Though Bannon doesn't look as vampirish as Rudy Giuliani.
Stonekettle on Threads:
https://www.threads.net/@stonekettle
If this WAS a Christian nation, then we'd have to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, heal the sick, do unto others as we would have them do unto us, give up all our worldly goods and follow Jesus, judge not least we ourselves be judged, welcome the stranger, love each other as brothers, be humble, be modest, pray in private on not in public like the hypocrites do...
I mean, careful what you wish for, "Christians."
Larry,
But he himself, or any Republican president could par(d)on him…
I'm VERY curious to see if anyone is stupid enough to do this and would love to see this notion of a self-pardon challenged in court. I'm VERY curious if any SCOTUS judge is stupid enough to support it.
I'm glad States are defending their laws, but I especially want the federal layer to defend itself and prove capable of mounting an effective defense. If the feds fail at this we will know we are electing essentially pseudo-kings as Presidents. The Republic won't exist even in theory, so I want us to prove it still DOES exist even while we operate globally as Empire.
It's one thing for States to oppose an Emperor.
It is quite another for a Republic to reject an Emperor.
"...love to see this notion of a (presidential) self-pardon challenged in court."
Ith's more likely that the SC will act like a cat trying to cover its poop on a linoleum floor. A lot of scratching, but the smell is still there.
If we are due for a trip down the wrong trouser leg of time, with rumpt back in control of the most powerful military on Earth, the question of whether a president can pardon themself may well arise - but it won't arise in a vacuum. The Supremes may not find that this particular president can pardon himself, but they will likely delay the case until it is moot; decades if necessary. The SC agreeing that the action is constitutional is tantamount to it anointing the sitting president as a monarch, who can have them, and any other American, murdered, imprisoned or exiled at whim - but if the disagree, they will face retribution. It's a fork. And they would be well and truly forked.
The Roman Emperors never quite got around to declaring the emergency over and restoring the Republic, though some of the early ones talked a good game.
Pappenheimer
"Rasputin was apparently a vampire"
Nah. Lich. Only someone finally found his phylactery.
Pappenheimer
One moment you say you know little about NY law and the next you are giving voice to legal theory involving it. I hope you can see the conflict there.
Alfred, I can definitely see how this apparent contradiction is puzzling. However, there is what I hope you will consider a reasonable explanation.
[Note to Matthew: notice how politely Alfred states this objection. Part of it is Alfred is a polite guy, but I'm confident ANOTHER part of it is he knows me well enough that he thinks there's a decent chance that I can explain this apparent paradox, which is why he isn't snarking at me.]
The short answer is the experts have admitted that there isn't any clear precedent on this issue. Indeed, no one in NY has ever elevated falsified business records to a felony through an election law case.
This means everyone is guessing, no matter how certain they claim to be.
So, how can an outside hobbyist ever be worth listening to when there are experts who have read thousands of NY law cases? Well, sometimes experts can miss the forest for the trees. Plus, they can be subject to "groupthink," especially if a profession has a definite hierarchy. In such situations, the high-status practitioners in the field offer their opinion and use their status to browbeat the subordinate practitioners into agreement.
Well, as much as highly skilled professionals TRY to be objective, they're still human beings subject to partisanship, self-interest, academic pride, and personal biases. If they've taken previous positions on early reports about the case, or similar cases, well...they have professional reputations on the line. Sometimes, their reluctance to accepts a status hit can lead to unsound analysis.
In fact, the more highly-skiled the lawyer, the more tempted they might be to rationalize away prior errors with their high-level ability (dazzle 'em with bullshit). In fact, someone like Laurence Tribe can dazzle a whole lot of other lawyers if he has a mind to try.
The more highly charged the issue, the more tempting it is for experts to dazzle others---especially if the heightened scrutiny of a popular case could cause them, or their side, embarrassment (or even elections).
As someone with little "skin in the game," I've got far fewer intellectual balls to juggle or biases to cloud my judgment.
See Part 2...
Part Two: Sources of Law
There's another way to explain this paradox. This requires me to explain a bit about the sources of law.
In this case, we have two potential sources of law: 1) statutory and 2) common (or judge-made) law. Statutory law is made by legislatures and yields statute books. I can read statute books just like any other lawyer, so I can make some pretty competent arguments about what the legal profession calls "black letter law."
However, common law is a completely different animal.
Judges create common law through their authority to decide legal issues that come up in cases. However, not all courts have the power to create law.
Trial judges can "interpret" the law, which in basic terms means they apply existing law to the specific facts of a case. However, only appellate judges have the power to create common law. A trial judge's decisions do not bind any future courts to follow their rulings.
Conversely, when an appellate court renders a decision, all courts below them in the jurisdiction are legally bound to follow them. Thus, the appellate court is said to possess "binding authority."
At this point, what we have is a trial court decision. While this decision can send Donald Trump to prison after sentancing, it in no way binds any other court to follow its rulings. With no binding common law cases on this issue (as they experts admit), well...the thousands of cases that experts in NY law might have read become a bit moot. They're left to guess what an appellate court will do.
They might be better at anticipating what the appellate court will do, but they're still not certain.
Matthew, that's why Michael Cohen's conviction isn't precedent for Donald Trump's trial. While it might be interesting to look at, it doesn't bind any later court to follow its rulings.
