Monday, August 28, 2023

Lauro Was Playing To HIs Client, Not The Court

"Let's take the temperature down for a moment," Judge Chutkan said to Lauro as he got "heated over the government's trial proposal & amount of discovery materials," Faulders adds.

Chutkan also told Lauro, “I will say that, I don't doubt from it that you're working diligently but I will say that you and I have a very, very different estimate of what of the time that's needed to prepare for this case.”

Professor of law, political commentator, and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General at DOJ, Harry Litman, responded to Judge Chutkan's "very, very different estimate" remark.

"Comments like this, or calling the Trump submission 'misleading,' are very harsh within the decorous confines of the federal court. She’s bringing it," he said.

After Chutkan set theMarch 4, 2024 date, Lauro said: "We will certainly abide by your honor's ruling, as we must. We will not be able to provide adequate representation ... the trial date will deny President Trump the opportunity to have effective assistance of counsel," according to Politico's Kyle Cheney.

Responding to that remark, Litman observed: "So Lauro is upping the ante -- he's telling her that she is violating his due process and sixth amendment rights and creating an issue on appeal. In addition to the bottom line, which is quite bad for Trump, his counsel is now totally crosswise [with] the judge, a terrible position."

"Chutkan hearing could’ve been worse for Trump, but I’m not sure how," Litman concludes. "She called his lawyers misleading, obviously took their proposal as a stunt, and set a trial date about as early as she might have. Does trump now fire Lauro?" 

I suspect that's because Lauro knows he can only hope to win this trial on appeal, though appeal would likely only result in a new trial, not in a dismissal of charges.  The DOJ and Chutkan are not going to screw up that badly.  Which is not to say Chutkan screwed up today, just that Lauro made sure to note his objections to preserve for a possible appeal.  That I don't have a problem with.

But Litman is right:  if I was representing a party in that courtroom and the judge told opposing counsel "Let's take the temperature down for a moment," I'd know I was basically home free, and the judge was now focussing on the antics of counsel, not the argument.  In every hearing, you're playing for the court's ear and inclination toward your argument.  DOJ knew they had that the moment Chutkan chided Lauro about the temperature.

Never a good place for counsel to be.

"Comments like this, or calling the Trump submission 'misleading,' are very harsh within the decorous confines of the federal court. She’s bringing it," he said. 

Yup.  That's where you relax and continue to make your argument calmly and quietly, knowing the court is much more receptive to you.  Judges like Chutkan do a very good job of being impartial (as they should!).  This is Chutkan telling Lauro he's not winning any hearts or minds today.  As Litman says, Trump got nothing today.

Now what?

Remember that $7 million he claims he raised on mugshot t-shirts (an amount, as CNN pointed out, can't be verified until fundraising reports are filed with the FEC)?  Pre-trial work on this case alone are gonna set that on fire.  That and lawyers working through the evidence to prepare just this case.

And Trump has three more trials to go through pre-trial practice and then lengthy trials.  He's gonna sell that jet before he's through.  Not likely to have any use for it, anyway.  Prisoners don't get to travel.

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🐘 🏡

That would be this picture: Speaking of lies: Rule of law for thee, but not for me: And a reasonable question: Fair and Balanced and Objective! The presumption being that's just what God's been waiting for?
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Let's Restore Our Republic By Destroying Our Constitutional Order!

Matt Gaetz sez: "Hold my beer!" Kari Lake sez: "You're both pussies!" "Let's you and him fight!"

"I just want, you know, the posse to know something, Steve," Lake replied. "They're trying, they're losing. Okay. We know that. You don't, winners don't act the way that the deep state is acting right now."

Lake suggested the cases against Trump were part of a psychological operation to demoralize his supporters.

"Don't believe all the news you're reading," she insisted. "Most of it is complete lies and garbage, and it's meant to get into your mind and psychologically bring you down. We are winning. They are not winning. Donald Trump is winning."

"The American people are winning, but it's going to be a fight, a street fight, a fist fight the next year," Lake added. "And so we've got to strengthen ourselves and know that, that God has put us here for a reason."

Denial is not just a river in Egypt; and God is not mocked. In fact, God advocates turning the other cheek.  Let's just say MLK, Jr., she's not.

