tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-114910992024-03-14T19:06:13.391-04:00Kingdom of IdiotsImpeach Biden
"Only an idiot fights a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Idiots would fight a war on twelve fronts." - Ambassador Londo Mollari - Babylon 5Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1723125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-10384696850384774092024-03-14T19:05:00.000-04:002024-03-14T19:05:40.031-04:00 The “Waiting for Mueller” Mistake and the Right Wing Bubble<p>https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/03/14/the-waiting-for-mueller-mistake-and-the-right-wing-bubble/ <br /></p><header class="entry-content-header"><span class="post-meta-infos"><time class="date-container minor-meta updated">March 14, 2024</time><span class="blog-author minor-meta"><span class="entry-author-link"><span class="vcard author"><span class="fn"></span></span></span></span></span></header><div class="entry-content" itemprop="text"><p>Simon Rosenberg <a data-wpel-link="external" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/04/25/biden-reelection-2024-campaign-desantis/" rel="external noopener noreferrer">didn’t panic</a> about a 2022 Red Wave. As analysts everywhere were wailing that the Sky Was Falling, he was quietly confident.</p>
<p>Keep that in mind as you listen to <a data-wpel-link="external" href="https://newrepublic.com/article/179821/trump-scary-poll-numbers" rel="external noopener noreferrer">this conversation</a>
he had with Greg Sargent. I have about the same cautious optimism as
Rosenberg (I was less confident than he was in 2022) on this year’s
election, but he’s a pro who works from fundamentals, not just last
week’s poll results.</p>
<p>Among other things, he talks about how any of six big negatives for Trump could blow the election for him:</p>
<ol>
<li>He raped E. Jean Carroll in a department store dressing room</li>
<li>He oversaw one of the largest frauds in America history and that he
and Rudy Giuliani through all their various misdeeds own over $700M
dollars</li>
<li>He stole American secrets, lied to the FBI about it, and shared these secrets with other people</li>
<li>He led an insurrection against the United States</li>
<li>He and his family have corruptly taken billions from foreign governments</li>
<li>He is singularly responsible for ending Roe and stripping the rights and freedoms away from more than half the population</li>
</ol>
<p>I would add two more: First, Trump routinely defrauds MAGAt
supporters. Over the last week, he turned the RNC into a means to do so
on a grander scale. Republicans need to hear that they’re being taken to
the cleaner by Trump — and by Steve Bannon, whose trial for doing so
will <em>also</em> serve as backdrop to this election season.</p>
<p>More tellingly, Rosenberg addressed this detail when he described how
Biden’s two big negatives have resolved (my biggest complaint about
this interview is it didn’t address Gaza, the unmentioned third), not
when he addressed Trump’s scandals.</p>
<blockquote><p>The Biden crime family story, we just learned in the last
few weeks, was a Russian op that was being laundered by the Republican
party that blew up in their face.</p></blockquote>
<p>Rosenberg treated the manufactured “Biden crime family” that was
actually a Russian op laundered by the GOP as a resolved Biden negative <em>after</em> he made this point, the most important in the interview, in my opinion.</p>
<blockquote><p>We have to learn the lesson from waiting for Mueller.
Waiting for Mueller was a mistake by the Democratic Party. It prevented
us from prosecuting the case against Trump and his illicit relationship
with the Russian government that was out there all for us to see. Right?
The Russians played a major role in his election in 2016. This is not
in dispute in any way. And so I think now what we need to do is not wait
for Jack Smith or wait for Merrick Garland. We need to use what’s in
front of us and prosecute this in ways that we know is going to do
enormous harm.</p></blockquote>
<p>No superhero will come tell any one of these stories for Democrats.
Trump’s opponents have to tell the story of Trump’s corruption. They
cannot wait for Mueller. Or Jack Smith.</p>
<p>One of many reasons I’m so focused on the Hunter Biden story is that
it is actually what proves the continuity of that story of Russian
influence that Democrats failed to tell. Trump asks for Russian help in
2016 and gets it. As part of a campaign in which Rudy Giuliani solicited
Russian spies for dirt on Hunter Biden, Trump withheld security support
from Ukraine to get the same. <em>Even after that</em>, Trump’s DOJ
created a way to launder the dirt Rudy collected from known Russian
spies to use in the 2020 election. That campaign created the shiny
object that has created the “Biden crime family” narrative. Like
Russia’s role in the 2016 election, none of this is in dispute. It’s
just not known.</p>
<p>You cannot wait for Robert Mueller or Jack Smith to tell this narrative. But <a data-wpel-link="internal" href="https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/11/06/scott-bradys-d-i-s-c-r-e-e-t-vetting-a-marginally-more-credible-witness-than-gal-luft/">for four months</a>
this entire story — this arc — has passed largely unnoticed, even as
Trump took steps to deliver Ukraine’s bleeding corpse to his liege,
Vladimir Putin.</p>
<p>Those who want to defeat Trump — and honestly, Republicans like Liz Cheney and <a data-wpel-link="external" href="https://protectdemocracy.org/work/understanding-trump-pardon-abuses/" rel="external noopener noreferrer">Amanda Carpenter</a> have been doing a better job of this than most Democrats — have to make sure this story gets told.</p>
<p>This is what I’ve been trying to say over and over and over. The <em>reason</em>
why the moderate press hasn’t been telling the story of Trump’s role in
the insurrection, of his ties to militia members and his direct
inspiration for the most brutal assaults on cops on January 6 is because
all their <a data-wpel-link="internal" href="https://www.emptywheel.net/2021/12/03/ten-things-tv-lawyers-can-do-rather-than-whinging-about-merrick-garland/">TV lawyers have been whinging</a> instead about their own misunderstanding of the January 6 investigation. They haven’t been telling the story of what we know.</p>
<p>They have been complaining that Merrick Garland hasn’t compromised
the investigation to tell them them more, turning Garland into their
villain, not Trump.</p>
<p>In the few minutes after I posted these comments on Twitter, commenters have:</p>
<ul>
<li>Complained that the full Mueller Report hasn’t been released, when really they’ve simply been too lazy to understand that the <a data-wpel-link="internal" href="https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/12/24/footnote-the-day-before-roger-stone-received-a-pre-written-pardon-he-lied-about-the-ongoing-investigation-into-his-conspiracy-with-russia/">most damning bits have been released</a>.</li>
<li>Bitched that Merrick Garland hired Rob Hur, rather than bitching about Rob Hur <a data-wpel-link="internal" href="https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/03/13/how-alleged-geezer-joe-biden-caught-rob-hur-and-mark-krickbaum-trying-to-sandbag-him/">telling a narrative</a> even after his own investigation had debunked it.</li>
<li>Complained about a delay in the January 6 investigation that didn’t happen.</li>
</ul>
<p><a data-wpel-link="external" href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/11/politics/trump-employee-5-classified-documents-mar-a-lago/index.html" rel="external noopener noreferrer">Kaitlan Collins’ interview with Brian Butler</a>,
a former Trump employee whose testimony badly incriminated his one-time
best friend, Carlos De Oliveira, has been drowned out by all the
complaints.</p>
<p><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/THimFBZphf0?si=y8uHnJkNLvOvwmNI&wmode=opaque&rel=0" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></p>
<p>The story barely made a blip. It’s not just the NYT that buries
important Trump stories under complaints about Biden, it’s Democratic
supporters.</p>
<p>Rosenberg went on to describe how Democrats need to improve this. He
noted that the Right Wing noise machine provides them a great advantage
on this front, one that Biden will have to spend to combat.</p>
<blockquote><p>We have to recognize, Greg, that the information
environment in the United States is really broken right now and that the
power of the Right Wing noise machine to bully and intimidate
mainstream media into being complicit in advancing some of their
narratives is something that needs a campaign that has half a billion
dollars in it to be able to draw even on. What we’ve learned is there is
a structural imbalance in the information game between the two parties,
that the Republicans have a significant advantage over us in a
day-to-day information war.</p></blockquote>
<p>This is true. But the insularity of the Right Wing noise machine can
be made into a weakness for Republicans, even before spending the money.
Because right wingers so rarely try to perform for a mainstream
audience, as soon as they do — whether it is rising star Katie Britt or
Kentucky redneck James Comer — they look like lying morons.</p>
<p>And in the face of that Right Wing noise, Democrats need to be disciplined.</p>
<blockquote><p>The Biden campaign’s going to have to be wildly
disciplined. They can’t chase the daily story. They’re going to have to
pick the two or three things they know from research are the things that
are a rubicon with the electorate.</p>
<p>[snip]</p>
<p>It’s going to be incumbent upon them to not allow the Trumpian mania
and madness sort of push them around every day. They’re going to need to
develop an offensive strategy both on what we’re selling and on what
we’re indicting him with.</p></blockquote>
<p>Rosenberg laid out the six bullets; I added two more. Trump will try to distract from that with daily outrages, with spectacle.</p>
<p>Trump — abetted by social media — will try to distract from that argument by <a data-wpel-link="internal" href="https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/01/07/the-illogic-of-elise-stefaniks-hostage-video/">demeaning all ability</a> to make, or understand, coherent arguments.</p>
<p>I’m less sanguine than Rosenberg that even discipline is enough to overcome Trump’s circus. Therein lies the challenge.</p>
<p>But he’s right that those who want to defeat Trump have to make that
case themselves. Neither Jack Smith, nor the NYT, will save you.</p>
<div class="pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-post pdfprnt-bottom-left"><a class="pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-pdf" data-wpel-link="internal" href="https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/03/14/the-waiting-for-mueller-mistake-and-the-right-wing-bubble/?print=pdf" target="_blank"></a><a class="pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print" data-wpel-link="internal" href="https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/03/14/the-waiting-for-mueller-mistake-and-the-right-wing-bubble/?print=print" style="overflow: hidden; position: relative;" target="_blank"><img alt="image_print" decoding="async" src="https://www.emptywheel.net/wp-content/plugins/pdf-print-pro/images/print.png?1223387853" title="Print Content" /><span class="image-overlay overlay-type-extern"><span class="image-overlay-inside"></span></span></a></div></div><footer class="entry-footer"><span class="blog-tags minor-meta"><strong>Tags:</strong> <a data-wpel-link="internal" href="https://www.emptywheel.net/tag/jack-smith/" rel="tag">Jack Smith</a>, <a data-wpel-link="internal" href="https://www.emptywheel.net/tag/merrick-garland/" rel="tag">Merrick Garland</a>, <a data-wpel-link="internal" href="https://www.emptywheel.net/tag/simon-rosenberg/" rel="tag">Simon Rosenberg</a></span></footer>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-21752117897706147532024-02-23T11:52:00.005-05:002024-02-23T11:52:51.685-05:00Mary Sue characters backfiring on Hollywood.<p> <cite class="fn">Michael Reynolds</cite> <span class="says">says:</span>
</p><div class="comment-meta commentmetadata">
<a href="https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/fridays-forum-183/#comment-2881974">Friday, 23 February 2024 at 11:17</a>
</div>
<p>A rant on doing the right thing, stupidly.</p>
<p>The Annennberg Center says DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) in film
is actually regressing. I am not surprised. Indeed, I predicted it.
Is this an inevitable result of the patriarchy? No. Is it racist? No.
The cause, as is so often the case in this world, is stupidity. Doing
good, but doing it so poorly you subvert your own cause. </p>
<p>Challenged to have more female-led stories, Hollywood’s reaction was
to simply gender-swap characters in genres that had never, and will
never, attract large numbers of women. Stupid. In order to big-up their
new female leads they belittled male co-leads. Stupid. Racial
diversity was handled a bit better, IMO, for the excellent reason that
Black men tend to like the same stuff as White men. Women do not like
the same stuff as men of any color. </p>
<p>A very interesting case in point was <em>Bros,</em> which came out a
year or so ago. It is a gay rom-com. Which no one watched, including
gay men. 100% predictable, because gay men are <em>men</em> and men
don’t watch rom-coms unless dragged there by a woman, just as women
don’t go to superhero movies unless dragged there by a guy. </p>
<p>Is there a solution? Yes. Stop gender-swapping, it does not work.
If you want a female-led action/adventure movie, take a look at <em>Atomic Blonde</em>. Or <em>Mad Max Fury Road</em>. Or <em>Aliens</em>.
In each case you have a well-defined, grounded-in-reality female
character who does not need to belittle male characters, but rather
exists in her own space as a legit character with actual human
characteristics to include: making mistakes, sometimes losing,
re-training, learning and improving. You know, just like a male
character might. Or a character, period. </p>
<p>Instead Hollywood did the easy and stupid thing: the ‘girl boss’, the
‘Mary Sue’, who has ALL the virtues, NONE of the weaknesses, CANNOT
lose a fight against a male character, is NEVER wrong, and certainly
never NEEDS anything from a male. This is not how stories work. This
is stupidity that anyone with any grasp of story-telling could have told
them, was not gonna work. And boy, did it not work. </p>
<p><em>Hunger Games,</em> which for reasons of professional jealousy I
have to pretend not to respect, did not have Katniss show up on Day One
able to punch out Mike Tyson and invent entirely new technologies in her
dorm room. She had a pre-existing skill with archery, and an in-world
reason for having that skill. Her male co-leads were not simps, they
were her equals. At times she was (gasp!) helped my male characters.
At times male characters (horror!) outperformed her. It’s not that hard
to figure out how to do it, Suzanne Collins used to be in Hollywood,
before she started writing books. She probably could have explained the
basics of story-telling, for the slow kids in the executive suites. </p>
<p>Katniss is not the only example. Buffy in,<em>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</em>. Xena, in <em>Xena: Warrior Princess</em>. The Bride in <em>Kill Bill</em>. Ripley in <em>Alien(s)</em>. <em>Sarah Conner</em> in Terminator movies. Tris in <em>Divergent</em>. Or our girl Rachel, in <em>Animorphs.</em>. Or my girls Dekka and Lana and Brianna in <em>Gone</em>.
None of the creators above were geniuses. Nor were they all women.
What they all have in common is competent story-telling that serves the
cause of DEI while also making money. Which is the relevant metric. </p>
<p>I don’t know whether it’s a dearth of writing talent, or the larger
system crushing writing talent under the mouse shoe of oppression, but
Jesus H., Hollywood has pissed away hundreds of millions, maybe billions
of dollars, pursuing this utterly stupid approach, and is now in full
retreat on DEI. <em>Good cause, poorly executed, subverts good cause</em>. It’s not enough to have your heart in the right place, you still have to do the work.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-887789835046138282024-01-11T13:26:00.001-05:002024-01-11T13:26:08.431-05:00The Wisdom of Jill Filipovic. <p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1rem;"><a href="https://blog.simplejustice.us/2017/04/11/filipovics-dilemma-when-facts-are-against-you/">This point at the end of her article stuck out to me and set off alarm bells.</a></span></p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 1.1rem; line-height: 1.3; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“an important [Question] meriting coolheaded analysis”… “of the seemingly growing consensus among social justice advocates that bigoted or simply emotionally triggering speech is akin to physical violence and should be regulated as such.”</p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 1.1rem; line-height: 1.3; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">No, “growing consensus among social justice advocates ” does not trump Free Speech.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-67107505743301831322023-12-27T20:12:00.001-05:002023-12-27T20:12:10.969-05:00Remember Policy, Procedure, Process, Protocol and Practice are more important to the Law Enforcement Caste than the Law or Constitutional Rights.<p><a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2023-12-22/colorado-paramedics-found-guilty-in-death-of-elijah-mcclain"> Colorado Paramedics Found Guilty in Death of Elijah McClain</a></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-43826177076129673952023-09-09T17:10:00.001-04:002023-09-09T17:10:23.808-04:00Miller v. Salvaggio Stonewall until Ruby Johnson dies and dismiss due to mootness. <div><p>I love Merb saying that if the police, prosecutors and the court all sign off on a warrant that proves probable cause. And blocked mentioning Ruby Johnson v. DPD Detective Gary Staab. A 77-year-old grandmother was subjected to a raid by a Denver Police Department (DPD) SWAT team. The police, prosecutors and the court blamed each other for the manifestly deficient search warrant saying the other parties should have stopped it and now are responsible. </p><p>“Detective Staab had no grounds to seek a search warrant,” said Mark Silverstein, ACLU of Colorado Legal Director. “His supervisor should have vetoed it. The district attorney should not have green-lighted it, the judge should have rejected it and the SWAT team should have stayed home.”</p><p>https://www.aclu-co.org/en/press-releases/aclu-sues-denver-police-detective-over-unlawful-swat-team-search-montbello</p><p><br /></p></div><iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/8DoyedSKYO4?si=6zvDtllqm6_oVx7H" width="480"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-64385782447436830432023-08-02T18:40:00.000-04:002023-08-02T18:40:02.602-04:00Is Trump Protected Because Of “Political Speech”? – Outside the Beltway<p><a href="https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/is-trump-protected-because-of-political-speech/">Is Trump Protected Because Of “Political Speech”? – Outside the Beltway</a></p><p> </p><h2 class="entry-title">Is Trump Protected Because Of “Political Speech”?</h2>
<h3 class="entry-subtitle">Why "the First Amendment protects Trump" defense doesn't make sense</h3>
<p class="entry-metadata">
<span class="entry-author"><a href="https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/author/mattbernius/" rel="author" title="Posts by Matt Bernius">Matt Bernius</a></span>
·
<span class="entry-date" title="13:55">Wednesday, August 2, 2023</span>
·
<a href="https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/is-trump-protected-because-of-political-speech/#comments">13 comments</a><img alt="facebook sharing button" src="https://platform-cdn.sharethis.com/img/facebook.svg" /></p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img alt="" class="wp-image-218629 img-fluid" height="683" src="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/trump-insurrection-speechj.jpg" width="1024" /></figure>
<p class="has-drop-cap"><a data-id="https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/the-biggest-trump-indictment/" data-type="URL" href="https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/the-biggest-trump-indictment/">Yesterday, history was made again as former President Trump was indicted for the second time in Federal Court.</a>
The “talking” indictment, a term for an indictment that intentionally
lays out the core facts that underly the prosecution, accuses Trump and
presently unindicted co-conspirators of the literally unprecedented act
of attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential Election.
