Interesting:
Trump’s lawyers file a response about the Special Master
The logic in the response seems unassailable to me:
This investigation of the 45th President of the United States is both unprecedented and misguided. In what at its core is a document storage dispute that has spiraled out of control, the Government wrongfully seeks to criminalize the possession by the 45th President of his own Presidential and personal records. By way of its Motion [ECF No. 69], the Government now seeks to limit the scope of any review of its investigative conduct and presuppose the outcome, at least as regards to what it deems are “classified records.” However, the Court’s Order [ECF No. 64] is a sensible preliminary step towards restoring order from chaos. The Government should therefore not be permitted to skip the process and proceed straight to a preordained conclusion…
… What is clear regarding all of the seized materials is that they belong with either President Trump (as his personal property to be returned pursuant to Rule 41(g)) or with NARA, but not with the Department of Justice.
However, it is not even possible for this Court, or anyone else for that matter, to make any determination as to which documents and other items belong where and with whom without first conducting a thoughtful, organized review. Recognizing this, the Court exercised its equitable jurisdiction and inherent supervisory authority to “ensure at least the appearance of fairness and integrity under the extraordinary circumstances presented.” Order [ECF No. 64 at 1]….
First, the Government’s position incorrectly presumes the outcome—that its separation of these documents is inviolable and not subject to question by this Court or anyone else. Second, the Government’s stance assumes that if a document has a classification marking, it remains classified irrespective of any actions taken during President Trump’s term in office. Third, as noted above, the Government continues to ignore the significance of the PRA. Indeed, if any seized documents (including any purported “classified records”) are Presidential records, President Trump (or his designee, including a neutral designee such as a special master) has an absolute right of access to same under the PRA. 44 U.S.C. § 2205(3). Accordingly, President Trump (and, by extension, a requested special master) cannot be denied access to those documents….
The DOJ wants to say that its decision overrides everything else and cannot be challenged or even scrutinized, by the courts or anyone else.
The DOJ is going full Orwell.
NOTE: Somewhat related, from lawyer Leslie McAdoo Gordon (her resume is here):
I’ll have more to say later, but the bottom line is, after 26 years, & especially the last few, I have come to an inescapable conclusion: there is no justice to be had in our “justice” system. I am no longer willing to participate in a system that I consider to be a total farce.
My status as a practicing litigator has constrained me from speaking truth to and about the system. With that constraint removed, I will not be silent any longer.
The state of our institutions – particularly the criminal “justice” ones, but also the federal civil courts – is dire, & is unacceptable for a functioning republic. They must be radically overhauled & reformed, & a renewed emphasis on first principles restored.
Lawyers working from inside the system can make some changes, but not the radical reforms that we now need. Some of us will need to be outside the system to do what is necessary & what can only be done by speaking freely.
That can’t be done by me personally unless I no longer have clients whose interests I am honor-bound to place above those of the system and the nation. So, I am changing that to chart a new course.
Not sure what that course would be, though. The problem is, as they say, systemic. And the legal education system has been perpetuating it for decades.
Poor poor Hunter and the invasion of his privacy by the big bad Republicans
[Hat tip: commenter “Barry Meislin”]
“The Sordid Saga of Hunter Biden’s Laptop;
“The most invasive data breach imaginable is a political scandal Democrats can’t just wish away.”
In other news, nudists protest invasive gaze of onlookers.
And actually, Democrats don’t have to “just wish it away.” They covered it up (metaphorically speaking) when it was most important to do so, and helped Biden get elected.
And let us not forget that Hunter is still in good favor with father Joe Biden, who has called him “the smartest guy I know.”
The NY Magazine article begins like this:
Imagine the entirety of your digital existence plotted out before you: your accounts and passwords; your avatars; your contacts; every exchange of written dialogue; the full history of your logged interests, banal and forgettable and closely held; the note where you scrawled once-urgent word fragments that now make zero sense to you; the rabbit holes you fell down or the minor obsession or the thing that connected to the thing that led you to decide to do another thing that became a part of a part of a part of who you are, or a part of who you are to some people, or a part of who you are only to yourself, barely recognizable in the light of day. Your selfies. Your sexts. Your emails. Your calendar. Your to-do list. Your playlists. Your tabs.
That certainly wouldn’t also involve my own obsessive documentation of drug use and pornographic photos of cavorting with prostitutes, as well as documentation of corruption involving foreign countries my father dealt with as vice president.
