Surely a woman had something to do with some of it, no?
I propose that our Art Deco assume chairmanship of the proposed commission Secure American Federal Elections (SAFE). Does anyone else agree? Can any of you out there ( e.g. Cornhead) recommend to President (elect) Trump to consider Art for this position. There is a lot of work to be done so that a repeat of the irregularities of the 2020 election does not occur. Art, if called upon, will you serve the President? If nominated, the DOGE bros will most likely require your salary be capped at a low level and that you will agree to decommission when the task is completed.
@Xylourgos:I propose that our Art Deco assume chairmanship of the proposed commission Secure American Federal Elections (SAFE). Does anyone else agree?
I personally would have no objection, Art Deco is good at suggesting systems that could accomplish a stated goal. The problem, though, is not that nobody knows how to accomplish the goal. The problem is that there are too many stakeholders who do not actually want to accomplish the goal.
For example, if we didn’t want illegal aliens to get jobs, we’d allow employers to require proof of employment eligibility with the application. But this is currently illegal. You must actually hire somebody first before you are allowed to ask for that proof, and you are not allowed to do anything with that proof but submit it to the government, and after that it is between the government and the employee to sort out. While you are the whole time employing an illegal, which the law forced you to do. A Social Security card could be as secure as a credit card, and swipeable, every gas station has this technology. If a credit card is fake it is immediately declined, it’s not a thing that takes weeks to resolve. The capability exists, but the will to use it is not there.
Elections are similar. A credit card does not let you spend the same money twice, and it delivers immediate results if it’s fake or if the credit limit is exceeded. There’s no reason why a voter registration card couldn’t give you a “credit limit” of one ballot. If you try to vote twice, the poll worker swipes it and says sorry, it says you’ve already voted.
California deliberately mails every voter a ballot, and if the voter shows up later at the polls and votes a second time, or if someone else gets his ballot and votes it, maybe somebody catches it, if they want to. It’s not that California doesn’t know how to secure elections, it’s that California don’t wanna.
For the important things in life, buying gas or shopping at Costco, it’s trivial to determine on the spot if someone is allowed to do the thing they are trying to do. (Costco doesn’t let you in the store without scanning your membership card.) Not enough people want to apply those known solutions to things like voting or employing only people who can legally work.
Last night, History/Story Channel featured the filling of the Croton Reservoir to make the Great Lawn (among other topics). The earlier fill (rubble from the construction of Rockefeller Center) provided poor drainage and the grass was dying, so additional soil had to be added and the lawn reseeded in the 1990s.
The Bethesda Fountain was made famous by “Angels in America.” For some reason (maybe it was in the play/teleseries) I thought it was a monument to the sailors of the Civil War, not a tribute to the building of the reservoir and the health-giving benefits of clean water. Looking it up I notice (and this is only my surmise so far) that the emphasis on “Peace, Health, Purity, and Temperance” may have also been related to the anti-alcohol prohibition movement.
Very impressive video, like his other NYC videos.
Nice video, and very timely for me. I just did a Gilded Age tour in NYC which takes you to all the great mansions around Central Park from the late 1800s. And the tour guide told us all about this.
@Abraxas:the emphasis on “Peace, Health, Purity, and Temperance” may have also been related to the anti-alcohol prohibition movement.
Temperance activists set up a lot of public water fountains, the idea being to remove the excuse that people drank alcohol because they were thirsty.
The beloved Rule of Law strikes again—apparently?!
Suspected UnitedHealthcare CEO assassin Luigi Mangione has been charged with murder in the second degree, despite many officials saying the shooting was a premeditated and targeted killing.
The reason Mangione’s murder charge is second-degree is down to specific legislation in New York, which stipulates that certain factors must be met for a charge to be raised to first-degree murder.
These include that the victim must have been an on-duty police officer or peace officer, a judge, a witness to a crime, about to testify in court, or the murder must have been a contract killing.
Other factors include if the defendant was convicted of a previous murder, if they killed more than one person, if the victim was tortured, or if the crime was part of an act of terrorism.