<a href="https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/the-biggest-trump-indictment/">For more reaction to the indictment on OTB, see James’ article from today</a>.</p>
<p>As one would expect, most Right Wing Media outlets immediately began
to defend the former President and attack the indictment. And, as usual,
Fox News turns to the heterodox Law Professor Jonathan Turley for
assistance. Earlier in the day, Turley had tweeted the following
reaction to the indictment which he more or less repeated on air:</p>
<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; max-width: 500px; width: 100%;"></div>
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Since Turley raised the
specter of protected First Amendment speech a lot of his fellow lawyers
have tried to figure out what he is talking about. Based on my
understanding of the case, I think Jonathan Urick, a lawyer with the
U.S. Chamber Litigation Center and a former clerk for both Justices
Thomas and Scalia has it right:</figcaption></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; max-width: 500px; width: 100%;"></div>
</div></figure>
<p>In the area of First Amendment Law, the courts have long found that there are categories of speech. One of those categories is “<a href="https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/political-speech">political speech</a>:”
statements made by Politicians related to governance and political
activities, in particular when they are addressing their constituencies.
Along with religious speech, political speech was at the heart of the
creation of First Amendment. </p>
<p>As such, in the US, political speech is highly protected. That
understanding protected Trump when he was President. Perhaps the best
example was in the E. Jean Carroll defamation lawsuit where <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/biden-s-doj-wants-defend-trump-his-defamation-case-it-ncna1270032">the Department of Justice under both Trump and Biden</a><sup>1</sup>
advanced the argument that Trump’s comments about Carroll while on the
campaign trail and as President fell under the category of political
speech. And while that might seem like a stretch, the precedent was on
their side. Take for example the case of a former Congressman who was
sued by the Council on American-Islamic Relations for publicly blaming
the organization for his divorce (among other things):</p>
<div class="wp-block-group is-layout-constrained"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<p>“Because the Congressman was acting, at least in part, for the
purpose of preserving his effectiveness, this Court finds he was acting
within the scope of his employment at the time of the incident in
question,” U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon concluded in an
opinion dated March 29.</p>
<p>The case stemmed from comments made by Ballenger to a home-state newspaper, The Charlotte Observer, in October 2003.</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>During the interview, Ballenger blamed the demise of his 50-year
marriage on the proximity of his Capitol Hill home to the Council on
American-Islamic Relations headquarters — a situation that he said
caused significant stress and “bugged the hell” out of his wife.
Ballenger retired at the end of 2004.</p>
<p>The North Carolina Congressman also accused CAIR of being a
“fundraising arm” for the terrorist organization Hezbollah, a statement
at the core of CAIR’s defamation suit.</p>
<p>But U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon granted Ballenger’s motion
to dismiss the case, concluding that Ballenger “was acting within the
scope of his employment.”</p>
<cite><a href="https://rollcall.com/2005/03/31/judge-throws-out-cair-suit-against-ballenger/">https://rollcall.com/2005/03/31/judge-throws-out-cair-suit-against-ballenger/</a></cite></blockquote>
</div></div>
<p>The First Amendment’s protection of political speech is also why it’s
legal to outright lie in political speeches or interviews–something the
indictment specifically calls out on page 2:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>3. The Defendant had a right, like every American, to speak publicly
about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been
outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won.</p>
<cite><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/129IFEN5MydlBCXRocEDzqw-wT3ed_TLs/view">https://drive.google.com/file/d/129IFEN5MydlBCXRocEDzqw-wT3ed_TLs/view</a> (h/t to <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/author/jay-caruso">Jay Caruso</a> for creating an OCR’d verion of the indictment)</cite></blockquote>
<p>However, returning to the case of the Trump Indictment and Urick’s
critique of Turely, the issue at hand are the limits of political
speech. For example, take this exchange documented in the Indictment:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>On January 1, the Defendant called the Vice President and berated him
because he had learned that the Vice President had opposed a lawsuit
seeking a judicial decision that, at the certification, the Vice
President had the authority to reject or return votes to the states
under the Constitution.<br />The Vice President responded that he thought
there was no constitutional basis for such authority and that it was
improper. In response, the Defendant told the Vice President, “You’re
too honest.”</p>
<cite>ibid</cite></blockquote>
<p>This private conversation, though it had to do with a political
subject, isn’t necessarily protected as political speech. Or rather,
this quote is doing something other than just political speech. In that
speech act, Trump is calling attention to the fact that he is asking
Vice President Pence to do something dishonest and outside of his power.<sup>2</sup> Context is critical. And the indictment is full of examples of these conversations that, in context, are clearly more than <em>just</em> political speech–especially when read in light of other statutes.</p>
<p>It’s also apparent that Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s team has carefully considered this issue when we consider what <em>wasn’t</em> charged. And this gets back to Urick’s mention of the Brandenberg Incitement test.</p>
<p>While the indictment does contain a number of Trump’s incendiary
tweets leading up to and on January 6th, note that Trump is not charged
with Incitement. As Ulrick correctly notes, this is an area where the
Supreme Court has set an extremely high standard for political speech in
the case of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio">Brandenberg v. Ohio (1969)</a>.
It’s a landmark First Amendment case where the court found that there
needs to be an exceptionally high standard of speech creating the
Brandenburg Test:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<ol><li>The speech is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action,” AND</li><li>The speech is “likely to incite or produce such action.”</li></ol>
<cite><a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brandenburg_test">https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brandenburg_test</a></cite></blockquote>
<p>For more on Brandenberg, I recommend an episode of the podcast <a href="https://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/make-no-law/2020/10/imminent-lawless-action/">Make No Law</a>, hosted by Ken White (aka Popehat) on the case.</p>
<p>This is an area where I, and I suspect Urlick, think Turley is right.
While odious, Trump’s tweets most likely do not meet the Brandenburg
test. That’s also a position that Ken White, himself a former Federal
Prosecutor, has taken repeatedly in the past. And, at least for the
moment, Smith appears to be following the same logic.</p>
<p>The Brandenberg test also gets to the issue with Turley’s position.
In his tweet and other comments, it seems like he’s suggesting that
because many of former President Trump’s comments in the indictment fall
into the category of political speech they are somehow inherently
off-limits. <em>To be clear, this has never been the way that political speech has worked.</em></p>
<p>As White wrote earlier today:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>[P]olitical speech is the most jealously protected speech under the
First Amendment. Speech is not inherently or automatically outside of <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/567/709/">First Amendment protection merely because it is false.</a> On the other hand, fraud and speech inherent in a crime are acknowledged First Amendment exceptions.</p>
<cite>https://popehat.substack.com/p/people-are-lying-to-you-about-the</cite></blockquote>
<p>Returning to Brandenberg, everything is about context. The
Brandenberg test is not simply whether the speech is political or not,
but rather does it meet the two standards. Like it or not, Trump’s
speech acts don’t appear to rise to that level. </p>
<p>Likewise, any of the speech acts in the indictment need to be read
against the corresponding criminal statutes to determine contextually if
they meet those standards. The majority consensus, outside of the Right
Wing Media ecosystem, is that they do. And it clearly was enough for a
Federal Grand Jury to Indict. Whether or not that thinking will survive
the higher standard of a jury trial remains yet to be seen.</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />
<p>Note: I am not a lawyer. I have taken legal classes specifically on
the First Amendment and specifically Brandenburg (among other topics). I
am married to a Federal Clerk and these are topics we discuss. So
without a doubt, Jonathan Turley has forgotten more about the First
Amendment than I have ever known. However, it’s also worth noting that a
lot of other Lawyers with First Amendment experience and Federal
Criminal Prosecution experience disagree with Turley’s take (see both
Ulrick and White as a few examples).</p>
<p>Also, I’d encourage anyone whose gotten this far and wants to raise
the “well Turley’s an expert and you aren’t” to ask yourselves how your
feel about Turley previously stating that he thinks that the last round
of Federal changes against Trump are serious and well-founded. If you
accept that Turley is right that all of this should be thrown out as
political speech, then why don’t you accept Turley’s legal analysis of
the Mar A Lago document situation (i.e. that this isn’t just an
unfounded witch hunt?).</p>
<p><sup>1 </sup>– As Trump has continued to advance the same attacks on E. Jean Carroll since leaving office, the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/11/1187100364/trump-carroll-lawsuit">DoJ has reached the conclusion that those comments no longer fall under the “political speech” protection</a>.</p>
<p><sup>2 </sup>– The “You’re too honest” quote is really important as
Trump’s best defense is that he “honestly” believed he had won the 2020
election. However, admissions like this one, and other examples in the
indictment where he refuses to consider evidence to the contrary, speak
to the fact that he understood that the facts are against him and didn’t
care, intentionally asking people to do dishonest things and take
actions that are not legal.</p><p>About Matt Bernius</p>
Matt Bernius is a design researcher working to
create more equitable government systems and experiences. He's currently
a Principal User Researcher on Code for America's "GetCalFresh"
program, helping people apply for SNAP food benefits in California.
Prior to joining CfA, he worked at Measures for Justice and at
Effective, a UX agency. Matt has an MA from the University of Chicago.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-83908620701210785362023-08-02T09:26:00.002-04:002023-08-02T09:26:29.537-04:00Only prosecutors get to quote dicta<p>Jack Smith in this indictment quoted a single judge in Trump v.
Wisconsin. But I am not allowed to quote the plaintiffs, Soyomayor or
RBG in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action because true
lawyers would not do that.</p>
<blockquote><p>On December 14, the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected an election challenge by<br />
the Campaign. One Justice wrote, “[N]othing in this case casts any
legitimate doubt that the people of Wisconsin lawfully chose Vice
President Biden and Senator Harris to be the next leaders of our great
country.” </p></blockquote><p>Progressive double standard. Prosecutors are smart legal
geniuses for using the same argument that shows you are a member of
cult.<br />
WRONG!! bad legal theory and arguments: Quoting dicta to show that the
last 4 females appointed to Supreme court by Democrats believe the 14th
amendment and due process protections from it do not apply to white
people.
</p><p>CORRECT!! Smart and savvy legal theory and arguments: Prosecutors
quoting dicta in the Trump indictments. Like DA Bragg mentioning the
Trump Access Hollywood tape in his indictment.</p><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-57976670669450349572023-07-13T15:03:00.004-04:002023-07-13T15:03:34.630-04:00“Get the checkbook out”: Trump voter hires Dominion lawyer to sue Fox News for “destroying” his life<p> </p><section class="title-container" style="background-color: white; border-bottom: 4px solid rgb(207, 60, 52); box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px; position: relative;"><h1 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 2.5em; margin-bottom: 0.2em; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="https://www.salon.com/2023/07/13/get-the-checkbook-out-hires-dominion-lawyer-to-fox-news-for-destroying-his-life/">“Get the checkbook out”: Trump voter hires Dominion lawyer to sue Fox News for “destroying” his life</a></h1><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #6b6b6b; font-size: 1.1em; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.42; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">Ray Epps says DOJ informed him he will be criminally charged, which he blamed on Tucker Carlson's smear campaign</h2><section class="writer-container writer-app-wrapper" style="align-items: center; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; justify-content: space-between; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="writer_info_wrapper" style="align-items: center; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; justify-content: space-between; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 20px 0px; width: 1196px;"><div class="writer_box" style="align-items: center; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-wrap: nowrap; line-height: 1;"><div class="writer_name_box" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h3 class="writer_name" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-right: 10px; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 400; text-transform: none;">By </span><a href="https://www.salon.com/writer/igor-derysh" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #e42a1d; text-decoration-line: none;">IGOR DERYSH</a></h3><span class="top_writer_desc" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Senior News Editor</span></div></div><div class="published_date" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h3 class="publish_date" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #6b6b6b; font-size: 0.7em; line-height: 2; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">PUBLISHED JULY 13, 2023 9:01AM (EDT)</h3></div></div></section></section><section class="cover-wrapper" style="background: rgb(230, 230, 230); box-sizing: border-box; height: 0px; margin: 2em 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 502.312px; position: relative;"><img alt="Ray Epps, in the red Trump hat, center, gestures to a line of law enforcement officers, as people gather on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)" class="image_position_bottom" id="cover-main" pinger-seen="true" sizes="100vw" src="https://mediaproxy.salon.com/width/1200/https://media.salon.com/2023/07/ray-epps-1247989602.jpg" srcset="https://mediaproxy.salon.com/width/600/https://media.salon.com/2023/07/ray-epps-1247989602.jpg 600w,
https://mediaproxy.salon.com/width/960/https://media.salon.com/2023/07/ray-epps-1247989602.jpg 960w,
https://mediaproxy.salon.com/width/1200/https://media.salon.com/2023/07/ray-epps-1247989602.jpg 1200w" style="bottom: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; height: auto; margin: auto; position: absolute; top: auto; width: 1196px;" /></section><strong class="article_img_desc" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #6b6b6b; display: block; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 25px; margin-top: -28px; width: 1196px;">Ray Epps, in the red Trump hat, center, gestures to a line of law enforcement officers, as people gather on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)</span></strong><strong class="article_img_desc" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #6b6b6b; display: block; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 25px; margin-top: -28px; width: 1196px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br /></span></strong><strong class="article_img_desc" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #6b6b6b; display: block; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 25px; margin-top: -28px; width: 1196px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">ATrump supporter at the heart of a Jan. 6 conspiracy theory pushed by MAGA allies filed a defamation lawsuit accusing Fox News of a years-long smear campaign.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Ray Epps, who attended pro-Trump rallies in D.C. on Jan. 5 and 6 and was seen on a video encouraging people to enter the Capitol but was not initially charged with entering the building himself, sued the network after former Fox News host Tucker Carlson suggested that he was a government informant — which the FBI and Epps have denied, according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/07/12/ray-epps-fox-news-lawsuit/" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #e42a1d; text-decoration-line: none;">The Washington Post</a>.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Epps claims in the suit that the Justice Department informed him in May it "would seek to charge him criminally," which he attributed to "the relentless attacks by Fox and Mr. Carlson and the resulting political pressure."</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">"Fox, and particularly Mr. Carlson, commenced a years-long campaign spreading falsehoods about Epps," the lawsuit alleges, claiming that the falsehoods "destroyed" the lives of Epps and his wife, forcing them from their home.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">The lawsuit, which was filed in Delaware, alleges that Fox and Carlson knew Epps was almost definitely not a federal agent but chose to disregard that information.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">"Fox engaged in purposeful avoidance of the truth, intentionally ignoring information and evidence that directly contradicted Fox's outlandish lies about Epps," the complaint says. "Fox refused to retract, correct, or apologize for its demonstrably false and defamatory accusations against Epps well after Fox knew definitively that they were false, providing yet additional circumstantial evidence of actual malice. Fox thus broadcast its lies about Epps with a high degree of awareness of probable falsity."</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Michael Teter, an attorney for Epps, sent a letter to the network in March demanding it retract its claims but did not receive a response.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">"This lawsuit marks another moment of accountability for Fox News," Teter <a href="https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1679245522433916930" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #e42a1d; text-decoration-line: none;">said in a statement</a>. "For years, Fox News and Mr. Carlson created and amplified conspiracy theories about Ray that lacked any foundation in fact. Their lies exposed Ray and his wife, Robyn, to harassment, intimidation, and abuse – voicemails warning Ray to sleep with one eye open, bullet casings found on their property, death threats sent to their home."</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Epps gained attention in right-wing circles after videos recorded on Jan. 5 showed him urging Trump supporters to "go into the Capitol."</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Epps in the lawsuit claimed that he believed parts of the Capitol would be open to the public and that Trump supporters could legally enter them. Epps' photo briefly appeared on the FBI website seeking information about various protesters but was removed after he was interviewed by agents in July 2021.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">The disappearance of the photo and lack of charges prompted a series of right-wing conspiracy theories alleging he was planted by federal agents to provoke otherwise peaceful Trump supporters into violence.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Carlson in January 2022 described Epps as a person who "helped stage-manage the insurrection."</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">During another show earlier this year, Carlson focused on the fact that Epps hadn't been charged.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">"Why is that? Well, let's just stop lying," Carlson said. "At this point, it's pretty obvious why that is."</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">During a July 2022 episode, Carlson guest Darren Beattie, a former White House speechwriter, called Epps "the smoking gun of the entire fed-surrection" without any pushback.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Fox News host Laura Ingraham also discussed Epps in an October 2021 segment that featured a graphic asking "Were Federal Assets Involved in Capitol Riot?"</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Some Republican members of Congress have also embraced the conspiracy theory.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">"I think somebody that worked that hard to get people to go in the Capitol, why aren't they rotting away in the D.C. jail?" Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said during a live stream last summer.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, during a hearing with FBI Director Chris Wray on Wednesday, brought up Epps and accused the FBI of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/12/why-cant-right-wing-bubble-give-up-ray-epps/" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #e42a1d; text-decoration-line: none;">"protecting this guy."</a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Wray refuted Republican claims that the FBI was involved in the attack on the Capitol.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">"This notion that somehow the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was part of some operation by FBI sources and agents is ludicrous and is a disservice to our brave, hard-working, dedicated men and women," he said.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">The lawsuit says that Epps and his wife were "loyal Fox viewers and fans of Tucker Carlson and other Fox personalities," and "were persuaded by the lies broadcast by Fox" that the election had been stolen. After Carlson's segments, the lawsuit says, he and his wife were deluged with threats and harassing messages, forcing them to flee from Arizona, selling the property at a low price.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">"After destroying Epps's reputation and livelihood, Fox will move on to its next story, while Ray and Robyn live in a 350-square foot RV and face harassment and fear true harm," the complaint says.