Link. Imagine.
...........................................
Reader task: Gilbert wrote the words. Sullivan wrote the words. One or the other. The other composed. Search if you care.
Thursday, September 30, 2021
Words are cheap. Either pass both bills or shut up. It is not complex. Words are worthless if both bills fail to both pass.
The headline tells the truth. The rest is window dressing. All of it.
Both bills are long. Each doubtlessly has garbage hidden among good provisions written with the best of intentions. The likely truth is whatever is voted, whenever it is voted, most voting Congress critters either way will be unable to say what's in either bill.
It will be easy to say, "I dislike A, B, and C. That's why I voted so-and-so." Which we all know is disingenuity personified. In large bills, among the level of character shown by either or both houses of Congress; we know objectionable things will have been inserted by log-rolling; but do not give a dime's worth of respect it the baby's thrown out and the bathwater is duly signed into law by eager Joe.
The bet here is Thursday passes without a floor vote. On anything.
__________UPDATE__________
Wrong! They passed a little something, to show they could fog a mirror, the passage having to do with interim funding of the national government until Dec. 3, when they can again kick the can, from then into the new year.
Woo, woo.
Wednesday, September 29, 2021
China is declaring cryptocurrencies Verboten for its billions of citizens' hobbies and businesses.
Ars. Will there now be a flood of used gpu cards on the market? Ones bought up on issuance by the organized cryptominers, with a market glut resulting that would benefit gamers and gpgpu researchers? Or will the word of the bosses be ignored until public shaming and punishment sinks into the collective "Chinese Mind?" Capitalism takes turns and bends, so who's got a free market, in any real sense, besides criminal gangs? Where even murder is allowed competition for market dominance? Can you imagine Gates and Bezos, or Zuckie, in such a market? Brutal, even in thought experimentation.
Of course, what do I know? Guardian, as mainstream as ever, teaches:
Zuckerberg, who is worth $77bn 13 years after he started Facebook in his Harvard University dorm room, isn’t as speedy a reader as Gates but his New Year resolution in 2015 was to read at least one book every fortnight.
They both agree that Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined – an 800-page tome by Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker is a must-read. The book argues that while it may feel like the world has become more dangerous, a longer look over human history shows violence is on the wane. It jumped to the top of Amazon’s book charts when Gates first tweeted that it was “the most inspiring book I’ve ever read”.
What's to conclude? Better Angels do not cryptomine? Or something else, bigger, grander? But less able to tie beginning and end of a stream of thoughts post?
Without attempting any second sourcing for any of the quotes, they have a running thread and both individually and collectively are informative.
Link. Yes, a funky site. However, quote checking should be feasible at least for a subset, with readers invited to do a check, or to simply read the quotes a time or several - and then to ponder the meaning of life. And the consequences of the taughtness in relations of individual and state. Trust and doubt.
A previously linked Wikipedia link. R.C. Christian = as if a fictional John Galt but with a tangible, real checkbook and a set of drawings? Project Veritas looks other places; diversionary cotton candy.
Willie Horton's publicist gives a speech. The NWO part of a bigger speech, possibly, this transcript. The item dated Sept. 11, a decade and a year before 9/11; Saddam 1, the elder Bush, then Saddam 2, little Bush.
A Wikipedia bonus for those reading this far. Does NWO translate to Build Back Better with Fewer? Along with Bush the elder, other population erosion:
Counting elder Bush, three great communicators. (Past tense).
"Great" being to the eye and ear of the communication target. "Great" in the reporting of media's mainstream opinion setters. Crabgrass thinking otherwise. But, what's a single voice crying out in the wilderness?
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
A screaming headline is cause to ask, "Wtf is Schumer's job, if not to be on top of his caucus?" Or the companion question, "What's Schumer hiding from, to not be atop things?" Either way and for other reasons AOC should primary Schumer. Time is fleeting, but is Manchin running the Dem Senate caucus? That or is Schumer hiding from lies now coming unraveled? Unraveling via Manchin playing Biden's bad cop, Biden playing good cop, all theater where there's no will to deliver what the public wants and deserves?
Bogyman Joe, for to vex reformer Joe. The Manchin-Biden vaudeville team.
Or what? The AP story carried by Strib, the headlining -
Manchin, Sinema to meet with Biden in talks to trim $3.5T
There is the suspicion we are being played for fools, and when the show's over and they turn up the lights; there will be no money left on the table for US after the 0.1% has been accorded dutiful respect, per "Infrastructure" pork aplenty.
As the young lad in legend told Shoeless Joe, "Say it ain't so, Joe."
Time marches on.
__________UPDATE_________
From that AP/Strib link, does this stuff at all ring true to you -
From free pre-kindergarten and child care subsidies for families with small children to dental care and hearing aids for seniors with Medicare, there's a lot in the president's proposal — all to be paid for with higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy.
With Republicans solidly opposed, Democrats are rushing to trim the total and win holdouts within their own party.
As the overall price tag comes down, Pelosi said the House Democrats would not move ahead on a bill until it is acceptable to their colleagues in the Senate. "We're not there yet," she said.
Some readers may see that as major saga stuff. Others may see a steaming pile in the pasture, while Crabgrass merely asks questions, no thumb on the scale, none whatsoever.
If Blue Origin fucks up this way somebody could die.
The saga of Chocolate covered cherries from the heart of Washingto State (where Amazon is headquartered after all) and a suspended account in China - where the two are wholly unconnected except in the "mind" of Amazon algorithms.
A horror story of bigness gone amok, and Bezos on a rocket vacation from the Amazon fuck-up of the century. Of the month? Of what actual frequency, we may wonder.
