Tag: Justice

Now Its Up to the Federal Court

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(Update:  The federal judge that it was brought to, the most deranged right-winger in the 5th circuit, has rejected the application for lack of standing.)

The Texas Supreme Court has rejected an effort by Republicans to throw out 127,000 votes in Houston:

A legal cloud hanging over nearly 127,000 votes already cast in Harris County was at least temporarily lifted Sunday when the Texas Supreme Court rejected a request by several conservative Republican activists and candidates to preemptively throw out early balloting from drive-thru polling sites in the state’s most populous, and largely Democratic, county.

The all-Republican court denied the request without an order or opinion, as justices did last month in a similar lawsuit brought by some of the same plaintiffs.

The Republican plaintiffs, however, are pursuing a similar lawsuit in federal court, hoping to get the votes thrown out by arguing that drive-thru voting violates the U.S. constitution. A hearing in that case is set for Monday morning in a Houston-based federal district court, one day before Election Day. A rejection of the votes would constitute a monumental disenfranchisement of voters — drive-thru ballots account for about 10% of all in-person ballots cast during early voting in Harris County.

………

The Harris County Clerk’s Office argued that its drive-thru locations are separate polling places, distinct from attached curbside spots, and therefore can be available to all voters. The clerk’s filing with the Supreme Court in the earlier lawsuit also said the Texas secretary of state’s office had approved of drive-thru voting. Keith Ingram, the state’s chief election official, said in a court hearing last month in another lawsuit that drive-thru voting is “a creative approach that is probably okay legally,” according to court transcripts.

Plus, the county argued in a Friday filing that Texas’ election code, along with court rulings, have determined that even if the drive-thru locations are violations, votes cast there are still valid.

“More than a century of Texas case law requires that votes be counted even if election official[s] violate directory election laws,” the filing said.

The challenge was the latest in a flurry of lawsuits on Texas voting procedures filed in recent months, with Democrats and voting rights groups pushing for expanded voting access in the pandemic and Republicans seeking to limit voting options. In this case, the lawsuit filed Tuesday asked the state Supreme Court to close Harris County’s 10 new drive-thru polling places and not count votes that had been cast at them during early voting.

Seriously, this Republican Jihad against voting is a clear and present danger to the Republic, and this needs to be dealt with.

Making a common cause is not possible at this point.

My suggestion is that we take the suggestion historian and author Robert Graves regarding the Germanic tribes during the Roman empire:

Spaniards can be impressed by the courtesy of the conqueror, French by his riches, Greeks by his respect for the arts, Jews by his moral integrity, Africans by his calm and authoritative bearing, but Germans are impressed by none of these things. They must be struck into the dust, struck down again as they rise. Struck again while they lie groaning, while their wounds still pain them; they will respect the hand that dealt them.”

—Germanicus Caesar, Roman general
(15 B.C.- 19 A.D.)

 We need to stop trying to accommodate them. 

The Bobbsey Twins Are At It Again

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Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman have veen indicted in yet another state for their program of threatening voter suppression robocalls.

Seeing as how they have shown themselves to be undeterred from their lives of crime by the prior indictments, I think that pre-trial detention without bail is called for:

A grand jury in Cleveland on Tuesday indicted right-wing political hoaxers Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman with felony charges connected to a multi-state robocall campaign that prosecutors say was meant to scare voters in urban areas with large minority populations out of voting by mail in the Nov. 3 presidential election.

Wohl, 22, of Irvine, California, and Burman, 54, of Arlington, Virginia, are indicted on eight counts of telecommunications fraud and seven counts of bribery in connection with more than 8,000 calls that were placed to residents of Cleveland and East Cleveland.

Wohl and Burkman already face similar criminal charges in Michigan and a civil lawsuit in New York City connected to the same scheme. They are free on a $100,000 bond after pleading not guilty to charges in that state.

Cuyahoga County court records say Wohl and Burkman are expected to make their first court appearance on Nov. 13.

The charges stem from a group called Project 1599, which Wohl and Burkman founded. The caller told potential voters that police and debt-collection companies could use personal information that voters put on their mail-in ballots to track down people who have outstanding warrants and credit-card debt. The claim is not true.

………

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office was the first to file charges against the duo. Ohio’s investigation began when U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge, a Cleveland Democrat, and others went to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office, which referred the case to prosecutors in Cuyahoga County, the Columbus Dispatch reporter earlier this month.

………

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose referenced the indictments Tuesday afternoon during an appearance on Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s twice-weekly coronavirus address. DeWine invited LaRose on to discuss voter turnout and concerns about in-person voting.

LaRose said that his office received a tip through its voter-fraud website of “an incident of voter intimidation that was targeted particularly at the minority community,” which he called a “really ugly and pernicious act of voter intimidation.”