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">The lawsuit comes on the heels of a nearly $800 million settlement between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems over false claims the network aired about the election. Media Matters' Matthew Gertz flagged that Brian Farnan, the lead Delaware counsel for Dominion, is listed as one of Epps' lawyers in the lawsuit.</p><div class="twitter_tweet_display_box" data-callback="lazy_load_c207eb1a_fce39fc5_3" data-tweet-id="1679209631896293377" id="15051526_tweet0" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;"><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; max-width: 550px; width: 550px;"><iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" class="" data-tweet-id="1679209631896293377" frameborder="0" id="twitter-widget-0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=Salon&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=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%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1679209631896293377&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.salon.com%2F2023%2F07%2F13%2Fget-the-checkbook-out-hires-dominion-lawyer-to-fox-news-for-destroying-his-life%2F&sessionId=b6a2246d4df2b84e93ed2423aa442bade0d6bf26&siteScreenName=Salon&theme=light&widgetsVersion=aaf4084522e3a%3A1674595607486&width=550px" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; flex-grow: 1; height: 624px; margin: auto; max-width: 100%; position: static; visibility: visible; width: 550px;" title="Twitter Tweet"></iframe></div></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">University of Utah Law Prof. RonNell Andersen Jones told the Post that Epps can show that he was harmed by the false claims but "the key question here is whether he was defamed, and that is going to require some careful situating of his facts within the framework that the law recognizes."</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Though Carlson never directly said Epps was a federal agent, "when the whole story added together leads to a defamatory meaning, it can be found to be defamatory," Andersen Jones said. "This will almost certainly be the underlying theory of some of Epps's case."</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">MSNBC host Joe Scarborough on Thursday said Epps was one of numerous "ordinary people" whose lives had been ruined by Trump's election lies, also citing <a href="https://www.salon.com/2023/07/13/get-the-checkbook-out-hires-dominion-lawyer-to-fox-news-for-destroying-his-life/23/07/12/georgia-workers-faced-ask-to-hit-giuliani-with-severe-sanctions" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #e42a1d; text-decoration-line: none;">Georgia poll workers attacked by TrumpWorld</a> and predicting the network would be found liable for defamation.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">"Let me say that again, not a public figure, not used to this," he said. "The death threats, the security problems they had, I'm telling you, if I'm representing Fox News, I'm saying, 'Get your checkbook out and start writing.' They're going to have to do it again, Tucker Carlson is probably going to do it again because this guy isn't a public figure. It's not going to be hard for him to prove defamation."</p></span></strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-30921884316193742042023-07-10T10:40:00.001-04:002023-07-10T10:40:33.798-04:00Just like the defamation case against James Blake<p> </p><div class="panel-pane pane-cl-node-title node-title" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Noto Sans", sans-serif, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Noto Sans", "Liberation Sans", sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Noto Color Emoji"; font-size: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 25px; margin-top: 25px; position: relative;"><div class="pane-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 36px !important; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0px;"><a class="active" href="https://crooksandliars.com/2023/07/will-ray-epps-be-next-defamation-lawsuit" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Will Ray Epps Be Next To Sue Tucker And Fox News?</a></h2></div></div><p><span class="content-byline" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Noto Sans", sans-serif, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Noto Sans", "Liberation Sans", sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Noto Color Emoji"; font-size: 20px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"></span></p><div class="panel-pane pane-content-field pane-field-node-summary node-lede" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 25px; position: relative;"><div class="pane-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="field field-type-text field-field-node-summary" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="field-item odd" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #6c757d; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Noto Sans", sans-serif, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Noto Sans", "Liberation Sans", sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Noto Color Emoji"; font-size: 20px; font-style: italic;">Inquiring minds want to know.</div><div class="field-item odd" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #6c757d; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Noto Sans", sans-serif, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Noto Sans", "Liberation Sans", sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Noto Color Emoji"; font-size: 20px; font-style: italic;"><br /></div><div class="field-item odd" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: #6c757d; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, Segoe UI, Roboto, Ubuntu, Cantarell, Noto Sans, sans-serif, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, Noto Sans, Liberation Sans, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol, Noto Color Emoji;"><span style="font-size: 20px;"><i><iframe width="600" height="338" src="//embed.crooksandliars.com/embed/f1jCRQwo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></i></span></span></div></div></div></div></div><p><span class="content-byline" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Noto Sans", sans-serif, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Noto Sans", "Liberation Sans", sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Noto Color Emoji"; font-size: 20px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">By <a href="https://crooksandliars.com/team/john-amato" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #a92d2a;" title="John Amato">John Amato</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Noto Sans", sans-serif, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Noto Sans", "Liberation Sans", sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Noto Color Emoji"; font-size: 20px; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Noto Sans", sans-serif, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Noto Sans", "Liberation Sans", sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Noto Color Emoji"; font-size: 20px; font-style: italic;">—</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Noto Sans", sans-serif, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Noto Sans", "Liberation Sans", sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Noto Color Emoji"; font-size: 20px; font-style: italic;"> </span><span class="post-created" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Noto Sans", sans-serif, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Noto Sans", "Liberation Sans", sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Noto Color Emoji"; font-size: 20px; font-style: italic;">July 9, 2023</span></p><div class="post-body" injection-content-type="blog" injection-point="content" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Noto Sans", sans-serif, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Noto Sans", "Liberation Sans", sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Noto Color Emoji"; font-size: 20px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">New York Times</em> reporter Jeremy Peters told MSNBC that the next shoe to drop for Fox News could be if <a href="https://www.snopes.com/articles/389126/who-is-ray-epps/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #a92d2a;">MAGA-smeared Ray Epps</a> sues Fox News for defamation after Tucker Carlson hyped the QAnon conspiracy theory scapegoating him as a government agent over the January 6 insurrection.</p><div class="am-unit" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; margin: 15px 0px;"><ins classname="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-5155643920455169" data-ad-format="auto" data-ad-slot="3277652803" data-full-width-responsive="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block;"></ins></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">Far right conspirator site Revolver News and its <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/10/23/1989067/-As-the-White-House-s-white-nationalist-ties-are-exposed-further-its-defenders-go-on-the-attack" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #a92d2a;">white-nationalist editor/writer </a>Darren Beattie, concocted a conspiracy theory that Epps was at the Capitol as an FBI plant inciting Trump supporters to riot.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">Beattie was a constant guest on Tucker Carlson, and along with Glenn Greenwald promoted this <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/nation-world/2021/11/18/theres-still-no-evidence-the-fbi-incited-the-jan-6-riot-despite-claims-otherwise/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #a92d2a;">outrageous lie with no proof</a> to try and give aid and comfort to the seditious traitors led by Donald Trump.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">After a <a href="https://crooksandliars.com/2023/07/reform-group-petitions-fcc-deny-license" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #a92d2a;">group petitioned with the Federal Communications Commission</a> to deny the broadcast license renewal of Fox Corp-owned Philadelphia TV station FOX 29, Peters said this is not the end.</p><blockquote class="transcript" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-style: italic; margin: 10px 0px 1rem 25px; padding: 5px 0px 5px 15px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">There's this individual, Ray Epps, who was a Trump voter, but he was there on January 6th and somehow became the target of various Trump, pro-Trump conspiracy theories that Tucker Carlson repeatedly uttered on his show.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">And talking to defamation experts in a story that I have coming over the next couple of days, this could be the next Dominion-type defamation lawsuit, because this guy's life was basically ruined by Tucker Carlson's promotion of false stories about him being a secret government agent.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">So Fox paid big for Dominion, almost a billion dollars, and it's very likely that they will continue to pay because of lawsuits like this and challenges like this, you know, this FCC or FCC, rather, petition.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;">I don't know how successful, ultimately, that's going to be, but it's an example of the kind of legal pressure that Fox is under.</p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">Every person and company that was derided, smeared, and defamed by Trump supporters in and out of the media to justify the Big Lie should be sued to the high heavens. And yes, Fox News should lose their broadcast license after the damage they've done.</p><div class="panel-pane pane-node-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 25px; position: relative;"><div class="pane-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><article class="node node-type-blog node-display-full node-status-published clearfix" data-nid="186561" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="node-share-wrapper" style="-webkit-box-align: start; -webkit-box-direction: normal; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; align-items: flex-start; box-sizing: border-box; flex-direction: column; margin-left: -20px; position: relative;"><div class="ns-share-main" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 75px; min-height: 200px;"><div class="post-body" injection-content-type="blog" injection-point="content" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">A democracy cannot stand if fascist conspiracy theories are allowed to go unpunished when punishment is warranted.</p></div><footer class="clearfix" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="node-tags-wrapper" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table; margin-top: 15px;"><span class="label" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; font-weight: bold; padding-right: 10px;"><i class="fa fa-tags" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></i>Topics:</span><div class="node-tags clearfix" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell;"><span class="ion-pricetags" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></span><div class="items" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://crooksandliars.com/taxonomy/term/62533" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #a92d2a;">defamation</a>, <a href="https://crooksandliars.com/taxonomy/term/294" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #a92d2a;">Fox News</a>, <a href="https://crooksandliars.com/taxonomy/term/89340" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #a92d2a;">Ray Epps</a>, <a href="https://crooksandliars.com/taxonomy/term/483" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #a92d2a;">Tucker Carlson</a></div></div></div></footer></div></div></article></div></div><div class="panel-pane pane-custom pane-1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 25px; position: relative;"><div class="pane-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="embedid-d47cea7d-c40d-45b2-a173-70bcd6633df5 BOTH_BOTTOM_ADS" id="insticator-container" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-flow: row wrap; justify-content: center; position: relative;"><div data-google-query-id="CP6q4tSuhIADFQjrswodgEIKjA" id="div-insticator-ad-3" style="align-items: center; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; height: 280px; justify-content: center; margin: auto; min-height: 300px; order: 2; width: 336px;"><div id="google_ads_iframe_/2507246,1070672/crooksandliars.com_Web_300x250_3_0__container__" style="border: 0pt none; box-sizing: border-box;"><iframe aria-label="Advertisement" data-google-container-id="1" data-load-complete="true" frameborder="0" height="1" id="google_ads_iframe_/2507246,1070672/crooksandliars.com_Web_300x250_3_0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" name="google_ads_iframe_/2507246,1070672/crooksandliars.com_Web_300x250_3_0" role="region" scrolling="no" style="border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; height: 250px; vertical-align: bottom; width: 300px;" tabindex="0" title="3rd party ad content" width="1"></iframe></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-16644637190076108792023-05-01T17:55:00.000-04:002023-05-01T17:55:07.151-04:00#MaskCult upset when you point out they were wrong. Engage #DukeLacrosse talking points and protocol #covidamnesty #JustMoveOn <p><a href="https://crooksandliars.com/2023/05/tomi-lahren-chanells-m-night-shyamalan"> Tomi Lahren Channels M. Night Shyamalan</a></p><p>Shorter Treadmill Lobotomy: I see dead masks everywhere!</p><p>Tomi Lahren Channels M. Night Shyamalan</p><p><br /></p><p>By John Amato — May 1, 2023</p><p>Fox host Tommy Lamborghini (AKA Tomi Lahren) is having flashbacks!</p><p><br /></p><p>Treadmill Lobotomy sees Covid masks in her sleep. On Sunday she tried to troll "the Left" over an anti-COVID complaint that ended a long time ago.</p><p><br /></p><p>Huh?</p><p><br /></p><p>Tampon Leglift was an original anti-vax shutdown nutjob. In April of 2020, when the pandemic was lifting off. Toothpaste Lipgloss called the Trump-ordered shutdowns a “trial of communism.”</p><p><br /></p><p>The mask requirements are pretty much gone everywhere. Even in California, the state Republicans seem to hate, doctors' offices don't require a mask, so what the f*ck is she talking about?</p><p><br /></p><p>Tostito Laxative seems haunted. She should have tweeted, "I see dead masks."</p><p><br /></p><div class="css-1dbjc4n r-18u37iz r-1mdbw0j" style="-webkit-box-align: stretch; -webkit-box-direction: normal; -webkit-box-orient: horizontal; align-items: stretch; border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: row; flex-shrink: 0; margin: 0px; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; z-index: 0;"><div class="css-1dbjc4n r-eqz5dr r-1777fci r-4amgru r-1kh6xel" style="-webkit-box-align: stretch; -webkit-box-direction: normal; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; -webkit-box-pack: center; align-items: stretch; border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 0; justify-content: center; margin: 0px 4px; max-width: calc(100% - 84px); min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; z-index: 0;"><div class="css-1dbjc4n r-1ny4l3l" style="-webkit-box-align: stretch; -webkit-box-direction: normal; 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font: inherit; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; white-space: inherit;">We need a palate cleanser:
I’m Tainted Labia. Nice to make your acquaintance.</span></div></div></div></div><p>Frances Langum contributed the Tomato Lozenge names to this post.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-25381098633170931862022-12-09T12:49:00.005-05:002022-12-09T12:49:29.082-05:00The Six Stages of Scandal<p>This old chestnut works for any political scandal and for this impeachment (Hat Tip to Mickey Kaus)</p>
<p>Stage 1: It can’t possibly be true.</p>
<p>Stage 2: It’s not true.</p>
<p>State 3: You can’t prove it’s true.</p>
<p>Stage 4: Why are you trying to prove it’s true?</p>
<p>Stage 5: It’s disgusting that you’ve proved it’s true.</p>
<p>Stage 6: What’s the big deal anyway?</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-57188245520568215532022-09-16T09:47:00.005-04:002022-09-16T11:36:01.840-04:00HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA The Dem Tears<p> https://archive.ph/Athrw</p><h2 class="entry-title">DeSantis’s Martha’s Vineyard Stunt</h2>
<h3 class="entry-subtitle">This is just playing crass political games with human beings.</h3>
<p class="entry-metadata">
<span class="entry-author"><a href="https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/author/sltaylor/" rel="author" title="Posts by Steven L. Taylor">Steven L. Taylor</a></span>
·
<span class="entry-date" title="14:39">Thursday, September 15, 2022</span> </p>
<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img alt="" class="wp-image-227576 img-fluid" height="682" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" src="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/DeSantis-2021-1024x682.jpg" srcset="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/DeSantis-2021-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/DeSantis-2021-768x512.jpg 768w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/DeSantis-2021-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/DeSantis-2021.jpg 2048w" width="1024" /><figcaption><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/51327132756/in/photolist-2mcAYmL-2mcEEXc-2mcC1Y9-2mcC2c5-2mcxdo7-2mcG4xr-2mcxdGt-2mcG3Uh-2mcG4uW-Sq8o4Y-SeYwEE-Sq8sxN-Sq8tx3-Ey12Td-2dJXueW-2cHxoi1-Q4hEH4-F18ndR-EXPw5h-Ey1fuL-2dPujfR-F188yM-F18euz-E3K9A8-RFAUD1-ERWmiF-2mcC2e9-F17Ype-F189L6-Ey1dgs-2mcxdbt-2mcAXHM-2mcC1Vi-2mcEEDw-2mcC1Zw-Sq8E5W-2b3URjm-2mcxdhv-2mcEEQZ-2mcAXVq-2mcxdP2-2mcAYoK-2cHxbFJ-2mcxdQz-RFADSh-2mcAYbk-2mcEFbi-2mcC27F-2mcxdA6-2mcAYhn" rel="noopener" target="_blank">“Ron DeSantis”</a> by <a>Gage Skidmore</a> is licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0" rel="noopener" target="_blank">CC BY-SA 2.0</a></figcaption></figure></div>
<p>Via <em>Fox News</em>: <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ron-desantis-sends-two-planes-illegal-immigrants-marthas-vineyard">Ron DeSantis sends two planes of illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard</a>*</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>“Yes, Florida can confirm the two
planes with illegal immigrants that arrived in Martha’s Vineyard today
were part of the state’s relocation program to transport illegal
immigrants to sanctuary destinations,” the governor’s communications
director, Taryn Fenske, told Fox News Digital.</p><p>“States like
Massachusetts, New York and California will better facilitate the care
of these individuals who they have invited into our country by
incentivizing illegal immigration through their designation as
‘sanctuary states’ and support for the Biden administration’s open
border policies,” she said.</p><p>[…]</p><p><a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/desantis-recommends-illegal-immigrants-sanctuary-states" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Fox News Digital reported in April</a> that
Florida’s budget since approved by the state legislature included $12
million for the Florida Department of Transportation to remove illegal
immigrants from the state and relocate them.</p></blockquote>
<p>More details on this story, including accounts of the deceptive way
these people were lured to be flown to Massachusetts can be found via
NPR’s <em>Morning Edition</em>: <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/09/15/1123108804/fla-gov-desantis-sent-migrant-flights-to-massachusetts-his-office-says">Fla. Gov. DeSantis sent migrant flights to Massachusetts, his office says.</a> Weirdly, the migrants were not in Florida, but were in a shelter in San Antonio, TX:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>The plane arrived out of the blue
on a sunny afternoon. The passengers, men, women and children, almost
all from Venezuela, arrived at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport. They had
boarded the plane earlier that day in San Antonio. Officials were not
informed ahead of their arrival. Once on the ground in Massachusetts,
local authorities and nonprofits scrambled to feed and house them. Lisa
Del Castro, who runs the island’s homeless shelter, said resources were
scarce at first.</p><p>[…]</p><p>Three migrants each separately
described to NPR how they were lured onto the plane with promises of
help getting work. Each of the three were told they were being flown to
Boston and that, once they were there, they could more quickly get work
because they were told it is a sanctuary city. Andres Duarte, a
30-year-old Venezuelan, said he had recently crossed the border into
Texas and eventually went to a shelter in San Antonio. A woman who he
and other migrants identified only as Perla approached them outside the
shelter. They say she arranged for some of them to stay at a hotel,
offered them food and then got them on a plane.</p></blockquote>
<p>By the way, since Venezuela is one of the countries that the American
right uses as a great bogeyman, it seems odd to pick on potential
refugees from a country that is very much experiencing an economic
disaster (but logic and reason are hardly the core of the actions being
described herein).</p>
<p>Let me underscore that the main incentive for immigrants coming to
the US is that they are seeking better lives for themselves and their
families. And while we can debate the notion of sanctuary cities, the
odds that such are primary drivers of migrant flows is rather absurd.