Business negligence is where algorithms supplant good ol' common sense. People have the latter skill, but where algorithms rule and people aplenty do a song and dance handoff to the automation rather than listening and fixing what's broke is - - - A story Jeff should take to heart.
It took an inquiry by a statewide newspaper to blast the idiots off the dime.
It is inexcusable negligence and should be corrected, before rocketry hobby stuff allows further "Amazon partner" related negligence. Or before deficient algorithms cause some kind of rocketry disaster.
Big and best are not per se hand-in-hand. Or maybe they are, for SpaceX.
Monday, September 27, 2021
Minnesota Attorney General Ellison authors an editorial explaining how he views the policing/public safety chrater question, and why he believes it necessary to see it passed.
Strib published Ellison's editorial, here. A rather lengthy but helpful excerpt:
Part of the problem is that other things you may have heard are not true. It is just not true that the amendment will eliminate the police department, defund the department or fire the chief. Nothing in the actual language says that.
What is true is that the majority of us have the drive to change and the will to hope for a safer and more just city, regardless of how we vote.
My opinion is that while many Minneapolis police officers, including the current chief, have served many people well over the years, good people inside the status quo aren't enough by themselves to make fundamental change: we need a systems change. The charter amendment creates the possibility for the kind of systems change we need by integrating the Police Department into a new Department of Public Safety that includes other safety services like the Fire Department and the Office of Violence Prevention. It frees us up to plan and invest comprehensively for how we define safety today.
The police-only model that we've relied on for decades no longer works for large parts of our city: too many people in communities of color, who want and deserve the same level of safety that exists in other parts of town, are fearful of calling the police when they need protection. That makes everyone less safe in every neighborhood, but it's understandable, given the long history of police killings in Minneapolis of unarmed people, mostly African American — from the elderly couple Lloyd Smalley and Lillian Weiss, killed in a botched drug raid in 1989 with no accountability, to George Floyd in 2020, and too many in between.
Some people are worried the amendment gives the City Council too much control over the police. But the council cannot and will not manage the daily operation of the police department or any department. Under the current charter, however, the council has no power: It can't even pass a policy banning chokeholds. The charter change will allow the council oversight, not management or authority over daily operations. Most importantly,the public will have ample opportunity to weigh in on that issue and otherswhen the council passes ordinances to enact the amendment.
Others are concerned with the amendment language that the new department will employ peace officers "if necessary." Clearly, they are necessary: we still need armed officers to respond appropriately to dangerous situations. The amendment will free them up to focus on that work while mental-health professionals, social workers and violence-reduction specialists respond to calls about nonviolent folks in crisis, panhandlers, the unhoused— and fake $20 bills.
Yes, the fake twenty was the genesis of events that left George Floyd dead and policeman Chauvin jailed for the crime of murder. Disproportionate force issues can be close calls, but with Chauvin on tape, the conviction was largely assured before trial jury selection even started.
Reform is needed. Two words prove it decisively.
Over the past five years, as demands for reform have mounted in the aftermath of police violence in cities like Ferguson, Mo., Baltimore and now Minneapolis, police unions have emerged as one of the most significant roadblocks to change. The greater the political pressure for reform, the more defiant the unions often are in resisting it — with few city officials, including liberal leaders, able to overcome their opposition.
They aggressively protect the rights of members accused of misconduct, often in arbitration hearings that they have battled to keep behind closed doors. And they have also been remarkably effective at fending off broader change, using their political clout and influence to derail efforts to increase accountability.
While rates of union membership have dropped by half nationally since the early 1980s, to 10 percent, higher membership rates among police unions give them resources they can spend on campaigns and litigation to block reform. A single New York City police union has spent more than $1 million on state and local races since 2014.
In St. Louis, when Kim Gardner was elected the top prosecutor four years ago, she set out to rein in the city’s high rate of police violence. But after she proposed a unit within the prosecutor’s office that would independently investigate misconduct, she ran into the powerful local police union.
The union pressured lawmakers to set aside the proposal, which many supported but then never brought to a vote. Around the same time, a lawyer for the union waged a legal fight to limit the ability of the prosecutor’s office to investigate police misconduct.
The problem with lack of accountability, including the extreme difficulty in getting rid of bad cops, allows a kind of swagger that Kroll examplified, to the detriment of community control of its police rather than vice versa.
My favorite Kroll image, not him alone, but a pairing with Doug Wardlow, it being a screen capture from a video Wardlow thought would cause him rather than Ellison to become Attorney General - the picture showing graphically how community control of policing would have suffered had Wardlow won election -
This image -
and this - abuse of the uniform being only one troublesome element where the entirety of the situation bodes ill -
If the two images do not presage in reader minds the follow-up of eight minutes of video of Chauvin's knee, (uninterrupted with three other cops present), upon Floyd's neck as Floyd, while handcuffed, went from alive to dead, then reader minds might be misjudging the likes of Kroll and Wardlow, each having overlapping world views capable of seizing power, indeed one election away from having prevailed.
Politicians willing to subjugate citizen control of policing to allowing mayhem to go unchecked, (as with citizen control of the national military going lax); those politicians come and go; and are why we need to fix a glaring problem with procedures to be later formulated to quell past problems being repeated.
Why we need the charter amendment to start the process - as Ellison emphasized, in that sense, is a question perhaps best answered by noting Klobuchar in years as a top local prosecutor never prosecuted police misconduct, not even once. And Floyd is dead. Two facts - And the city's charter has wording being challenged for repeal.
Part of the problem, part of the solution - that question aimed at the charter amendment can really be focused upon not being able to enact the procedural reforms and solutions needed until the charter's presently included roadblock is removed.
So- bottom line-
VOTE YES.