They try to cover that in the next paragraph:
Now imagine that you are both the son of a man running for president and a lawyer and lobbyist accustomed to mixing with powerful people and doing business overseas premised on your proximity to those powerful people, and that you are in the throes of a divorce and a midlife catastrophe brought on by the early death of your older brother and that, in your distortion field of grief, on a hell-bent drug-and-alcohol binge, you have been making even more horrible choices, taking up with your brother’s widow and, while in considerable financial debt, hiring prostitutes and zoning out with camgirls and staying awake for days at a time on crack cocaine and generally hurting everyone in your life who is trying to help you with your cruel and idiotic behavior.
That’s a bit more like it, but it still leaves out an awful lot, including his corruption involving foreign countries. It also distorts the extent of his drug problems, which did not start after his brother’s death but have been pretty much lifelong and very very serious. And his divorce occurred after he took up with his brother’s widow. Plus, of course, he didn’t have to document all of this on his computer, which I assume he did for a combination of reasons that involve narcissism, self-titillation, playing with fire, and perhaps a desire to get caught.
That desire to get caught also may have featured into his leaving the laptop at the computer repair shop.
The article goes on to attempt to still cast at least some doubt on the laptop’s contents’ authenticity, and to act as though somehow this “breach” wasn’t 100% Hunter Biden’s fault. Here’s a typical sentence along those lines:
Hidden inside the laptop, according to those (almost exclusively on the right) who have reviewed the data or who trust the word of those who claim they have, is a corruption scandal that implicates not just Hunter but other members of the Biden family, including the president.
Then there’s this, for which the author ought to get some sort of Pulitzer for weasling:
Without a counterargument from the White House or the Biden family, and with mainstream political reporters only now trying to catch up to the tabloid coverage and the ideologically motivated actors who have been advancing the story, Democrats in Washington simply don’t know what to say. There has been no penalty for silence while they’ve been in power, just the vague assumption that it does seem like there’s something to the story, if only anyone credible would bother to check it out.
Oh, I see: “mainstream political reporters” (that is, papers on the left) are “only now trying to catch up to the tabloid coverage and the ideologically motivated actors” (that is, the actual reporters who were not part of the actual vast conspiracy of the Democrats, the intelligence community, and the MSM to lie about the laptop’s contents, mischaractize it as “disinformation”, and block any bona fide reporting about it, in order for the implicated Joe Biden to get elected). I also like this – “the vague assumption that it does seem like there’s something to the story, if only anyone credible would bother to check it out.” How do we define “credible”? Seems that NY Mag defines it as “anyone on the left, who all have political reasons to suppress and lie about the story, and who did so previously with vigor.” I guess that makes them “credible” and makes the actual truth-tellers “liars not to be trusted.”
[NOTE: I didn’t read the rest of the very very long article. I am quite familiar with the facts of the laptop revelations already, and how they came about.]
Another “unexpected” bit of financial news
Funny how the experts keep getting the prognostications wrong. Such as:
Stocks fell sharply on Tuesday after a key August inflation report came in hotter than expected, hurting investor optimism for cooling prices and a less aggressive Federal Reserve.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 1,276.37 points, or 3.94%, to close at 31,104.97. The S&P 500 dropped 4.32% to 3,932.69, and the Nasdaq Composite sank 5.16% to end the day at 11,633.57…
The August consumer price index report showed a higher-than-expected reading for inflation. Headline inflation rose 0.1% month over month, even with falling gas prices. Core inflation rose 0.6% month over month. On a year-over-year basis, inflation was 8.3%.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting a decline of 0.1% for overall inflation, with a rise of 0.3% for core inflation.
The report is one of the last the Fed will see ahead of their Sept. 20-21 meeting, where the central bank is expected to deliver its third consecutive 0.75 percentage point interest rate hike to tamp down inflation. The unexpectedly high August report could lead the Fed to continue its aggressive hikes longer than some investors anticipated.
Open thread 9/13/22
All quiet on the hurricane front
Not too many hurricanes so far this year:
Perhaps what is most striking about this season is that we are now at the absolute peak of hurricane season, and there is simply nothing happening. Although the Atlantic season begins on June 1, it starts slowly, with maybe a storm here or there in June, and often a quiet July before the deep tropics get rolling in August. Typically about half of all activity occurs in the 14 weeks prior to September 10, and then in a mad, headlong rush the vast majority of the remaining storms spin up before the end of October.
While it is still entirely possible that the Atlantic basin—which includes the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean Sea—produces a madcap finish, we’re just not seeing any signs of it right now.
