Roundup
(1) Biden gives the Israelis a stern talking-to:
(2) And then there are the tall tales:
His uncle was indeed in a plane that had to ditch over the ocean, in that area of the world, because of engine failure. He was not flying the plane at the time, but I’m going to assume he was indeed a pilot. However, most criticisms of what Biden said seem to ignore a few other things, such as the fact that he said his uncles enlisted right after D-Day. I’m going to assume he meant the attack on Pearl Harbor, because the date of his uncle’s death was May 14, 1944, three weeks before D-Day.
(3) [Hat tip commenter “Barry Meislin”] Gazans sunbathe:
Footage of thousands of Gazans enjoying the beach at Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip caused great anger in Israel.
“While Israeli citizens are preparing bomb shelters and buying generators, and at least 100,000 civilians are evacuated from their homes in the north and south of the country, and most importantly 133 hostages are still in Gaza, residents of Deir al-Balah demonstrate what ‘a step from absolute victory’ looks like,” one social media user commented.
Journalist Barak Ravid wrote: “It must be said that there is no longer a war in Gaza. Maybe there is partial and limited fighting. Maybe Israeli TV channels will also report on this eventually.”
I’ll cut Netanyahu a little slack. There is indeed a pause. If the pause continues too much longer, it’s a very bad idea. But I do think it’s just a pause while they prepare their next step.
(4) What could possibly, possibly, go wrong? In California:
Steven Bradford, a Democratic state Senator for LA County, proposed bill SB 1403 to create a controversial genealogy unit to ‘confirm reparations eligibility’ of applicants.
The state’s first-in-the-nation reparations task force last year decided that some residents should win $1.2 million payouts as compensation for injustices from the slavery era onwards.
But lawmakers have struggled to turn those plans into reality, and have advanced several bills to devise a working reparations scheme amid fears of spiralling costs in a cash-strapped state.
Bradford’s bill, which was amended this month, aims to solve the problem of working out who is in line for a payout.
The Nazis can only envy us the tools we have at our disposal. By the way, most of the American black population (not recent arrivals from Africa) have some white ancestors, and although their percentage of white DNA varies it’s often at least 20% to 50%. And quite a few white people have a percentage – a smaller percentage, but nevertheless a percentage – of black DNA. Nor, of course, does DNA tell the story of whose black ancestors were slaves and whose were not, unless one does an entire family tree going back to the slavery era.
Reparations is a terrible terrible idea on every single level.
(5) How’s that Trump jury selection process going?:
The jury selection process is ongoing, but what began at a fairly brisk pace has slowed somewhat, with two of the previously empaneled jurors being dismissed Thursday morning.
As things sat at the end of the day on Tuesday, seven of the 12 jurors needed had been seated. (Up to six alternates will also be chosen.)
But two of the seated jurors have since been dismissed: one for lying about his arrest history, and one because friends and family had reminded her of some of her previous history (I assume her social media history) that indicated she could not be impartial. Translated, I think this means that she had tweeted or posted on Facebook comments that were either critical of Trump or in favor of him. I don’t know which.
In the first round of jury selection, “over half of the nearly 100 prospective jurors were swiftly excused as they expressed their inability to be fair or impartial.” Another man was dismissed by the judge when Trump’s attorneys dug up this 2017 tweet of his:
Good news!! Trump lost his court battle on his unlawful travel ban!!! Get him out and lock him up.
Had this man already said he thought he could be an impartial juror, prior to the judge’s dismissing him? I don’t know. But it wouldn’t surprise me.
Biden’s Uncle Dookie story just dropped yesterday, didn’t it?
}}} bill SB 1403 to create a controversial genealogy unit to ‘confirm reparations eligibility’ of applicants.
There’s now a meme out there with a pic of Cleese the Frenchman from The Holy Grail…
“Have you been taunted by this man? You may be entitled to compensation.”
😀
Just imagine what manifestations of senescence his staffers and family must be witnessing on an almost hourly basis. They are probably glad that his meds have helped him retain the ability to use a knife and fork.
He probably gets lost in the hallways of the White House as it is. Next, they will have to guard against him dropping his trousers just off stage and squatting on a folding chair, or relieving himself into the nearest ventilation duct. Consider what they find on the floor of his clothes closets.