“Terrorism” has come to mean “Islamism” in average usage; however, it seems to me the shooter intended to terrorize managers of health insurance companies.
Karmi – It looks like the difference between 1st and 2nd degree murder is the possibility of parole on a life sentence.
There is another way in NY to get to 1st degree murder if the defendant was engaging in terrorism, but the definition of terrorism in the statute doesn’t look like a great fit.
I wonder if Bragg will even ask for a life sentence. I also wonder if the feds will step in. When the CEO of a corporation engaging in interstate commerce is assassinated, there is a pretty good argument that is certainly a federal matter.
Niketas Choniates @ 10:19 am Not enough people want to apply those known solutions to things like voting or employing only people who can legally work.
Great comment, nailed it!
New York’s Criminal Code is entirely too complicated, and subject to corrupt actors,
I guess it will take till the new US Atty is selected,
sigh…
Not just New York – the entire American concept of the Rule of Law “is entirely too complicated”. Something like Niketas Choniates’ cards – made for the Rule of Law – ‘Crime Cards‘ (?). Maybe get Musk & Ramaswamy to cut the *BIG* & small Govt spending on the Rule of Law by cutting the amount of laws in half.
@ Bauxite – Tried reading some of the statutes from their source, but too wordy for me.
Went to Wikipedia’s “Murder in New York law”:
Second-degree murder
Second-degree murder is the second most serious homicide offense in New York. It is defined as when someone commits an intentional killing without a felony under New York’s felony murder rule, or an unintentional killing which either exhibits a “depraved indifference to human life” or an unintentional killing caused by the commission or attempted commission of a felony under New York’s felony murder rule.
Second-degree murder is punishable by 15 years-to-life and thus must serve at least 15 years in prison before being eligible for parole or life-without-parole if the victim was under 14.
I don’t see how this could fit into any federal criminal charge. The victim was a private citizen, murdered on the street in New York.
New York’s Criminal Code is entirely too complicated, and subject to corrupt actors, I guess it will take till the new US Atty is selected,
==
The Penal Law of New York could benefit from scraping the barnacles off and consolidating some defined offenses. It might also benefit from having the various degrees of each offense redefined so that a lower degree is a lesser included offense of a higher degree. The substantive portion is not that complicated, just messier than it needs to be. A real problem is the sentencing rules, which have been subject to amendment again and again making them a mass of spaghetti. For all the verbiage, they leave judges with extraordinary discretion over sentences, discretion they should not have.
==
A more severe problem is the Criminal Procedure Law. The use of grand juries is bog standard, but they provide no real screening. A decision of ‘no-true-bill’ is rendered in only 0.3% of the cases presented (and its a reasonable wager these are cases the prosecutors have thrown). The ‘indict a ham sandwich’ remark was an utterance of Sol Wachtler, once the state’s chief justice.
There is another way in NY to get to 1st degree murder if the defendant was engaging in terrorism, but the definition of terrorism in the statute doesn’t look like a great fit.
==
Since 1975, 2d degree murder has been the bog standard murder charge in New York, and securing a conviction requires demonstrating premeditation, demonstrating depraved indifference to human life, or demonstrating the murder was committed in the course of executing one of a menu of specified felonies. At one time, 1st degree murder referred to the murder of a prison guard or police officer and it carried a capital sentence.
==
What’s referred to as 2d degree murder in other states is one of the two definitions of 1st degree manslaughter in New York.
Too much good news can spoil one…or as the Mundaka Upanishad’s might say about ‘Two Golden Birds‘ – too much sweet fruit invites a taste for sour fruit:
New York Attorney General Letitia James has confirmed that she will not dismiss the $454 million civil fraud judgment against President-elect Donald Trump. Despite Trump’s appeal and his status as President-elect, James argues that presidents are not immune from civil lawsuits. The case involves allegations of fraud in real estate valuation and continues as the legal battle moves through the appeals process.