However, Matthew, you seem to imply that I had some sort of "good citizen" duty to follow Michael Cohen's case and that I'm a hypocrite if I failed to notice these issues at that time. Honestly, that's a BS attempt to vilify me. Sorry, I wasn't paying attention to the legal case of a lawyer who has never held any public office. Its complete crap to then imply that I am now contradicting myself by looking at Donald Trump's case.
Just what is the logic here, Matthew? Are you trying to alledge some kind of constructive acquicence to Michael Cohen's conviction, which then ethically precludes me from thinking about Trump's case?
In short, you can take this argument and shove it up your butt. I really don't feel obligated to address an inference that requires a negative IQ to fabricate.
JV
"Clear precedent" - There is never going to be an exact match - exactly the same crime - so I was under the understanding that "Precedent" was always "advisory" and could be overruled
So Cohen's conviction did not "require" a conviction in a later case - but did push in that direction.
Alfred Differ:
I especially want the federal layer to defend itself and prove capable of mounting an effective defense.
They've already failed several times. The remedy of impeachment was thwarted by Republicans refusing to put country above party. McConnell was especially cynical with his "He can be held accountable in the courts," which has now predictably morphed into "The courts can't touch him unless he's been impeached and convicted". The supreme court is no help with their magical incantations about the 14th amendment requiring enabling legislation.
No, the federal government has already failed to protect itself from a runaway president. States aren't necessarily much better, with their naked attempts at voter suppression. But there are at least some states which can carry on independently. Shooting someone on Fifth Avenue would get him a state conviction.
If the feds fail at this we will know we are electing essentially pseudo-kings as Presidents.
Well, one party is, anyway. It's obvious that Trump is considered a king (or a god) by his supporters. Even a different Republican probably wouldn't have quite the lofty position that he does among the faithful. The Occam's Razor explanation, of course, being Mule powers.
The issue is whether We The People care enough to end the madness. That's what we'll see in November.
Hi John Viril, here's my read of the events you brought up.
NY PEN175.10 only requires that the falsification crime include an "intent to commit another crime or aid or conceal the commission thereof".
David Pecker testified that he, Cohen, and Trump knew what they were doing violated campaign finance laws. My guess is that testimony helped the jury to know that there was intent to commit another crime by the defendant.
As I understand it, the case was never explicitly about the legality of hush money, though the press talked about that incessantly. It was about spending money for campaign purposes, but reporting it as legal fees.
I don't see anything "hinky" about any of this except that it should have been pursued at about the same time Cohen was prosecuted.
duncan cairncross:
I was under the understanding that "Precedent" was always "advisory" and could be overruled
The current supreme court has certainly made that clear.
And we're living in the age of the unprecedented. Or "unpresidented" as DJT so appropriately though accidentally says it.
Viril:
If someone is pulled over on the highway, and he fails the breathalyzer test, then the jury can unanimously convict him on DUI, even if they do not agree about what he got drunk on; beer, wine, or whiskey. The precise source of the intoxication was not in legal dispute.
Likewise, the jury unanimously convicted Trump on 34 counts of financial fraud, to cover up a crime; this despite their not adjudicating which of three crimes he covered up.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/09/opinion/presbyterian-church-evangelical-canceled.html
In 2022 a member of the denomination who has since left it published “The Case for Christian Nationalism,” one of the most popular Christian nationalist books of the Trump era. It argues that “no nation (properly conceived) is composed of two or more ethnicities” and that “to exclude an out-group is to recognize a universal good for man.”
He never heard of Anglo-Saxons, huh?
The anger against me wasn’t simply over my opposition to Trump. It was directly related to the authoritarian turn in white evangelical politics. My commitment to individual liberty and pluralism means that I defend the civil liberties of all Americans, including people with whom I have substantial disagreements. A number of Republican evangelicals are furious at me, for example, for defending the civil liberties of drag queens and L.G.B.T.Q. families. A writer for The Federalist ranted that granting me a platform was akin to “giving the wolf a brand-new wool coat and microphone and daring the sheep to object.”
JV, you are a recent visitor here.
I am a long time resident. Ask around.
I am not polite to right-wing apologists like you.
Alfred likes to point out that I am a barbarian.
I certainly understand your POV. You're trying to cast doubt on a clear-cut case outcome for political reasons, while trying to maintain cover as a "reasonable" conservative. You are trying to cast doubt on the most important political case in our lifetimes. It is a ploy and you are not very good at it.
I certainly understand your POV. You're trying to cast doubt on a clear-cut case outcome for political reasons, while trying to maintain cover as a "reasonable" conservative.
Matthew, you can't even understand which two of your three brain cells you need to rub together to spark an actual idea.
If we're going to indulge in the logical fallacy of appeal to authority, I will counteract your "Laurence Tribe" with fellow Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz:
There's an enormous difference," Dershowitz told Schmitt. "Trump was convicted of a made-up charge; there's nothing to the case. I still can't figure out what the actual conviction is based on. On the other hand, Hunter Biden was convicted of a real crime.
So, Matthew, how can you quibble with the learned opinion of an unquestionably erudite legal authority such as Prof. Dershowitz? Are you just trying to cast doubt on the most important political case in our lifetimes? How dare you dispute the unquestionable truth of poor Donald Trump's persecution at the hands of the evil government in NY?
Gosh Matthew, maybe you should listen to someone other than Salon bigot Amanda Marcotte and the mental midgets on The View.
JV
I assume that you were being sarcastic when referring to
"the learned opinion of an unquestionably erudite legal authority such as Prof. Dershowitz?"
When said "Prof" has said so many stupid things!!! - he is probably a flat earther!
