Thursday, June 15, 2023

Up WAY Too Early

Now, put that on a bumper sticker. Moving forward, we’re going to have to distinguish between “artificial intelligence” and “AI.” One has been with us practically from the beginning, and is often confused for the real thing. The other is a blanket term for  a newly developed technology. Well, of course they are: The sunk-cost fallacy kept us in Vietnam, and then Afghanistan, well past their respective “sell by” dates. And that involved blood and treasure and tens of thousands of lives. And yet here we still are, and odds are we’d do it again. I remember the war protests and the Civil Rights movement (and its discontents) and the political violence of the’70’s and the violence attendant upon the gay rights movement and the continued backlash against all efforts to improve the lives of all who are not white male property owners in America. And you’re going to tell me the gravest threat to America is a fat, old reality TeeVee con man with a bad combover already facing two criminal indictments with two (and maybe three) on deck and almost 70% of Americans already think he’s in deep shit? Trump supporters weren’t numerically significant in 2016, and they haven’t grown since. 

And the legal system is quite a bit stronger than Trump supporters think it is. And it can’t be understood in the political terms all the reporters and pundits and Twitterati want to understand it in. There is justice in the justice system that is not equivalent to the political in the political system. Exhibit “A” is the WSJ editorial page:
Even Judge Cannon would have a hard time making a lawful court order out of that claptrap.

Second, Judge Cannon’s other statements and actions in the prior proceedings made clear her view that Trump is entitled to differential treatment than any other criminal defendant. She wrote that “as a function of Plaintiff’s former position as President of the United States, the stigma associated with the subject seizure is in a league of its own.” She reiterated this position in denying the government’s motion for a partial stay of her order pending appeal, stating that her consideration “is inherently impacted by the position formerly held by [Trump].” After the 11th Circuit rejected her position and granted a partial stay to allow the government to use classified materials and remove them from the special master’s review, she still ruled for Trump on procedural issues over the views of the special master she appointed. As the ultraconservative panel of the 11th Circuit forcefully explained when finally dismissing Trump’s civil action in its entirety, it was Judge Cannon’s attempt to “carve out an unprecedented exception in our law for former presidents” that was in a league of its own.

Pretty much the argument Trump and his supporters have been putting forward: that Trump’s status as a former president and as a political candidate give him a special “King’s ‘X’”. Except the courts have already ruled that isn’t true. (If Trump doesn’t have double super-secret powers as ex-POTUS, he certainly doesn’t have any as a political candidate.) Political reporters continue to narrate as if it could be true. But that’s the difference between the political arena, and the courtroom.

Besides, the narrative is already shifting again, back to noticing Tom Fitton is not a lawyer, but he plays one at MAL:

That seems to be the basis of all Trump’s claims that he is a Billy Joel song: an English major with no clue what the law is. I’ve met lawyers who think their legal training makes them experts in other fields (or with no need of knowledge in those fields, so superior is their own). Fitton proves you don’t need a law degree to be that arrogant; or ignorant. Following such “legal” advice, Trump’s goose is cooked well done, too.
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