Many non-scientist AGW proponents in the popular press are eager to attribute all unusual weather events to AGW, and to consider them bad. They also often fail to differentiate between weather (which this is) and long-term trends. I expect they’ll say that this year’s dearth of hurricanes is due to AGW.
And here’s an article about global warming and hurricanes, from June of 2022, that says that scientists have predicted there will be a decrease in hurricane frequency and in increase in hurricane intensity over time, due to AGW. This season we’ve seen the first but have not seen the second; au contraire. But a season does not a trend make.
What’s going on in Ukraine these days?
Plenty.
I don’t usually report on the ups and downs of the military events in Ukraine, nor do I make prognostications except for making one – which still stands – that this will go on for quite a while longer and the outcome is uncertain.
That’s more of a prediction-avoidance maneuver than a prediction.
But the recent news from Ukraine is that the Ukrainians have mounted a successful campaign to take back territory from the Russian invaders. That seems to be real and not propaganda. Here’s some evidence that at least some Russians are getting the picture – and by the way, the video shows a more fascinating give-and-take from people on both sides than you usually (or ever?) see on US television. Well worth watching:
Russian chat shows always had the “NATO shill guest” who said relatively sensible things and could then be torn down by the others.
But Boris Nadezhdin here speaking some dangerous truths, you wonder if he might simply get arrested soon. pic.twitter.com/KwF8xqaEn4
— Shaun Walker (@shaunwalker7) September 11, 2022
You can read a very glowing pro-Ukraine account of the situation here. For example:
Not only was the Kharkiv offensive well-coordinated and efficiently executed, it completely surprised Russian forces in the area. That’s extraordinary in today’s information age. Yet the Ukrainians managed it, completely blocking any leaks about a forthcoming attack. Ukraine’s operational security bespeaks both a skilled military and a nation united by Russia’s unprovoked aggression.
The Kharkiv counter-offensive was opportunistic in the best sense. Unlike the battle now unfolding in the southern region of Kherson, just north of Crimea, the battle for Kharkiv was not prepared for months. In the south, Ukrainian officials repeatedly said they were planning to retake the region. Then, having lured more troops into an indefensible position, they prepared the battlefield by severing bridges and exploding ammunition dumps, cutting off the Russians’ resupply. Doing that in Kharkiv would have eliminated any chance for surprise.
Surprise — followed by swift movement across Kharkiv — was possible because Moscow had too few troops to hold that hostile territory. Its forces were thin from the start of the invasion last February, when Russia expected to seize the capital city with blitzkrieg speed. When that failed and the war dragged on, Moscow found it impossible to adequately reinforce its positions with well-trained soldiers. It simply didn’t have them. It had to rely on mercenaries, conscripts, and poorly trained cannon fodder. Russia’s already-thin forces in Kharkiv were depleted even further as military planners began withdrawing troops and equipment and moving them south to fight in Kherson.
I think a fairly important aspect of the differential is morale, and it may be quite telling over the long run.
You can read more here as well as here.
While it is right to celebrate the Russian rout, the war may be entering a far more dangerous phase.
Consider: If Russian President Vladimir Putin tired of attrition and decided to use tactical nuclear weapons, how would Russian behavior—a rapid withdrawal and even leaving key equipment behind—be different? The answer: It would not be…
Celebrations may be premature if Putin seeks to achieve through nuclear weapons what he could not with manpower. To remain silent now, downplay the threat that Russia might use its tactical nuclear weapons, or let fear govern policy will mean the end of the post-World War II liberal order.
As the Ukraine war enters a crucial new phase, it is time both to step up deterrence and plan for what comes after Russian first use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
Something of which the Biden administration appears quite incapable.
What does it take to wake people up to tyranny?
Commenter “stan” says, regarding how the left has been undermining our liberties and using lawfare to silence the opposition they label as the enemy, “What’s it going to take for good people to see what is happening in plain sight?”
I’ve pondered that question myself, and my answer is: a great deal more than has already occurred, unfortunately. One of the aspects of tyranny, especially one accompanied by widespread propaganda, is that it can be successfully reframed so that many “good people” don’t notice. One reason this happens is that it’s hard to believe that people you’ve supported for so long are doing tyrannical things, because in general you agree with their point of view and are inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt – at least, until the crocodile eats you, and then it’s too late.
Another reason is ignorance of history.
Another reason is not paying attention. Just to take one example, see this poll about Biden’s Red Sermon speech:
About half of Americans watched, heard, or overheard something about Biden’s speech (51%) which took place in Philadelphia last week. Independents (64%) and Republicans (48%) were least likely to have followed the speech, but 35% of Democrats also didn’t.