………

Wohl and Burkman have risen to notoriety in recent years as they blundered their way through a series of public announcements of scandals later discredited.

Wohl earlier this year began circulating what he said was a copy of a lab report showing that Biden had contracted COVID-19 and had 30 days to live. Biden and his campaign dismissed the report as fraudulent.

The pair is also accused of hiring one of Wohl’s ex-girlfriends to publicly accuse Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who is more popular and seen as more trustworthy on information about the pandemic than Trump, of assaulting her in a hotel in 2014. The woman later told a reporter that the accusation was false and that Wohl and Burkman paid her to levy it.

How do folks like this, and I am including the evil James O’Keefe (I know a good James O’Keef) stay out of jail.

If they weren’t white ……… Oh, now I get it.

Of Course She Did

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Lisa Murkowski has reversed course, and has announced that she will vote to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

She doesn’t care, her next election is in 2022, and she figures that it won’t be a problem then.

I will remind you what I say about the “Centrists” in both parties:

A liberal (moderate) Republican will:

  • Talk about the need to work across the aisle.
  • Plead for moderation.
  • Chastise his party for extremism.
  • Sometimes vote against his party.
  • When the vote is close, and it is important, he will vote with the Republicans.

A moderate (conservative) Democrat will:

  • Talk about the need to work across the aisle.
  • Plead for moderation.
  • Chastise his party for extremism.
  • Sometimes vote against his party.
  • When the vote is close, and it is important, he will vote with the Republicans.

Another Assassination Attempt

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Only this time, it was Republican Ohio Governor Mike DeWine who was targeted:

A Miami County resident has told police that he was approached about helping to arrest Gov. Mike DeWine at his Greene County home and try him for “tyranny.”

The case has been referred to the Ohio State Highway Patrol, though a spokesman declined to discuss further details, citing security reasons.

A resident of Piqua, in a police report filed last Friday, said that he was contacted earlier that day by Renea Turner, an activist who has been protesting DeWine’s coronavirus policies. Cleveland.com is withholding the man’s name for safety reasons.

During the call, Turner was reported to have said the plan was to arrest the governor later that weekend, try him for several supposed crimes, and sentence him to a penalty that could include exile or execution, according to the Ohio Capital Journal, which first reported the story, as well as state Rep. John Becker of Clermont County in a YouTube video.

I am not a lawyer, but this whole “exile” thing seems to be constitutionally dubious.

The goal here was an execution.  

Guilty as Hell, and Stupid

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But Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is a Texas Republican, so it come with the territory.

He has now begun retaliating against the senior staff who reported him to the authorities, and firing two whistle-blowers, and stripping authority from 2 others:

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office has sidelined four of the seven senior aides who weeks ago told law enforcement they believed Paxton had committed bribery and abuse of office — firing two and placing two more on leave — in what employment attorneys say looks like a clear act of retaliation against legally protected whistleblowers.

The aides, who represented a large share of the agency’s most senior staff, alerted law enforcement and then agency human resources that they believed Paxton was using the power of his office to serve a political donor, Austin real estate developer Nate Paul. The agency had taken the unusual step of weighing in on a lawsuit that involved Paul, and Paxton personally hired an outside investigator — in a process aides called highly suspect — to vet the donor’s complaints

Ian Prior, a spokesperson for Paxton’s campaign, denied Friday that the personnel decisions had anything to do with their accusations against Paxton.

………

Mark Penley, the deputy attorney general for criminal justice, was put on leave weeks ago, shortly after reporting Paxton to law enforcement, top aides have said. And Jeff Mateer, who worked for years as Paxton’s top deputy, resigned earlier this month after accusing his boss of running afoul of the law.

A sixth employee, Director of Law Enforcement David Maxwell, was also placed on leave earlier this month. Maxwell did not sign on to the whistleblowers’ Oct. 1 letter to human resources, which stated they had “a good faith belief that the Attorney General is violating federal and/or state law.” But he was involved in the investigation that sparked the mutiny against Paxton — and Paxton has slammed Maxwell for his work on the case.

These whistle-blowers were close political allies of Paxton, and the depth of his corruption has been an open secret in Texas for years.

I Learned 2 Things Today

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The first is that when you clear private data from the Chrome browser it keeps data for Google and Youtube, which is owned by Google.

The second, and completely related thing that I learned today is that the DoJ has finally filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Google.

I’m a bit dubious of the lawsuit, it reeks of William Barr rat-f%$#ery, it appears to be timed to maximize the political benefit to Trump and his Evil Minions™, but it’s been pretty clear for a while that much of tech company profitability is based on extracting monopoly rents.

I do hope that Google, and Facebook, and (particularly) Amazon get nailed to the wall, but I think that this effort is more likely to benefit the monopolists than reign them in:

The Justice Department accused Google on Tuesday of illegally protecting its monopoly over search and search advertising, the government’s most significant challenge to a tech company’s market power in a generation and one that could reshape the way consumers use the internet.