Indeed, even mentioning them is just evidence of how all of this is red
meat politics. The jobs migrants can get are the main incentive, and
many of those jobs are in Texas and other Republican-controlled states
(if that is the game that DeSantis wants to play). But, of course, the
over-arching incentives are difficult to remove and the failure at
setting a national policy to address the complexities of the issue is
both long-standing and bipartisan (although so as to note that I am not
just both-sidesing this, at least the Democrats aren’t trying to
scapegoat and demonize immigrants).</p>
<p>Regardless, while there might some legitimate debate to be had
concerning the burden of unauthorized immigration into the US on border
states, the solution to such inequities should be addressed by the
federal government via the federal legislature, not via stunts at the
state level. This isn’t even Florida sending persons in Florida to
other states, it is Florida sending persons in Texas to other states.
It is absurd as any kind of policy or as an act of responsible
governance.</p>
<p>Beyond any of that, and central to why this story should be highlighted: we are talking about <em>human beings</em> here. It is flatly grotesque and inhumane to use humans, especially extremely vulnerable ones, as pawns in a political game.</p>
<p>This is all made the worse by the fact that not that long ago,
DeSantis was stoking fears about “secret flights” when the Biden
administration was moving underaged immigrants around the country to
alleviate pressure on border states. Here’s a Fox News story along
those lines from November of last year: <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/florida-desantis-office-claims-more-night-time-migrant-flights">Florida gov says Biden admin has landed dozens of secret flights carrying illegal migrants into the state.</a>
These stories made it sound like the Biden administration was just
dumping migrants around the country in some nefarious secret plan. Yet,
as NPR reported in June: <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/20/1106292758/rhetoric-around-ghost-flights-of-migrant-children-is-often-at-odds-with-the-fact">‘Ghost flights’ are the latest GOP effort to weaponize immigration ahead of midterms</a></p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>“There’s no warning,” said Florida
Governor Ron DeSantis at a press conference last week. “It’s just in
the middle of the night. And then you’ll wake up and someone will say,
‘they brought a bunch of unaccompanied minors.'”</p><p>But federal
officials insist that these flights happened exactly the same way during
previous administrations, including under former President Trump. </p><p>“This
is completely consistent with the law and our responsibilities,” said
Jorge Silva, a deputy assistant secretary for public affairs at U.S.
Health and Human Services, in a statement. “Our legal responsibility is
to care for unaccompanied children while they are on our watch, and that
includes connecting them to vetted sponsors.”</p><p>Federal officials
say that flights carrying migrant children happen at all hours, and that
they don’t release information about the children on board to protect
their privacy. Even the contractor operating the charter flights hasn’t
changed since the Trump administration, they note. </p><p>What has
changed is that the number of unaccompanied children crossing the border
reached an all-time high last year, topping 100,000 for the first time.
And immigrant advocates say the amount of fear-mongering about them is
rising too, in a way that’s “really just divorced from reality and from
facts,” Nagda said.</p></blockquote>
<p>Look, I fully understand that all of this is DeSantis just stirring
the base, so trying to talk about actual public policy solutions is
almost pointless, but this whole thing is beyond galling. Dumping human
beings in various liberal-leaning states to basically own the libs for
TV purposes is grotesque. Again, these are <em>people</em>. That there are poor, likely have brown skin, and don’t speak English doesn’t make it okay to treat them like objects.</p>
<p>When I see things like this, it is hard not to think of the
following, especially since a lot of the base DeSantis seeks to please
are likely self-identified Christians.</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. </p><p>All
the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the
people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the
goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.</p><p>“Then
the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by
my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the
creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to
eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger
and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick
and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’</p><p>“Then
the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and
feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see
you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe
you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’</p><p>“The
King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the
least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’</p><p>“Then
he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed,
into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was
hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me
nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I
needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and
you did not look after me.’</p><p>“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when
did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or
sick or in prison, and did not help you?’</p><p>“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’</p><p>“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”</p></blockquote>
<p>One need not adhere to the Christian faith to appreciate these sentiments.**</p>
<p>If GOP politicians don’t like to be referred to as “<a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjRoae9gpf6AhVukWoFHRR7BnMQFnoECD4QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com%2Fpolitics%2F2022-election%2Fbiden-blasts-maga-philosophy-semi-fascism-rcna44953&usg=AOvVaw0wyCTBRdkXrtYv8xmUs8o8">semi-fascist</a>”
they shouldn’t treat a group of people like sub-human pawns nor should
they engage in pure power moves just to score political points. And,
likewise, those in the public who relish these kinds of actions need to
engage in self-reflection (note that my expectations are not high on
this count.***</p>
<p>This really is indefensible behavior. Again: <strong>human</strong> <strong>beings</strong> and vulnerable ones at that.</p>
<p>Can we have differing, legitimate policy positions on how to deal
with immigration and refugees? Of course we can, but no one should be
allowed to pretend like tricking vulnerable people into boarding a plane
to be taken two thousand miles to a place unprepared to help them is a
legitimate policy position.</p>
<p>It is cruelty and a clear case where the cruelty is very much the point.</p>
<p>Update: FWIW, I had not seen Jonathan V. Last’s<a href="https://thetriad.thebulwark.com/p/ron-desantis-has-learned-trumps-most?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share"> <em>Bulwark</em> post </a>until
after I had written and posted the above. But he had very similar
thoughts about both the cruelty of it all and the clear betrayal of core
Christian principles evidenced in DeSantis’ behavior.</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />
<p class="has-small-font-size">*I see that James Joyner also noted this story in <a href="https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/thursday-tabs/">Thursday’s Tabs</a>.
I started writing this before his post, but was unable to come back to
finish until much later–also why I am only seeing the discussion in
that thread now.</p>
<p class="has-small-font-size">**Sentiments that I have to mischievously note sound pretty damn woke to me.</p>
<p class="has-small-font-size">***Dare I note another woke notion: that
we should treat others as we would like to be treated, as some
long-haired social justice warrior once said. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-28548396428040511102022-07-13T13:38:00.005-04:002022-07-13T13:38:48.180-04:00growing consensus among social justice advocates that bigoted or simply emotionally triggering speech is akin to physical violence and should be regulated as such.<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1rem;">This point at the end of her article stuck out to me and set off alarm bells.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 1.1rem; line-height: 1.3; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><blockquote>“an important [Question] meriting coolheaded analysis”… “of the seemingly growing consensus among social justice advocates that bigoted or simply emotionally triggering speech is akin to physical violence and should be regulated as such.”</blockquote><p></p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 1.1rem; line-height: 1.3; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">No, “growing consensus among social justice advocates ” does not trump Free Speech.</p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 1.3; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px;"><a href="https://archive.ph/pCoaM">Two Books Explore the Furor Over Rape on Campus</a></span></p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 1.3; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 17.6px;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">This is too bad, because the question of how campuses should combat sexual assault while upholding important principles of legal fairness is an important one meriting coolheaded analysis. The same is true of the seemingly growing consensus among social justice advocates that bigoted or simply emotionally triggering speech is akin to physical violence and should be regulated as such. But unlike Kipnis’s book, “The Campus Rape Frenzy” is neither thought-provoking nor revealing of uncomfortable truths — except, perhaps, in demonstrating that implicit misogyny continues to permeate American culture, contributing not just to sexual violence itself, but to the ways we understand, discuss and write books about it.</span></blockquote><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-68288607460257095012022-07-13T12:34:00.002-04:002022-07-13T12:43:48.199-04:00Outside the Beltway cesspool of Liberals — DailyKOS 2.0<p><cite class="fn" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16.2px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700;">Smooth Jazz</cite><span style="color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16.2px; font-weight: 700;"> </span><span class="says" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16.2px; font-weight: 700;">says:</span></p><p style="background-color: #f7f7f7; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16.2px; margin: 10px 5px 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"></p><div class="comment-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16.2px; font-weight: 700;"></div><p></p><div class="comment-meta commentmetadata" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><a href="https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/january-6-committee-closing-in-on-trump/#comment-2710305" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #950000; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">Wednesday, 13 July 2022 at 12:08</a></div><p style="background-color: #f7f7f7; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16.2px; margin: 10px 5px 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 16.2px;">Yawn. How many times have we heard since Trump started campaigning in 2015 that the walls are ‘closing’ in? 576? Mueller? Russian collusion? Alfa bank? Pee tape? Dirty dossier? etc etc etc. Trump is boorish, self centered, narcissistic & clearly can’t control himself, but you can’t charge people for being “cray cray”, tweeting fanciful stuff that crazy people run with, for challenging a dubious election where Dems in certain key states changes codified state laws to benefit their candidate under the guise of COVID, or because the DC cocoon doesn’t like his personality.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f7f7f7; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16.2px; margin: 10px 5px 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">At a time when inflation is approaching the Carter malaise years & folks purchasing power are destroyed by the policies of this Admin, this 1 sided “January 6th” is revealing itself to be a CNN & MSNBC side show, perceived as a fraud by 50% of the Country. The people who have thought Trump was Hitler ever since hem came on the scene will buy into this, but half the Country can see through this January 6th committee BS & grandstanding, including the lack of exculpatory evidence such as when Trump told the people to march to the Capitol ‘peacefully’ in his Jan 6 speech. This is a BIG deal, but this 1 sided committee apparently thinks he was joking, while serious about other thoughts they want to put in his mind.</p><p style="background-color: #f7f7f7; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16.2px; margin: 10px 5px 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">Their “bombshell” witness Ms Hutchison credibility has been compromised & most of the other “bombshell” testimony is from people on his staff who didn’t think the election was stolen. Yawn. He felt otherwise. Trump didn’t commit a crime for having the POV that the election was stolen. & this pressure on the DOJ to “charge” Trump is unseemly. Charge him for what exactly? For being “cray cray”. If that’s the case, maybe the DOJ should charge people that objected to Repubs winning the Presidency in 2000, 2004 & 2016.</p><p><span style="background-color: #f7f7f7; color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16.2px;">I realize you Dems need something to mitigate the wipeout that is coming in the Midterms this Nov, but this grandstanding Jan 6 committee isn’t it. Sorry. It is obvious the people on this committee are about the lucrative anti-Trump DC grift @ this point (CNN hits, etc) & got nothing beyond a few crazies who rioted at the Capitol.</span> </p><p><span style="color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16.2px;">@</span><a href="https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/january-6-committee-closing-in-on-trump/#comment-2710300" rel="nofollow ugc" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #950000; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16.2px; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">Mikey</a><span style="color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16.2px;">:</span></p><div class="comment-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16.2px; font-weight: 700;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; margin: 10px 5px 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">“As if all he did was have a point of view. Get the fuck out if you’re going to try gaslighting us with this bullshit.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; margin: 10px 5px 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">This is why I was saying the other day that this once middle of the road blog has evolved into a cesspool of Liberals — DailyKOS 2.0 for example — who only listen to each other in a self reinforcing cocoon where dissent is not tolerated and where Conservatives are attacked.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; margin: 10px 5px 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">Your profanity laced post is 1 of the reasons why Conservatives no longer post here from what I can tell. You people R getting more unhinged by the day as you come to the realization Biden is failed POTUS & you’ve put everything in this 1 sided January 6th committee.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; margin: 10px 5px 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">What did Trump do that is a chargeable offense?? What has this January 6th proven beyond hearsay & grandstanding by NeverTrumpers looking to cash in on anti Trump $ grift & CNN hits? Be specific.</p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-57045740074373249312022-06-28T13:34:00.008-04:002022-06-28T14:08:01.007-04:00New Narrative for Blue Wave 2022. <p> Overturning Roe and allowing the unevolved to carry guns in Blue States is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2AXU7QI6LE">causing the earth to shift under our feet, woke a sleeping giant and cause a semantic groundswell Blue Wave election 2022</a>. Liz Cheney will be the next Republicans minority leader in 2023. </p><p>Traitors Rand Paul , Jim Jordan, Paul Gosar, Matt Gaetz, Elise Stefanik, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert will be thrown out of Congress and replaced with Prochoice, Gun Safety Democrats. </p><p>Democrat must campaign on the widely popular issues (90%) Gun Control and Federally supported abortions.</p><p>Universal background checks/full gun registration and full mandatory gun buybacks/confiscation</p><p>Federally funded abortions at Planned Parenthood clinics on Federal land and property at anytime before birth.</p><p>Democrats are coming and hell is coming with them.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-60857905043306768772022-05-25T12:07:00.010-04:002022-06-10T12:58:18.182-04:00Soon to be declared Verboten subjects for the OTB community.<p>Joining the Duke Lacrosse and Rolling Stone/UVA Frat gang rape hoaxes.</p><p>Cheshire, Connecticut, home invasion murders</p><p>Wichita Massacre and Swatting</p><p>Murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom</p><p>Sacramento County church shooting</p><p>Draw Mohammed shooting.</p><p>Shooting of Kate Steinle.</p><p>Murder of Mollie Tibbetts</p><p>Go on, Democrats. Run on repealing the 2nd Amendment. I want you to run multiple ads and make it part of every campaign speech across the country. You want to do something? Do that.</p><p>Democrats control all three branches of government. They can lean into any gun ban bill they desire. They won’t do it though because they’d lose even worse in November. Hence finger wagging at Republicans instead of legislation.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-16781833375994412202022-05-16T13:10:00.006-04:002022-05-16T13:10:50.574-04:00 US Deaths<p><span style="background-color: #f7f7f7; color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16.2px;">2017 2,813,503</span></p><p><span style="background-color: #f7f7f7; color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16.2px;">2018 2,839,205</span></p><span style="background-color: #f7f7f7; color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16.2px;">2019 2,854,838</span><div><br style="background-color: #f7f7f7; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16.2px;" /><span style="background-color: #f7f7f7; color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16.2px;">2020 3,383,729</span></div><div><br style="background-color: #f7f7f7; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16.2px;" /><span style="background-color: #f7f7f7; color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16.2px;">2021 3,458,697</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-27805194062593634442022-05-04T13:58:00.006-04:002022-05-04T13:58:55.497-04:00Don’t Feel Too Sorry for the Dukies<p> https://archive.ph/Q5qrz#selection-819.0-953.352</p><div style="background-color: white; border-color: white; border-style: none; border-width: 0px 0px medium; color: #333333; font: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; overflow: auto; padding: 0px 0px 30px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="border-color: white; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; display: inline; float: left; font-family: proxima-nova, Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 640px;"><div style="border-color: white; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="border-color: white; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; color: #888888; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 3px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 533px;">Apr 12, 2007 7:49am</div><div style="border-color: white; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 15px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mike Nifong, the North Carolina prosecutor who pursued a case of rape and kidnapping against three Duke University lacrosse players, has been found to have been reckless and deceitful in the discharge of his duties according to the state’s attorney general. He abused the power the people of Durham granted him. Based on the public record of what he did in this case, he may well be properly disbarred.</div><div style="border-color: white; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 15px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The accuser in this case has been shown to be either a vicious liar or a troubled fantasist.