JV
I do agree that out of the multiple Trump inditements the ones he was recently found guilty of were the WEAKEST!!
But that is compared to the rest which are bulletproof and armour plated
JV tries an appeal to authority by siting Alan Dershowitz?
The same Dershowtiz that is one of Trump's legal councilors? On retainer?
The same Dershowitz that testified that he kept his underwear on while getting massage at Jeffery Epstein's mansion?
LOL.
Try a little harder, JV. Your "authorty" is just another dirty old lawyer who lost all credibility decades ago.
You are trying to cast doubt on the most important political case in our lifetimes. It is a ploy and you are not very good at it.
Matthew, to quote Dr. Zachary Smith (from Lost in Space), "Oh the pain...the pain..."
@John Viril,
Neither you nor matthew are going to change each other's mind by insulting each other. The best you can hope for is to influence others listening in by having your own position appear more plausible and/or reasonable to third parties.
Toward that end, quoting Dershowitz as an authority isn't helping your cause. What next, Ayn Rand or Spengler?
A judge and jury found more than "nothing" to the case, and they did convict Trump of a real crime. That you don't personally think their conclusion was reasonalbe is merely opinion. That Dershowitz can't figure something out is unsurprising.
Hunter Biden was convicted of a real crime, but one which is almost never prosecuted unless the gun was used in another felony. Also, one which Republicans would prefer not to consider a crime at all except in his particular case.
Dershowitz's argument sounds like James Comey "explaining" why it was important to publicly implicate Hillary Clinton during the ongoing e-mail server investigation, but it was also important not to publicly implicate Trump at the same time during the ongoing Russian collusion investigation. Just because they include the words "It's entirely different" doesn't mean anything they say actually demonstrates that.
JV please know that matthew does not speak for us. I’d call him our far-leftist ‘locumranch’… but that would be taking it too far, by 10x. He can be a pain – as in his slurs spewed at you. But sometimes offers up value and perspective from that fringe. Like GMT did from the right… though of late he’s seemed too… reasonable.
I do agree with Duncan that Dershowitz is a miserable and likely blackmailed shill.
JV while you raise interesting quibbles, what you ignore is that Trump’s attys were perfectly capable of making the same arguments before the jury… and after, on appeal.
What many of the quibbles amount to is THE core legal mantra of today’s right. Which is “Don’t Look!”
“The Steele Dossier wasn’t entirely kosher as prim evidence, so FORBID the FBI from following up on a legit lead!”
“DON’T look at the tax returns! Or business records!”
The whole NDA and catch/kill situation is generally insane and meant to shelter rich blackmail victims and should be banned, altogether.
I did kinda hope to hear from Karen McDougal, who is not just a ‘Playboy model,’ but Playmate Royalty. And please, someday soon?
“Before becoming a political candidate, such acts weren't a crime. Is it reasonable to expect Trump to know that such an action BECAME a criminal act when he decided to run for office in NY?”
Um you need to appoint good people. And the incredibly honest and talented APPOINTMENTS are the reason I trust Joe and don’t care if he naps.
DT’s were terrible BY HIS OWN RECKONING! Adjudged by later denunciations of former ‘great guys!” But he won’t make the same mistake again. He openly plans to replace all former Bushites with true monsters and Putin shills.
But on-topic. Appoint good advisors and listen to them AND hire background checks on yourself.
I agree with Alfred that this was the WEAKEST and least important of DT’s five cases. The classified docs case is important as is the January 6. But the Georgia election interference, with Rathsenberger’s tape, is so open and shut that it is truly a master feat of legal magic it got delayed till after the next election.
My preference? Sentence Hunter AND Two Scoops to community service teaching reading to felons once a month, so no interference with campaigning. And let the students testify which one can actually read.
LH: “If this WAS a Christian nation, then we'd have to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, heal the sick, do unto others as we would have them do unto us, give up all our worldly goods and follow Jesus, judge not least we ourselves be judged, welcome the stranger, love each other as brothers, be humble, be modest, pray in private on not in public like the hypocrites do...”
And this is the whole and entire reason for the abortion fetish. They know bearded-beaded, sandal wearing, socialist Jesus would side with liberals on everything. They needed a perfect on-switch for his approval, despite all that. And ‘Baby Killing’ does the trick, over-ruling ALL the rest. Even tho JC nor hardly anyone else mentions it.
Fred Clark says, with evidence, the the the abortion fetish coming from right wing Christians is a result of them being so spectacularly wrong about civil rights.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2024/06/12/an-artifact-from-the-before-time/
"that the"
Dr Brin:
And this is the whole and entire reason for the abortion fetish.
It's taken me a while to realize it, and I've tried not to, but "Christian values" today means exactly "enforcing traditional gender roles" and nothing else. They're against abortion because it gives a woman control over her own body.
If it was only about concern for the lives of babies, they wouldn't also be against contraception. That also gives a woman control over hew own body. The whole reason LGBT+ issues drive them insane is that they rail against any sexual release that isn't procreative. If they could somehow separate pleasure from procreation, that would be on their agenda as well. In 1984, their neurologists were working on it.
Don Gisselbeck:
the abortion fetish coming from right wing Christians is a result of them being so spectacularly wrong about civil rights.
I've heard that as well. That Jerry Falwell and company were originally harping against integration, and when that wasn't as popular a position as they thought, they switched to abortion.
I assume that you were being sarcastic when referring to
"the learned opinion of an unquestionably erudite legal authority such as Prof. Dershowitz?"