In a much-anticipated lawsuit, the agency accused Google of locking up deals with giant partners like Apple and throttling competition through exclusive business contracts and agreements.

………

“For many years,” the agency said in its 57-page complaint, “Google has used anticompetitive tactics to maintain and extend its monopolies in the markets for general search services, search advertising and general search text advertising — the cornerstones of its empire.”

………

Google called the suit “deeply flawed.” But the agency’s action signaled a new era for the technology sector. It reflects pent-up and bipartisan frustration toward a handful of companies — Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook in particular — that have evolved from small and scrappy companies into global powerhouses with outsize influence over commerce, speech, media and advertising. Conservatives like President Trump and liberals like Senator Elizabeth Warren have called for more restraints over Big Tech.

………

………

Democratic lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee released a sprawling report on the tech giants two weeks ago, also accusing Google of controlling a monopoly over online search and the ads that come up when users enter a query.

“A significant number of entities — spanning major public corporations, small businesses and entrepreneurs — depend on Google for traffic, and no alternate search engine serves as a substitute,” the report said. The lawmakers also accused Apple, Amazon and Facebook of abusing their market power. They called for more aggressive enforcement of antitrust laws, and for Congress to consider strengthening them.

………

………

He put the investigation under the control of his deputy, Jeffrey Rosen, who in turn hired Mr. Shores, an aide from a major law firm, to oversee the case and other technology matters. Mr. Barr’s grip over the investigation tightened when the head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, Makan Delrahim, recused himself from the investigation because he represented Google in its acquisition of the ad service DoubleClick in 2007.

………

This sort of revolving door is precisely why we haven’t seen meaningful antitrust lately:  That revolving door is tremendously lucrative.

While it is possible that a new Democratic administration would review the strategy behind the case, experts said it was unlikely that it would be withdrawn under new leadership.

Your mouth to God’s ear.

 And if you are wondering, I am VERY MUCH aware of the irony involved in my saying this on a Google owned platform.

Long Overdue

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I’m not a big fan of Representative Tulsi Gabbard, but her proposal to allow defendants to use a public interest defense in cases of releases of classified information is an idea long overdue. 

Prosecutions under the Espionage Act frequently resemble a kangaroo court, particularly in Judge Leonie Brinkama’s court, where she has consistently made a vigorous defense by the defendant impossible.

Still, I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop about it, because I do not trust Gabbard:

Legislation proposed in Congress would amend the United States Espionage Act and create a public interest defense for those prosecuted under the law.

“A defendant charged with an offense under section 793 or 798 [in the U.S. legal code] shall be permitted to testify about their purpose for engaging in the prohibited conduct,” according to a draft of the bill Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard introduced.

Such a reform would make it possible for whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, Reality Winner, Terry Albury and Daniel Hale to inform the public why they disclosed information without authorization to the press.

The legislation called the Protect Brave Whistleblowers Act is supported by Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.

“If this long-overdue revision of the 1917 Espionage Act had been law half a century ago, I myself could have had a fair trial for releasing the Pentagon Papers in 1971: justice under law unavailable to me and to every other national security whistleblower indicted and prosecuted since then,” Ellsberg declared.

………

As noted, government employees or contractors prosecuted under the Espionage Act would be allowed an “affirmative defense” under the Protect Brave Whistleblowers Act that they engaged in the “prohibited conduct for purpose of disclosing to the public” violations of laws, rules or regulations, or to expose “gross mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety.”

………

However, the Espionage Act Reform bill appears to do more to prohibit the Justice Department from prosecuting journalists. It specifically ensures “only personnel with security clearances can be prosecuted for improperly revealing classified information” and aims to protect the rights of members of the press that “solicit, obtain or publish government secrets.”

“When brave whistleblowers come forward to expose wrongdoing within our government, they must have the confidence that they, and the press who publishes this information, will be protected from government retaliation,” stated Gabbard.

I like the bill, though my preferred solution, adopting the Swedish concept of Offentlighetsprincipen (openness) as an explicit constitutional right.

Anything that provides more accountability and exposure to the US state security apparatus is a good thing.

The Central Park “Karen” Story Gets Even Worse

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In addition to calling 911, and trying to convince police that a Black bird-watcher was a threat, Amy Cooper made a second call to the cops stating that he had assaulted her.

If the DA has any stones, he should charge her with attempted murder:

Amy Cooper, the white woman who called the police on a Black bird-watcher in Central Park, made a second, previously unreported call to 911 in which she falsely claimed that the man tried to assault her, a prosecutor said on Wednesday.

“The defendant twice reported that an African-American man was putting her in danger, first by stating that he was threatening her and her dog, then making a second call indicating that he tried to assault her in the Ramble area of the park,” Joan Illuzzi, a senior prosecutor, said.