</div><div style="border-color: white; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 15px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The three young men who she accused are truly innocent of the charges brought against them according to the North Carolina Attorney General and the investigation led by his office.</div><div style="border-color: white; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 15px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But perhaps the outpouring of sympathy for Reade Seligman, Collin Finnerty and David Evans is just a bit misplaced. They got special treatment in the justice system–both negative and positive. The conduct of the lacrosse team of which they were members was not admirable on the night of the incident, to say the least. And there are so many other victims of prosecutorial misconduct in this country who never get the high-priced legal representation and the high-profile, high-minded vindication that it strikes me as just a bit unseemly to heap praise and sympathy on these particular men.</div><div style="border-color: white; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 15px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">So as we rightly cover the vindication of these young men and focus on the genuine ordeal they have endured, let us also remember a few other things:</div><div style="border-color: white; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 15px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">They were part of a team that collected $800 to purchase the time of two strippers.</div><div style="border-color: white; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 15px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Their team specifically requested at least one white stripper.</div><div style="border-color: white; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 15px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">During the incident, racial epithets were hurled at the strippers.</div><div style="border-color: white; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 15px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Colin Finnerty was charged with assault in Washington, DC, in 2005.</div><div style="border-color: white; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 15px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The young men were able to retain a battery of top-flight attorneys, investigators and media strategists.</div><div style="border-color: white; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 15px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">As students of Duke University or other elite institutions, these young men will get on with their privileged lives. There is a very large cushion under them–the one that softens the blows of life for most of those who go to Duke or similar places, and have connections through family, friends and school to all kinds of prospects for success. They are very differently situated in life from, say, the young women of the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.</div><div style="border-color: white; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 15px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">And, MOST IMPORTANT, there are many, many cases of prosecutorial misconduct across our country every year. The media covers few, if any, of these cases. Most of the victims in these cases are poor or minority Americans–or both. I would hate to say the color of their skin is one reason journalists do not focus on these victims of injustices perpetrated by police and prosecutors, but I am afraid if we ask ourselves the question honestly, we would likely find that it is. Look for a moment at what James Giles <a href="https://archive.ph/o/Q5qrz/www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-exonerate9apr09,0,2045894,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines" style="color: #2e538f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">endured</a>: </div><div style="border-color: white; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 15px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I hope we all keep him and others in mind, as we cover the celebrated exoneration of well-heeled, well-connected, well-publicized young men whose conduct, while not illegal, was not entirely admirable, either. They aren’t heroes. They aren’t boys. They are young men who were victimized by a reckless prosecutor–and had the resources the fight him off.</div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-58206961575057973942022-02-18T11:12:00.002-05:002022-02-18T11:12:54.123-05:00Duke Lacrosse Update: Crimes and Torts committed by Duke Lacrosse Team Players on 3/13 and 3/14 as Reported in the press, mainly from the Three Players’ Defense Attorneys.<p> https://web.archive.org/web/20070223021255/http://www.naacpncnetwork.org/Publicity/768</p><h2 style="background-color: #eeeeee; font-family: tahoma, arial, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">Duke Lacrosse Update: Crimes and Torts committed by Duke Lacrosse Team Players on 3/13 and 3/14 as Reported in the press, mainly from the Three Players’ Defense Attorneys.</h2><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-color: #eeeeee; font-family: tahoma, arial, verdana, sans-serif; width: 100%px;"><tbody><tr><td colspan="2" style="font-size: 8pt;"><p align="center" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><strong>NC NAACP State Conference of Branches</strong></span><span style="color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: xx-small;"></span></p><p align="center" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #000099; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><strong>"Going Back to the Basics of Addressing Real Civil Rights Issues"</strong></span></p><p align="center" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #000099;"><strong>"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience</strong></span></span></span></p><p align="center" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><strong><span style="color: #000099;">but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." </span><span style="color: #000099;">Dr. Martin L. King, Jr.</span></strong></span></span></p><p align="center" style="margin: 0px;"><strong><span style="color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: xx-small;"></span></strong> </p><p align="center" style="margin: 0px;"><strong><span style="color: #000099; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">114 West Parrish Street Second Floor Durham, NC 27701</span></strong></p><p align="center" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #000099; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><strong>866/626-2227 919/682-4700 919/682-4711</strong></span></p><p align="center" style="margin: 0px;"><strong><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Send emails to:</span></strong></p><span style="color: #000099;"></span><p align="center" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #000099;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070223021255/mailto:naacpbarber@bellsouth.net" style="color: #000066; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #000099; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><strong>Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II President</strong></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><strong> </strong></span><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070223021255/mailto:ncnaacp@gmail.com" style="color: #000066; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #000099; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><strong>Amina J. 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If you should have any questions please call the North Carolina State Headquarters.</span></span></p><p align="left" style="margin: 0px;"></p><hr /><p style="margin: 0px;"></p><p align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070223021255/http://www.triadblogs.com/ncnaacp/dontbescared.wmv" style="color: #000066; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: xx-small;"><strong>"If You Are Scared, Say You Are Scared"</strong></span></a><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #000099;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;"></span></span></p><p align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070223021255/http://www.ourheartsworld.com/" style="color: #000066; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #3333ff; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><strong>"Our <span style="color: red;">Hearts </span>For You"</strong></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"></span></p><p align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #3333ff; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070223021255/http://www.naacpncnetwork.org/Publicity/589/NAACP+Upcoming+Events.html" style="color: #000066; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #000099;">NAACP Upcoming Events</span></a></span></p><ol><li>The Lacrosse Team Captains who hosted the party, including Defendant Evans, lied about their identity to the dance services when they ordered two female dancers.<p style="margin: 0px;"></p></li><li>The Lacrosse Team Captains who hosted the party, including Defendant Evans, lied about the nature of the party, stating it was a small bachelor party of less than 10 men, and that the dancers would not need an escort.</li><li>The Captains, including Defendant Evans, knew it was the policy of such escort services, particularly when Duke University athletes were involved, to send a bodyguard with a female dancer if the party would have more than 10-15 males in attendance. Other Duke athletic teams have had that experience in the past.</li><li>After Duke outlawed drinking on campus, some its more affluent white students merely rented or bought a nearby satellite "frat" or "party" or "team" house, to hold keg parties and hire female dancers for stag parties. A recent UNC study found that only about one out of three students took part in the binge-drinking parties held at these satellite party houses that are found near both Duke and UNC-CH. These satellite party houses have no means of direct control by the Universities, although they are the scenes of massive underage drinking, date-rapes, and other sexual assaults. Although some of the satellite party houses are informally sponsored by fraternities or athletic teams (such as 610 Buchanan Street in Durham), the University maintains it has no authority or legal liability for the acts of its students at these houses.<p style="margin: 0px;"></p></li><li>The satellite party houses, although owned or rented by Duke students, are not under the jurisdiction of the Duke police. Thus, if a Duke coed were to be given a date-rape drug at a party in one of these houses, and was gang-raped, Duke police and Duke would not have to report this in the annual sexual assault reports that Federal Law mandates.</li><li>Any underage drinking, assaults, hate-crimes or other crimes associated with late or latent drunken adolescent socializing falls under the jurisdiction of the over-worked Durham Police Department. DPD has a working relationship with the Duke Police Department, but, even when the property is owned by Duke University, such as 610 Buchanan, the Duke P. D. claims it has no jurisdiction off campus.</li><li>In response to complaints from neighbors about the loud and drunken acts of the Lacrosse Team who had been having parties at 610 Buchanan, six weeks before the alleged gang-rape, Duke bought 610 Buchanan Street on February 1, 2006. Duke continued to rent it to its lacrosse team captains. Duke did not notify its own Police Department it had jurisdiction over this property, and it is still unclear whether Duke P.D. could have made arrests that night if it had known that alleged felonies were taking place on Duke property. Certainly it must have known that there were at least 20 underage students drinking at 610 Buchanan, and that the Team Captains who had apparently bought a keg and several cases of beer were aiding and abetting this underage drinking.</li><li>The captains of the team, including Defendant Dan Evans (23), carried out a plan for a party that included providing alcoholic beverages to members of the team who were under the legal drinking age of 21, including Defendants Collin Finnerty (19) and Reade Seligmann, (20). Over 40 members of the team came to the party. The party began on Monday afternoon at 2 p.m., March 13. The kegs and cases of beer, and other alcoholic beverages were readily available to the young men, who by midnight when the two invited women came into the house, had been drinking for approximately 10 hours. The majority were under 21, and everyone there knew they were breaking the law.</li><li>Team parents have written that the reason for holding the drunken party at the party house was that everyone knew they could not go to a downtown bar because most of the boys were underage.</li><li>The team captains who rented 610 Buchanan, including Defendant Evans, made a common plan to trick two female dancers to come to the party unescorted, for 40 young athletic men. On information and belief, the hosts requested one white and one Latino dancer. As part of the plan, they called at least two different dance services to obtain the dancers. Their misrepresentations convinced the manager of Allure Escort Services, at about 8:30 p.m., to notify CM, a recently hired dancer, that she had a job going to dance for a small bachelor party near Duke.</li><li>On information and belief, when trying to hire the dancers, the Captains said it was a party for the Duke Track or Baseball team, which have more African American athletes on them. In fact, the lacrosse team has 47 members, 46 of whom are white. The only Black player, a Freshman, left the party before the dancers arrived.</li><li>On information and belief, Ms. Kim Roberts, one of the dancers, arrived in her own car about 11:30. Ms.Roberts, a former student at UNC-CH, had danced for bachelor parties before. She is part Korean and part African American and, on information and belief, the lacrosse players believed she was the Latina dancer they had requested.</li><li>Mr. Jason Bissey, who lived next door to the Duke-owned satellite house, saw several young men drinking beer in the back yard of 610 Buchanan at 2, 4, and 11:30 p.m.</li><li>CM was dropped off by a friend in the front of 610 Buchanan just before midnight. She was a full-time honor roll student at N.C. Central University. She had taken the night-job because she has two children in elementary school, and she wanted to save the few day-time hours she had free after her studies, to be with her children.</li><li>Mr. Bissey saw both Ms. Roberts and Ms. M walk around to the back door where a man greeted them, just before midnight. He saw the man talk with the women, and at midnight the two women entered the house. On information and belief, the lacrosse team member asked the women to dance and simulate sex acts between them, similarly to scenes from a book and movie that several of the Lacrosse team members enjoyed reading and talking about—American Psycho. The hero of this book/film is a 26 year old white stockbroker who works on Wall Street by day, and enjoyed hiring escort service dancers who did not know each other, having them come to his place to dance, requesting that they have sex with each other while he watches, and then he tortures and kills them. He also likes to kill poor Black homeless men, first torturing them and then killing them.</li><li>Ms. Roberts and Ms. M, who did not know each other at all, say they went into the bathroom in the middle of the house and put on their skimpy dance costumes. Although the men were drinking beer, a player offered both of them a clear-colored liquid drink. Ms. Roberts declined it, but Ms. M drank her drink and possibly some of the drink that had been offered to Ms. Roberts.</li><li>Although the women had been told it was going to be a small bachelor party, 44 out of the 47 lacrosse team members were reportedly present. The women began to dance and the men urged them to simulate or perform real sexual acts on each other. The men were standing and sitting all around the women—at least two dozen jammed into the small living room with the women in the middle. At least one player took digital photographs of the women, without their knowledge or permission.</li><li>It is unknown how many photographers were present or how many photographs were taken at the party. Defense lawyer Joseph Cheshire has made some of them available to Joseph Neff, a reporter for the News and Observer who worked closely with Cheshire for several years in helping to free a man who was unjustly sentenced to death. One photo allegedly depicted a young man with his shorts off and his underwear wet.</li><li>After about three minutes of dancing, with the men getting more and more excited, one man yelled at Ms. Roberts and Ms. M if they had brought "any sex toys." When they said, "No," a player held up a broomstick, and said he had a sex toy. There were racial remarks made.</li><li>`The two dancers stopped and went into the bathroom. Several young men were knocking on the bathroom door, and Ms. M yelled at them to leave us alone, according to Ms. Roberts.</li><li>Ms. Roberts retrieved her belongings from the bathroom, went to her car and changed into her street clothes.</li><li>Ms. Roberts said that some of the men came to her car and said Ms. M was passed out on the backporch of the house. Ms. Roberts suggested they bring Ms. M to her car.</li><li>After Ms. M got in the car, she said she wanted to go back in.</li><li>Ms. Roberts said Ms. M, who had acted normally and showed no marks on her body when she first came, was acting as if she was very drunk. Ms. Roberts tried to convince Ms. M, whom she had never met before, to leave with her.</li><li>Mr. Cheshire told the media the two women remained locked in the bathroom for 27 minutes and some men slid money under the door to them.</li><li>Some men left after the dancers stopped and Ms. Roberts made it clear that the simulated sex between the "Latina" and the African American dancers was not going to happen.</li><li>Other men noticed Ms. M seemed quite vulnerable after drinking the clear liquid. They went out to the car where she was and begged her to return to the house.</li><li>Around 12:20 a.m. Mr. Bissey heard two men talking about money in the alley between his house and 610 Buchanan. One man said, "It’s only $100." He saw a man leaning into the window of a car parked outside of 610 Buchanan. He saw Ms. M. get out of the car, saying she needed to get her shoe and went around to the back porch again.</li><li>Mr. Cheshire has produced a photo of her on the back porch, returning to the house.</li><li>Ms. Roberts stayed in her car.</li><li>On information and belief, around 12:20, some men who saw the vulnerable Ms. M returning to the house called their friends who had taken cabs and gone to get some cast from an ATM. Some returned. Sometime between approximately 12:21 and 12:53, Ms. M has stated she was kidnapped into the bathroom, beaten, robbed, choked, and vaginally and anally raped.</li><li>The Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) at Duke Hospital confirmed her injuries matched her reports when she was examined about 2 hours later.</li><li>During this same period, Ms. Roberts said she waited outside for Ms. M to return. Ms. Roberts was frustrated with her and decided to leave. About 12:30 she started her car, and went a hundred feet or so down Buchanan Street. Then, suddenly, she changed her mind, put the car in reverse and backed to a parking space in front of the house. The cab driver who had taken Mr. Seligman to get some cash at a nearby ATM then dropped him off near his dorm, and had returned to 610 Buchanan Street for another fare, saw Ms. Roberts’ change of heart.</li><li>Mr. Cheshire has given out digital camera photos that have 12: 37 a.m. and 12:41 a.m. on them. The first shows Ms. M in a coma on the back porch. The second shows someone dumping her into the passenger seat in Ms. Roberts’ car.</li><li>Around 12:50 a.m. Mr. Bissey heard a man standing behind the wall on the other side of the street, on the grounds of Duke’s East Campus, shout at the two women in or near Ms. Roberts’ car: "Thank your grandpa for my nice cotton shirt," the man said.</li><li>At 12:53 a.m. Ms. Roberts called 911 from her car and said: "It’s me and my black girlfriend. And the guy—there’s like a white guy by the Duke wall and he just hollered out "nigger" to me. . . .They’re just hanging out by the wall on Buchanan." When the operator asked which side, the caller said: "It’s right outside of 610 Buchanan. I saw them all come out of, like, a big frat house." She said she was "not going to press the issue, I guess," but she was obviously distraught. Ms. Roberts said she told the men she had just called the police.</li><li>About 12:53 a.m., Mr. Bissey saw the car with at least one woman in it "speed away" from in front of 610 Buchanan. Then one man said, "Guys, Let’s go!" several times.</li><li>Duke police were alerted by the 911 operator. However, although they were much closer to the house, they believed they had no jurisdiction, and they claim they had not been informed Duke had recently bought the property at 610 Buchanan.