When said "Prof" has said so many stupid things!!! - he is probably a flat earther!
Well, to be precise, it was more hyperbole.
Basically, what I was doing was turning Matthew's arguments against him in the rather forlorn hope that, once he was the target, he could see how stupid they were.
Obviously, I don't think Prof. Dershowitz's legal opinion should remain "unquestioned" when I made a whole to do about why I could and should dispute Prof. Tribe's opinions. -, I sorta forgot that Dershowitz's peccadillos were that blatant.
However, they do serve my purpose here. Despite Prof. Dershowitz's character flaws, he most certainly has forgotten more about both criminal and constitutional law than anyone on this site will ever know (me included).
Ok, if a non-lawyer like Matthew (unless he's doing a fabulous job of sandbagging) can be "right" where Dershowitz is wrong, how can that be?
Seems to be the obvious answer is (to quote myself), " they're still human beings subject to partisanship, self-interest, academic pride, and personal biases. If they've taken previous positions on early reports about the case, or similar cases, well...they have professional reputations on the line. Sometimes, their reluctance to accepts a status hit can lead to unsound analysis."
That is why it's not a "waste of time" to subject even expert opinions to scrutiny, plus that scrutiny should not exclude people "outside the expert's lodge." The reason why is, "experts" can have group interests and limiting scrutiny to their number can simply empower them to abuse their authority.
Thus, questioning decisions isn't just "allowed" it's a necessary part of any democratic system.
P.S Even when the questions come from someone like Matthew.
JV while you raise interesting quibbles, what you ignore is that Trump’s attys were perfectly capable of making the same arguments before the jury… and after, on appeal.
Dr. Brin. Please note my original argument was that there are viable issues for appeal.
As for "interesting quibbles." I can certainly see how they look like mere quibbles when looking at Donald Trump's case in isolation. But what happens when we change the defendant?
Suppose, for example, this NY law were used against JaRon, who was convicted of first degree murder as a 17-yo HS senior. However, 22 years later, JaRon has been exonerated by the Innocence Project using DNA evidence.
Except JaRon, who worked in the prison pharmacy, falsified business records, which we all now know is a mere misdemeanor under NY state law. However, the prosecution alleges that JaRon falsified the pharmacy records to aid the commission of one of three possible crimes: 1) to help a prison guard hide an illicit relationship with an inmate, 2) helped a prisoner escape, or 3) helped the warden hide the fact that he was skimming from prison accounts.
At trial, the jury looks at JaRon's orange jumpsuit and says, "Well, he probably did one of those." Since again, we all now know that this elevates the falsified records charge to a felony, the judge sentences JaRon to five more years in prison.
Plus, to add a cherry on top of this shit sundae, due to his imprisonment, JaRon now misses one of the filing deadlines for his tort case against the state of NY, and now he has lost his right to sue for his unjust 22-year sentence (which was spent in a maximum security prison---say the infamous Riker's Island).
How are you now feeling about NY's "maybe A, maybe B, maybe C" elevation rule?
While it might seem like a quibble when examining a singular case, leave a bad law on the books long enough and Murphy's Law suggest it will eventually bite someone hard. That's why you fix these things when you see them.
Hi John Viril,
For the record, I would be just fine with JaRon being tried for his crimes, just like I'm fine with Trump and Hunter Biden being tried for alleged criminal activity.
The crime doesn't seem to be in dispute in your argument about the law being a bad law. So maybe we can agree that Trump was guilty of falsification of business records. The underlying crime was easy to prove in court, in my opinion, and all the jurors agreed.
I think what you are actually arguing against is the wording of the law as it relates to the punishment - that is, what makes what Trump did a felony? One could also ask why isn't falsifying business records a felony in all cases? I would guess the authors of the law wanted some leeway so that making an error on your state tax return wouldn't lead to prison time, unless you were intentionally breaking tax laws.
So I think intent matters and it is that intent to commit *another* crime that the trial testimony revealed, and the jurors agreed with.
Nothing "hinky" about any of it.
John Viril:
Despite Prof. Dershowitz's character flaws, he most certainly has forgotten more about both criminal and constitutional law than anyone on this site will ever know
He seems to have forgotten everything that he ever knew in service to right-wing propaganda.
JV "That's why you fix these things when you see them."
What are your thoughts on Trumps brace of contemptuous behaviors in and around court?
How do we fix that?
What would happen to "JaRon" if he behaved analogously instead of the much more statistically likely guilty plead of avoiding the expense on the tax payer of trial by jury.
I have read enough to understand Trumps's lawyers will certainly attempt to appeal the verdict. No problem.
But something feels hinky about your rancor toward Matthew in the discussion.
If you're here to be what you typically appear to be here for which is generally collegial, insightful, philosophical and a bit of a raconteur...what's the point of steering the conversation here and then (in response to Matthew) acting like Kevin Kline's character in a Fish Called Wanda yelling "Don't call me stupid!"
Unfortunately, while questioning decisions might be made with the best intentions, can you grok that your audience here might be suspicious that your arguments are being placed as rhetorical washers to guide distracted wingnuts to spin righty tighty?
Paul Krugman works in a Cabaret reference. Maybe he reads this site?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/11/opinion/interest-rates.html
Krugman: Inflationary policies might well backfire on Trump, but good luck convincing him or his advisers of that. What’s a bit more puzzling is why billionaires who have been moving into the Trump camp aren’t paying more attention to his monetary irresponsibility. Maybe they think they can control him — which would make them some of the most naïve people in America.