Besides, they tried a fist-fight, and 1000 of them wound up in jail, with more coming.  Not the selling point she thinks it is.
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"What A Bag Of Walnuts"

Ali Vitali (I think it was) on MSNBC this morning described Nikki Haley was being the "adult in the room" during the recent GOP "debate." Ramaswamy was certainly the class clown. I checked, and yes, he does have a law degree. From Yale. Who should probably ask for it back. As Charlie notes, VR got knocked around by Dana Bash (!).  He won't last 10 minutes in a real political fight.  And he'd flunk the civics test he wants everybody to pass to be able to vote (call it what it is: a "literacy test.")

 Of course, none dare call it racism:
Which, of course, hasn't stopped that credulous campaign press corps from taking this buffoon seriously, especially after his "standout" debate. You remember? The one where he said the Constitution won the American Revolution six years before its ratification by the states? Yeah, that was cool.

The press must remain objectively stupid, and wake up anew to a fresh, strange world where memory is an obstruction to stenography.

I stand by my earlier statement. 

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“IMPEACH! BEFORE MARCH 4, 2024!”

The solution is to stay in the news.
"I NEVER HAD AN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY, I HAD AN IMPEACHMENT, WHICH I WON! IT WAS STARTED IMMEDIATELY, NO MEETINGS, NO STUDY, NO DELAYS," Trump wrote. "THE LUNATIC FASCHISTS [sic] & MARXISTS PLAY THE GAME DIFFERENTLY." 
"THEY ARE OUT TO DESTROY AMERICA. MAGA!" he concluded. 
Contrary to Trump's assertion, there was an impeachment inquiry and fact-finding stage both times he was impeached. Trump refused to testify in his defense in the second impeachment for inciting the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, proclaiming the proceedings were rigged from the start.
Although: And: Meanwhile, I wish I was a fly on the wall in a D.C. courtroom right now. [I’m skipping the portion where the court goes carefully through the material produced by the prosecution. It’s detailed, but it’s how courts work.  Much more reassuring than a Gym Jordan hearing.] [And it goes on like that for awhile. I’ve seen this before. Lauro knows he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. He’s doing this for the client. There’s zealously representing your client; and then there’s this:] [As I was saying; and yes, this is a delay tactic (and a marker for appeal), and no, it won’t work.] [Hoisting Lauro on his own petar.] [Judge then warns: "Don’t fuck with the jury pool.]
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Vivek Ramaswamy Wants To Be The Brown Stephen Miller When He Grows Up

At one point, she asked, '"That is a debate that is based on nonviolent discussion which you just said, she's using rhetoric. There is -- that's one thing, and another thing is to say that she represents and she is a modern version of a KKK, which as you know, was dedicated to the subjugation and violence against black people." 
"How on earth is she a modern Grand Wizard of that kind of an organization?" she pressed. 
"Dana, let's be honest -- let's be intellectually honest and get to the heart of what this debate ought to be about," he fired back. "There is a world view that says that the remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination; that if you're black or brown, you have to have a particular point of view. That's from Ayanna Pressley and Ibram X. Kendi, the people I quoted in my speech." 
"But regardless when you accuse her of being a Grand Wizard of KKK? Can you have that intellectually honest discussion with that kind of rhetoric?" Bash managed to get in. 
"Yes, I can, Dana, because the point I'm highlighting is that even when the people even in good spirit -- we all agree the KKK was a horrible organization that is a toxic stain on our nation's history. So given that we start from that point of agreement, now who actually sounds like that organization today? The people who are calling for more racial discrimination on the basis of color?"