</li><li>When the drunken partygoers were told the cops had been called, within a minute the place was cleared and all the lights were turned off.</li><li>Two minutes later at 12:55 a.m. two Durham police cars pulled up. The officers saw cups, beer cans and beer kegs, and spoke to a neighbor who said there had been a party. But no one answered their knock on the door, the lights were off, and there was no sign of the woman caller.</li><li>At 1:06, after 11 minutes of checking the Duke-owned house, the police left.<p style="margin: 0px;"></p></li><li>Sixteen minutes later, at 1:22 a.m., a female security guard at Kroger’s on Hillsborough Road saw a woman in the passenger seat of Ms. Roberts’ parked car who appeared intoxicated and was not speaking or moving. The security guard reported this incident to Durham P.D.</li><li>Ten minutes later, at 1:32 a.m., Sgt. John Shelton, Durham PD, responded to the Kroger parking lot call. He found a "scantily clad woman passed out, and she would not get out of the car. When he got no response when he talked loudly to her, he pressured her wrists to try to get her out of the car. Ms. M. grabbed the parking brake, and struggled to stay in the car. When he got Ms. M out, she collapsed on the pavement of the Kroger parking lot. Shelton directed her taken to a 24-hour mental health facility called Durham Access, where intoxicated people can be held.</li><li>Ms. M would not speak with Sgt. Shelton, so he "did not know her namre or where she lived," he wrote, and "Taking her home was not an option."</li><li>Ms. M was interviewed by a staff nurse, a supervisor and a security guard at Durham Access. Off. Joseph Stewart witnessed these short interviews and wrote that during the "check-in process the victim was asked if something had happened to her and she said yes. She was then asked if she had been raped and she stated yes."</li><li>The registered nurse at Access said the woman was incoherent and her responses appeared "as if she were psychologically hurt" according to Off. Stewart’s notes.</li><li>The nurse observed that Ms. M’s answers were "more of a traumatic response rather than a drunk response, because her thoughts were broken, but logical due to her trying to hold on to reality." The Access staff directed the police to take Ms. M to Duke Emergency Room.</li><li>An hour and a half after Ms. Roberts brought Ms. M to the Kroger’s parking lot around 1 a.m., and about 2 ½ hours after some of the players gave Ms. M a clear liquid drink around midnight Durham PD Officer Willie Barfield transported Ms. M. to the Duke ER.</li><li>Within 20 minutes, Durham P.D. and the Duke Rape Team officially classified the complaint as "rape." A full rape analysis was done and the Durham P.D. collected DNA samples from the rape kit, took photos of her wounds, and interviewed her.</li><li>The sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) found the "victim had signs, symptoms and injuries consistent with being raped and sexually assaulted vaginally and anally." The SANE also said the injuries and the victim’s behavior were consistent with a traumatic experience. Theresa Arico, the SANE coordinator at Duke Hospital said "there was a certain amount of blunt force trauma present to create injury" and that the injuries the victim suffered were "consistent with the story she told." The ER doctor on duty that night also has reported that Ms. M. suffered trauma consistent with her story.</li><li>During the early morning hours, according to notes of the different police officers and staff at the ER, Ms. M.’s account of the rape included an accusation that Ms. Roberts had urged her to have sex with her and with the men, and that Ms. M. was taken into the bathroom and raped anally, vaginally and orally, and the three men used racial and sexual slurs during the assault.</li><li>The serial killer in American Psycho followed a similar pattern with his female victims.</li><li>The Duke PD wrote a report trivializing the incident, based on what a Duke cop had overheard of one side of a phone conversation a Durham cop was making. According to a study paid for by Duke, Duke President Brodhead was not told anything about the rape charges for several weeks.</li><li>During the week of the party and the charges of rape made within three hours, Duke’s nationally ranked basketball team had moved into the quarterfinals of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Its coach was seen several times a night giving a commercial based partly on the reputation of Duke and its athletics.<b></b></li><li>On the morning of March 15, Ms. M saw two doctors at UNC Hospital, where she had received health care before, because she had severe pain in her neck. Now over the affects of what ever narcotics were in the one or two drinks she was given that evening when she got to the party, she said that she was dancing at a bachelor party and wanted to leave, but the other girls (sic) wanted her to stay. She said she was pushed into a bathroom and raped by three men. "The UNC records said, " She was knocked to the floor multiple times and hit her head on the sink during one of these episodes. "She states she was drunk and had a lot of alcohol that night. She said she denied any pain in the emergency room because she was ‘drunk and did not feel pain.’"</li><li>Some Duke students who were at the party reportedly gave detailed accounts of the night to Duke Administrators. D.A. Mike Nifong has said he would ask Duke to disclose them voluntarily. If Duke did not comply, he would get a Court order. Police took statements and DNA samples from the three captains and scheduled a meeting for the week of the March 20<sup>th</sup> to interview the other 43 white players. On information and belief, Nifong also has obtained statements from some of the players who attended the party.<p style="margin: 0px;"></p></li><li>On information and belief, Captain Evans, knew that he was in trouble, the minute the Ms. Roberts called 911 at 12:53 a.m. He had hosted the party, may have been involved in mixing the drinks, and has produced no alibi during the critical two periods when his own lawyer’s photos indicate Ms. M, almost passed out from some kind of narcotic, was brought back into the house.</li><li>On March 16<sup>th</sup>, Durham PD interviewed Ms M again, and then they interviewed the three captains, including Evans. After developing probable cause and obtaining a search warrant at 6:55 p.m., 40 hours after classifying the crime as "rape," the officers served the warrant at the house. Crime scene technicians were inside the house for seven hours on the night of the 16/17 of March. They found broken fingernails, a purse and a cell phone that belonged to Ms. M. They also seized a number of computers, cameras, cloth and paper towels, rugs and bath mats, fingernails and a photograph.</li><li>Mr. Evans knew two days after the party, when police came with a search warrant and found several items belonging to Ms. M in the bathroom, including some of her false fingernails, some towels and other materials, that he might be charged.</li><li>Mr. Evans consulted with his father, a Washington, D. C. lawyer, who in turn, hired one of the best criminal lawyers in North Carolina and a man with good skills at working the media, Joseph Cheshire. Cheshire had close working relationships with one of the best investigative reporters in North Carolina, Joe Neff. Cheshire and Neff together had pieced together enough evidence to help get Cheshire’s client, Alan Gell, exonerated for a crime that a jury had convicted him of, and sentenced him to the death penalty.</li><li>The Evans family and other parents who had watched their boys play Lacrosse for Landon Prep school in the Montgomery county suburb immediately worked out an arrangement with Robert Bennett, a powerful D.C. lawyer who had represented Pres. Bill Clinton against the accusation of sexual harassment by a state employee in Arkansas, Ms. Paula Jones. Mr. Bennett and other supporters of Pres. Clinton spent much time and energy trashing Ms. Jones. In fact, one of the favorite names for her was "Trailer Park Trash." Ms. Jones had not brought criminal charges against Pres. Clinton for the alleged advances he made toward her—she had merely sued him in civil court for violating her rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.</li><li>On information and belief, some of the information found on the seized computers from 610 Buchanan, as well as from other team players, refer to scenes from <i>American Psycho.</i> A mother of one player wrote several players were in a Duke psychology class and had <i>American Psycho</i> assigned to them for analysis.</li><li>One partygoer, Ryan MacFadden, went back to his dorm room and about an hour after Ms. Roberts’ 12:53 a.m. call to the cops had abruptly ended the party, sat down at his computer and sent out a drunken cry to his team-mates: And about an hour later, one of the "kids" sent out an e-mail to the team saying: "To whom it may concern: tomorrow night, after tonight’s show, I’ve decided to have some strippers over………... However there will be no nudity. I plan on killing the b_____as soon as the[y] walk in, and proceeding to cut their skin off while cumming in my duke issue spandex. All in besides arch and tack please respond. ‘41’" <i>(Sic[k]) </i>Defense lawyers said he was just joking, and that proved there was no rape. Later he told Duke investigators he was just joking, and he was sorry. Pres. Brodhead reinstated McFadden as a student in July.<i><p style="margin: 0px;"></p></i></li><li>On information and belief, this <i>American Psycho</i> depravity is sprinkled throughout some of the young men’s computer files that the State controls. Mr. Evans and his defense team, people at Duke (the University has access to all e-mails and files on its computer system) and Duke’s alumni and sports backers are aware that if these ideas or reports of some of Duke young athletes were to be published—like Mr. McFadden’s e-mail that night—all the spin doctors in the world could not stop the public from having an adverse reaction to the type of education Duke provides.</li><li>The cousin of Ms. M has reported that Duke supporters have approached her with an offer of $2 million if she will retract her testimony. Other people who have access to Ms. M also have reported being approached with offers of huge sums of money if the case will go away. Sam Hall, the communications director for the Duke Alumni Affairs, checked with other officials to see whether Duke Alums had bade such an offer. Mr. Hall told the press that "We have no information about that. I think there’s been a rumor of it since the beginning, but I’ve never heard it discussed."</li><li>Although the players first indicated they would voluntarily give DNA, a few days after the computers were seized, on March 20, a lawyer told the D.A. that none of the players would voluntarily submit to DNA tests. The State obtained a Court Order for the DNA.<p style="margin: 0px;"></p></li><li>On March 23, ten days after the State’s investigation began, 46 Duke students, with their shirts over their faces, walked into the forensics unit of the Durham Police Department, and they were seen by a reporter and photographer from the News and Observer. The next day, March 24<sup>th</sup>, the story broke for the first time publicly.</li><li>About the same time, Duke was eliminated in the NCAA basketball tournament. That weekend, a Duke alumnus witnessed about 20 members of the lacrosse team acting like drunk children at a local bar. She published an account in the Duke newspaper, the Chronicle. In late March, she was told not come back to the bar.<p style="margin: 0px;"></p></li><li>The next week, two weeks after the party, several team members retained some of the best criminal lawyers in the area. The three team captains, who lived at the House (it is unclear whether they paid Duke rent for the house and they all moved out) have hired top-dollar attorneys: James "Butch" Williams (Capt. Dan Flannery), Joe Cheshire (Capt. Dave Evans), and Kerry Sutton (Capt. Matt Zash).</li><li>Cheshire attacked the D. A. for creating a "lynch-mob mentality in the community," and said Nifong "has judged these young men to be guilty." Williams accused Nifong of doing the "two step," because Nifong first said he wanted to get the DNA results back before considering what to indict for, and then later said a negative DNA test did not prove innocence. Ms. Sutton said Capt. Zash was ¨locked in his room watching the Dave Letterman show" when the alleged attack took place in the 3-Bedroom house. (Zash’s semen was on a towel in the bathroom where the rape took place.) Cheshire chastised the D.A. for "trying the case in the press." All the lawyers have maintained there was no sexual attack at the house that night.</li><li>Ms. Roberts, seeking legal advice, contacted Mr. Williams. He told her he represented one of the men, and then told her about the photos and implied she was going to look bad if there was a trial. He tried to get her to tell him what she knew. Ms. Roberts has since made public interviews, describing her role and saying Mr. Nifong and the Durham P.D. have handled the case professionally.</li><li>Mr. Nifong made comments about possible accessory charges, since it is hard to believe that a gang rape in the bathroom could occur without other party-goers knowing something about it. He gave several interviews about the case the first few weeks, when it created a media firestorm. He once estimated he gave "50 to 70" interviews during that period, and the defense lawyers have used that figure repeatedly. He has since apologized for giving so many interviews to the media, which would camp outside his office everyday until he stopped granting any interviews.</li><li>Since about two weeks before his successful primary election, maintained a professional quiet with the press.</li><li>The defense lawyers are paid large fees to zealously represent their clients. A tactic in every sexual assault case is to intimidate the survivor/witness of the attack into refusing to testify. As part of this tactic, they released their photos of the dancer, they have dug up old stories about how she was traumatized as a teen-ager, and have tried to put her past character on trial, knowing well her past sexual history is off limits before the jury.</li><li>The strategy of the Duke 3 Support Group is as old as sex. Attack the survivors, the vulnerable women. Trash them to re-traumatize them. First the night of the assault, and then every night after on the tv talk shows, the blogs, and on the front pages of the press—trying to bludgeon them into to being afraid to testify.</li><li>There is a second reason why the Duke 3 Support Group and the defense lawyers continue to try their case in the media—even when the State has chosen to not to join the publicity contest. Their objective is simple: to prepare for a Motion to Change the Venue, saying the jury has been hopelessly tainted with what they have read. They are worried Mr. Nifong and his prosecutors will be on their home court, with a home jury, that will no doubt have at least 5 and maybe more African Americans on it. They are worried the egregious racism of some of the players will affect a Durham Jury, just as it has affected all people of good will who are outraged by the arrogant, entitled behavior of these men, whether or not three men physically assaulted an obviously almost comatose woman.</li><li>No one represents Ms. M, the survivor. As in the case of domestic violence or any other violence against a woman, she becomes the third party victim of the criminal justice system. Nifong represents the State of North Carolina, not the survivor.</li><li>The three defendants they have two mountains to climb. First, they must deflect public attention from their boorish, racist, and illegal behavior by mounting outlandish attacks on the survivor and the D.A. Second, they must deal with a mountain of physical evidence, that is corroborated by, we have reason to believe, accounts of some of the men who were at the party who have cooperated with the police and the D.A. from early on.</li><li>The NAACP and several key Durham Congregations held a highly successful Durham Conference on the Moral Challenges raised by the lacrosse case. One of the issues the Durham Conference addressed was the outrageous media attention given to the case, and the way the defendants were "playing the media like a banjo." In early June, The Durham Conference wrote to both the Durham Superior Court Judge and the N.C. Bar, requesting a "quiet zone" be declared, based on the N.C. State Bar’s Rules of Professional Conduct 3.6.</li><li>On July 17, Superior Court Judge Kenneth Titus told both the defendants and their lawyers, as well as the State of N.C. and its lawyers, that "future statements or disclosure of additional information, otherwise prohibited by Rule 3.6 will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing" the constitutional guaranteed right to a fair trial by a jury free from partiality, bias or prejudice. "Therefore," Judge Titus told the lawyers for both sides, "I am entering an order in these cases which require compliance" with the professional rules.</li><li>Two weeks after the defense lawyers had been ordered to stop trying the case in thepress (Nifong had muzzled himself two months earlier), the Herald’s crime reporter, John Stevenson, wrote on July 31<sup>st</sup> there were two matches to Evans found on stuff the police seized 40 hours after the party. Material on one of Ms. M’s fingernails seized from the bathroom wastebasket could have only come from Evans, out of all the 46 players there, and Evans’ DNA was found on a seized towel from the hallway toward Evans’ room. Defense attorneys had mentioned the fingernail DNA and tried to minimize its meaning when it first came out, and there had been a mention of DNA on some towels, but it had not been revealed it was also Evans’ DNA on the towel.</li><li>This damaging news about Cheshire’s client was followed a week later with a lengthy attack on Nifong in Sunday’s N & O, August 8, with graphics, photos and a full page of editorializing against Nifong by Neff. Neff apparently has complete access to the records Nifong has turned over to Cheshire, as long as Neff spins the story against the State. Many of the facts revealed in the August 8 story tend to support the Central student’s claims, particularly if she was drugged when she first came to the party.</li></ol></td></tr></tbody></table>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-38620353431860215852021-12-07T15:42:00.002-05:002021-12-07T15:42:43.635-05:00hagiography.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-75931784689983352322021-11-04T10:34:00.000-04:002021-11-04T10:34:20.452-04:00About that Duke lacrosse thing<p> </p><header class="entry-header" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5); box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Noto Sans", sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Noto Color Emoji"; font-size: 16px;"><h1 class="entry-title mb-4 text-40" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #1a6ce9; font-size: 2.5rem; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 1.5rem !important; margin-top: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><a href="https://feministe.us/blog/?p=4743">About that Duke lacrosse thing</a></h1><div class="entry-meta my-4" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1.5rem !important; margin-top: 1.5rem !important;"><span class="posted-on" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i aria-hidden="true" class="fi-clock " style="box-sizing: border-box;"></i> <time class="entry-date published updated" datetime="2007-04-13T11:32:35+00:00" style="box-sizing: border-box;">April 13, 2007</time> </span><span class="byline" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i aria-hidden="true" class="fi-torso " style="box-sizing: border-box;"></i> <span class="author vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Jill</span></span></div></header><div class="entry-content" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5); box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Noto Sans", sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Noto Color Emoji"; font-size: 16px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">UPDATE</span>: In light of comments on the AutoAdmit/XOXO message board in response to this post (“I want to brutally rape that Jill slut,” “I’m 98% sure that she should be raped (even if only in Internet Land),” “So seriously, I think we should start another war with this cunt. She clearly deserves anything XOXO might inflict on her”), I’m going to be moderating it very heavily. I’m not going to link to the AutoAdmit board; you can google it if you’re curious. Those of you who post comments that are deleted can whine about censorship and echo chambers all you want, but we’re more than 200 comments in and I’ve only deleted a handful (fewer than 5) of truly outrageous ones. Now that a group of people are making rape comments (hilarious as always) and threatening to “start another war with this cunt” because I clearly deserve “anything XOXO might inflict on her,” I’m not feeling the need to be particularly generous with my online space. So here are my rules:</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">-You throw out insults, you’re gone.