The second call was disclosed as Ms. Cooper appeared remotely in Manhattan Criminal Court to answer a misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report, which carries a maximum sentence of a year in jail.

Not enough.

Ms. Cooper had been charged in July, and no additional charges were announced on Wednesday. Ms. Illuzzi said the Manhattan district attorney’s office was negotiating a possible plea deal with Ms. Cooper that would allow her to avoid jail.

No.  She tried to get police to kill this man, same as if she unleashed a shark into his swimming pool.

………

But prosecutors said Ms. Cooper made a later call to 911, which was not shown in the video. In that call, Ms. Cooper told the dispatcher that Mr. Cooper had tried to assault her, according to a criminal complaint.

When the police arrived, however, Ms. Cooper told an officer that her reports were untrue, and that Mr. Cooper had not touched or assaulted her, the complaint said.

………

Still, the prosecutor said the district attorney’s office was exploring a resolution to the case that would require Ms. Cooper to take responsibility for her actions in court and attend a program to educate her on how harmful they were.

No.  This is more white privelege bullsh%$.  If she were Muslim, she would still be in Rikers with no bail.

She needs some incarcerated time, because otherwise, we will see another Karen doing the same Karen thing.

Signs of the Apocalypse

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Sen. Ted Cruz is appearing virtually. He has tested negative for COVID but has been self-quarantining after coming into contact with Sen. Mike Lee…who tested positive and delivered his in-person maskless opening statement in the hearing room.

— Hallie Jackson (@HallieJackson) October 12, 2020

We Are Doomed

OK, imagine a situation where there are two people in a similar situation.

One behaves responsibly, and the other acts likes an asshole.

One of the people is Ted Cruz, and the other ……… Isn’t Ted Cruz.

And finally, the asshole in this situation ……… Isn’t Ted Cruz.

If this is not an end of the world scenario, if not an end of all existence.

At the very least, Thanos is snapping his fingers like Frank Sinatra right now.

Yeah, “Forgot.”

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It turns out that Amy Coney Barrett omitted significant items from her submissions to the Senate Judiciary Committee, including speeches that she gave to anti-abortion groups, representing a steel magnate who drove a hospital into bankruptcy, and signed onto a letter calling for the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

She only revealed these on an amended form AFTER these were reported by the press.

It won’t matter, because Lindsay Graham does not care about this.  He’s hitched his wagon to Donald Trump.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

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A militia group in Michigan has just been arrested while planning to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

As Anna Russel would say, “I’m not making this up, you know.”

This is a logical extension of the whole militia/White Supremacist/Proud Boys/Oath Keepers sh%$ that Donald Trump has bee cultivating for years.

The federal government has charged six people with conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in an alleged domestic terrorist plot, according to newly unsealed court records.

Seven others face state charges, brought by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. All 13 are in custody, officials said.

Members of a militia group purchased weapons, conducted surveillance, and held training and planning meetings, but were foiled in part because the FBI was able to infiltrate the group with informants, according to charges officials planned to detail Thursday.

Plans included kidnapping Whitmer and putting her on trial for treason, officials allege.

They were planning on killing her.  Treason is a capital offense, particularly for the right wing militia crowd.

………

Whitmer also lashed out at President Donald Trump and accused him of “stoking distrust,” “fomenting anger” and emboldening groups who “spread fear and hatred and division.”

Absolutely true.

Trump is losing his sh%$ over her comments, to which I say, “You are such a delicate snowflake.”

Pass the Popcorn

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 A federal appeals court just called bullsh%$ on Trump’s attempt to use his being President* to prevent investigation of tax evasion and fraud.

The excerpts of the opinion indicate that the judges have no f%$#s left to give with either Trump’s lawyers or the DoJ obfuscations:

A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Manhattan’s district attorney can enforce his subpoena for President Trump’s tax returns, rejecting a bid by Trump’s lawyers to kill the request on grounds it’s a malicious political ploy and potentially setting up another high-stakes showdown at the Supreme Court.

………

The unanimous ruling was issued by a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which concluded, “We have considered all of the President’s remaining contentions on appeal and have found in them no basis for reversal.”

(emphasis mine)

That’s law speak for, “Your eyes are brown because you are completely full of sh%$.”

District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. is seeking eight years of the president’s tax returns and related documents as part of his investigation into alleged hush-money payments made ahead of the 2016 election to two women who said they had affairs with Trump years prior. Trump denies the claims. Investigators want to determine whether efforts were made to conceal the payments on tax documents by labeling them legal expenses.

………

The panel that heard the president’s appeal shot down his claim that the district attorney’s investigation is limited only to the alleged payments made by Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal — saying in their ruling that the “bare assertion . . . amounts to nothing more than implausible speculation.”