So does the prosecution wind up plea bargaining this thing out of fear of some leftist morons making it through and onto the jury?
It seems that Biden is doing things which Trump said he would do… first, they are objecting to the sale of US Steel to a Japanese company. Second, they are going to look at banning the red food dyes within the next few weeks. They want the credit for doing things.
Lots of major events happening—Trump being elected and the subsequent freakouts by Harris supporters, Assad deposed in Syria, a possible peace deal in the Ukraine, etc., etc.
Meanwhile, in the background, drones, basically ignored–sometimes swarms of them, and some estimated to be the size of a SUV–are flying over our military bases, over some Trump properties, over our cities and homes; and, increasingly, they are being seen all over our country.*
Yet, our authorities claim to be completely ignorant of what these supposed “drones” are, what their objectives might be, and who is controlling them.
Has no one shot one of these drones down, opened it up, and gotten any information from it?
Although what I posted earlier today was written as a slightly tongue-in-cheek proposal, it has a serious point. It is extremely necessary to reform our federal and state voting practices. The way voting is now structured results in a lack of confidence of the correctness of the vote tabulation.
When discussing Frederick Law Olmstead, let us not forget his other remarkable projects, particularly the fabulous park and parkway system in Buffalo. If we are to Make America Great Again, surely a part of this effort must be the revival of the cities, based on pro-human urban planning and architecture. (As opposed to the monstrosities we see popping up everywhere.)
If we are to Make America Great Again, surely a part of this effort must be the revival of the cities, based on pro-human urban planning and architecture.
==
Yep.
A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States (Amazon-Kindle 0.99)
A Journey through Texas: Or a Saddle-Trip on the Southwestern Frontier (Amazon-Kindle 0.99)
A Journey in the Back Country (Amazon-Kindle 4.99)
His three books were condensed into two books:
The Cotton Kingdom, Vol 1. Gutenberg
The Cotton Kingdom, Vol 2 Gutenberg
Amazon-Kindle sells The Cotton Kingdom for 0.99, but I don’t know if it consists of just Vol 1 or both volumes.
Leave a Reply
HTML tags allowed in your
comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>
Surely a woman had something to do with some of it, no?
I propose that our Art Deco assume chairmanship of the proposed commission Secure American Federal Elections (SAFE). Does anyone else agree? Can any of you out there ( e.g. Cornhead) recommend to President (elect) Trump to consider Art for this position. There is a lot of work to be done so that a repeat of the irregularities of the 2020 election does not occur. Art, if called upon, will you serve the President? If nominated, the DOGE bros will most likely require your salary be capped at a low level and that you will agree to decommission when the task is completed.
@Xylourgos:I propose that our Art Deco assume chairmanship of the proposed commission Secure American Federal Elections (SAFE). Does anyone else agree?
I personally would have no objection, Art Deco is good at suggesting systems that could accomplish a stated goal. The problem, though, is not that nobody knows how to accomplish the goal. The problem is that there are too many stakeholders who do not actually want to accomplish the goal.
For example, if we didn’t want illegal aliens to get jobs, we’d allow employers to require proof of employment eligibility with the application. But this is currently illegal. You must actually hire somebody first before you are allowed to ask for that proof, and you are not allowed to do anything with that proof but submit it to the government, and after that it is between the government and the employee to sort out. While you are the whole time employing an illegal, which the law forced you to do. A Social Security card could be as secure as a credit card, and swipeable, every gas station has this technology. If a credit card is fake it is immediately declined, it’s not a thing that takes weeks to resolve. The capability exists, but the will to use it is not there.
Elections are similar. A credit card does not let you spend the same money twice, and it delivers immediate results if it’s fake or if the credit limit is exceeded. There’s no reason why a voter registration card couldn’t give you a “credit limit” of one ballot. If you try to vote twice, the poll worker swipes it and says sorry, it says you’ve already voted.
California deliberately mails every voter a ballot, and if the voter shows up later at the polls and votes a second time, or if someone else gets his ballot and votes it, maybe somebody catches it, if they want to. It’s not that California doesn’t know how to secure elections, it’s that California don’t wanna.