We’re not just talking about half of Americans not watching the speech. We’re talking about half of Americans not knowing anything about the speech. Independents, who are so important in elections, are the most likely to have been clueless about the speech. That says a lot, I think.
The poll has further statistics on responses to the speech, but I don’t have access to the full report, and the summary doesn’t say whether the rest of the results only involve the responses of those who’ve heard something about the speech, or if they reflect even the half who know nothing about it.
I can well understand the desire to turn away from politics. I spent a great deal of my earlier life following politics only in a fairly general and sporadic way, and back then I probably represented the average person’s involvement; maybe even slightly more than average. Politics is nasty, messy, and often depressing. It’s easier and more pleasant to ignore it until you’re forced to pay attention and then there are three big problems. The first is that most of what’s written and said is propaganda. The second is that it’s hard to pay catch-up because you lack the historical perspective. And the third is that by the time the picture becomes clear enough to really see what’s happening, it’s often too late.
Will enough people wake up in time in this country to reverse the leftist tide? That remains to be seen.
ADDENDUM: VDH writes on the fact that the US has become unhinged, and people around the world are noticing and many are alarmed. [Hat tip: commenter “j e”.]
Open thread 9/12/22
There’s so much we don’t know about the past. But it’s also amazing how much we do know about the past:
Theme and variations on “Little Girl Blue”
I first heard the song “Little Girl Blue” when I was in high school, sung by Nina Simone. My high school boyfriend introduced me to her records, and I was immediately taken with her unique musical style. No one sounded like her back then or even now. Her rendition of “Little Girl Blue,” a Rodgers and Hart song from 1935, was heartrending but also controlled and classical – not surprising, because her piano accompaniment bore the marks of her Julliard training (she originally had wanted to be a concert pianist). I don’t know which I liked better, her singing or her playing, but luckily I didn’t have to choose.
I was recently exploring the song on YouTube and came across this Sinatra version, which doesn’t overly appeal to me – it seems quite bland – but is an interesting contrast (I’m cutting out the old-fashioned intro and going right into the song):
Ella Fitzgerald has a lovely light touch that never fails. But again, for me anyway, it’s not as good as the intensely dramatic Nina Simone, although I like it a lot better than Sinatra:
I was shocked to find out that Janis Joplin did a version. A whole different kettle of fish, as you might imagine. I often like Joplin quite a bit, but to me her approach takes away from the song’s delicate sorrow, although it’s certainly different from the others:
And here – finally – is Nina Simone in 1959, very similar to the version I’ve known so well and loved so long. Note the finesse and beauty of her piano playing, too. You can hardly miss it:
Later on Simone went through a period of displaying anger at the audience – or at the world, or at something undetermined – during some of her concerts. It think that some of it was the turbulent times, and/or some may have been that she later was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I once went to a Nina Simone concert during those years, and it was uncomfortable, but her music hadn’t lost its brilliance and beauty. I’m including this live version of “Little Girl Blue” from that period – 1976 – to show what I mean, changed lyrics and all. She used stillness and quiet to remarkable effect:
From Nina Simone’s Wiki entry:
Besides using Bach-style counterpoint, she called upon the particular virtuosity of the 19th-century Romantic piano repertoire—Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, and others. Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis spoke highly of Simone, deeply impressed by her ability to play three-part counterpoint (her two hands on the piano and her voice each providing a separate but complementary melody line).
I’m still deeply impressed by that very same thing, but also by her ability to express restrained yet naked emotion with her voice while simultaneously conveying Apollonian classicism through her piano.
The Biden administration’s lawfare against Trump allies continues
They want to frighten people into never, never ever working for Trump again. Those MAGA Republicans are, of course, the enemy out to destroy America, and they deserve everything they might get – after all, Biden said so in his Red Sermon, didn’t he?
Steve Bannon, who was pardoned by Trump for federal charges but is now being tried by New York for virtually the same charges, because Trump’s pardon can only apply federally and not to a state, has this to say:
…Bannon appeared on the Charlie Kirk show on Friday and he made some concerning remarks about efforts by the Biden FBI against Trump allies. Bannon said that we saw from Biden’s “demonic” anti-MAGA speech that this was the “primal scream” of a “dying regime.” Bannon claimed there were “35 FBI raids” on senior MAGA/Trump allies.