Sunday, September 26, 2021
Tina Smith - Give her credit when she emails thoughts that are correct.
She wrote -
Texas Abortion Ban
The recent Supreme Court ruling allowing the Texas abortion law to stand is a blatant attack on women's freedom. By declining to block the law, the court seems ready to toss 50 years of precedent and take away women's constitutional rights. This is the culmination of a 40-year effort by Republicans to radically remake the courts with the help of dark money and the Federalist Society. Not all hope is lost. Public outcry, smart organizing, and decisive legislative action will help us overcome these insidious attacks on women's freedom.
As the only Senator who worked at Planned Parenthood and a fierce advocate for women's rights, I believe our strength is that a strong majority of the public agrees with safeguarding women's reproductive rights. It's a voting issue and a winning one. So, it's our job to reach out to men and women across the country and make the case for reproductive rights. It won't be easy. But if we focus on what we can and should do, we can reverse the steady erosion of reproductive rights that we are seeing today.
Sen. Smith -- Dumping on The Federalist Society, is that deserved or extreme? Follow the link, then you decide. Perhaps the self-identification is too circumspect to know what's what, where outside opinion and facts from outside may help.
More suggested useful links, here, here (source of this image),and here.
Can a person be a contagian? Some, yes. The guy to me is imagined as a corona virus, where you just cannot see the man's surround of spike proteins reaching out to do harm to the body politic. Opinions can differ.
___________UPDATE__________
The Grand Forks Herald, a North Dakota media outlet, carrying a WaPo feed with the Herald's beginning headlining and image selection. Make of that what you will.
The man, Leonard Leo, has allies
Federalist Society's Leonard Leo is helping Trump make courts more conservative
Leonard Leo helped conservative nonprofits raise $250 million from mostly undisclosed donors in recent years to promote conservative judges and causes.
You have the link and can read the story. This brief opening excerpt - National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, Washington, DC, the caption says. A nationwide reach. This church is powerful in size and holdings and in number of adherents, with a long standing position against abortion, and conservative in general.
Disproportionately represented on the Court. Leading to bias in judgment via biased upbringings and allegiances the various Trump judges have displayed over time. Coney Barrett being the more obvious, that way.
It is a train wreck of a Court, and we suffer it's excesses.
One thing to say in Coney Barrett's favor; Citizens United mischief was done to us prior to her appointment; ditto for the other Trump Justices. Trump only added fuel to the burning fire; while Coney Barrett succeeding to the Ginsberg seat is an equivalent insult to Clarence Thomas taking the seat Thrugood Marshall held with honor.
A Court of peons, seeming to be driven by a larger more obscure outside force, or set of forces. Tons of money calling the shots, sure, but it feels bigger than that. Wider, deeper, and to some peoples' judgment its workings appear full of darkness and meanness of spirit in outlook and intent.
Amok? Dedicated. Seemingly always a threat against secular freedoms, rights such as who to marry and how to individually plan timing or forbearance or correction by abortion in child bearing and rearing decisions and actions which all families face. Cause to worry. Trump played along in a venal fashion. All of it in the way of a turning point toward fairness to all, even if meaning less to a few.
That few does not want less, and they own the show. Reform seems distant. Politicians talk; with talk cheap and worry-free while journalism is on vacation.
Wandering thoughts triggered by a Minnesota Green Party email - not one of the host of "send us money" things, but actually worthwhile.
Here is text from the email [links as in the original] -
The treatment of the Haitian immigrants at the Texas border is racist. The Chair of the Minnesota Green Party Trahern Crews sat down with members of the Haitian Green Party to discuss Joe Biden's racist immigration policies and the crisis in Haiti. Interview with the Green Party of Haiti
Early voting has started in the Twin Cities we encourage you to vote early for Green Party endorsed candidates Cam Gordon and Kati Medford. We also encourage you to vote for the Black Caucus of the Green Party of Minnesota endorsed candidate Jennifer Mc Pherson. Here are the ballot initiatives that we support:
Green Party city council member Cam Gordon has worked hard on the Aquifer energy storage project and it has secured the much-needed funding for the project: Energy Project
Contact your congressperson and tell them to pass HR40 now!
Pass HR40
Upcoming Events:
[...]
The ballot question positions are progressive, especially the policing reform measure. Rent control, landlords say it does not work, tenants like it - want it.
The "Energy Project" is interesting, an alternate link, and it links over to here; which is planner speak about a PPP approach,(Public Private Partnership) which planner speak (in short) means publicly subsidized privately profiting development , usually done as - defined area - master planned - proof is in the pudding.
---------------------------
Ramsey in Anoka County had its PPP thing, Ramsey Town Center, which after splatting badly in a 2006 real estate market downturn was rechristened "THE COR" which is a stupid term, but planner-loved "rebranding."
"THE COR" rebranding was done by an administrative person since moved on to better things after resume building, coordinating with a very expensive (and subjectively viewed as ineffective) consultant since severed from the trough after a change of mayor and council personnel. It was a down market and they were pushing on a rope, but that's a saga for another time. REBRANDING = Same stuff, new name, long term - one major on-site developer in Ramsey's instance. Viewed at Crabgrass as a bad-idea money sink, but liked by some other Ramsey residents.
Field of Dreams? Yeah. Pump and dump? Perhaps. Impressions are subjective when a pump and dump situation exists; be it actual or potential. Motives are personal and circumstantial evidence can be interpreted many ways.
It was a "never should forget" situation, a lesson every university planning student should learn before being turned loose on a community -- Ramsey Town Center's genesis and early times, where interested readers can get a flavor, here and here. Also, here. Sometimes the windshield. Sometimes the bug. Sometimes the Liousville Slugger. Sometimes the ball. Bottom line, sometimes planning is dross, not gold.