For the important things in life, buying gas or shopping at Costco, it’s trivial to determine on the spot if someone is allowed to do the thing they are trying to do. (Costco doesn’t let you in the store without scanning your membership card.) Not enough people want to apply those known solutions to things like voting or employing only people who can legally work.
Last night, History/Story Channel featured the filling of the Croton Reservoir to make the Great Lawn (among other topics). The earlier fill (rubble from the construction of Rockefeller Center) provided poor drainage and the grass was dying, so additional soil had to be added and the lawn reseeded in the 1990s.
The Bethesda Fountain was made famous by “Angels in America.” For some reason (maybe it was in the play/teleseries) I thought it was a monument to the sailors of the Civil War, not a tribute to the building of the reservoir and the health-giving benefits of clean water. Looking it up I notice (and this is only my surmise so far) that the emphasis on “Peace, Health, Purity, and Temperance” may have also been related to the anti-alcohol prohibition movement.
Very impressive video, like his other NYC videos.
Nice video, and very timely for me. I just did a Gilded Age tour in NYC which takes you to all the great mansions around Central Park from the late 1800s. And the tour guide told us all about this.
@Abraxas:the emphasis on “Peace, Health, Purity, and Temperance” may have also been related to the anti-alcohol prohibition movement.
Temperance activists set up a lot of public water fountains, the idea being to remove the excuse that people drank alcohol because they were thirsty.
Why Luigi Mangione is charged with second-degree murder and not first-degree murder – at 11:41
The beloved Rule of Law strikes again—apparently?!
“Terrorism” has come to mean “Islamism” in average usage; however, it seems to me the shooter intended to terrorize managers of health insurance companies.
Karmi – It looks like the difference between 1st and 2nd degree murder is the possibility of parole on a life sentence.
There is another way in NY to get to 1st degree murder if the defendant was engaging in terrorism, but the definition of terrorism in the statute doesn’t look like a great fit.
I wonder if Bragg will even ask for a life sentence. I also wonder if the feds will step in. When the CEO of a corporation engaging in interstate commerce is assassinated, there is a pretty good argument that is certainly a federal matter.
Niketas Choniates @ 10:19 am
Not enough people want to apply those known solutions to things like voting or employing only people who can legally work.
Great comment, nailed it!
New York’s Criminal Code is entirely too complicated, and subject to corrupt actors,
I guess it will take till the new US Atty is selected,
sigh…
Not just New York – the entire American concept of the Rule of Law “is entirely too complicated”. Something like Niketas Choniates’ cards – made for the Rule of Law – ‘Crime Cards‘ (?). Maybe get Musk & Ramaswamy to cut the *BIG* & small Govt spending on the Rule of Law by cutting the amount of laws in half.
@ Bauxite – Tried reading some of the statutes from their source, but too wordy for me.
Went to Wikipedia’s “Murder in New York law”:
I don’t see how this could fit into any federal criminal charge. The victim was a private citizen, murdered on the street in New York.
New York’s Criminal Code is entirely too complicated, and subject to corrupt actors, I guess it will take till the new US Atty is selected,
==
The Penal Law of New York could benefit from scraping the barnacles off and consolidating some defined offenses. It might also benefit from having the various degrees of each offense redefined so that a lower degree is a lesser included offense of a higher degree. The substantive portion is not that complicated, just messier than it needs to be. A real problem is the sentencing rules, which have been subject to amendment again and again making them a mass of spaghetti. For all the verbiage, they leave judges with extraordinary discretion over sentences, discretion they should not have.
==
A more severe problem is the Criminal Procedure Law. The use of grand juries is bog standard, but they provide no real screening. A decision of ‘no-true-bill’ is rendered in only 0.3% of the cases presented (and its a reasonable wager these are cases the prosecutors have thrown). The ‘indict a ham sandwich’ remark was an utterance of Sol Wachtler, once the state’s chief justice.