This is a very old, very racist, argument.  But he likes it. He really, really likes it:

The interview escalated when Bash turned to Ramaswamy’s recent event — at which he claimed Pressley spoke “the words of the modern grand wizards of the modern KKK” back in 2019 when she said, “We don’t want any more black faces that don’t want to be a black voice. We don’t want any more brown faces that don’t want to be a brown voice.” 
“You know, I’m sure, the KKK was responsible for more than a century worth of horrific lynchings, rapes, murders of black people,” Bash recounted. “How, in any way, are the views you’re talking about comparable to the views and atrocities committed by the KKK?” 
“What I said is the grand wizards of the KKK would be proud of what they would hear her say,” Ramaswamy answered, “because there’s nothing more racist than saying that your skin color predicts something about the content of your viewpoints or your ideas.” 
“You didn’t just say they would be proud,” Bash retorted. “You said these are the words of the modern grand wizards of the modern KKK.” 
His answer: It is the same spirit — you’re right about that, Dana. I think it is the same spirit to say that I can look at you and based on just your skin color, that I know something about the content of your character, that I know something about the content of the viewpoints that you’re allowed to express. For Ayanna Pressley to tell me because of my skin color I can’t express my views, that is wrong. It is divisive. It is driving hate in this country. This is dividing our country to the breaking point. 
The clash went on as Bash continued to ask Ramaswamy “How on Earth is [Pressley] a modern grand wizard,” of an organization known for oppressing and committing violence against Black people. 
“Let’s be intellectually honest,” Ramaswamy said, prefacing his retort. Bash, though, remained quite skeptical of the presidential candidate’s take. 
“The whole thing about the KKK, it wasn’t just about rhetoric,” Bash said. “They lynched people! They raped people! They murdered people! They burned their homes…” 
“And that was obviously wrong,” he responded. 
“Okay. So if you want to have an intellectual discussion, do you think that maybe comparing her to the grand wizard and the notion of what she said to being a modern leader of the KKK was maybe a step too far? Or do you stand by what you said?” Bash asked.

I think we can safely say he wouldn’t know an intellectual conversation if it but him in the ass. And outreach beyond the GOP base and the even smaller number of racist tech-bros, is going to be a problem.

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Sunday, August 27, 2023

Xitter Is A Remarkably Stupid Place

So JMM posted this xweet, and it drew a lot of responses, one of which (the best of which), was a link to this article. One measure of it is that apparently all the critics of JMM (I use the word loosely; mostly they just say JMM is wrong and think they’re very clever to do so). The quality of the responses will obsess us as we continue.

Let’s begin with some legitimate history:
Anti-Federalists” opposed this new Constitution. The foes worried, among other things, that the new government would establish a “standing army” of professional soldiers and would disarm the 13 state militias, made up of part-time citizen-soldiers and revered as bulwarks against tyranny. These militias were the product of a world of civic duty and governmental compulsion utterly alien to us today. Every white man age 16 to 60 was enrolled. He was actually required to own—and bring—a musket or other military weapon.

It sounds like Switzerland, where this idea of a militia still prevails. And I don’t think they have the guns for self/defense, but rather for national defense.

“Self-defense” is seen as a telling rebuttal to JMM’s xweet. It is, however, very ahistorical.

On June 8, 1789, James Madison—an ardent Federalist who had won election to Congress only after agreeing to push for changes to the newly ratified Constitution—proposed 17 amendments on topics ranging from the size of congressional districts to legislative pay to the right to religious freedom. One addressed the “well regulated militia” and the right “to keep and bear arms.” We don’t really know what he meant by it. At the time, Americans expected to be able to own guns, a legacy of English common law and rights. But the overwhelming use of the phrase “bear arms” in those days referred to military activities.
Oh, there's more:
Though state militias eventually dissolved, for two centuries we had guns (plenty!) and we had gun laws in towns and states, governing everything from where gunpowder could be stored to who could carry a weapon—and courts overwhelmingly upheld these restrictions. Gun rights and gun control were seen as going hand in hand. Four times between 1876 and 1939, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to rule that the Second Amendment protected individual gun ownership outside the context of a militia. As the Tennessee Supreme Court put it in 1840, “A man in the pursuit of deer, elk, and buffaloes might carry his rifle every day for forty years, and yet it would never be said of him that he had borne arms; much less could it be said that a private citizen bears arms because he has a dirk or pistol concealed under his clothes, or a spear in a cane.”

It’s here I have to note Heller, in 2008, was the first time the Court (and so any court) held the 2nd conferred anything like an individual right. And in addition to the restraints noted above, fully automatic weapons are still banned from private ownership, so your self-defense cannot include having all the weapons the military does(as one response claimed should be allowed).Which is to say, the government. Which really does get to tell you what you can’t do, or own.