………

Vance’s bid for Trump’s tax records has been stalled since last year, when he issued the subpoena to Mazars.

Trump’s lawyers, who have signaled that they would ask the Supreme Court to look at the case again, have already lost at the high court, which in July rejected their initial argument that, as president, Trump is immune from prosecution. The justices said, however, that Trump could try again with a different approach.

I am amused.

We’ll See How Serious Senate Dems Are About Blocking Bennett Tomorrow

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Because Mitch McConnell is trying a maneuver that requires unanimous consent to accelerate the confirmation process, which means that only one senator objecting would require him to bring back the whole Senate, including those Senators quarantining after their exposure to Covid-19.

If the Democrats are serious about stopping her, and my guess it that they are NOT, they can throw a monkey wrench in the plans of Mitch McConnell and his Evil Minions™.

They won’t of course, because they are worthless cowards:

The first rule of Democratic Fight Club should be: Don’t ever do what Mitch McConnell wants you to do. On Monday, we will see if Senate Democrats understand that rule yet. They will have a rare opportunity to use their power to try to complicate McConnell’s plan to confirm Donald Trump’s third Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett.

………

Here is the basic summary of what’s going on: Democrats have the power to potentially block McConnell’s attempt to maintain maximum control of Senate proceedings in order to keep their Supreme Court confirmation plan on track. That scheme was outlined in a McConnell press release yesterday saying he wants to secure a consent agreement to temporarily adjourn the Senate.

McConnell wants this adjournment resolution because keeping the chamber open might allow Democrats to use the normal legislative process — as they recently did — to complicate the GOP’s plans while Republican senators are either campaigning for reelection or under COVID quarantine (three have already tested positive for COVID, and there is evidence that a number of GOP senators could have been exposed to the virus).

Adjournment also would allow Republicans to stall any potential progress on a pandemic relief package for the next two weeks.

If Democrats are able to vote down McConnell’s adjournment resolution, they could use their leverage to demand an adjournment resolution that defers the Supreme Court confirmation hearings and moves forward a pandemic relief package. At the very least, they could force Republican senators to leave the campaign trail and stay in Washington to cast procedural votes — which would only help Democratic senate candidates in their races.

………

The key thing to understand is this: McConnell desperately wants unanimous consent for his adjournment resolution, because he doesn’t want to force Republican senators to fly back to Washington to actually cast votes — and because of both the election campaign schedule and the COVID outbreak, he doesn’t have a clear sense of how many could actually make the journey. That uncertainty potentially gives Democrats the power to block McConnell’s adjournment resolution. As long as a majority of senators present are Democrats, they could vote it down.

It also adds days to the time required to make this motion, and any delay plays to the advantage of the Democrats.

I get that they have some fondness for the “collegiality” of the Senate, but, as been shown over the past at least 20 years, collegiality is a one way state, and never inconveniences the Republicans.

Shut it down.

………

In this particular case, if Democrats deny McConnell unanimous consent, vulnerable GOP senators in key battleground states may have to leave the campaign trail, because Republicans would potentially need every vote they have while three of the party’s senators are out with COVID. If Democrats gather enough of their caucus to the senate floor, they may be able to vote down an adjournment resolution on a roll call vote.

………

To be sure, Republicans’ reckless behavior in creating a COVID super-spreader event at the White House has turned the U.S. Capitol into a potential coronavirus hot zone right now (which is even more reason to halt the entire Supreme Court confirmation process!). Democratic senators going into that hot zone to try to procedurally stall Barrett’s nomination is not without some risk, even though masks and PPE can make the risk more manageable.

………

Of course, gumming up McConnell’s adjournment resolution is not a singular panacea. However, it can be one move in a larger series of maneuvers that makes it as difficult as possible for Republicans to get their way — and playing for time in such a fluid environment is critical.

For at least the past 30 years, the endless refrain of the Democratic Party has been, “We won’t support organized labor, or stop subsidizing companies moving jobs overseas, or stop the banks from doing you like a drunk sorority girl, but think of the Supreme Court.”

Well, your excuse for not doing sh%$ has been called.  Your butt needs to cash this check that your mouth has been making for decades.

Breonna Taylor Tape is Out

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Two very different accounts emerged on Friday from either side of an apartment door in Louisville, the one that police officers knocked off its hinges in March as they delivered a search warrant at the home of Breonna Taylor.

In newly released audio from closed-door grand jury proceedings, there was conflicting testimony over what happened in the seconds before the police shot and killed Ms. Taylor, a Black emergency room technician whose death pulled people to the streets in protests across the country.

………

The grand jury concluded its work by bringing an indictment against one former officer for endangering Ms. Taylor’s neighbors; it brought no charges against the two officers who shot her.