This is Ramsey history some new town residents might not know. It relates back to the time before two of the best Council members Ramsey ever had, died - Margaret Connolly and Terry Hendriksen, both serving together over a few years. (Before Matt Look was ever elected to anything. Before NorthStar Commuter Rail was built with its astounding ridership. Before franchise fees were ginned up to pay for town road maintenance. During earlier years of Matt's sign-printing business.)
---------------------------
But that is a digression from the PPP thing linked to from the Green Party's email.
Things do not always go brown with time. Hope and money, sometimes a bad combo. Sometimes a success. A slogan:
PLANNERS SHOULD BE HUMBLE. AND SKEPTICAL OF LANDOWNER, DEVELOPER, OR CONSULTANT SELF-INTERESTED PUFFERY. THROWING COLD WATER ON "HOT IDEAS" OFTEN IS THE HARDEST PART OF THE JOB, WHILE ESSENTIAL. ALWAYS ACKNOWLEDGE - GO ALONG TO GET ALONG IS WRONG, BUT SO EASY A COMPROMISE.
Saturday, September 25, 2021
[UPDATED] --- IRON DOME - Strib carries NYT op-ed bemoaning attempt to strip a budgeted billion to buy Israel that protection. Why not do that?
Link. You can read the sophistry.
In a separate item Strib itself wrote:
The latest chapter in Democratic tensions over Israel came into view on Tuesday when $1 billion for the Iron Dome defense system was included, and then removed, from a larger package House Democrats were rushing to pass in an attempt to suspend the debt limit and avoid a government shutdown. Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips, who is Jewish, was vocal in his disappointment on the measure being removed, and Republicans were quick to call out Democrats even though no GOP lawmakers voted for the overarching bill on Tuesday.
"Speaker Pelosi should not have bowed to the Progressive Caucus and inexplicably removed our longstanding commitment to Israel to help fund the Iron Dome that protects innocent citizens from terrorist rockets from the Continuing Resolution," GOP U.S. Rep. Michelle Fischbach said in a statement about Tuesday's activity.
After the defense funding was removed, Democratic House leaders moved quickly to pass a stand-alone Iron Dome bill. Still, Minnesota Democratic Rep. Betty McCollum, who chairs the influential House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense and voted for Thursday's bill, noted in a statement her "serious concerns as to whether these funds can even be expended with current Iron Dome production levels already at capacity."
Omar was also the lone Democrat from Minnesota's House delegation to vote Thursday against the latest National Defense Authorization Act. Republicans Tom Emmer, Jim Hagedorn and Fischbach also voted no on the bill, which passed with bipartisan support on a 316-113 vote. Omar's office pointed out that she has voted against passing the annual legislation ever since taking office in 2019.
This is a very prosperous nation that has allowed spyware marketing of the Pegasus BS software so it can be inflicted upon the world.
That is very unfriendly stuff. By Israelis.
As a very, very prosperous nation, designing Intel processors, etc., Israel can buy Iron Dome. Why in the world do we give it as a freeb from our taxpayers' hard-earned money - giving that freeb to them while also giving them other billions of money annually from U.S. taxpayer money?
This is fact, from 1949 to present -- bottom line --
TOTAL = $147,121.46 [in millions of dollars]. or say one hundred fifty billion U.S. dollars, give or take a few billion. That ain't pocket change!
It makes no sense.
Others doing death merchandise dealings with the U.S. pay for arms purchased.
Israel is different? How so, beyond having a giant successful lobby effort and owning a host of DC politicians?
Suppose that the last sentence is a self-answering thing, but that is not how our nation should be. Running a government on corruption and lobby power is not The American Dream.
That's how it is. Not as it should be.
What has Israel provided back?
__________UPDATE__________
Strib carried an AP item beginning -
The top diplomat of Yemen's internationally recognized government said Monday his conflict-torn country needs millions more coronavirus vaccines to ensure some of the world's poorest are not left behind.
In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Ahmed Awad Bin Mubarak said the roughly 1 million doses Yemen was given are not enough to vaccinate even the most vulnerable portions of its population.
Yemen has a long way to go toward vaccinating the majority of its some 30 million people, most of whom are facing multiple humanitarian crises, including poverty, hunger and poor access to adequately run hospitals.
Try decency for a change? How much vaccine supply help would a dedicated billion dollars go to saving more lives than Iron Dome might ever save, and isn't it humane having vaccine help as something to aim at in the course of adopting a need-based foreign aid policy, and a harmonious attitude toward that goal among politicians and bureaucrats?
Those nations wealthy enough to buy arms should do so. If our beloved corporations are to be death merchants, the check should be picked up by the user, not our citizens.
Meanwhile, those in need of vaccination help should be helped.
It is not rocket science to reach such conclusions. It is decency. AIPAC and other Israeli lobbying mojo should not rule the day. But so far it has. May we be so wise as to make foreign policy better as part of our part of the Davos Great Reset (a/k/a Pres-loved "Build Back Better" blather). And it shall remain blather unless and until two bills - companion measures - are BOTH set into law - as we have been promised. Welch out on that promise, and expect to have a Dem Pres and two Houses of Republican dominated Congress. Patience with DC is wearing thin via all talk no action, beyond ongoing Kabuki theater which is fooling nobody.
The mood seems clear. Do It. Or have no cred, with nobody buying into a blather of undelivered promises. Unkept despites the promising Party owning, thinly, both Congressional Houses, each with Dem leadership which seemingly is luke warm to deliver anything real upon an agenda overwhelmingly popular among the nation's population.