Convicted felons lose their right to bear arms in perpetuity, as a matter of federal law. No one loses their right to free speech in perpetuity. 

The NRA was founded by a group of Union officers after the Civil War who, perturbed by their troops’ poor marksmanship, wanted a way to sponsor shooting training and competitions. The group testified in support of the first federal gun law in 1934, which cracked down on the machine guns beloved by Bonnie and Clyde and other bank robbers. When a lawmaker asked whether the proposal violated the Constitution, the NRA witness responded, “I have not given it any study from that point of view.” The group lobbied quietly against the most stringent regulations, but its principal focus was hunting and sportsmanship: bagging deer, not blocking laws. In the late 1950s, it opened a new headquarters to house its hundreds of employees. Metal letters on the facade spelled out its purpose: firearms safety education, marksmanship training, shooting for recreation.

That’s the NRA I grew up with; or rather, adjacent to.  I’ve never owned a gun, but I had friends who did; and the NRA was all about hunting and gun safety. One rule I remember was that you NEVER, EVER, pointed a gun at a person. The rule was that you never pointed a gun at something you didn’t intend to shoot; and the corollary was that you NEVER shot a person. Gun safety; which works directly against self-defense.

And this, just because Trump came out of nowhere and prior to 2016 there were no ideological differences in politics:

Cut to 1977. Gun-group veterans still call the NRA’s annual meeting that year the “Revolt at Cincinnati.” After the organization’s leadership had decided to move its headquarters to Colorado, signaling a retreat from politics, more than a thousand angry rebels showed up at the annual convention. By four in the morning, the dissenters had voted out the organization’s leadership. Activists from the Second Amendment Foundation and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms pushed their way into power. 
The NRA’s new leadership was dramatic, dogmatic and overtly ideological. For the first time, the organization formally embraced the idea that the sacred Second Amendment was at the heart of its concerns. 
The gun lobby’s lurch rightward was part of a larger conservative backlash that took place across the Republican coalition in the 1970s. One after another, once-sleepy traditional organizations galvanized as conservative activists wrested control.
And I include this because there really is a lot of gibberish in the tweets responding to JMM's original xweet:
From 1888, when law review articles first were indexed, through 1959, every single one on the Second Amendment concluded it did not guarantee an individual right to a gun. The first to argue otherwise, written by a William and Mary law student named Stuart R. Hays, appeared in 1960. He began by citing an article in the NRA’s American Rifleman magazine and argued that the amendment enforced a “right of revolution,” of which the Southern states availed themselves during what the author called “The War Between the States.”

So that’s where that bullshit started. The responses are certain that’s a killer argument. All it really is, is brain-dead.

And in one paragraph, we see the worth of Scalia’s “judicial philosophy” (I think both words in that phrase are inapt in this context).

The argument presented in District of Columbia v. Heller showed just how far the gun rights crusade had come. Nearly all the questions focused on arcane matters of colonial history. Few dealt with preventing gun violence, social science findings or the effectiveness of today’s gun laws—the kinds of things judges might once have considered. On June 26, 2008, the Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that the Second Amendment guarantees a right to own a weapon “in common use” to protect “hearth and home.” Scalia wrote the opinion, which he later called the “vindication” of his judicial philosophy.

I.e., it has none. 

Politics, in other words, overtook judicial reasoning; and that stain continues to darken our national discourse. The article is from a book published in 2014. It ends with an exhortation to do as the NRA did: work to change public sentiment. One might argue the events that followed 2014 proved the ideological GOP caught the car, and still doesn’t know what to do with it.

And that public sentiment is about to change out from under them.

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🧵 🪡

This is a very engaging thread; so that you know upfront I don’t write in critique. In fact, I’m on the outside looking in, while reliving my own pastoral experience, especially the way it ended.

But I start in the middle, because of that line about “the moral majority.” I think it’s meant as the people who think themselves moral, and in the comfortable majority. But Jerry Falwell coined the phrase as a political statement and tool. Thus idolatry didn’t start with Trump; he just made it via yin electoral politics. Falwell wanted to be a political power, but never a politician. Pat Robertson tried to enter politics on the strength of joining his Christianity (arguably less false than Trump’s, which is completely fictional) to governmental power; he flamed out so badly it is all but forgotten, and he never tried again.