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />-You’re rude and/or clearly not interested in reasoned discussion, you’re gone.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />-You’re clearly one of the people who posted nasty things on the AutoAdmit board, you’re gone. And your IP address very well may be going up in a subsequent post.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />-You continue to take the thread off-topic, you’re gone. As a reminder,<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;"> the post is about posting the woman’s pictures and personal information all over the internet</span>. I did not weigh in on whether I think the three men are guilty or not, because we’ve had that conversation and another flamewar is not going to change anyone’s mind (also, please stop assuming that I think they’re guilty). This post is also not about the women’s sexual history or her line of work, so drop that, too. On this thread, we are discussing the posting of her picture, whether the posting was fair, and the posting’s effects on rape survivors. The internet is a big place, and I’m sure there are hundreds of blogs where you can discuss the guilt/not guilt of the men in question, or of some unidentified man. This is not that blog.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />-Because we are talking about rape survivors, I am not going to accept comments that attack or blame survivors of sexual assault.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">Also, I’m not going to be sitting at my computer all evening checking the moderation queue. I won’t be at my computer much at all tonight. I imagine that Zuzu and Piny are also fairly busy, and we generally have a policy of not moderating comments each others’ posts, unless they’re so benign that the poster would clearly have no problem letting them through. That means that, out of respect for me, Zuzu and Piny will probably not been approving comments from people who aren’t regular posters here. So if you’ve played by the rules and your comments still go into moderation and stay there for a while, it’s not because I’m trying to censor you, it’s because I’m out. If you think your comment was deleted unfairly, you are welcome to email me and contest the decision.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">UPDATE TWO</span>: A few clarifying points:<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />-I am in no way saying that I think these three lacrosse players are guilty. My opinion on their guilt or not isn’t really relevant since I wasn’t there and I don’t know all the facts of the case, but if you’re interested, I don’t think that they raped her. That’s neither here nor there, but there it is.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />-I do, however, think that something happened in that house — I’m not sure what else explains her fingernails on the bathroom floor, her leaving her cellphone and wallet at the house (especially if she’s a greedy whore, as many people seem to be arguing), and the medical examination which showed trauma consistent with sexual assault.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />-I think that the criminally accused deserve far more protections than they currently have. I think rape survivors do, too.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />-I don’t have a whole lot of faith in the criminal justice system. I think it is fundamentally flawed, and broken at its very base. I think there are some good things about it, but as a general rule I cannot throw my support behind a retributive system, and I’d rather see us go the rehabilitation route. I’d rather our prisons weren’t holding pens for War on Drugs offenders. I’d rather our prisons were not major money-makers, and I’d rather they were not traded on Wall Street. I think prison rape is a huge problem, and that it’s inadequately dealt with. I don’t think that the solution to crime is to simply lock everyone up. I think it’s unfortunate that a retributive system is our only option when it comes to criminal “justice.”<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />-I am not interested in determining whether or not the Duke lacrosse team had anything to do with the alleged assault. I am interested in the ethical decisions to post the woman’s picture and personal information on The Smoking Gun, on the cover of the New York Post, and on dozens of websites.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">Now back to the post:</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">Unless you’ve spent the past 48 hours hiding under a rock, you’ve probably heard the news that prosecutors have dropped charges against the three Duke lacrosse players accused of sexually assaulting a stripper. The backlash has been stunning: The woman’s face as plastered across the cover of the New York Post yesterday along with the words THE DUKE LIAR, and The Smoking Gun has posted her personal information. I’m not linking to either.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">The overwhelming response, from liberals and conservatives alike (but mostly conservatives), has been to brand the accuser a liar. I’ve already had to delete a series of “gotcha!” comments from the moderation queue. Anti-feminists in particular are overjoyed with the players’ exoneration — not because they particularly care about justice, but because they think this is a good way to stick it to the feminists who support rape survivors, sometimes to the detriment of white men. These are the same people who regularly lectured us not to jump to conclusions, and to wait until the “boys” had their day in court.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">Last I checked, the woman has not recanted her story. Last I checked, she isn’t being prosecuted for filing false charges. Last I checked, there is no evidence that she lied about a rape occurring.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">At this point, what’s obvious is that there was not a strong enough case against Reade W. Seligmann, David F. Evans, and Collin Finnerty to take it to trial. That doesn’t mean that they’re upstanding citizens — after all, they hired a stripper for a team party, harassed her, etc etc — but that doesn’t make them rapists. On the other hand, they may very well be rapists, and there was simply not enough evidence to make a case. I hope we can all agree that, if they are in fact innocent, then it’s terrible that they had to go through this whole ordeal. I hope we can all agree that the DA screwed up this case royally.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">But this post isn’t about guessing whether or not they did it. As far as the courts go, that issue has been pretty much settled, and we can argue until we’re blue in the face about whether or not we think they did it. I have no idea. I do think that the DA made a hasty indictment and had a shoddy case. But just because Reade W. Seligmann, David F. Evans, and Collin Finnerty may not have raped the woman in question does not mean that there was no rape, or that the woman is a liar. A guilty conviction is not the standard for determining whether or not a crime occurred, or whether or not someone who files a criminal report is telling the truth. OJ wasn’t convicted of murdering Nicole, but she’s still dead. If your car is stolen and the police never find it, it doesn’t mean that the theft never happened.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">Women do not lie about rape any more than people lie about being victims of other crimes — but yet we look at rape charges with far more skepticism than we do crimes like theft or other kinds of assault. Could it be that she completely made up the assault? Yeah, it could be, but there’s about a 98% chance that she’s telling the truth.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">This isn’t a choice between the three Duke lacrosse players being guilty OR her being a liar. They can be innocent, and she can still be raped. There were a lot of people in that house that night, and the three indictees are not the only possible perpetrators.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">The DA dropped the ball on this one, not the woman, which is why I don’t understand the desire to post her picture and her personal information online. She was taken to the hospital an examination supported her claim of sexual assault. Several of her fingernails were left behind on the bathroom floor, along with her cell phone and her purse. She fled the house without collecting her money. She called 911. Is that definitive evidence that she was raped? No. But it lends itself to the contention that <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">something</em> out of the ordinary happened in that house.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">From the reports I’ve read, even the law enforcement officials who don’t believe she was raped believe that she’s mentally unstable, and that she honestly thinks she was raped. The “nut or slut” defense is too often used by defense lawyers to discredit rape survivors, and these prosecutors obviously have much to gain by blaming her for their inability to make a proper case, but at the very least it’s worth noting that even the people who don’t think she was raped believe that she thought she was being honest. If that’s true, it doesn’t make her a liar; it makes her traumatized, troubled, and possibly mentally ill.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">It’s deeply troubling that so many people have no qualms about posting the picture and personal information of a woman who, thus far, has not been formally accused of a crime. Of a woman who very well may be a rape survivor. Of a woman who, at the very least, believes herself to be a rape survivor. Of a woman who has not been accused nor proven to have done anything wrong.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">Rape is one of the least successfully prosecuted crimes out there. It has the lowest reporting rate of all violent crimes. Women who survive sexual assault are too often silenced, and too often keep the crime a secret because they don’t think anyone will believe them. This case has been extremely harmful to rape survivors — who wants to report a rape if you think that, should prosecutors fail to successfully prosecute anyone, your face is going to be plastered all over the Post with the word “LIAR” next to it?</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">I don’t challenge the right of individuals to weigh in on this case. After all, the “innocent until proven guilty” standard is a legal one, not a social one, and if we’re permitted to speculate on whether the Duke lacrosse team was involved in an assault, then we’re permitted to speculate on whether she was telling the truth. But just because we’re permitted to doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. And speculation goes about 10 steps too far when it turns into publishing her picture, her name, her address and other personal information.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">The fact is that the three Duke men will go on leading lives of relative privilege. I’m not trying to downplay the trauma of being falsely accused of a crime, but these men have hordes of support. They are roundly perceived as innocent white victims of an evil black hypersexed slut. They had some of the best lawyers available. They will graduate from a top-tier university, and they will go on to have well-paying jobs.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">She will forever be branded a lying whore. She will go back to her home in Durham — not her pricey dorm room, not the house her parents pay for her to live and party in — and she’ll try to move on with her life. She’ll have survived assault, and she’ll have survived being used as pawn by the media and her local legal establishment. She isn’t coming out unscathed. Further attempts to cause her harm — posting her pictures, calling her a liar — strike me as unbelievably cruel (not to mention usually hypocritical).</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">Even if you believe that the attacks on this individual woman are warranted, consider the effects that they will have on rape survivors. Consider what rape survivors feel every time they hear her called a liar. Consider what women will internalize about rape from this incident. Consider how that will effect them in the future — how it will effect their own reporting, or their belief that their friend, their daughter, their mother is telling the truth.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">Accusations of lying about rape have far-reaching consequences. <a href="http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2003/10/22/rape-as-i-know-it/" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #007bff; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">Lauren wrote an incredibly moving post about this a while back</a>. I hope you’ll all read it, and re-consider the Duke case through that lens.</p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-78899782933950224882021-08-23T17:44:00.003-04:002021-08-23T17:44:32.543-04:00'Are you kidding me?' National security lawyer tears apart Nunes' 'pathetic joke' of a memo<p> </p><p><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/kidding-national-security-lawyer-tears-apart-nunes-pathetic-joke-memo/">'Are you kidding me?' National security lawyer tears apart Nunes' 'pathetic joke' of a memo</a></p><p>Brad Reed</p><p>February 02, 2018</p><p> </p><p>'Are you kidding me?' National security lawyer tears apart Nunes' 'pathetic joke' of a memo</p><p>Attorney Bradley Moss (Screen cap).</p><p>The controversial Nunes memo is out -- and one national security expert is decidedly unimpressed.</p><p><br /></p><p>Bradley Moss, an attorney who specializes in litigating national security matters, has written a tweet storm in which he shreds the memo and says that he believes it amounts to a "pathetic joke."</p><p><br /></p><p>"This is the scandal??" Moss writes incredulously of the memo. "Are you kidding me?"</p><p><br /></p><p>He then goes on to explain why there is simply no major scandal embedded within Nunes' memo, and he says that British spy Christopher Steele's personal biases against then-candidate Donald Trump are completely irrelevant to whether a FISA court should have granted the FBI a FISA warrant to surveil former Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page.</p><p><br /></p><p>"The entire premise of its insuffiency is the fact that the FBI/DOJ didn't tell the FISC that Steele was biased against Trump," he writes. "So the hell what? They're not REQUIRED to reveal that in every case. Unless that bias somehow renders the information, in and of itself, unreliable, it doesn't matter if Steele wore a 'I'm with Hillary' button. It's irrelevant."</p><p> </p><p>Moss then went on to note that the Nunes memo confusingly admits that the FBI first launched its investigation into the Trump campaign based on the drunken boasts of former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who bragged to an Australian diplomat that he knew the Russian government would release dirt on rival Hillary Clinton.</p><p><br /></p><p>In conclusion, Moss says the FBI needs to clear this up by releasing the entire FISA application on Page -- which he notes is usually between 50 to 100 pages long.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Bradley P. Moss</p><p>@BradMossEsq</p><p>This is the scandal?? Are you kidding me? https://scribd.com/document/370598711/House-Intelligence-Committee-Report-On-FISA-Abuses#fullscreen&from_embed</p><p>12:21 PM · Feb 2, 2018</p><p><br /></p><p>Bradley P. Moss</p><p>@BradMossEsq</p><p>The Nunes memo is exactly the pathetic joke I expected it to be.</p><p><br /></p><p>1) It admits that the Steele dossier is only a part of the FISA application. It even resolves once and for all that the Russia investigation did not start based on the dossier. It was based on "coffee boy".</p><p>12:22 PM · Feb 2, 2018</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Bradley P. Moss</p><p>@BradMossEsq</p><p>·</p><p>Feb 2, 2018</p><p>The Nunes memo is exactly the pathetic joke I expected it to be.</p><p><br /></p><p>1) It admits that the Steele dossier is only a part of the FISA application. It even resolves once and for all that the Russia investigation did not start based on the dossier. It was based on "coffee boy".</p><p>Bradley P. Moss</p><p>@BradMossEsq</p><p>2) The entire premise of its insuffiency is the fact that the FBI/DOJ didn't tell the FISC that Steele was biased against Trump. So the hell what? They're not REQUIRED to reveal that in every case. @OrinKerr did an exhaustive piece on the 4A issues for @lawfareblog</p><p>12:24 PM · Feb 2, 2018</p><p><br /></p><p>Bradley P. Moss</p><p>@BradMossEsq</p><p>·</p><p>Feb 2, 2018</p><p>Replying to @BradMossEsq</p><p>2) The entire premise of its insuffiency is the fact that the FBI/DOJ didn't tell the FISC that Steele was biased against Trump. So the hell what? They're not REQUIRED to reveal that in every case. @OrinKerr did an exhaustive piece on the 4A issues for @lawfareblog</p><p>Bradley P. Moss</p><p>@BradMossEsq</p><p>Unless that bias somehow renders the information, in and of itself, unreliable, it doesn't matter if Steele wore a "I'm with Hillary" button. It's irrelevant.</p><p><br /></p><p>3) Release the FISA application. The FBI has to do it now. It would likely have been 50-100 pages. Release it.</p><p>12:26 PM · Feb 2, 2018</p><p><br /></p><p>Bradley P. Moss</p><p>@BradMossEsq</p><p>Any pundit that goes out there and says this is the FISA memo is a bombshell scandal is either a hack, stupid, naïve, incompetent and/or is completely and unapologetically unaware of Fourth Amendment law involving warrant applications and confidential informants.</p><p>12:45 PM · Feb 2, 2018</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-50072259074338685632021-06-07T15:12:00.000-04:002021-06-07T15:12:08.628-04:00There is no solution to the GOP's vaccine refusal By Amanda Marcotte <section class="title-container">
<h1>There is no solution to the GOP's vaccine refusal</h1>
<h2>COVID denialism lost its political usefulness months ago, but the GOP zombies keep on refusing to get the vaccine</h2>
<section class="writer-container writer-app-wrapper">
<div class="writer_info_wrapper">
<h5><span>By </span>
<a href="https://www.salon.com/writer/amanda_marcotte">Amanda Marcotte</a>
</h5>
<h6> Published June 7, 2021 1:09PM (EDT) </h6>
</div>
</section>
</section><article id="article-content">
<p>In the past six months, we've all witnessed the <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/danvergano/mrna-covid-vaccine-success?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4" target="_blank">near-miraculous effectiveness of the vaccines against COVID-19 </a> and President Joe Biden's success at turning <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/02/15/biden-administration-surprised-by-the-true-nature-of-trumps-covid-19-response-plan_partner/" target="_blank">the joke of Donald Trump's vaccine plan</a>
into a well-oiled machine. Anyone who wants the shot in the U.S. can
get it. Yet, despite an initial surge of interest in vaccines in the
mid-spring, there's been a drastic drop-off in vaccination rates just
ahead of Biden's Independence Day goal for a return to summer grilling. </p>
<p>"The United States is averaging <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/health/covid-vaccine-states-distribution-doses/?itid=lk_inline_manual_4" target="_blank">fewer than 1 million shots per day</a>, a decline of more than two-thirds from the peak of 3.4 million in April," <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/06/06/vaccination-rates-decline-us/" target="_blank">the Washington Post reports</a>,
noting that "[s]mall armies of health workers and volunteers often
outnumber the people showing up to get shots at clinics" in more
conservative areas like Utah, North Carolina and Tennessee. </p>
<p>"Experts are concerned that states across the South, where
vaccination rates are lagging, could face a surge in coronavirus cases
over the summer," <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/07/world/us-south-covid-vaccine.html" target="_blank">the New York Times further reports</a>. While
many states in the Northeast have reached Biden's 70% benchmark, the
Times notes that only "about half of adults or fewer have received a
dose" in 15 red states. </p><div class="outer-ad-unit-wrapper"><span class="proper-caption"></span>As vaccine rates have been lagging, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/04/24/vaccine-hesitant-vaccine-refusers-and-anti-vaxxers-theres-a-spectrum-and-the-differences-matter/" target="_blank">a number of reasons for what tends to be called "vaccine hesitancy" </a>have been documented <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/6/2/22463223/covid-19-vaccine-hesitancy-reasons-why" target="_blank">through polls and other research</a>.
Issues include a lack of access, skepticism that COVID-19 is
particularly dangerous, a lack of trust in the vaccines, a belief in
conspiracy theories and fear of side effects.
