Saturday, June 26, 2021

PSA

Stay informed.
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Once Again, With Feeling

Denying a motion for new trial is virtually a ministerial act. No appeal from a trial can go forward without first requesting a new trial from the trial court. Every appeal you’ve ever heard about, including returning the case for a new trial, started with a request for a new trial in the trial court.

All this means is that Chauvin plans to appeal.

This has been your free civics lesson. You’re welcome.
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Friday, June 25, 2021

Old Times There Are Not Forgotten

...or, Shouting The Quiet Part Through A Bullhorn.

Not that teaching some white people how to behave would be a bad thing. It’s just that the best teaching doesn’t come from the whip handle. Funny he doesn’t know that.

Or “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”?
'Cause it looks like a lotta truth is gonna be told.
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30 Years On

Is it me, or is it obvious that building is tilted?
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Why Won’t The Democrats DO Something About GOP Voting Laws?

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I'm So Old I Remember When Donald Trump Controlled the GOP

And because I'm not through with Giuliani yet (but I'm trying to cut back!): And on top of that, Biden announced an infrastructure deal. It may not be a great bill, but it won't die in the Senate because of the filibuster. Which makes it more than Trump ever accomplished.

I really think Trump's political stock is body-surfing down the tubes.
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Oh, To Have Been A Fly On the Wall

Something else from the same book:

According to Bender, Milley viewed the unrest around Floyd's death as a political problem, not a military one.

He told the President there were more than enough reserves in the National Guard to support law enforcement responding to the protests. Milley told him that invoking the Insurrection Act would shift responsibility for the protests from local authorities directly to the President, according to the excerpts obtained by CNN.

Milley spotted President Abraham Lincoln's portrait hanging just to the right of Trump and pointed directly at it, Bender writes.

"That guy had an insurrection," Milley said. "What we have, Mr. President, is a protest."

And there was this:

I'm old enough to remember that Gen. Curtis LeMay wanted to nuke North Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam. Gen. Milley is a vast improvement.

It always comes down to people.  Which is why elections always matter.

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I Think He's Right....

But I still think NYC thinks to much of itself, and has no idea how little influence it has, culturally or politically, in places like, say: Houston. Fourth largest in the country; most ethnically diverse in the country; about 1600 miles away. Sorry, NYC, we aren't really looking to you for guidance.
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If There Were....

"Legal" Twitter would have been shuttered a long time ago. 

Which wouldn't be entirely a bad thing.
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I Am Reminded...

...of the famous speech in "A Man For All Seasons" where all the laws in England are cut down the better to pursue the Devil. Of course, then when the Devil turns on his pursuers, where is the protection of the law? Without law, where is justice?

AG Garland is right.  It doesn't matter how "bad" Sessions, Barr, and Whitaker were.  Independent IG's are better than the AG siccing his deputies on the former AG's of the former administration.
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This Looks Like A Planned Demolition

Or something out of a Hollywood disaster movie.

I'm not trying to start a conspiracy theory.  It's just a comment on how sudden and complete the collapse is. It looks exactly like a building implosion.  Which makes it scary as shit.....
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Thursday, June 24, 2021

Beating The Horse Before It's Completely Dead

Giuliani supposedly has "big names" representing him in his license suspension proceedings (I'll take that as read, I have no idea myself).  So why are they this stupid?

"He's a valued member of the legal profession, he's a valued member of this country," said Bannon. "He was talking about Peter Navarro's analysis of facts and others, and three thousand affidavits, three thousand affidavits that he had. And now you see in Arizona, you see it in Georgia, you see it all over. And you're telling me that that's — this appellate court suspended his ability to make a living, and try to humiliate and shame one of the greatest living Americans that sacrificed more for his country than virtually anybody ... that's what we're doing because he spoke up about an illegitimate election that we know now was illegitimate because the receipts are going out in Arizona and other places. Is that why they suspended his license, sir?"

"They were of the view that the statements he made were proven to be untrue," said [John] Leventhal [attorney for Giuliani].

Does going on Bannon's podcast have some strategic value for a case before the Supreme Court of New York, Appellate Division, First Department?  Because I'm not thinking they're the audience for Bannon's podcast, or too interested in his opinion.  Then again, neither is Levanthal.   Leventhal's job is to change the view of the court as to the facts.  Does he see Bannon as a way to do that?  Or is his client running this circus?

These guys are fuckin' geniuses, I tells ya!

Raw Story calls Leventhal a "Trump ally."  Maybe this is what it takes to be in Trump's inner circle.  Maybe you have to be as committed to the narrative as Trump is.  Which is to say you have to be just as stupid.