Hey: Show us how you can run up those stairs again, Joe!
How long before he starts licking window panes?
I’d almost feel sorry for the guy as his mind withers away before our eyes; but for the fact that he has always been incapable of feeling humiliation: a comically legendary vainglory steadily being replaced by an enveloping fog of incoherent fantasy.
And the Demos are just fine with that if they can keep their hand on the wheel until we all die in the ditch.
Soon Brandon will tell of an uncle who served on USS Arizona when it was in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in 1942.
#1: the uncle story is bad enough, but to state Israel should not invade Haifa??? OMG, that statement right there should be enough to convince anyone the guy has totally lost it. But that’s just a fantasy on my part….I’m sure the clip(s) will never be seen on any of the MSM.
physicsguy:
I must confess I feel a teeny tiny smidgen of sympathy for him on that one. I’m pretty sure he meant Rafah. Haifa-Rafah, get it?
I’m sure the similar sound is why he said “Haifa.” But no sympathy here. Rafah is well-known to be the current hiding place of the remaining Hamas leadership in Gaza. A leader should know what he’s talking about.
And I don’t have much sympathy for his dementia symptoms either. If he’d been a nice guy before he started losing his mind, I would feel sympathy. But he wasn’t.
No sympathy. No quarter. Play the Deguello and get on with it.
I thought everyone in Gaza were starving. Is not that true?
I am mean enough to say I hope those on the Beach get sun cancer.
}}} No sympathy. No quarter. Play the Deguello and get on with it.
Taps would do, also. 😛
Neo, no sympathy from me. After all, he had a supposed phone conversation with Bibi about not pressing on to Rafah. One would think after scolding the Israelis about Rafah, he would know the difference.
I’m all for reparations being given to the Blacks if the right people pay. The Democratic Party was the party of slavery and civil war, the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow and segregation, and opposed every single civil rights bill. They are also the owner/operator of every single black ghetto and have been for over half a century. Make the Democratic Party members and the organization itself pay the reparations, three hundred years of it.
Haifa is apparently where they are going to name a beach after Biden or something, the whole thing reminds of that billy madison, where jim downey
remonstrates him after losing at jeopardy,
the rockefellers lost one of their next generation in new guinea in 1961, you don’t hear them bringing it up,
How many folks living today in the USA – white or black – have made decisions and lifestyle choices that were influenced by the experiences of their great or great-great-grandparents.
Don’t know about most folks, but I have zero idea of what my great-grandparents experienced and I can definitively state that any and all decisions they made have had zero bearing on the life-style decisions I have made.
Is it because my great-grand parents were not born in the USA? Yea, that must be it.
But apparently blacks are guided and motivated by distant and long dead ancestors they never met, and know next to nothing about; therefore they deserve reparations from people who had nothing at all to do with slavery nor committed any injustice to any black, past or present.
Don’t forget, a new born white baby must also pay reparations for his/her sins against the distant ancestors of blacks.
Think about it, Oprah Winfrey is eligible for reparations. Yep, one of the wealthiest people on planet earth has suffered because her ancestors may have been slaves. Ditto for Beyonce or the millionaire Obama’s, Michael Jordan (a billionaire, I believe), etc etc
And how will they identify blacks that were slave owners? True, there were not many black slave owners, but there were some.
The way things are going, race wise, does not bode well for this nation.
I thought they had cancelled that whole reparations shindig in California,
DNA testing for reparations? Sign me up. 23&Me said I have 5% West African DNA. There’s a slave ancestor or two somewhere in my background. I feel the awfulness of all they suffered. That’s gotta be worth big bucks! 🙂
Biden is a caricature of the crazy uncle with a repertoire of tall tales. It would be amusing and pitiful if he wasn’t POTUS. It’s a disgrace that the Democrats cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that the President is fading. Let’s hope enough independents can see that in November.
The Gazans sunbathing on their fine beach? I guess their biggest worry is getting hit by the air dropped pallets of food and medicine that Joe’s sending. But what about those barbaric IDF blokes? I thought they were slaughtering the Gazans – committing genocide. I saw that claim on the news by protestors who closed our local airport yesterday. It must be true, heh. 🙂
Whatever happened to real reporters and real newscasts? Gone and probably not coming back.
a metaphor
https://twitter.com/Chris_1791/status/1781097910626869544
Nothing says genocide like spending the day at the beach.