Whether it be a disconnect among powers, or US simply and callously being lied to yet again as a two-party forever thing, is something soon to put to judgment. Trust Joe. But only to a degree and yet be vigilant to see what evolves. If there's a failure on promises, know who to hold accountable. If we've been deceived, then it is Trump all over again, the old "same old" but with Joe and with a D instead of an R behind his name. Which would amount to little difference. And also leading to dissatisfaction, earned and delivered.
Thursday, September 23, 2021
Tuesday, September 21, 2021
Texas doctor performs an abortion. He gets sued, twice, by out of state individuals. A Texas abortion-hating group whines. A professor says "standing, standing, standing."
As it should be, given that brutally awful law, giving someone, anyone, standing to sue and a shot at a floor of ten grand statutory damages minimum, if winning. The doctor admits he performed the abortion. The plaintiffs seem set to prevail, unless the law fails to stand up to constitutional scrutiny (something our glorious federal supreme court took a hike on when presented with the opportunity to short circuit the circus - if only they were willing to behave as reasonably conscientious jurists concerned with judicial economy). Let the fun for all begin.
Strib carries the Sept. 20, 2021, AP report:
Former attorneys in Arkansas and Illinois filed separate state lawsuits Monday against Dr. Alan Braid, who in a weekend Washington Post opinion column became the first Texas abortion provider to publicly reveal he violated the law that took effect on Sept. 1.
They both came in ahead of the state's largest anti-abortion group, which had said it had attorneys ready to bring lawsuits. Neither ex-lawyer who filed suit said they were anti-abortion. But both said courts should weigh in.
The Texas law prohibits abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity, which is usually around six weeks and before some women even know they are pregnant. Prosecutors cannot take criminal action against Braid, because the law explicitly forbids that. The only way the ban can be enforced is through lawsuits brought by private citizens, who don't have to be from Texas and who are entitled to claim at least $10,000 in damages if successful.
Oscar Stilley, who described himself in court paperwork as a disgraced former lawyer who lost his law license after being convicted of tax fraud in 2010, said he is not opposed to abortion but sued to force a court review of Texas' anti-abortion law, which he called an "end-run."
"I don't want doctors out there nervous and sitting there and quaking in their boots and saying, 'I can't do this because if this thing works out, then I'm going to be bankrupt,'" Stilley, of Cedarville, Arkansas, near the Oklahoma border, told The Associated Press.
Felipe N. Gomez, of Chicago, asked a court in San Antonio in his lawsuit to declare the new law unconstitutional. In his view, the law is a form of government overreach. He said his lawsuit is a way to hold the Republicans who run Texas accountable, adding that their lax response to public health during the COVID-19 pandemic conflicts with their crack down on abortion rights.
[...] Braid wrote that on Sept. 6, he provided an abortion to a woman who was still in her first trimester but beyond the state's new limit.
"I fully understood that there could be legal consequences — but I wanted to make sure that Texas didn't get away with its bid to prevent this blatantly unconstitutional law from being tested," Braid wrote.
[...] The Center for Reproductive Rights, one of the plaintiffs in the first federal lawsuit, is representing Braid.
The center's senior counsel, Marc Hearron, noted in a statement that the Texas law "says that 'any person' can sue over a violation, and we are starting to see that happen, including by out-of-state claimants."
Braid could not immediately be reached for comment Monday. His clinic referred interview inquiries to the center.
Texas Right to Life, the state's largest anti-abortion group, criticized both lawsuits and Braid's opinion column.
"Neither of these lawsuits are valid attempts to save innocent human lives," the group said. "We believe Braid published his op-ed intending to attract imprudent lawsuits, but none came from the Pro-Life movement."
[...] Seth Chandler, a law professor at the University of Houston, said anyone suing would "have to persuade a Texas court that they have standing" despite not having personally suffered monetary or property damages.
Those Texas Right to Life whiners should read the mess of a statute they and others pushed the feeble Texas legislature to pass in order to be a bunch of troglodytes. It does not say only true believers can sue.
Let them stand on the sidelines and watch. They can file amicus briefs, about how they love the statute and how it gives them what is their god's will. Despite federal law, Roe v. Wade preempting their wanting things different. The big roadblock, of course, is the Trump court's bias, which could ultimately really screw decades of reliance on Roe and its sensible mandates surrounding out-of-womb viability as a turning point.
This Texas four to six week turning point is clearly contradictory of what Roe has established, with intervening time showing the wisdom of Roe in terms of women having the right to eliminate something from their bodies that is not wanted at the same time Texas allows vaccination haters to expose the rest of the world to ongoing pandemic woe which could be handled with the virus being eliminated via universal vaccination.
One is freedom to imperil the rest of US with a severe chance of death, while the other is a private decision where tongue-clucking busy-bodies should butt out. Why they won't is astounding to thinking people, but they are as they are, and it would be interesting to see what percentage of abortion haters are also vaccination haters. That vs the remainder of the nation's people, and how they behave.
The AP report by quoting an individual did note that the contradictory views of freedom persist, freedom to go unvaccinated against a deadly disease with risk added to others, and freedom to terminate an unwanted pregnancy with no risk to any other living, breathing person, as a logical conundrum. It was written that way without expanding on the thought since that would be editorializing in a news story. Crabgrass posting today is clearly quoting, then editorializing, like it or love it.
Last, standing is a judicial doctrine used to throw out cases when judges want to throw them out. It is an often abused doctrine. The statute does not mandate "standing." If a court were to read standing as a doctrine governing the ability to sue, then who would have standing? Not liking women to have freedom of choice is not a cause to grant standing, since freedom to practice a religion entails no right to interfere in anybody else's rights. Believe what you want, but keep your nose out of other peoples' business seems to be a cherished restraint, else what of one claiming the right to kill non-believers as part of a "religion?" What of a religion that allows individuals to rob, rape and pillage? Crusaders thought that a cool idea, but got beaten back by Islam to where crusades fell out of favor. Moreover, the Catholic-Protestant history of European carnage is the background from which those writing the federal constitution made the choice to not have national religious mandates.