At this point, if any one institution is going to "save democracy," it's clearly going to be the courts.
Clearly there's a pattern here (although it's a bit premature; Giuliani hasn't been disbarred, yet. Patience, grasshopper.)
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More Takes

On Rudy. Et famille.

And here's a summary of just some of the things the three-panel court found sufficient to suspend Giuliani's license.  This is going to be about facts, and the facts are not Rudy's friends. 

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There Are 50 State Bars in America

And they all function quite differently.  I can't begin to comment on how New York licenses and disciplines attorneys.  I can only say that, in Texas, a disciplinary action like this would have to come from the courts, but only because the State Bar filed suit against an attorney to get the courts to take such action.

And I can only say, from my years of reading the reports of disciplinary action taken by the State Bar of Texas in its periodical (they publish them almost like classified ads:  in the back, in briefest possible explanations) that attorneys get disciplined for various infractions of the DR's (IIRC, it's been awhile), which are enforceable, v. Ethical rules ("EC's," if memory serves; but it's been 30 years since I had to think about this, so....), which are guidelines and not enforceable.  The "E's" are the guardrails, the "D's" are the laws you get pulled over for violating (or even arrested for). 

I haven't made a scientific survey, but actual loss of license seems only to occur where client funds are involved; usually playing fast and loose with an escrow account (where the retainer, basically, is deposited.  Until it is earned, that money is technically the client's.  Using it in ways that aren't covered by the retainer agreement is a fast-track to disbarment.)  I know there are lesser disciplinary actions; usually the majority of reported disciplinary actions are far below the level of disbarment.  But I couldn't tell you how common suspension was; or how common it is as a preliminary matter (i.e., before a final hearing).

So the question in the tweet is the question any competent non-New York lawyer would be asking.  But let me give you a quick explainer, too.  Interlocutory actions are quite rare in the courts, despite the fact you hare about "preliminary injunctions" all the time.  For every one you hear about, there are hundreds of thousands of cases where no one even tries to get one, because the bar (no pun intended) is high.  To get an injunction before final hearing (i.e., trial, usually), you have to show you are likely to prevail at trial, and so the reasons for the order then, are the same reasons as now; the only difference is, the harm is ongoing and needs to stop now.  So if the court wants to stop the harm now, it means the courts about 2/3rds convinced it will also want to stop the harm after a full evidentiary hearing (i.e., a trial).

Which means Guiliani's professional goose is probably fully and well cooked.  Whether this action is ordinary or "political targeting," it indicates the court doesn't think much of what the evidence before it (not everything you've read on-line; there is a difference) says about Guiliani's ability to uphold the ethical canons of the law in New York State.

So whether this is normal in NYState, or extraordinary, it doesn't bode well for Giuliani.  It also reaffirms that the courts aren't playing games, even if the politicians continue to.  Everybody freaks about Trump continuing to complain about "fraud."  60 court cases said there was no fraud.  If Pence had tried to turn his ministerial duty into a constitutional crisis, the courts would have had to declare that a non-starter, too.

Frankly, I don't think the internet yet appreciates just how much of a sea wall the courts are, and have been.  They are a significant part of democracy in America, too.  They are a significant reason why democracy has held firm.  They are a signficant reason why some of this shit has not gone down, and why some of the players, from the rioters at the Capitol building to people with access to the last POTUS, are going to face consequences for their actions.

The mills grind slowly, but they grind exceeding fine.

Adding:
Yes, but that's what makes it so extraordinary.  This is akin to a TRO, a "hold" entered by the court ex parte, without hearing from the other parties.  It's even harder to get a TRO issued than it is to get a temporary injunction issued.  Rudy may have rallied some "excellent" lawyers, but it would seem the facts are hard against him, and the court is not inclined kindly towards him.  And that's the "extraordinary" part. 's what I'm sayin'!

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Now?

As opposed to "then"? And speaking of making shit up: The ingenuity is almost impressive. If we could only harness that energy as a force for good; like solving actual problems people have.
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Connecting Nothing With Nothing

Cotton literally represented the wealth we now associate with "Silicon Valley," even if we don't mean the specific location in California when we say that anymore (in fact, who says that any more?).  Cotton was "king" the way "tech" is now.  White settlers in Texas wanted slavery so they could cash in on that kind of money.  By the time it happened we'd joined the Union and then left it again.  If it wasn't for oil, we'd still be battling Mississippi for last place.