I wouldn’t necessarily credit that, except that attorney Harmeet Dhillon confirmed that she has three clients that this happened to:
Dhillon appeared with Tucker Carlson. She said that there had been a reporter reaching out asking if search warrants or subpoenas had been served on some 50 people. Dhillon confirmed to Tucker Carlson that search warrants or subpoenas had been served on three clients of hers — one of whom had their phone seized. The federal grand jury subpoenas were broad asking for any communications from October 2020, a month before the election to two months after the election. The subpoenas sought communications related to certification, fraud in the election, alternate electors, anything related to the rally before the Jan. 6 riot, and any communications related to the Save America PAC.
January 6th is the Reichstag Fire that keeps on giving. And if you previously thought that was hyperbole, I think that Biden’s over-the-top speech on September 1st should have convinced you otherwise.
More at the link, including a sample subpoena connected with these investigations.
NOTE: Please see this alarming and related development. An excerpt:
A trial was held, and on Sept. 6 New Mexico Judge Francis Mathew ordered Griffin removed from office and banned from holding any future office in the United States. “The historic ruling represents the first time an elected official has been removed from office for their participation or support of the U.S. Capitol riot,” CNN reported. “It also marks the first time a judge has formally ruled that the events of January 6, 2021 were an ‘insurrection.'”…
Mathew’s “insurrection” finding was critical to the case. After all, the 14th Amendment provides for disqualification of anyone who, having previously taken an oath to support the Constitution, has engaged in “insurrection or rebellion against the [United States].” Unlike soldiers of the Confederacy who took up arms, Griffin trespassed. How could he be removed from office for that? If the Capitol riot were not an “insurrection,” the case against Griffin fell apart. So Mathew declared the riot an “insurrection.”…
Note that in his citation…Mathew referred to “intimidation by numbers.” That was his way of suggesting that Griffin, simply by being one member of a larger group of protesters and rioters on Jan. 6, was guilty of something far greater than trespassing. Indeed, Mathew’s ruling was filled with references to what “the mob” did on Jan. 6 but had fewer examples of what Griffin himself did on Jan. 6. In any event, Mathew found that Griffin had engaged in “insurrection.” He order Griffin ousted from his position and barred from ever holding any state or federal office again.
There’s a great deal more at the link.
Using similar reasoning and approach, the left has already tried (unsuccessfully so far) to disqualify two Republican members of Congress from running for office: Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Tomorrow it will have been 21 years since 9/11
Tomorrow is 9/11.
Twenty-one years is a long long time, and a lot has happened since then to America and to the world. And yet 9/11 still marks a kind of turning point.
Never such innocence again, after 9/11.
Here’s a repeat of what I wrote on the 17th anniversary, with a few slight changes. It still rings true to me.
There are plenty of young adults who don’t clearly remember a time before 9/11. The attack is just part of the background music of life, just as Pearl Harbor was for me when I was growing up. As a child, I couldn’t quite understand what the big fuss was all about; it was history, after all.
But even for those of us who were fully adult—maybe even old—at the time of 9/11, it was a long while ago, and although I can only speak for myself I think that for the most part the event has been fully incorporated (as much as humanly possible, that is) into our view of the world. It is no longer so shocking as history.
That doesn’t mean it’s still not shocking on the occasions when we fully contemplate it. It’s just that we rarely do, although an anniversary like today would be a good time to do it. It also doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be very shocking if something similar were to ever happen again (heaven forbid). But it does mean that 9/11 is part of our view of the world, a view that has had a full twenty-one years to form. And a great deal has happened since then.
But I still remember the fear, dread, grief, and anger I felt that day. Here’s what I wrote about it in 2005, when the memory was still quite fresh. Any photos of the many people who died at the hands of the perpetrators that day still move me; all those innocent lives snuffed out, many in their prime.
There were heroes that day such as, for example, the Flight 93 passengers and crew, the firefighters and police, the ordinary people in the WTC who stopped to help assist others to get out (some of whom lost their own lives in the process), those on the planes who phoned to say a last goodbye to loved ones or to give information about the hijackings—all are heroes to me. RIP, and let us never become blasé about what happened.
I would have wished for more unity of purpose among Americans and the Western world in the aftermath. That was most definitely not to be. We are more divided than ever, I think, although it’s a cliché to say so. Much of what is happening today doesn’t seem related to 9/11, but much of it is. Forces were unleashed that day that still reverberate, sometimes in unexpected ways.
One of the most unexpected was my own small personal story of political change that began on that day but really had been in the works for a long time without my even being aware of it, and which took a couple of post-9/11 years to actually be completed.
I suppose it’s still a work in progress, and this blog is part of it.