The beat goes on.
_________UPDATE__________
For the hell of it a Google Scholar search of Texas court cases was done, search = "case and controversy" collusive litigation
One case was returned:
Blair v. Razis
926 SW 2d 784 - Tex: Court of Appeals, 12th Dist., 1996 - Google Scholar… remedy for the employee as well as the municipality to resolve an employment dispute … &
REM.CODE, Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act, in that a real case and controversy exists
regarding the … exceeded its jurisdiction or that the order was procured by fraud, collusion or other …
FURTHER: another Texas judicial opinion search = "standing analysis"
Follow up on that one if you care dare. It might be a thicket. If you've time, you can do more Texas case law search, choosing how you word things in the search box, and Google Scholar will return what it does. A day or two could be wasted that way. Time is what you make it.
Saturday, September 18, 2021
The DOJ tells the Sacklers, not so fast, not so sweet, not so slick to be able to skate personal liability for their conduct and obscene profiteering off their opiate dealings.
Ars Technica, "Billionaire Sacklers’ immunity threatened as DOJ moves to block opioid deal - The DOJ argues the immunity is unconstitutional and expects the deal to be overturned." By - Beth Mole - Sep 16, 2021 10:49 pm UTC
In part -
Attorneys for the department argued that some aspects of the deal could go into effect quickly, complicating the appeal, according to NPR. Along with the DOJ, Connecticut, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Washington state are also preparing to fight the settlement.
The Justice Department also requested an expedited hearing within the next two weeks.
William Harrington, who serves as US trustee for the Justice Department, said in filings Wednesday that Federal Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain was wrong to approve the settlement on September 1 and that the decision would likely be overturned.
The settlement essentially dissolves Purdue Pharma, which was owned and largely run by the Sacklers. The company aggressively and deceptively marketed OxyContin beginning in the 1990s and is largely seen as sparking the devastating epidemic of opioid addiction and overdoses that has killed nearly 500,000 people in the US over the last two decades. Purdue pleaded guilty twice for wrongdoing in its marketing of OxyContin in that time. The settlement put to rest thousands of opioid-related lawsuits against Purdue, which had declared bankruptcy under the crushing litigation.
The Sacklers were directly involved in Purdue's opioid business and, by their own account, pocketed more than $10 billion from opioid sales. [...]
[...] Still, as part of the settlement, the Sacklers agreed to never again manufacture opioids and provide $4.325 billion to fund opioid addiction prevention, treatment, and recovery programs. They also agreed to hand over control of family foundations valued at no less than $175 million.
The greed of opium dealers, and their audacity, is astounding. The family are piranhas and a total shunning of them and their "philanthropy" is appropriate.
They knew what they were up to and they did it for the money. They show a gross disregard for human decency. The "let us off the hook personally or we do not settle for a fraction of our take" approach is within their legal right to seek, but it is filthy enough to gag a maggot.
Wednesday, September 15, 2021
UPDATED - So, did he also call the Iranians with comparable assurances? It seems Iran has been more in the crosshairs. Trump never assassinated a Chinese general.
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| Whose judgment would you trust more after Jan. 6? |
The story is all over the Internet, hyping Bob Woodward's latest epic tell-all.
A sampling -
Breitbart's version (source of the image).
Marco Rubio seeks getting his name wedged into widespread reporting. Rubio is not alone in attention mongering. Many at the time were urging Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, which Pence suitably declined to consider.
Was it a coup? Reporting is Milley and Pelosi consulted and were in agreement that the situation required extraordinary attention, as Trump's behavior at the time was extraordinary and troubling.
So - was it a coup?
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If a coup, was it justified by Jan. 6? Might reliance on Jan. 6 be an afterthought?
Recall, Nixon and Haig. [update - Haig then moving to become NATO commander.]
Recall in this Milley reportedly communicated with Pelosi. Their consensus, should it matter, and should the fact there was Jan 6, legislative leadership reaching to make a military liaison first, consensus reportedly quickly emerging, only then action? Was and when was notice given each of the four leaders of the two houses' Intelligence Committees?
Check the reporting. Is the above sequence being what is reported, are some questions being fudged, or is there error in the above understanding of timings.
_______FURTHER UPDATE_______
Guardian publishes and op-ed arguing for dismissal on a claim of insubordination, though there was not a coup in the sense of a multi-person plan with coordinated actions, (at least not having that appearance per publications online, so far).
Neither the joint-chiefs collectively, nor chair of the joint-chiefs runs the military.
The president is commander in chief of the military, operating in general through the office of the Secretary of Defense as a secondary civilian commander.
It is fundamental history. Those writing the Constitution had, among them, some with strong opinion against the new federal nation having a standing army. Feelings varied. The Second Amendment's use of "militia" is consistent with NOT having a standing army, but instead relying on an armed populace that when needed could be called up to serve. (How we have changed! War costs a lot with some profiting from war, with present budgeting shows a mighty costly and big tail wagging the dog.) In turn, during the Washington presidency the Whiskey Rebellion showed a popular uprising being put down by force. Was the rebellion quelled in a military sense, or in a police power sense? It was not an action at arms against a different nation, but within national territory not yet granted statehood. That suggests policing against rebellion, not a war.
Last, if not calling any Iranians, who else did Milley call besides China's top general, and if there were other calls, what was the substance of any/all conversations? It begs investigation. So far, investigation is facing a stone wall.