China Joe* mixes up people and places too often. It’s not a matter of cutting him slack, it’s that he is clearly mentally diminished and has no business remaining in the Oval Office let alone running for reelection.
NEO — Have you heard about the brouhaha over Furries at a middle school?
In Utah FFS?
https://pjmedia.com/lincolnbrown/2024/04/18/furry-furor-at-a-utah-middle-school-n4928289
https://www.abc4.com/news/wasatch-front/utah-student-furry-protest/
The school district says “Not actually happening. Everyone is lying.”…
75 students and parents, all “lying”….
SMH.
DNW:
“Just imagine what manifestations of senescence his staffers and family must be witnessing on an almost hourly basis. ”
Yes, what we are seeing is the Best of Biden after he has been primped and primed. I’m sure his close associates have witnessed some rather disturbing behavior in private and yet they still prop him up. They must breathe a huge sigh of relief every time he makes it through an appearance and the worst he does is stumble, mumble and mix up a few words.
On the reparations – genealogy connection, in one respect, I partly am moved to applaud this particular development, as it seems to me to be one of various logical next steps for those who seem to take the slavery reparations idea seriously. I like the idea of allowing the truly committed to reveal not just this step, but everything about where their idea ultimately points. Let them follow the thread to its endpoint, publicly, out loud, and show the world where this goes.
Of course, giving the horse its head has its downsides as well….
Paul in Boston-I also have come to the conclusion that African-Americans should get reparations. But only from the class of people that would have owned slaves, i.e. The very rich. My reasoning is this, if the money is only to come out of the pockets of the very wealthy, like Oprah, reparations will be shut down pretty fast.
“Nothing says genocide like spending the day at the beach.”
I really don’t think that everyone realizes just how exhausting committing genocide can be.
Taking time off to enable those you will soon eliminate from the face of the earth (along with their entire families) so that they can spend some quality time at the beach is therefore perfectly understandable.
OTOH, should one wonder whether the South Africans will, without missing a beat, change direction and accuse Israel of trying to eradicate the Gazans via skin cancer—IOW, by causing them ALL to contract mass melanomas?
Or that the CEASE-FIRE-NOWWWW protesters will quickly shift to NO-NO-NO-TO-MELANOMA!!?
On the Trump jury – I read that two corporate lawyers were seated, which is odd. Lawyers usually aren’t seated on juries.
But that does give some hope, and trepidation. Corporate attorneys are very used to dealing with complex legal issues. Bragg’s case is based on a hand-wave about the intent to commit another crime, which he needs in order to avoid the statute of limitations for a misdemeanor. Corporate attorneys may not be in a courtroom regularly, but most of them deal with these kinds of attempted hand-waves regularly and can spot them a mile away.
There is a very good chance that the corporate attorneys on the jury are going to be able to spot Bragg’s fudges. (What is the other crime? What are the elements of that crime? Why are we being asked to apply federal elections law in the context of a NY case?) Bragg didn’t even identify the other crime in the indictment.
So the question is what will they do after spotting the issues? They might well be anti-Trump drones, a la Larry Tribe, and will concoct whatever theory or justification they need to vote for a conviction. It is very likely that their firms are as woke as the day is long. They might have very legitimate fears about their professional future if they vote to acquit. In the worst case, they will use their legal knowledge to help structure the verdict in a way that makes Trump’s appeal as difficult as possible.
But I think it is also possible that at least one of them will refuse to go along with making a farce of their profession. Maybe they steer the jury towards a conviction on the misdemeanor charges, which would be summarily dismissed as time-barred? We can hope.
CC™ doesn’t realize that a juror does not get to investigate or make decisions about things that are not being charged. It may be my ignorance, but I understand that the trial is for crimes specified by a law, brought to a court by a Prosecutor, and presided over by a Judge. JuThe J
uror’s roles and responsibilities include deciding guilt or innocence, not to bring charges or
to find unspecified criminality, if they have concerns they have to bring them to the Judge.
Being The Great Orange Whale is not a crime in itself.
It is not constitutional to write a law specifically for a man.
om – I’m going to resist my urge to respond in kind to your snarkiness.