Daniel Cameron, the Kentucky attorney general, released the recordings on Friday after a judge ordered him to do so, but the recordings did not include the instructions that prosecutors gave to the 12 jurors. One juror said Mr. Cameron was deflecting blame by saying it was jurors who had opted not to indict the two officers who shot Ms. Taylor.

………

The grand jurors met in person over three days and reviewed police interviews of officers and witnesses at the scene, 911 calls and body camera videos from after Ms. Taylor was shot. They also met directly with detectives who had investigated the killing.

At times the jurors sound inquisitive or skeptical on the recordings, peppering the detectives with questions and pointing out inconsistencies in some of the officers’ accounts. Below are highlights of the evidence presented in the new recordings.
The audio does not include prosecutors’ instructions, which came into question after a grand juror spoke out.

The audio files do not include statements or recommendations from prosecutors about which charges they think should be brought against the officers who took part in the raid. Mr. Cameron has said that jurors were told that the two officers who shot Ms. Taylor — Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and Detective Cosgrove, both of whom are white — were justified in their actions.

Mr. Cameron said prosecutors’ statements and jurors’ deliberations “were not recorded, as they are not evidence.” He has insisted that the jurors were given “all of the evidence” and were free to pursue additional charges.

This is complete crap.

The redacted tapes are clearly a coverup.


His release of the audiotapes came after a grand juror asked for the proceedings to be made public and accused Mr. Cameron of using the jurors to deflect blame over the decision. Grand jurors are given broad powers, but prosecutors often closely guide the jurors and inform them about their role. The process almost always remains secret.

………

After grand jurors heard a recording of the interview that Detective Cosgrove gave to investigators, one juror asked, “Does he have a history of panic attacks?” An investigator with the attorney general’s office said he did not know.

The grand jurors knew that the fix was in, but they were not told that they had sweeping powers to request information and issue subpoenas, even if the prosecutors did not want to.

………

Ms. Taylor’s next-door neighbors said they were awakened by banging but did not hear anyone announce that they were the police, according to interviews they gave to investigators. Once the shooting subsided, the neighbors said, they heard Ms. Taylor’s boyfriend sobbing and screaming for help.

………

In previous interviews with The New York Times, 11 of 12 witnesses on the scene that night said they never heard the police identify themselves. One of them said he heard the group say “police” just once.

Cops lie with impunity in court.  The current state Attorney General is fine with that.

………

The dozen grand jurors appeared inquisitive throughout the proceedings, asking witnesses about the evidence and sometimes sounding skeptical about what was provided to them.

………

The grand jurors asked a detective from the attorney general’s office several questions on the third and final day that they met, just hours before indicting Mr. Hankison.

They asked if the police had recovered drugs or money from the apartment; the detective said no, and that the police had not searched the apartment for drugs or paraphernalia after shooting Ms. Taylor. They asked whether he had diagrams of the scene (no) and why the officers’ body cameras were not activated (the detective said he did not know).

So, when the grand jurors asked for what they considered to be critical information, the response of the authorities was, “¯_(ツ)_/¯,” and they refused to tell those jurors that they have real and significant authority to investigate.

This is deeply corrupt.

It’s clear that the AG decided that they value the support of the cop unions over the over fair administration of justice.

Being Evil

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Google congractors are being forced to signed non-disclosure agreements that forbid them from reporting wrong doing or writing novels about Silicon Valley:

Google contract employees are alleging the company’s confidentiality agreements prevent them from a range of legal rights from whistleblowing to telling their parents how much they make, according to a recent court filing.

A California appeals court recently discussed a lawsuit accusing Alphabet‘s Google and one of its staffing firms, Adecco, of violating a number of California labor laws, including free speech, by requiring workers to sign extensive confidentiality agreements.

The contractors state they can’t talk about their wages, working conditions or colleagues, among other things, according to the court filing. 

“As a practical matter, plaintiffs argue, they are forbidden even to write a novel about working in Silicon Valley or to reassure their parents they are making enough money to pay their bills, matters untethered to any legitimate need for confidentiality,” the filing states.

………

According to the lawsuit filing, contractors said the rules prevent them from “disclosing violations of state and federal law, either within Google to their managers or outside Google to private attorneys or government officials.”

It also stated they can’t talk about the skills they obtained at Google if they’re looking for a job at a competitor, and can’t recommend colleagues who might be receptive to a rival job offer.

Plaintiffs also allege Adecco has an illegal policy prohibiting temporary employees placed at Google from working directly for Google without Adecco’s permission, the filing states. They also allege policies illegally prevented them from speaking out about failures to pay overtime work hours. 

“The defendant argued they communicate with government agencies regarding violations of law however, plaintiffs allege these clauses are meaningless and contrary to Google’s policies and practices of enforcement, which threaten employees for disclosing any information at all,” the filings read.

In the filing, dated Sept. 21, the appeals court reversed a lower court decision and said that plaintiffs could go forward with the case.