Oil saved Texas from Mississippi's fate.  I see that crumbling now, as our roads are not properly maintained and our electrical grid can't even handle higher than usual temperaturs in June, but our Governor insists everything is fine in this best of all possible worlds except for how we vote, what the Democrats in the House did in the regular session, and CRT.  Oh, and a few other GOP boogey-men they'll raise again in July, if they can.  Of course, if the power goes off, nobody's gonna stay in the Capitol building long....

Thank God for oil and Mississippi, or we'd be the poorest state in the union.
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When Journalism Is Merely Flacking*

The generation of Lennon/McCarthney? Dylan? Paul Simon? Or John Prine? Leonard Cohen? Neil Young? (I'm trying to compare apples to apples here; pick others if you like.  And yes, I should be able to think of other female songwriters, so additions are gratefully accepted.)

And I'd kinda hoped we'd used up "Genius" by now.  The Romantics brought it to the fore, and it should have been wrung out of meaning by the time the Victorians were center-stage in British literature.  That word alone is the mark of a tyro.

I won't have it.  I won't have it.  I love some of Ms. Mitchell's music; and the mark of her quality is the covers of her work (especially the ones that are better than her originals).  But "genius"?  Greatest of her generation?

Not even close.

*The occassion for this seems to be the release of "demos and outtakes" from her album "Blue," now 50 years old (is it possible?).  I was playing "River" as a modern Christmas classic long before anyone else realized it was one; but she's just a good writer of her era.  My appreciation of her music is almost all personal and sentimental (easy to be sentimental about things familiar from 50 years ago).  Does she transcend her age?  I think maybe Dylan does.  Maybe.  Still too soon to tell.
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Wednesday, June 23, 2021

Two Reasons To Watch This

One: because it's an encouraging statement about the quality of our military leadership. Two: Matt Gaetz' reaction is priceless. "At long last, sir, have you no shame?"
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Run To The Border

First, I'm trying to reconcile that frame, with this one: So either she's doing it in response to pressure (finally!), or she first made the wiser decision to visit the countries these people are fleeing, to try to start with the root of the problem. Or would you prefer the efforts of the former guy? The ones that shamed us before the nations? And truthfully, I like the way she handled the issue with Lester Holt:

“I’ve never been to Europe,” Ms. Harris said to the NBC anchor Lester Holt when pressed about why she had not visited the border as part of her work addressing migration. “I don’t understand the point you’re making.”
Harris is going to El Paso:  a Democratic stronghold, political birthplace/home of Beto O'Rourke, site of the massacre in a Wal-Mart when a crazed Trump supporter from Dallas came down to "stop the invasion."  Apparently that's the wrong part of the border.
Not a chance in hell Trump was going to be there with Gov. Absent anyway.  They'll go out on to somebody's property on the river where crowds won't gather and hoot at them for being bigots and fools.  But it does point up the foolishness of the entire "Why haven't you been to the border yet?" conversation.  El Paso?  Somewhere around Del Rio (where Abbott was most recently)?  That border is almost 2000 miles long, and runs through New Mexico, Arizona, and California, as well as Texas.  Hell, as the crow flies it's almost 700 miles from El Paso to Brownsville, on the Gulf Coast. 

How the hell does a visit to El Paso, or to Del Rio, constitute a visit to the "border"? The problems in the Valley are not the problems in the Trans-Pecos are not the problems in Baja California.

The bullshit we get so worked up about is such:  bullshit.
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Knowing The Truth Will Just Hurt Your Knuckles

So this contains a better explainer of CRT than I've seen so far.

Critical race theory is a discipline, analytical tool and approach that emerged in the 1970s and ‘80s. Scholars took up the ways racial inequity persisted even after “a whole set of landmark civil rights laws and anti-discrimination laws passed” during the civil right movement, Daniel HoSang, professor of ethnicity, race and migration and American studies at Yale University, said.

“These scholars and writers are asking, why is it that racial inequality endures and persists, even decades after these laws have passed?” HoSang said. “Why is racism still enduring? And how do we contribute to abolishing it?”

HoSang described critical race theory not as “content,” or a “set of beliefs,” but rather an approach that “encourage[s] us to move past the superficial explanations that are given about equality, and suffering, and to ask for new kinds of explanations.”

In the introduction of Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement, a seminal collection of the foundational essays of the movement edited by principal founders and scholars like Kimberlé Crenshaw and Neil Gotanda, the editors write that critical race theory is about transforming social structures to create freedom for all, and it’s grounded in an “ethical commitment to human liberation.”