</div><p>No doubt all these aspects are true to one extent or another, and
there's certainly evidence that some working-class people simply are
struggling to find the time to get the shots and recover from them. But
the glaring geographical differences give away the one deeply
uncomfortable reality about what is driving much, if not most, of the
discrepancies in vaccination rates: Republicans are refusing to get
vaccinated out of pure spite.</p>
<hr /><hr />
<p>Both Trump and Fox News made it clear in the early days of the
pandemic that taking COVID-19 seriously is something only hated liberals
would do. To show their right-wing bona fides, it was important for
Republican voters to refuse to do anything that would suggest they are
concerned about getting sick, which would be seen as disloyalty not only
to Trump but to the right-wing cause. This is even though Trump himself
got very sick from COVID-19 and then, as soon as it was available, got
the vaccine. And it clearly persists, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/11/17/hey-republicans--your-guy-lost-can-you-please-take-the-coronavirus-seriously-now/" target="_blank">even though the political usefulness of COVID-19 denialism ended when Trump's presidency did</a>.<strong class="article_img_desc"><span></span></strong><br /></p>
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<p>As <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/05/partisan-divide-vaccinations-491947" target="_blank">Politico's health care reporters Dan Goldberg and Alice Miranda Ollstein wrote on Saturday</a>,
the "partisan divide in Covid-19 vaccinations is becoming starker," as
evidenced by the fact that all "but one of the 39 congressional
districts where at least 60 percent of residents have received a
coronavirus shot are represented by Democrats" and "Republicans
represent all but two of the 30 districts where fewer than one-third of
residents have received a shot."</p>
<p>Another giveaway is how Republican politicians have downplayed the
role tribal loyalty and COVID-19 denialism are playing in the vaccine
slowdown.</p>
<p>On Sunday morning, <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/mississippi/" target="_blank">Mississippi's Gov. Tate Reeves, in full gaslighting mode to Jake Tapper of CNN</a>,
insisted that he believes "all Americans should go get vaccinated
because I think it's safe," that that "individuals can make their own
decision, Jake, as to how to protect themselves and families."</p>
<p>This is, of course, full-blown nonsense. People aren't carefully
researching how best to protect themselves and their families. If that
was the case, they'd be lining up for shots because — outside of a few
rare cases where people are immunocompromised — the single best and
safest way to protect yourself and your family is to get vaccinated. <img id="propervideo-back_image" src="https://www.salon.com/2021/06/07/there-is-no-solution-to-the-gops-vaccine-refusal/" />
</p>No, what's actually happening in these red states is that people are
putting themselves and their families at risk, deliberately. And they're
doing it because Trump spent months downplaying the threat of COVID-19
and making it a loyalty test for his people to do the same. It's also
clear that a lot of the fears of vaccine safety being offered to
researchers as reasons for vaccine hesitancy are, in fact, just a cover
story for the mindless tribalism of the right. <article id="article-content">
<p>Part of the problem is Trump's ability to convince people to give up
their own safety and security in order to prove their loyalty to him.
Recall how cronies like Michael Cohen and Rudy Giuliani ended up in deep
but predictable legal trouble after sticking their neck out for
Trump? Hundreds of Capitol rioters are now facing fines or jail time
because they stormed the Capitol for an ungrateful Trump. As hard as it
is for those of us who see this <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/06/06/was-trump-wearing-his-pants-backwards-during-nc-speech-twitter-seems-to-think-so_partner/" target="_blank">comically dressed</a>, half-literate sociopathic narcissist for who he is, there can be no doubt of the hold he has over <em>some</em> people. </p>
<p>Still, the widespread nature of vaccine refusal in the red states
suggests this is actually about much more than Trump the cult leader,
especially as he himself has gotten the shot. In fact, the whole
situation illustrates how certain lies take on a life of their own on
the right, becoming identity markers that far outlast their political
expediency. In other words, getting the vaccine would be an admission
for conservatives that they were wrong about COVID-19 in the first
place, and that liberals were right. And for much of red-state America,
that's apparently a far worse fate than death.</p><hr /><p>Of course, adding to the problem is that right-wing media has not
abandoned the idea that there's something "liberal" and therefore evil
about admitting that medical scientists know stuff. Right-wing media
figures keep bashing Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, with <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/6/6/22521289/what-the-fauci-gate-emails-tell-us-about-covid-19-and-american-politics-trump" target="_blank">increasingly convoluted conspiracy theories</a>
involving his emails that no one, right or left, can follow. Such
conspiracy theories are incoherent by design. They aren't meant to be
understood, so much as to create an air of suspicion around Dr. Fauci
and public health officials generally, and to reaffirm that being a true
member of the conservative tribe means hating such people. </p>
<p>On Fox News, the message to the audience is quite clear: Real
conservatives prove themselves by rejecting the vaccine. Most recently, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/06/02/tucker-carlson-echoing-republican-lawmakers-compares-vaccine-passports-to-jim-crow-laws/" target="_blank">Tucker Carlson was on air ranting</a> about how it's "medical Jim Crow" to expect people to get vaccinated to protect others. Besides being language <a href="https://mailchi.mp/salon.com/standing-room-only-trumps-comeback-plan-looks-awfully-q-centric?e=912ad27ec2" target="_blank">designed to minimize the seriousness of actual racism</a>,
this kind of rhetoric is also about falsely telling conservative
Americans they are akin to a marginalized ethnic group. Refusing
vaccination is a way to show off your tribal membership, like wearing a
MAGA hat or <a href="https://www.chron.com/politics/article/Ted-Cruz-mullet-tank-tops-campaign-16053237.php" target="_blank">deliberately getting an ugly haircut</a>, except deadlier. </p><div class="outer-ad-unit-wrapper"><span class="proper-caption"></span></div>
<p>Outside of mandates or raising the penalties by barring the
unvaccinated from public spaces, there's not much to be done now to
change Trumper minds on vaccines. They know being unvaccinated is
irrational. Being irrational is the appeal. They know how much
irrationality annoys liberals. This is one of those situations where,
the more that people outside of the Trump tribe push, the more the
Trumpers will dig in their heels, ready to stick it to the rest of the
country by acting like stubborn asses. </p>
<p>The only solution may be reverse psychology.</p>
<p>People who want the pandemic to end need to, paradoxically, release
the desire to see conservatives get vaccinated. The more zen that
liberals (or people perceived to be liberals) are about vaccination
rates, the less fun it is to try to piss liberals off by refusing to get
the shot. Well-intentioned goals, like Biden's 70% by July 4 deadline,
end up backfiring. If Biden wants it, then conservatives will, like
bratty children, refuse to do it just to stick it to him. </p>
<p>The good news is that, as painful as it is for Democrats to admit,
there seems to be a growing acceptance that it's unwise to let
Republican anti-vaxxers hold the rest of us hostage. Lockdowns and mask
mandates are relaxing, <a href="https://philly.eater.com/2021/6/1/22462808/philly-covid-19-indoor-dining-capacity-limits-lifted-june-2" target="_blank">even in blue areas</a>,
despite not meeting vaccination goals. While this is less than ideal,
it's better than the alternative: keeping those measures in place and
trying to incentivize conservatives, who are motivated purely by spite
and will thus continue to refuse the shot.</p><div class="outer-ad-unit-wrapper"><span class="proper-caption"></span></div>
<p>They aren't getting shots in order to troll the liberals. Time to
stop feeding the trolls and let them get sick if they really want to
play. </p>
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<h3>Amanda Marcotte</h3></section>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-61763772421953299652020-12-23T12:52:00.002-05:002020-12-23T12:52:46.645-05:00 Dayvoe's FISA Treason Whataboutism fails. "FISA warrants aren't easy to get."<p> <a href="https://2politicaljunkies.blogspot.com/2017/04/can-we-do-that-thought-experiment-again.html">"Can We Do That Thought-Experiment Again? PLEASE?"</a></p><div class="postContentToggle">
<h4 class="total">
</h4></div>
<div id="cpost-container"><div id="cpost-display"><div class="post"><div class="post-body">Take a look at this, from <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-obtained-fisa-warrant-to-monitor-former-trump-adviser-carter-page/2017/04/11/620192ea-1e0e-11e7-ad74-3a742a6e93a7_story.html?utm_term=.8d4557dcfbe3">the Washington Post</a>:<br />
The FBI obtained a secret court order last summer to monitor the
communications of an adviser to presidential candidate Donald Trump,
part of an investigation into possible links between Russia and the
campaign, law enforcement and other U.S. officials said.
<br />
<br />
The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter
Page’s communications after convincing a Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page
was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia,
according to the officials.
<br />
<br />
This is the clearest evidence so far that the FBI had reason to believe
during the 2016 presidential campaign that a Trump campaign adviser was
in touch with Russian agents. Such contacts are now at the center of an
investigation into whether the campaign coordinated with the Russian
government to swing the election <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-orders-review-of-russian-hacking-during-presidential-campaign/2016/12/09/31d6b300-be2a-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html?utm_term=.fda81a951bba">in Trump’s favor</a>.
Of course Page calls it "unjustified, politically motivated government surveillance."<br />
<br />
But let's take a look at the <a href="http://www.fisc.uscourts.gov/">FISA Court</a> anyway, shall we? What does it take to get a FISA Court to OK some surveillance?<br />
<br />
From <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/17/politics/surveillance-court/">CNN</a>:<br />
The FISA Court's larger mission is to decide whether to grant certain
types of government requests-- wiretapping, data analysis, and other
monitoring for "foreign intelligence purposes" of suspected terrorists
and spies operating in the United States.<br />
<br />
The once-secret approval of collecting bits and pieces of information
from electronic communications -- called metadata -- comes quarterly
from judges at the court. To collect the information, the government has
to demonstrate to a judge that it is "relevant" to an international
terrorism investigation.
And who's on this court? Again, CNN:<br />
The court is made up of 11 judges who sit for seven-year terms. All are
federal district judges who agree to take on the additional duties on a
rotating basis. They are appointed by Chief Justice John Roberts,
without any supplemental confirmation from the other two branches of
government. Roberts has named every member of the current court, as well
as a separate three-judge panel to hear appeals known as the Court of
Review.
So ALL the judges are Roberts approved.<br />
<br />
Back to the Washington Post: <br />
The judges who rule on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)
requests oversee the nation’s most sensitive national security cases,
and their warrants are some of the most closely guarded secrets in the
world of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence gathering. Any FISA
application has to be approved at the highest levels of the Justice
Department and the FBI.
<br />
<br />
Applications for FISA warrants, [FBI Director James] Comey said, are
often thicker than his wrists, and that thickness represents all the
work Justice Department attorneys and FBI agents have to do to convince a
judge that such surveillance is appropriate in an investigation.
I hardly think a "politically motivated" and "unjustified" FISA warrant
application from the Obama DOJ is going to make it past all those levels
of <i>guv'ment</i> bureaucracy - especially not all those FISA judges
appointed by the conservative Chief Justice of the United States Supreme
Court, John Roberts.<br />
<br />
And now onto that thought experiment: Imagine if she won the electoral
college and someone (anyone) attached to the Clinton campaign was under
similar surveillance. Imagine the calls for impeachment that would have
inevitably risen up out of the otherwise freedom loving conservatives
on the right side of our nation's political discourse. Where there's
silence from the right now, there would have been riots and burning
effigies.<br />
<br />
Forget the damned emails, this is treason!<br />
<br />
But that's a different timeline, a different reality. And in <i><b>this</b></i> reality, different rules obviously apply.</div>
<p class="post-footer"><em>posted by Dayvoe at <a href="https://2politicaljunkies.blogspot.com/2017/04/can-we-do-that-thought-experiment-again.html">7:35 AM</a> on Apr 12, 2017 </em></p><p class="post-footer"><em> http://2politicaljunkies.blogspot.com/2020/12/is-this-sedition-or-treason-or-what.html</em></p></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11491099.post-87918811126321591372020-09-04T20:03:00.001-04:002020-09-04T20:03:08.624-04:00Links<p> Nolte: Don’t Let the Fake Fact Checkers Fool You – Joe and Kamala Support Gun Confiscation<br />https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/08/13/nolte-dont-let-the-fake-fact-checkers-fool-you-joe-and-kamala-support-gun-confiscation/<br />Conspiracy Theory is news minus 4 years<br />http://voxday.blogspot.com/2020/08/conspiracy-theory-is-news-minus-4-years.html<br />This won't age well<br />http://voxday.blogspot.com/2020/08/this-wont-age-well.html<br />Confirmed: Former Obama DOJ Attorney Fed Christopher Steele Garbage Included in His Infamous Steele Dossier<br />https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/08/confirmed-obamas-doj-fed-christopher-steele-garbage-included-infamous-steele-dossier/<br />Kamala Harris on the Second Amendment<br />https://reason.com/2020/08/26/kamala-harris-on-the-second-amendment/<br />Highway Stop-And-Frisk: How Pennsylvania State Troopers Conduct Illegal Traffic Searches<br />https://theappeal.org/highway-stop-and-frisk-how-pennsylvania-state-troopers-conduct-illegal-traffic-searches/<br />The NRA Might Not Survive This<br />https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/08/nra-new-york-attorney-general-lawsuit-dissolve.html<br />The RNC speech from Parkland shooting victim’s father was just stunning<br />https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-shaw/2020/08/25/rnc-speech-parkland-shooting-victims-father-just-stunning/<br />NY AG’s efforts to dissolve NRA look even worse upon closer examination<br />https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-shaw/2020/08/18/ny-ags-efforts-dissolve-nra-look-even-worse-upon-closer-examination/<br />Federal Court Rules In Favor Of Sarah Palin’s Defamation Lawsuit Against The New York Times<br />https://jonathanturley.org/2020/08/29/federal-court-rules-in-favor-of-sarah-palins-defamation-lawsuit-against-the-new-york-times/<br />Palin v. New York Times District Judge Refuses to Overrule Supreme Court Precedent<br />https://reason.com/2020/08/28/palin-v-new-york-times-district-judge-refuses-to-overrule-supreme-court-precedent/<br />Senate Intelligence Report Is Long On Pages And Short On Intelligence<br />https://jonathanturley.org/2020/08/19/senate-intelligence-report-is-long-on-pages-and-short-on-intelligence/<br />University of Pittsburgh Hits Rock Bottom<br />https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/08/university-of-pittsburgh-hits-rock-bottom.php<br />About Kevin Clinesmith<br />https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/08/about-kevin-clinesmith-2.php<br />Kentucky Authorities Offered Leniency to Breonna Taylor's Ex if He Would Implicate Her in Drug Crimes<br />https://reason.com/2020/09/01/kentucky-authorities-offered-leniency-to-breonna-taylors-ex-if-he-would-implicate-her-in-drug-crimes/<br />The ACLU Defends the NRA<br />https://reason.com/2020/08/26/the-aclu-defends-the-nra/<br />No Qualified Immunity for Kentucky Cops Who Strip-Searched a 4-Year-Old and Threatened Mom<br />https://reason.com/2020/08/24/qualified-immunity-strip-search-muffin-mom-kentucky/<br />Filipovic’s Bleak House<br />https://blog.simplejustice.us/2020/08/16/filipovics-bleak-house/<br />Statement Released By John Pierce, Attorney For Kyle Rittenhouse<br />https://www.captainsjournal.com/2020/08/30/statement-released-by-john-pierce-attorney-for-kyle-rittenhouse/<br />Police Unions Lose Bid To Block Release of Huge Trove of NYPD Misconduct Records<br />https://reason.com/2020/08/21/police-unions-lose-bid-to-block-release-of-huge-trove-of-nypd-misconduct-records/<br />Joe Biden Does Not Understand the Second Amendment<br />https://reason.com/2020/08/19/joe-biden-does-not-understand-the-second-amendment/<br />Cop Who Allegedly Kneed a Subdued Suspect in the Eye '20 to 30 Times' Gets Qualified Immunity<br />https://reason.com/2020/08/19/qualified-immunity-cop-allegedly-kneed-subdued-suspect-in-the-eye-20-to-30-times-eighth-circuit-court-of-appeals/<br />Kamala Harris: Drug Warrior, Vice Cop, Draconian Prosecutor<br />https://reason.com/video/kamala-harris-drug-warrior-vice-cop-draconian-prosecutor/<br />DC Police Union Sues To Block The Release Of Names Of Officers Involved In Shootings<br />https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200815/14101645119/dc-police-union-sues-to-block-release-names-officers-involved-shootings.shtml<br />When It Comes To Qualified Immunity, Where Your Rights Were Violated Matters More Than The Fact Your Rights Were Violated<br />https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200825/15095845180/when-it-comes-to-qualified-immunity-where-your-rights-were-violated-matters-more-than-fact-your-rights-were-violated.shtml<br />Federal Court: No, You Fucking May Not Force Your Way Into A Home And Strip Search Six Very Young Children<br />https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200825/21321545185/federal-court-no-you-fucking-may-not-force-your-way-into-home-strip-search-six-very-young-children.shtml<br />Cops lie constantly<br />https://boingboing.net/2020/08/06/cops-lie-constantly.html<br />Democrats Weaponize IRS To Extend NRA Crackdown To Washington<br />https://thefederalist.com/2020/09/01/democrats-weaponize-irs-to-extend-nra-crackdown-to-washington/<br />Gun-Control Group Shies Away from Guns in Swing State Attack Ads<br />https://freebeacon.com/2020-election/gun-control-group-shies-away-from-guns-in-swing-state-attack-ads/<br />NYPD’s Matrix<br />https://blog.simplejustice.us/2020/09/02/nypds-matrix/<br />Ninth Circuit Says NSA's Bulk Phone Records Collection Was Illegal, Most Likely Unconstitutional<br />https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200902/18254645239/ninth-circuit-says-nsas-bulk-phone-records-collection-was-illegal-most-likely-unconstitutional.shtml<br />#FightBack<br />http://voxday.blogspot.com/2020/09/fightback.html<br />The Inevitable Whitelash Against Racial Justice Has Started<br />https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/blake-white-people-backlash/</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0