Trump was not sui generis, in other words. The roots of this lay deep in our culture and history. But the analysis of Trump as a false idol, in this thread, is dead on.
Jesus preached the power of powerlessness. It is the only true opposition to the power of the world. Taking on that power by trying to change its mind is to run into Nietzsche, metaphorically if not literally. The best a pastor can actually do is to recognize his congregation are, at best, baptized heathens, and proceed accordingly. I’ve seen churches with episcopal orders (bishops, I mean) bend the knee to the world while preaching the gospel of Christ, and congregational judicatories do the same. The power to stand against the world is not ecclesiastical leadership, it is pastoral servanthood.

But that’s a damned hard lesson, and not necessarily guidance. Which makes that Xitter thread worth reading.
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This Time Next Year…

...it’s gonna be: “Vivek who?”
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What I’ve Been Saying

If it’s a late term abortion, it’s medically necessary. It’s a medical procedure, not a “Oh, I changed my mind!”

That decision is between the woman, the doctor, and the medical facility. If you ain’t one of them, or invited to give an opinion, STAY THE FUCK OUT OF IT!
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Name That Congregation!

What church does Tucker attend? How often does he attend? Who is his pastor?

Or is he just using the word “Christian” as a club and a hot button?
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Trump’s Ready For Trial!

How do you logistically handle prepping a client for all of those different trials and running for president of the United States?" Bream wondered. 
"Yeah, if it was a normal person, honestly, Shannon, I could understand the concern," Habba replied. "President Trump is not your average person. He's incredibly intelligent, and he knows the ropes. He also knows the facts because he lived them. These are not complicated facts." 
"Look at [Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis]," she added. "It was a phone call, a phone call that's been around forever that he refers to as the perfect phone call. What is he going to have to be prepped for? The truth? You don't have to prep much when you've done nothing wrong."
So he doesn’t need 2 years to prepare for trial in D.C., and can go to trial in Georgia in October.

Sure, why not? Trump knows the facts! Let’s go!
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So?

It doesn’t surprise me that a handful of people stick to Trump like cockle burrs. 

What surprises me is that we continue to treat those people as the most important on the planet.
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He’s Gonna Need It

Trump reportedly burned through $250 million in legal fees without yet going to trial, and before the Georgia indictment. The E.Jean Carroll case barely counts here, because some of the criminal cases may be in court a month or more. Now multiply by 4.

Trials are where you start tossing money in the furnace. That expense often prompts settlements in civil cases. 

The government has no incentive to settle a criminal case unless there’s a plea deal. So Trump’s going to need another mountain of money just to get through 4 criminal trials.

$7 million for a mug shot ain’t gonna cut it.
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None Dare Call It

"Racist” is a harsh and pejorative judgment. I guess.

“Racially motivated” is a brilliant use of the passive voice, laying off any responsibility on the motivation, not the person. Of course, only persons can have motivations, but it’s the motivation that was bad, not the person. No judgement. The essence of “objective journalism.”

When AI takes over, how will we know the difference?
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Saturday, August 26, 2023

Nutshell

👍
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I Haven’t Even Heard This Song 🎵

But I kinda like this guy. 🎵
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🙏

I’ll admit I was tempted to do this a time or two at the churches I pastored, but I remembered Jesus’ words that whatever I did for the least of these, I did for him.

That and the realization the people that needed keeping out were already in the building, probably praying a variant of this prayer. 🙏 
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💸

If he [Trump] wasn't cash poor, he would offer to give folks like Rudy Giuliani some legal representation and funding from his campaign committees, like Save America or even try to arrange, you, know wink wink, nod nod, because MAGA Inc. is a super PAC that is not supposed to be coordinating with Trump from MAGA Inc." 
"But he can't even do that because those campaign committees are bleeding cash more quickly than they can take in from the sale of mugshot t-shirts and the like," she added. "So Rudy Giuliani could be the Michael Cohen of this. He doesn't want to be, but he may face no other choice, unless he sells that $6.5 million dollar apartment in Manhattan, real quick."
When Trump has to sell his plane I’ll sleep perfectly soundly.
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Is This The Dark Universe?

The one where there’s a Karl Rove I can agree with on something?
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