However, bottom line, as present commander in chief, Biden has the position and discretionary authority to not remove Milley. To not discipline him in any way and to retain him at rank and as chair of the joint chiefs. I.e., to keep him where he is. Whether that is a good or bad idea is a separate question from Biden holding the power and decision.
At no time during the Trump presidency was the 26th Amendment invoked, and if invoked power would have divested to the Vice President, not to high ranking uniformed military officials. (Although some publicly suggested it, the 26th Amendment was never put into play at any time during Trump's single term.)
The Minnesota Supreme Court has looked at the State's third degree murder statute, in the context of officer Noor's shooting of Justine Damond. The Court of Appeals affirmation of the trial result was reversed.
Strib writes the facts of the decision clearly so readers should access their report.
Strib's report, in part -
Jurors convicted Noor in 2019 of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for shooting Damond while responding to her 911 call about a possible sexual assault in the alley behind her home.
Noor's attorney, Thomas Plunkett, initially appealed the third-degree murder conviction to the Court of Appeals, and when that failed, he petitioned the state Supreme Court in February to review the matter.
The high court heard oral arguments on the issue in June.
Plunkett asked the state Supreme Court to make sense of language in the state's third-degree murder statute, which has perplexed attorneys for years and came into play earlier this year when former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was tried for the unrelated killing of George Floyd. Jurors convicted Chauvin on April 20 of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
Plunkett asked the state Supreme Court to address two questions: Can a person be convicted of third-degree murder if the deadly act is aimed at a single person, and can the reckless nature of an act alone establish the necessary depraved mind-set?
According to state statute, third-degree murder applies when a defendant kills someone "by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind." The word "others" has led many attorneys to interpret that the statute applies when multiple people are endangered and someone is killed. Veteran attorneys have said it would apply, for instance, to someone shooting indiscriminately into a moving train. The "depraved mind" element has been difficult to define, some attorneys have said.
As to "others" the rookie cop's split-second but well-aimed shooting across his partner's seat through the window endangered both the woman who was shot dead and the partner (were the aim bad), so "others" is less a question than "depraved mind." Any statute so worded craves litigation ad nauseaum.
As a near certainty, somebody somewhere must read Crabgrass and think, "That guy writing that stuff has a depraved mind." The term is that ambiguous, as is my writing. The line between negligence, gross negligence, and reckless disregard is something inexact but at a jury trial that is a fact question for the jury to decide.
However, does "reckless disregard" leading to a death in some circumstances (but not universally) constitute a "depraved mind?" You tell me.
In the common sense of the word "depraved" the man was a policeman selected for the force in the first place for having a level mind. Hopefully that is the standard for cops. And in a split second instance he made a fatal mistake. He did not intend anything commonly thought to be "depraved."
When legislators pass such terrible language, courts have to deal with what they are handed, and are not to blame for any uncertainty embodied in poorly chosen criminal law statutes. Blame the bozo members in the legislature for that ham-handed choice of wording.
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Strib also noted how the Chauvin decision in George Floyd's death involved the same statute. Different facts, surely, no split-second dimension can attach to eight minutes of continuous kneeling on a man's throat, and depraved seems an apt word for such kneeling. Also, since Chauvin was convicted of second degree murder as well as third degree, his sentencing must have weighed more heavily the more serious second degree crime. Yet he's got grounds to appeal, now that the Noor precedent has been overturned. In Chauvin's case the "danger to others" language could be appealed, as Chauvin only kneeled on one throat. There is more spinning that could be done in Chauvin's case, likely future danger, past conduct, etc., as to "others."
Journalism 101 - If you headline, "Judge throws out latest Minneapolis policing ballot language," and in the second short paragraph of the story refer to "17-page order" then you either link to the order so readers can read its text, or you write, "a 17-page order, not yet online" but you do not omit the link to keep rubes reading your thing instead of what the judge wrote. UPDATED
UPDATE: Latest Strib post - the policing ballot question will stay on the ballot. That is what the Minnesota Supreme Court has decided. Early in the post -
The decision came down in a three-page order issued shortly before 6 p.m., just hours before early voting is set to begin in the first municipal races since George Floyd was killed by police.
"So as not to impair the orderly process of voting, this order is issued with an opinion to follow at a later date," wrote Chief Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea.
Yes 4 Minneapolis, the political committee that wrote the proposal, welcomed the ruling.
UPDATE: The Minnesota Supreme Court will have an expedited hearing. Strib publishes, here. It states in part -
"The district court … said the question failed to identify the essential purpose of the amendment, without stating what the court perceived to be the essential purpose or what was missing," wrote [ Minneapolis Assistant City Attorney Ivan] Ludmer.
And still, Strib declines to post and link to what the judge wrote. Presuming Ludmer is correct, the judge's opinion/order was defective. This not a game of hide and seek. Or should not be. WHAT IS THE ESSENTIAL PURPOSE? It is to change the city's charter to allow the council to reform police force size and policing practices to focus on public safety, an effort which, under current charter wording, cannot be done. The essential purpose is to fix straitjacketing language in the charter. Whatever the politics of the day was when that wording was created, it is now a burden on reform and needs to go.
Can you say SNAFU, or alternatively the harder to pronounce SNFUBAHC (. . . Beyond Any Human Comprehension)?
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Strib, this link. Always try to give the original source, which Strib's writer did for the ballot question text itself. But saying there will be an appeal without linking to what will be appealed from is, at best, quaint.
Post a pdf of the order, (not on Scribd which is a Facebook thing with many hating Facebook), but post a generally accessible item. This is one of two statewide newspapers, with resources enough to post pdf documents.