Larry Hart: Maybe he [Paul Krugman] reads this site?
Wouldn't surprise me. Where else can you find Adam Smith, Isaac Asimov, and George Will all referenced?
John Viril,
Matthew and I have our differences, but when it comes to Two Scoop's imaginary legal defense I'm mostly on Matthew's side. When he says I call him a barbarian, though, that's only partially true. I think of all Americans as part of a barbarian culture. It's not that we are blood-thirsty in the Hollywood sense. It's that we are quite convinced we are right no matter how many oppose us. It works at the national level when opposition comes from outside and on the personal level when our opponents are our immediate neighbors. "I AM RIGHT and the rest of you can go screw yourselves." The barbarian is certain.
I'll offer you something of which I am quite certain. Two Scoop's legal defense boils down to throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. He is guilty of far worse things than falsifying business records to hide a crime and most of us know it. A jury decided he was guilty of those too. Put all that aside for a moment, though, and ask what your effort to question the legal case does. I don't question your education or that you are in a better place to theorize than most of us. However, I think you ARE aiding them (slightly) make spaghetti stick better. Since you are ALSO speaking to barbarians here, you appear to be picking the wrong side in the battle. I don't think anyone is going to show up at your home and go all Conan on you, but in the figurative sense, they will do it here. I'm tempted to help them, but I don't think they need my sword arm.
———
On the legal point you make, however, I do get the difference between statute and case law. I've had the pleasure of being involved in the messy breakups of two LLC's.
In the first we had neglected to draw up the paperwork describe dissolution rules to use when the partners could no longer work together. The 'majority' owner sought legal advice and we got the explainer pointing out that a lot of statutes still had a lot of gaps, but that judges filled them with case law until legislatures got around to fixing the mess. He told us what an impartial judge was likely to do using case law and how our own lawyers were likely to recommend how we settle things. As a result, we skipped over all that expense and time and just dissolved it the way the judge likely would have decided. Didn't matter what the statutes actually said since we were $$ constrained. No one lawyered up and we all walked away.
———
Sorry I didn't chime in earlier about Dershowitz. The odor on him is pretty strong right now.
In fact, the more highly-skiled the lawyer, the more tempted they might be to rationalize away prior errors with their high-level ability (dazzle 'em with bullshit).
Yah. I'm pretty sure Dershowitz drank his own Koolaide a while ago. I pay attention to him when he argues a case, but I watched his impeachment arguments in stunned silence. I get that Two Scoops was allowed to defend himself, but what Dershowitz argued for would have made future Presidents untouchable Kings. I can't tolerate that… and won't since I'm as much a barbarian as Matthew.
A desire to win an election justifies no crime or high misdemeanor.
Larry,
They've already failed several times.
Consider a bit of Civil War history and you'll see why I think it still matters.
1. How many generals did Lincoln go through before finding ones who could lead Union forces in the kind of modern war our Civil War became? Several different version of the war happened at the same time ranging from New Mexico's open land to sieges around the capitols to naval blockades of ports and then even submarine and iron-clad battles. A LOT happened. A LOT was learned.
2. How often did the Confederacy rely on stalling tactics and attempts to break the Union's will to fight? They couldn't actually win the war in the traditional sense of forces defeating opposing forces. They HAD to undermine Union forces.
What you find demoralizing (reasonable) is just the early portion of this phase of the war.
We really don't have a choice but to keep fighting it.
In the 1860s the technologies favored active-aggressive defense against giant, lumbering armies with poor communications, trying to pick their way through forests... exactly what Lee was good at. And sure, Grant and Sherman were the men to at last deal with that. But what's missing is the story of the grinding down of the periphery. While Grant puhed slowly forward, MANY other Union armies were taking one seaport or rail junction after another. Sherman was the biggest and best of these and once his engineers built a corduroy road straight through an 'impassable swamp,' the grind to Atlanta and then all of Georgia was his to lose... which he didn't.
There was no viable entity left for the Confederacy. Had Lincoln lost in late 1864 and McClellon 'negotiated a peace,' even the Wildest pro-south outcome would have been:
Acceptance of Texas secession. Allow Alabama, S. Carolina and maybe half of N. Carolina to make up a slave holding nation, with (likely) Mississippi given to freed slaves. And eventually another war (taking one week) liberating the rest.
scidata:
Where else can you find Adam Smith, Isaac Asimov, and George Will all referenced
Sometimes, I'm glancing at a post and I see part of it without yet having seen who is speaking. Often, I can correctly identify who posted it before looking at the name and collapsing the waveform.
I knew this was you. :)
Larry Hart: I knew this was you. :)
Heh, that's like me wheneve I see "in fact, the opposite thing". For others who need a bit more explanation:
Krugman and Will used to tussle quite often on ABC's "This Week with David Brinkley" many years ago. Krugman does the best side-eye ever, and Will does a haughty, yet almost imperceptible eye roll*. Google "Paul Krugman Adam Smith" for lots of that stuff (he makes many of the same arguments as does OGH). And we all know about his psychohistory story (hopefully). I hope Krugman's read FOUNDATION'S TRIUMPH because my mind's eye saw him as Seldon in the pensive scenes (not so much the rejuvenation and time-leaping ones :)
* The best parts of Asimov's "Second Foundation" were the very subtle gestures that served as weapons.
scidata a while back:
MAGA's new message to the cult: Let's be like Europe!