The jury has to make findings of fact about the elements of the crime. The elements of the crime that Trump is charged with in Manhattan include (i) making a false entry in his books; and (ii) that the false entry was made with the intent of committing another crime. Bragg needs (ii) because, without it, the false business entry crime is a time-barred misdemeanor.
Short answer – I think that the jury is going to have to make a finding of fact about Trump’s intent to commit another crime. Bragg has fudged the identity of the other crime. A lot is going to depend on how Bragg presents his case, but I don’t see how a pair of big law corporate attorneys can fail to see this gaping hole in his case as he asks them to making a finding of fact about it.
(There are other elements too. I believe that the jury will also have make a finding of fact about Trump’s state of mind while making the false entries, i.e., he knew that they were false, he intended the entries to be false, or something like that. FWIW, I actually think that Trump has a decent defense on this point too (or would if the case was being tried to an unbiased jury). Trump hired a lawyer (Cohen) to negotiate a contract for him. Bragg should have to prove that Trump was aware of the distinction between money paid to Cohen for legal services for negotiating and drafting the contract versus expenses under the contract itself and intentionally conflated the two on his books. That screams reasonable doubt to me, but I doubt it will to a Manhattan jury.
Any defendant other than Trump would probably get out of the case by testifying that they hired their attorney to address a legal issue, I.e., negotiating a contract, paid the attorney for their services and that any improper booking of the legal versus non-legal portion expenses was inadvertent.)
Trump Jury and Judge.
Imagine it is Mississippi in 1920 and a black man is accused of sexually
assaulting a white woman; he allegedly directed some inappropriate remarks to her.
The judge, jury and prosecutor are all members of the KKK.
And the facts show the defendant was out of the state at the time.
Will the defendant be found innocent or guilty?
I think we all know that the black guy will be found guilty.
The black guy is Trump. The KKK judge, jury and prosecutors are all Manhattan and/or NYC residents.
This is your typical Stalinist show trial.
while fat alvin conducts this kangaroo trial, the lives of countless new yorkers are in jeopardy, because criminals roam the streets,so colangelo can get a scalp, offered by kristen clarke, the devils advocates for cop killers, garland doesn’t really figure into this, hes as hollow a shell as biden,
A thought had occurred to me, the Chinese don’t have to invade, their viziers are doing a bang up job destroying the great cities, New York, Philadelphia on the east coast, Atlanta in the South, Los Angeles and San Francisco on the East Coast, add Seattle to the mix, Chicago and Detroit in the MidWest,
Twenty percent of slave holders in South Carolina were free people of color. Do their descendants receive reparations?Or do they pay them?
Om, you are mostly correct, but never forget that a juror also has the power — and the responsibility — to decide the validity and applicability of the law in question.
That is, all those marijuana convictions for simple possession in the last 4 decades could have been mostly mooted by the jury, had they this understanding and at least one of them been willing to stand up to the rest of the jury and say, “No, this application is unjust or unconstitutional” and make it stick.
The end result is only applicable to the given case (e.g., no precedent is set), and a hung jury instance can be re-tried with a different jury, but when it happens often enough, then the DAs will learn not to waste their time trying to enforce said law.
This — Jury Nullification — has been historically relevant to both Fugitive Slave Laws and to Prohibition. Many cases failed because the jury just refused to convict.
It should have been applied to a lot of non-violent drug possession offenses as the social tide has shifted pro-marijuana in the past decades.
I’d also note — this is at least part of what got OJ off — either through racial bias or via the questionable police tactics, the jury refused to convict regardless of the evidence.
The concept of Jury Nullification has a very long history in English Common Law, with the most notable early case a case that helped William Penn (as in Pennsylvania) become famous. (That is an interesting case to read about, BTW).
On the other hand, attorneys AND their clients are NOT allowed to discuss the notion in the courtroom, and, while the SCotUS has never rejected the idea, they’ve done their best to make sure that the jury is totally unaware of their rights and responsibilities as jurors.
For more info, I recommend http://www.fija.org (The Fully Informed Jury Association).
CC™ is totes fine it seems with jurors (lawyers) applying extra measures to The Great Orange Whale. A Bill of Attainer is not something CC™ would balk at. Reasons.
Jury nullification is indeed another important part of our system of justice. Ignored by CC™.