This is not a surprise. We already know that the biggest names in Silicon Valley including Google, colluded to depress wages of their employees.

And the Award for Most Ludicrous Reason Not to Prosecute a Cop Goes To………

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A special prosecutor investing the cesspool of corruption that is the Orange County Sheriff’s office has declined to prosecute deputies who filed false official reports, because, and as As Anna Russel would say, “I’m not making this up, you know,” they did not know that it was illegal to falsify official documents.

This is the most reprehensible excuse a prosecutor has ever given for letting corrupt cops walk:

Orange County (CA) sheriff’s deputies are the worst at law stuff. If the goal was to hire the stupidest, most plausibly-deniable candidates, the OCSD has hit the mark.

Deputies for this department have managed to achieve the impossible: turn local prosecutors against them by continuously mishandling evidence. Evidence must be managed carefully since it’s the thing prosecutors use to secure convictions. In the hands of deputies, evidence is just something that must be handled, however haphazardly, at whatever point they get around to it.

Since they can’t handle the job of correctly booking evidence, deputies have been faking reports, claiming evidence is booked in when it actually isn’t to avoid getting reprimanded for taking too long to process seized property. One deputy, Bryce Simpson, never did the job correctly. In 74 cases audited, 56 had no evidence booked at all and the other 18 only had some of the evidence booked.

Now, Deputy Bryce Simpson — along with Deputy Joseph Atkinson Jr. — are being given a pass by the special prosecutor presiding over the grand jury convened to decide whether these two slackers/liars should face criminal charges. According to the prosecutor, the deputies did nothing wrong because — wait for it — they didn’t know falsifying official documents was wrong.

………

You have got to be f%$#ing kidding me. Even if we believe the deputies — and there’s no reason we should — there has never been a case ever in any situation where falsifying official documents has been considered the right thing to do. That the deputies may have been unaware these actions could result in criminal charges is beside the point. The mens rea is the knowing falsification of documents, which has never been considered OK under any circumstances. And that’s even when the threat of criminal prosecution isn’t readily apparent.

And their testimony contradicts the Sheriff’s Department spokesperson, who says both deputies received training on the filing of evidence — training that presumably included the warning that faking these documents could result in criminal charges. If they didn’t pay attention to the criminal charge part of the training, that’s hardly an excuse. Ignorance of the law doesn’t help civilians. It shouldn’t aid and abet criminal actions committed by law enforcement officers.

This entire rotten edifice needs to be torn down root and branch.

The Root of Currency is “Current”, and Cryptocurrency Isn’t

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That’s why a court has ruled that a $100 million initial crypto coin offering (ICO) by Kin was an illegal unregistered securities sale.

When all is said and done, currency is supposed to allow one to spend a store of value on goods and services essentially instantly.

Even the most established crypto-currency, Bitcoin, takes hours, if not days, to process a transaction.
It is not a meaningful medium of exchange for even the most basic commercial activities:

The 2017 launch of the Kin cryptocurrency broke federal securities laws, a federal judge has ruled. Federal law requires anyone who offers a new security to the general public to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The messaging app maker Kik didn’t do that when it sold $100 million worth of Kin in 2017.

The company argued that Kin was legally a new virtual currency, not a security. In a Wednesday ruling, Judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected that claim. The ruling could have big consequences for the cryptocurrency world.

Since 2016, hundreds of cryptocurrency projects have held Kin-like “initial coin offerings” that raised millions—in a few cases, hundreds of millions—of dollars. Few of these offerings went through the traditional steps required to register a securities offering with the SEC. So Wednesday’s ruling could create legal headaches for existing blockchain projects launched via an ICO. It also limits the options for launching cryptocurrencies in the future.

Judge Hellerstein gave Kik and the SEC three weeks to come up with a joint recommendation on appropriate remedies. Kik says it is considering appealing the ruling.
How a cryptocurrency offering is like an orange grove

A security is an asset that investors purchase in hopes of making a profit. It includes traditional investment vehicles like stocks and bonds, but it also includes a catch-all category called an investment contract. The Supreme Court laid out the legal criteria for investment contracts in a landmark 1946 ruling.

………

In his Wednesday ruling, Hellerstein concluded that similar logic applies to the Kin tokens Kik sold in 2017. Officially, Kin owners are not entitled to any profits generated by the Kin ecosystem. But practically speaking, people bought Kin because they hoped a thriving Kin ecosystem would push up Kin’s value the same way that bitcoins and ether had become more valuable over time.

Hellerstein notes that Kik CEO Ted Livingston repeatedly touted Kin’s potential as an investment opportunity. “If you could grow the demand for it, then the price—the value of that cryptocurrency would go up, such that if you set some aside for yourself at the beginning, you could make a lot of money,” Livingston said.