Except for universal health coverage. Or paid time off of work. Then they're still all "We're not like those commie Europeans."
A very astute caller to Stephanie Miller's radio show explained why the supreme court really made its ruling on mifepristone. The standing issue was a convenient excuse, but this court has granted cert to complainantents without standing before (i.e., a web designer who some day might be asked to design a web site celebrating a gay wedding).
No, her theory is that the pharmaceutical industry was against messing with the FDA approval process, and had filed amicus briefs telling the court that such a ruling would invite chaos. That sounds plausible to me.
Isn't it nice when different right-wing constituencies have to fight it out with each other?
SCOTUS kicked the mife case on standing, while leaving very open the option for other plaintiffs to bring the case back up *after* the November election.
This particular decision was 9-0 for very convenient political reasons for 6 of the Justices. The conservative bloc are trying to help the GOP withstand the wrath of pissed off women this fall.
We will see this again after the voting is done this fall and it will not be a 9-0 decision. Bank on it.
However, I think you ARE aiding them (slightly) make spaghetti stick better.
Alfred,
Perhaps it would make u feel better that under my construction of the law, Trump would still be guilty
I think the prosecution's best fact is the note that Cohen says Trump wrote about 130,000 2x plus 50,000 bonus.
That pretty much proves your whole case if the jury believes Trump wrote it. Certainly he's aware and planned to evade tax laws to get compensation to Cohen for the amount of the NDA. Hard to argue either intent or that Trump didn't know it was a crime as any adult who has paid taxes should know.
However, maybe the prosecution worried that it's "thinking like a lawyer."
For example, yes it's tax evasion bc it's creating inaccurate IRS reporting. But a juror might think, "It's not tax evasion, bc he's doing something to make Cohen pay MORE taxes."
Trump would pound that fact in his PR, which would then feed into his persecution narrative. So, it's the strongest LEGAL fact, but might undermine the whole purpose of the prosecution. Instead of deterring violation of the law, it could make MAGA people buy the persecution angle and undermine faith in the integrity of the system.
This last problem could happen with the politically unengaged who only hear the headlines.
LW legal experts who profess certainty of Trump's guilt are probably looking at the tax evasion theory.
The problem is, the other two elevation theories are quite fuzzy. People who believe Trump is a mortal threat to democracy will vigorously defend the NY election law case bc they want him convicted and don't want to hear any possibility he might skate.
I think it's bad law that will cause problems.
As for the Federal election violation theory, I think it's a bit strained. The concept that I've heard pundits float is the idea that Cohen fronting the $$$ to Stormy is an illegal loan to a candidate.
If they could trace the $$$ from the campaign to Stormy, no one would be making such an attenuated argument. This theory also feed Trump's persecution narrative.
Perhaps I'd have been better served to begin with this overview. By going straight to, "Ya, there are legit grounds for appeal...followed by a whole lot of arguments...it made my analysis look like a Trump apologia.
Hi John Viril,
I disagree with the idea that the violation of campaign finance law is a "theory" or an attenuated argument.
David Pecker and Michael Cohen both admitted in court that they entered into a conspiracy with Donald J. Trump to violate campaign finance laws. Corporations are prohibited from making expenditures that are coordinated with the candidates or their committees or surrogates. AMI violated the law by conspiring to spend money on Trump's behalf for the Trump campaign because they never meant to run the story; they (ultimately Cohen) bought it to benefit the campaign per the trial testimony; the *intent* to violate campaign finance law is the key to all of this.
So Trump did a crime, then did another crime (the one he is convicted of) in furtherance of a crime, and that's what made it a felony.
One could argue that Pecker and Cohen aren't credible witnesses, but a jury of Trump's peers disagree with that assessment. One could easily argue that they should all have been prosecuted for the original conspiracy - and I agree! But only Cohen served time for that offense. One may note that the primary beneficiary of the conspiracy was president of the US at the time of Cohen's conviction, which might help explain why some were prosecuted but not all.
Presented without further comment:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/11/opinion/trump-business-capitalism-democracy.html
...
The irony of capitalist discontent with democracy is that capitalist democracy has been a very good deal for capitalists. Roosevelt understood, as he spearheaded his defense of the constitutional order, that a measure of modest egalitarianism — facilitated through the formal institutions of democracy — is a small price to pay for stability and the rule of law.
There was a poem, of sorts, that Trump liked to recite during the 2016 presidential campaign. It was “The Snake,” an Al Wilson song from the 1960s that was a retelling of the fable of the scorpion and the frog. In the song, a woman saves a half-frozen snake from death only to be bitten.
“I saved you,” cried that woman. “And you’ve bit me even, why? You know your bite is poisonous and now I’m going to die”
“Oh shut up, silly woman,” said the reptile with a grin. “You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in.”
For Trump, this was an anti-immigrant parable: a dark warning that migrants and refugees are, as he now says, “poisoning the blood of our country.” But it could just as easily be a warning about the former president and the capitalists who hope to bring him back to power. They’ll carry him, he’ll bite and his poison will flow through the body politic, to their ruin as well as ours.
I disagree with the idea that e violation of campaign finance law is a "theory" or an attenuated argument
Calling it a "theory" is just legalese. Whenever a lawyer talks about a particular way to address all the findings they need to meet all the elements of crime, they'll call it a legal theory---even if the evidence is airtight.