As for the judge, if feeling voters cannot make sense out of a text which many have worked on over much time - the link to the text was properly given - and the text says enough that anybody with a fourth grade education can read and understand that the cop question is at issue and provisions are being revised within the charter; who appointed that judge?
Or do I judge too harshly? Consider, from Strib's report -
The case hinges on how to write a neutral ballot question for a proposal that could clear the way for city officials to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a new public safety agency.
Judge Jamie L. Anderson The measure changes the Minneapolis charter by removing the requirement to keep a police department with a minimum number of officers. It then requires the city to create a new agency providing "a comprehensive public health approach to safety."
For more than a month now, city leaders have been embroiled in political and legal fights over how to interpret those charter changes — and what that means for constructing a neutral ballot question.
The latest challenge was brought by three Minneapolis residents — businessman Bruce Dachis, nonprofit CEO Sondra Samuels and former City Council Member Don Samuels — who argued the current version of the ballot question was misleading. Their attorneys also painted a dire picture of what would happen if officials failed to create a plan for the new agency in the 30 days before the change took effect.
The entire thing is a joke. The first two paragraphs quoted above, written by a busy Strib reporter, do exactly what is at issue - they neutrally and tightly describe what the ballot proposal is about. Why all the other yin and yang among involved people has resulted in a longer but lesser description is politics, not logic nor reasoning. The politics is that most want to fix a dysfunctional police setup with something that works for citizens and does not weigh more heavily against black citizens than it does against white citizens. Some want to keep the dysfunctional junk or keep the charter unchanged until a plan is detailed that they like.
Trust those elected and tasked to produce ordinances and resolutions to handle what they were elected to do once the charter's impediment is junked. If not trustworthy to handle it, how were they elected, and who's better at it?
_______UPDATE_______
In a largely parallel Strib item -
Push to replace MPD
Long before Floyd's death, Minneapolis officials and activists were already debating how much money to give to the Police Department and which elected officials should have ultimate oversight of officers.
On the heels of his killing, some council members pursued a plan to replace the Police Department with a new public safety agency. After that stalled before the Charter Commission, Yes 4 Minneapolis collected signatures to get its own version on the ballot this fall.
Bates, the group's spokesperson, said the change would allow the city "to embrace a holistic model of public safety."
Opponents say they believe the city could do that without replacing the Police Department.
Yes 4 Minneapolis' proposal removes the requirement for Minneapolis to keep a police department with a minimum number of officers and requires the city to create a new agency providing "a comprehensive public health approach to safety."
For more than a month now, attorneys have fiercely debated how to interpret those changes and how to present a neutral question to voters.
Groups on both sides have accused each other of putting out misinformation. If the proposal passes, the mayor and council will decide many details of the new department.
[italics added] If your aim is obfuscation and not clarity, get lawyers involved. Their main skill set is delay and meandering, billable hours, and advocacy rather than clarity. Some are skilled mediators, but clearly they are not the ones in play.
If Strib's reporter can write the issue up clearly, and tightly; and lawyers are mucking around in the absence of such clarity, then somebody's lawyers are sitting on a three legged stool milking their cash cow for all it is worth. And they should stop.
Now, the State's top Court will have to mop up. Whether they produce something making sense, or something less, it will be the definitive word on things. Should we expect an opinion stating the ballot issue in language chosen by the Court, a neutral body skilled in writing, or should we expect a remand with instructions? We wait to see. "Judicial restraint" would have a remand. "Judicial activism" would have the Court write language (remember the Warren Court wrote the wording of the Miranda Warning, so it is neither unreasonable nor unprecedented to expect reliable court- mandated language).
_______KEY UPDATE______
Strib reports the Minnesota Supreme Court will review the district court decision on an apparent expedited basis. It still boggles the mind that a busy Strib reporter wrote a perfectly fine explanation of the issue. Change the charter to allow police reform, via creation of a public safety approach. A plan will be formed. By the people trusted to budget, spend and raise public funds. You trust them with the money, you should trust them fixing the police problem. Setting rules is their business. They will evolve a plan, but for now the cruft in the charter needs removal. So they CAN form a plan which then can evolve over time. Why the charter ever had the challenged wording is a question of history that so far has been unanswered in the press. The question - isn't it time to remove that stuff?
______FURTHER______
Ultimately, police should be barred from using toxic or irritating chemical weapons against citizens. Automatic dismissal if any camera video is produced showing tape over badge numbers or other obscuring of ability to identify an officer/perp who uses excessive or otherwise wrongful force. Body cams always on anytime a cop is on foot, not in a patrol car, where dashboard cams are to always be on; failure to have cameras so operated can and should lead to dismissal, absent a compelling explanation. All discipline to be on record, accessible as public data in the normal course of governing. Citizen oversight of things, ultimately, as with the federal military, top control is to be by a civilian. Not a uniformed "chief." Dismissal of bad cops needs to be made easier.
All the reforms can be part of an integrated plan passed by the council once the charter is fixed. There will be debate and media coverage, and the councilmembers were elected to do the job of setting the rules, else, why have them?
Another ballot question - strong mayor? Look at Frey and the mess he's created, so, would it have been better if he had more power to screw up more comprehensively? Councilmembers are elected for a reason, and there needs to be a proper balance between executive power and legislative power.
Would Frey with more power, but under the present cop contract and practices such as a blue wall around discipline procedures, have been better at keeping the peace than he was? If he had even greater control over the police chief would that have made a difference, without a better way of contracting with the cop union, and stronger council laying down the law for those who are allowed, and well paid, to enforce the law?
Frey seemed satisfied with Bob Kroll. Stronger mayor? It is a question on the November ballot.
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