There is another way in NY to get to 1st degree murder if the defendant was engaging in terrorism, but the definition of terrorism in the statute doesn’t look like a great fit.
==
Since 1975, 2d degree murder has been the bog standard murder charge in New York, and securing a conviction requires demonstrating premeditation, demonstrating depraved indifference to human life, or demonstrating the murder was committed in the course of executing one of a menu of specified felonies. At one time, 1st degree murder referred to the murder of a prison guard or police officer and it carried a capital sentence.
==
What’s referred to as 2d degree murder in other states is one of the two definitions of 1st degree manslaughter in New York.
So if one feels like assassinating someone—for the most moral reasons, of course—the place to do it is NY?
– – – – – – –
Then there’s this from the Gravitas File:
“…Justice Ketanji Brown To Appear In Pro-Transgender Broadway Musical”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/not-babylon-bee-justice-ketanji-brown-appear-pro-transgender-broadway-musical
Cross-filed under:
A. Oral Lex
&
B. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx3QmqV2pHg
Too much good news can spoil one…or as the Mundaka Upanishad’s might say about ‘Two Golden Birds‘ – too much sweet fruit invites a taste for sour fruit:
NY AG Upholds Fraud Case Against Trump
So does the prosecution wind up plea bargaining this thing out of fear of some leftist morons making it through and onto the jury?
It seems that Biden is doing things which Trump said he would do… first, they are objecting to the sale of US Steel to a Japanese company. Second, they are going to look at banning the red food dyes within the next few weeks. They want the credit for doing things.
Lots of major events happening—Trump being elected and the subsequent freakouts by Harris supporters, Assad deposed in Syria, a possible peace deal in the Ukraine, etc., etc.
Meanwhile, in the background, drones, basically ignored–sometimes swarms of them, and some estimated to be the size of a SUV–are flying over our military bases, over some Trump properties, over our cities and homes; and, increasingly, they are being seen all over our country.*
Yet, our authorities claim to be completely ignorant of what these supposed “drones” are, what their objectives might be, and who is controlling them.
Has no one shot one of these drones down, opened it up, and gotten any information from it?
See https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/fbi-to-frustrated-congress-we-just-don-t-know-who-is-behind-mystery-drone-flights-in-nj/ar-AA1vD5er
See also https://nypost.com/2024/12/09/us-news/sean-duffys-wife-slams-feds-for-silence-about-nj-drones/
and https://nj1015.com/drones-threat-new-jersey/ (This article includes a detailed, illustrated history of the high points of the UFO phenomenon over several decades.)
Although what I posted earlier today was written as a slightly tongue-in-cheek proposal, it has a serious point. It is extremely necessary to reform our federal and state voting practices. The way voting is now structured results in a lack of confidence of the correctness of the vote tabulation.
When discussing Frederick Law Olmstead, let us not forget his other remarkable projects, particularly the fabulous park and parkway system in Buffalo. If we are to Make America Great Again, surely a part of this effort must be the revival of the cities, based on pro-human urban planning and architecture. (As opposed to the monstrosities we see popping up everywhere.)
If we are to Make America Great Again, surely a part of this effort must be the revival of the cities, based on pro-human urban planning and architecture.
==
Yep.
Frederick Law Olmsted was a man of many talents. His three books on his travels through the antebellum South in the 1850s are historical landmarks. They can be found at Amazon: Frederick Law Olmsted and
Gutenberg: Frederick Law Olmsted.
A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States (Amazon-Kindle 0.99)
A Journey through Texas: Or a Saddle-Trip on the Southwestern Frontier (Amazon-Kindle 0.99)
A Journey in the Back Country (Amazon-Kindle 4.99)
His three books were condensed into two books:
The Cotton Kingdom, Vol 1. Gutenberg
The Cotton Kingdom, Vol 2 Gutenberg
Amazon-Kindle sells The Cotton Kingdom for 0.99, but I don’t know if it consists of just Vol 1 or both volumes.