The reason is, when u try a case, the lawyers make arguments to the judge and the jury. The judge decides the legal arguments. Meanwhile the jury decides the facts of the case (for example, did x shoot y?)
Until there is a verdict, there has been no decision about what actually happened.
Yes, there has been a verdict in this case, but lawyers are so used to talking about legal theories that they sorta continue with that verbiage whenever they discuss a particular legal view of a case.
Note that even Supreme Court decisions are called "opinions," bc their rulings can be overtt.urned by a future court.
Thus, when I call it a legal "theory," I don't intend dismissive inference.
even if they do not agree about what he got drunk on; beer, wine, or whiskey. The precise source of the intoxication was not in legal dispute.
Paradoctor, your analogy isn't sound bc they're all the same set of actions and the only dispute is the alcohol in the glass (which is trivial).
Here, we have three separate crimes, and each has a different set of elements the prosecution needs to prove.
The problem here is that if you allow the prosecution to get away with, "defendant is guilty of one of the above," the volume of accusations will substitute for the standard of proof (which in criminal law is the stringent beyond a reasonable doubt).
So, there's a real risk you could get convictions where there's a big volume of accusations, none of which are truly certain.
In my JaRon hypothetical I tried to create a defendant who is typically mistreated by the system. Allow the prosecution to get convictions by leveling multiple accusations and then letting the jury find, "well, he did one of those, " u create even more avenues to abuse disfavored defendants.
Brin's "Giving Plague" has a life of its own, it appears, as libertarian pundit Wilder adapts, samples & plagiarizes it to argue that the entire progressive leftwing agenda stems from a mind altering infectious agent:
https://wilderwealthywise.com/
That said, I still intend to limit my contributions here until after the pending EU & US electoral apocalypses, as each & every faction rushes heedless 'helter-skelter' towards its own appointment with self-extinction and/or destiny.
May God have mercy on our souls.
Best
_____
"Hostess", written by Isaac Asimov in 1951, tells the tale of death being an endogenous human parasite which can spread to non-human races under specific circumstances, a condition which Freud described as Todestrieb:
Is this what Leftism is ?
A mind-destroying parasitic infection of pathological empathy ?
And, most importantly, can it be cured ?
John Viril,
Perhaps I'd have been better served to begin with this overview.
Yes. Very much so.
Even I was seeing you as an apologist and I'm usually willing to bend over backwards to avoid saying "You are X" when it's still possible for "Your words sound like you are X" to be true. 8)
———
I get the distinction you point out in your use of 'theory', but many won't see it. There is a science version of that term too and our use isn't much different.
As for the Federal election violation theory, I think it's a bit strained.
I don't. Having Cohen front the money when he clearly expected to be compensated (that's what Fixers do) just means I should look past the middleman to the source of funds. If his fixer did these things often enough to establish a pattern, I see no reason not to apply the pattern again short of clear evidence it did NOT apply.
I think it's bad law that will cause problems.
Perhaps. I'll defer to NY's appellate courts. Personally, though, I have no issue with someone writing a logical OR into statutes. Y'all do it all the time when you write the definitions of things to which a law might apply. In this case, it's pretty clear to me the NY legislature intended to write OR conditions for use in elevating the crime from misdemeanor to felony.
The judge's instructions were clear. It wasn't about whether the elevating crime was something they all agreed upon. That wasn't to be the point of deliberation. They just had to decide whether the act should be treated as a misdemeanor or a felony. The ELEVATION was the decision.
I should also point out that as far as I know, the jury might have agreed to a number of the OR clauses. It's possible the vote went more like this…
Possibility #1 (12 to 0)
Possibility #2 (10 to 2)
Possibility #3 (7 to 5)
ONLY if the first one had been (11 to 1) or worse would it have even been possible that one juror felt that NONE of the OR clauses was sufficiently proven. No such juror exists, though. They clearly agreed enough that elevation was justified… and the Appellate Court must consider that when deciding whether its good or bad law.
———
For the record, I think or JaRon story fails… because a jury would be involved. Falsifying the pharmacy's business records to help people who clearly had power over him would be argued by a decent defender as the extorted fruit won by those who can threaten him. Actual extortion charges wouldn't have to be leveled of course. The point is to create sufficient doubt that JaRon committed a crime at all. Also… JaRon's defense isn't going to have him arrive in court in that orange jumpsuit. Not in front of a jury. Even I know that creates bias.
That jury is being asked whether the business record falsification charge should be elevated against a guy who has just been exonerated on DNA evidence? AND the business records involve the prison facility where many people are in a position to threaten him? JaRon would have to have spectacularly incompetent defense AND a biased judge AND an uncaring jury to get nailed for it.
As legal scenarios go, that sounds conspiratorial. That's the kind of scenario that comes off like "Black people in a southern court during segregation." That scenario should only be considered if there is a pattern of bias like that… and if there is JaRon is screwed anyway.
JaRon would have to have spectacularly incompetent defense AND a biased judge AND an uncaring jury to get nailed for it.
Alfred, with all due respect, u are blissfully unaware of how bad the criminal justice system can be. You think it couldn't happen. Sadly, it happens far too often.
The JaRon hypo is based on an actual case. Of LaMonte McIntyre.While the records falsification case is grafted on, I very much simplified his original conviction. EVERY aspect of the criminal justice system failed this kid (17 when he was convicted), judge, jury, prosecution, defense, and police.
In short, witness saw a gangland execution. Told police that the shooter looked like a guy her niece was dating named LaMonte.