………

This was a common way to bootstrap a new cryptocurrency during the 2017 ICO boom, and the Kik ruling could slam the door shut on this method for getting a new blockchain project off the ground. Registering as a security comes with a lot of regulations. Complying with those regulations will, at a minimum, require a lot of legal work. And some cryptocurrency projects might not fit into existing SEC rules at all.

This is a good thing.

ICO’s are a recipe for fraud.

Boy, This is Turning into a Sh%$ Show

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First, former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale creates the most convincing shirtless suspect audition tape for an episode of Cops ever, and now serial securities fraudster Jacob Wohl, and his partner in crime Jack Burkman, have been charged with election fraud and face the prospect of decades in prison.

The wheels really do seem to be coming off of Trump’s Evil Minions™ right now:

Conservative operatives Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman were charged on Thursday for allegedly orchestrating a series of robocalls aimed at suppressing the vote in the November presidential election, Michigan authorities said.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed a slew of charges against Burkman, 54, and Wohl, 22, including conspiracy to commit an election law violation and using a computer to commit the crime of election law – intimidating voters. Prosecutors allege the two political operatives were using a robocall system aimed at scaring Detroit voters away from using mail-in voting ballots. The calls, which were made in August, went out to nearly 12,000 Detroit residents.

Both Wohl and Burkman face four felony counts and a maximum sentence of 7 years in prison.

The voice on the call attributed to Wohl and Burkman attempts to trick listeners into not sending in mail-in ballots, falsely warning that the information would be used to track fugitives, collect on credit card debts, and enforce “mandatory vaccines.” The calls also told residents to “beware of vote by mail.”

………

Wohl and Burkman didn’t respond to immediate requests for comment. In August, Burkman denied being behind the robocall, claiming it was suspicious that it was connected to his personal cell phone number.

“No one in their right mind would put their own cell on a robocall,” Burkman told The Daily Beast.

Ummmm ………We’ve seen your other frauds and scams (also here, here, and here) 

You areally ARE that f%$#ing stupid.

………

The attorney general’s office added that during the investigation into the robocalls, investigators communicated with officials in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois—all of whom reported similar robocalls being made to residents in their states. All the calls, they said, were made to residents in “urban areas with significant minority populations,” the Michigan attorney general’s office said.

………

The Michigan charges aren’t the only legal charges facing the pair. Wohl has been charged with two felonies over alleged violations of California securities law. On Saturday, The Daily Beast reported on a secret FBI investigation into Wohl and Burkman over the leak of confidential juror questionnaires and grand jury testimony in the trial of Trump associate Roger Stone.

Wohl and Burkman became notorious online in 2018, after a failed attempt to manufacture a sexual assault allegation against Robert Mueller collapsed in spectacular fashion. Since then, they have tried to create hoaxes against other Trump opponents, but the schemes always fail almost immediately, often due to Wohl and Burkman’s own errors.

Seriously, these folks are flipping out. 

My deepest wish is that the inevitable shrapnel that results from their flying to pieces so spectacularly only injures their fellow travelers.

Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, Just Had a Bull Durham Moment

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The Secretary of Commerce has announced a target date of October 5, 2020 to conclude 2020 Census self-response and field data collection operations.

— U.S. Census Bureau (@uscensusbureau) September 28, 2020

Judge Koh Will be Seeing You

It’s never a good idea to call an umpire a c%$# sucker.  As was shown in the classic Baseball Movie Bull Durham.

 If you are a ball player, you are certainly going to get ejected, and likely to get fined.

When a senior administration official does the same thing with a Federal judge, as Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has just done with the census, this becomes a setup for a privileged asshole to have a very unpleasant day with a pissed off judge.

Even if he only spends a few hours in the slam waiting for a DoJ motion to bail him out, he will not enjoy himself.

An announcement Monday that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross is aiming to end census data collection by Oct. 5 took a federal judge by surprise days after she ordered operations to continue through Oct. 31 to get an accurate population count.

“Breaking news,” a lawyer for the Commerce Department told U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh as a hearing was under way on a lawsuit by civil rights groups claiming that the Trump administration’s move to compress the timeline for the once-a-decade census will result in an undercount of minorities.

The government lawyer pointed the judge to a tweet from the Census Bureau about Ross’s intentions.

Koh said she was “disturbed” that “despite the court’s order,” census supervisors have told field workers to wrap up data collection. The judge added that she’s been “inundated” with emails from field workers making similar allegations.

“Clearly, I need to bring this to a head sooner than I thought,” she said. “And I’m prepared to do it. So let’s do this.” 

(emphasis mine)

I am an engineer, and not a lawyer, dammit,* it seems to me that this is a judge who is very pissed off at what has just happened.

Hopefully, she will take action against the administration officials behind this, and not just the department of commerce.

*I love it when I get to go all Dr. McCoy!