I was talking to a friend of mine, someone I've known for 60 years (!), who just retired from ministry (!!).  When I mentioned that churches have a culture that is almost genetic (the last church I served was 150 years old, and the roots of its culture reached back to the beginnings of the congregation), he immediately knew what I was talking about, and he agreed.  I mention that because what Dr. HoSang is talking about there is what I understand as the "genetics of culture" of an institution; or, indeed, a nation.  To give you a more prosaic example, I've been reading Forget the Alamo!  It's a history both of the Texas battle for independence and how the myth of the Alamo has been so important to Texans for so long. 

In brief:  Texas was a problem for Mexico because Mexico didn't have a strong enough central government to control the largely unpopulated Mexican (then) state, and the few who did try to settle there were soon run off or killed by the Comanche (largely; and for good reasons of their own, as it turned out).  So Mexico needed enough people there the groups could fend off attacks from the natives, and basically settle the place.  The same interest the government in D.C. had as they urged people to "go West," mostly with land grants, etc. (the western portion of the U.S. was settled with the heavy involvement of the federal government, not in its absence or in spite of it, as man Westerners like to think).   The settlers in Texas wanted the money from cotton (which, at the time, was Google/Amazon/Microsoft/Apple, all rolled up together), and that meant slaves to tend the cotton fields.  It was the only viable economic model available at the time (but we are NOT a racist country!  We just needed cheap labor.  Or something.)  Now, Mexico, having thrown off the peonage system of Spain, thought slavery abhorrent (they were right!).  So for quite some time the weak government in Mexico (Mexico City is a long way from San Antonio, especially on horseback) couldn't control the settlers in Texas bringing in slaves as "indentured servants" (complete with contracts the slaves could never complete the terms of).  But slavery in all of Mexico was still illegal.

The slavery of blacks also fed the resentment of Mexicans, especially mestizos (the ones you think of as "Mexican."  Mostly they have Aztec/Inca/Native American blood in their ancestry.  It's as proud a one as any daughter of the Mayflower; or the Republic of Texas, for that matter.  But I digress....) by the Anglo settlers.  Racism against the Tejanos was all too easy, and frankly, until early in this century, they were written out of Texas history, and especially out of the battle for the Alamo (which was more of a slaughter than a battle, but again, I digress....).  The upshot is, Texas culture was formed and forged in racism.  In East Texas when I grew up it was mostly aimed at blacks; east Texas is mostly western Louisiana (of course we just erased Chicanos from Texas history and culture as blithely as anyone else).  In central and south, hell, most of the rest of Texas, it's just as brutally aimed at Tejanos/Chicanos/Latinos.  I'm not sure if they prefer any label at all.  But we know who to hate, or to call "dirty" or "lazy" or "dangerous."  Gov. Abbott says he's going to start arresting "illegal" immigrants for trespass and other misdemeanors.  Whether he can is one problem; but his cops won't be picking up me, or most of my friends and family, simple because we register as "white."  I know people from El Salvador, though; and I wonder if they'll have to show their citizenship papers.

It's a rotten system.

The proponents of CRT in that article point out it isn't about individuals, that in fact the theory is not aimed at chastizing anyone or blaming anyone.  It wants to examine how race has affected laws in our country, laws we think have no racial bias or basis at all, and show that they do.  If that is shown, it is to be a tool for correction, not a club for beating someone else into submission, not a position from which to claim moral or legal authority to wield power for retribution.  The aim is reconciliation, not revenge.

But then there's that splinter in your eye, which is but a reflection of the log in mine.

Think of it this way:  imagine you have a rod, a wooden dowel, between your fists.  Now, you are pressing as hard as you can on that dowel, trying to drive your fists together.  Along comes a slight external force on the dowel, enough to displace it.  What happens?  Your fists slame together, or course.  

The dowel is whatever lie you want to preserve.  You are pressing on it because you imagine it is the only way to preserve it.  Release the pressure, and you may lose it, and then what? Displace that lie by the external force that effectively redirects the energy of your two fists,  and you aren't immediately set free; your eyes don't open, the sun doesn't bathe you with warmth, butterflies don't gather about you.  All that energy makes your fists slam together.  Letting go of the lie hurts.

The log in your eye requires all the effort you can muster to ignore.  You don't see it because you work so hard to not see it.  You put an extraordinary amount of energy into not noticing it, and when you are forced to, the revelation that frees, at first hurts.  It's a self-inflicted wound, but still: it hurts.  You don't blame your fists for crashing together; first, you blame the external force that displaced the dowel.  You don't blame yourself for ignoring that log with all your might; you blame the person who makes you finally see it, finally do what you've worked so hard not to do.

The purpose of CRT is to make you see the log; see the log, and then remove the log.  But that's why people resent it so.

True, dat.
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