That kid had an airtight alibi, but somehow police decided that another guy named LaMonte was a good suspect bc he had a marijuana possession conviction and missed school that day
So, the cop takes a PHOTO (not a lineup) of shows the witness a bunch of pictures, and by some miracle picks out LaMonte.
Once they had the eyewitness I'd, they don't search his house for the murder weapon, take a blood sample, or do a powder test.
When the case goes to trial, LaMonte is represented by a public defender who was later disbarred for incompetence, the judge was sleeping with the prosecutor, the jury later made a statement that indicated he should have been acquitted had they followed instructions, and the eyewitness later said LaMonte was too short to be the killer.
After the trial, the eyewitness told the prosecutor LaMonte couldn't be the killer, but Prosecutor replied,"the case is with the jury. I can't do anything."
(This is a lie Prosecution has a duty to reveal all exculpatory evidence. Should have taken witness to the judge and requested a conference in chambers with defense counsel. Judge might have reconvened court., ordered a new trial, or the prosecutor might have drooped the case.)
The prosecutor should have been disbarred for this unethical conduct. But, by the time it came to light 22 years later, the statute of limitations had passed. By that time, the state prosecutor had been promoted to a senior Federal prosecutor position. Public pressure forced her to surrender her law license
LaMonte spent 22 years in prison until the Innocence Project took up his case and he won acquittal. However, at the time, prisoners couldn't sue for wrongful conviction if they've had a trial in Kansas. State legislature changed the law and he ended up with $12 million.
https://www.kcur.org/news/2022-10-19/an-innocent-kansas-man-spent-23-years-in-prison-his-release-exposed-decades-of-police-corruption
This video tells u why u should never talk to police, but includes many stories erroneous convictions, and how police can abuse defendants.
https://youtu.be/d-7o9xYp7eE?si=pBLnbekTVQZUDOoX
JV
You should never talk to police
I would note that this is a very American "thing" - here (NZ) or in the UK I would always just cooperate with the police
If I was still in the USA......
J.C. Vance in the New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/13/opinion/jd-vance-interview.html
I think most of us who are generally socially aware have a voice in our head that says: “You shouldn’t say this; you should try to say that. Maybe you believe this, but you should try to put it a little bit more diplomatically.” And in 2020 that voice had become absolutely tyrannical. There was nothing you were allowed to say. Offending someone was an act of violence. I think a lot of us just said: “We’re done with this. We’re not playing this game, and we refuse to be policed in what we think and what we say.”
He doesn't recognize that this dynamic exists in the right-wing sphere as well as the leftist one? He seems to be saying that Trump supporters are rebelling because they're legitimately fed up with being told what they should think. Like that doesn't happen as much if not more in the other direction.
"I'm sick of being told to be supportive of gays or black people," is righteous anger.
"I'm sick of being told that this is a Christian nation and I'm a second class citizen," is not?
Attempts to use chant incantations to support your own biases and demean your perceived opponents is natural and human.
What's pretty much defined-insanity though is refusal to compare your incantations to factual, objective reality. While there surely is a FAR left in America that does this, we have reached a point where the entire mad US right despises and fears every single profession that deals in those horrible things called facts.
The worst example? There's a whole wing of 'conservative economists' who hold their nose at the noxious ravings and disgusting behaviors of Donald Trump, but support him nonetheless 'for the economy.'
Never mind that ALL major economic metrics do far better - on average - across Democratic administrations (as they are doing right now). Or that Democrats are always more fiscally responsible re debt. Or that the USA is now re-industrializing and reviving manufacturtring at the fastest rate since WWII. Or that we are energy independent... and Joe Biden just made a ton of profit$ off selling reserve oil high and then restocking low.
...or that the economy will be worthless, if we don't act to insulate it re a changing planetary climate.
The MOST delusional insanity of 'moderate Republican economists', who hold their nose over Trumpian stench for 'economic' reasons, is simple. They cling to a theory - an "Austrian Doctrine" - that cutting taxes on the rich will translate into beneficial industrial investment, economic booms and vanishing deficits. It is called "Supply Side" and NOT ONE OF THE PREDICTED BENEFICIAL OUTCOMES EVER CAME TRUE. Not one, ever. Instead, almost all those Trillion$ went where Adam Smith said they would, into parasitical rent-seeking.
Across 40 years of trillion$ shot into the gaping maws of inheritance brats, the sole verified outcomes have been wealth disparities skyrocketing past French Revolution levels, cylical liquidity bubbles, and waves of brats cash-buying the US housing stock. Oh, and when the rich have all the money, the Federal Reserve's interest rates don't matter squat.
Conservative economic pundits like John Mauldin - who predicted that Europe would be in tattered poverty by now, due to PIGS disease - now wring their hands that it's too late to do anything about US deficits and a shitstorm is coming here.
But the federal debt will easilly be quelled with the one action he cannot allow himself to contemplate. END 40 years of tax tricks and gusher subsidies for the rich.
The Mad Right raves praise of the 1950s Greatest Generation, ignoring that the GGs adored two living humans above all others, FDR and Jonas Salk.
It it was under Rooseveltean tax structures that we has those boom times, and low wealth disparity and huge business startups and national unity... while having a lot of needs for reforms ahead.
Hey, John. Your theory - a cventral tenet of your life - is utterly disproved. If it is scrapped, the 'debt-trap-doom' you bemoan will go away... as will the strong chance that you and your caste will go for a tumbrel ride.
onward
onward
Post a Comment