Althouse: Sunrise

June 2, 2024

Sunrise — 5:23.

37 comments:

BUMBLE BEE said...: In 1960, Alabama’s democrat officials indicted Dr. Martin Luther King on charges of perjury, related to alleged underpayment of his state income taxes in 1956 and 1958. Dr. King’s initial charges were misdemeanor tax evasion. But democrat prosecutors later upgraded the charges to felony perjury — for lying on his tax returns — with a possible prison sentence of two to five years for each count.
Boosting misdemeanor tax evasion — which requires dishonest tax reporting — into a felony required some very creative prosecutorial thinking.

The technical basis for charging Dr. King with felony perjury instead of misdemeanor tax evasion was the Orwellian allegation that he had perjured himself in signing his evasive tax returns. Note that, like with Trump, Dr. King’s alleged unreported Alabama income was related to political donations.; 6/2/24, 6:33 PM
BUMBLE BEE said...: And as with Trump’s prosecution, it was the first time in Alabama history that any defendant was ever charged that way.

Both cases were brought by democrats against their political enemies. Both cases involved charges for victimless process crimes. Both cases involved creative bootstrapping of misdemeanors into felonies. Both cases included unprecedented interpretations of the law, charging prominent political figures with crimes never brought against others. Both cases involved charges deeply intertwined with their political activities and public roles: campaign donations in Dr. King’s case, and “legal expenses” argued rather to be campaign expenses for Trump.

H/T Coffee and Covid https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/the-outlaw-saturday-june-1-2024-c; 6/2/24, 6:37 PM
BUMBLE BEE said...: More...
Yesterday, New York Magazine ran what might be the best post-Verdict analysis yet, in a remarkable story headlined, “Prosecutors Got Trump — But They Contorted the Law.”
Here
https://archive.ph/SOayZ; 6/2/24, 6:45 PM
Meade said...: Bumble Bee +1
Highly recommended.

“No man is above the law.” It’s become cliche, but it’s an important point, and it’s worth pausing to reflect on the importance of this core principle. But it’s also meaningless pablum if we unquestioningly tolerate (or worse, celebrate) deviations from ordinary process and principle to get there. The jury’s word is indeed sacrosanct, as I learned long ago. But it can’t fix everything that preceded it. Here, prosecutors got their man, for now at least – but they also contorted the law in an unprecedented manner in their quest to snare their prey.”; 6/2/24, 6:55 PM
Mike of Snoqualmie said...: On yesterday's open thread:

Blogger gadfly said...
Washington state does not permit felons to run for political office so Trump likely will have his name stripped from the ballot. But MAGAts need not worry because Biden won the liberal state in 2020 by 20 points or 750K votes and "winner takes all" is used to apportion the 12 electoral college votes assigned to the state.

6/1/24, 8:47 PM

Blogger Mike of Snoqualmie said...
Hey, gadfly Where's that citation from the RCWs about Trump not being on the Washington State ballot? Maybe it doesn't exist?

6/2/24, 8:19 AM

So, gadfly, where are your citations? The world wonders.; 6/2/24, 7:05 PM
Mason G said...: Blogger gadfly said...
Washington state does not permit felons to run for political office...

Washington state has amended the Constitution? Interesting.; 6/2/24, 7:09 PM
TickTock said...: Well, that's pretty bland. Hope you and Meade got in a good run anyway.; 6/2/24, 7:24 PM
Jersey Fled said...: Washington State has no authority to set standards for candidates running for Federal office. Same as any other state.

As usual, Gadfly has his head up his butt. Proudly so.; 6/2/24, 7:35 PM
narciso said...: Game set match

https://x.com/FreyjaTarte/status/1787209756710494697; 6/2/24, 7:45 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Trump's verdict suade Maureen Dowd's sister to vote for Trump.

“I wasn’t going to vote for Trump,” Maureen Dowd’s sister, Peggy, told her, according to Dowd’s column. “But now I am because I thought this whole thing was a sham.”
Dowd said her sister was sympathetic to former President Trump’s description of himself as a martyr and said she thought Democrats were out to get the former president, who is also the presumptive GOP nominee for president in 2024.

“I couldn’t get to sleep,” Dowd recounted her sister telling her. “I was dreaming that I was in jail after a sham court trial. I was thinking that if they arrest me, I’d be out of luck. My father’s dead and two of my brothers are dead. Who else would save me?”; 6/2/24, 9:16 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Big if true: "Former President Trump joined the social media platform TikTok on Saturday, surpassing the Biden campaign’s followers in less than 24 hours since launching the account."

TikTok is a kid's platform, and the polls have always said kids like Biden over Trump.

What's going on there?; 6/2/24, 9:22 PM
Narayanan said...: “No man is above the law.
=================
does is resembele 'law can get anyone'; 6/2/24, 9:25 PM
Narayanan said...: I couldn’t get to sleep,” Dowd recounted her sister telling her...

.... My father’s dead and two of my brothers are dead. Who else would save me?”
=================
no sisterhood in that family? or any faith in NYT columnist influence?; 6/2/24, 9:29 PM
gadfly said...: Michael Cohen was investigated because he lied to his LLC's bank, First Republic Bank, and then, even as he was making public comments about entertaining a "peace deal" with Russian involvement, used the bank account associated with the Stormy Daniels hush payment to accept big payments from a prominent Russian oligarch.

There has been a lot of performed ignorance, (not watching one's step, perhaps) about the origin of the investigation that led to the felony conviction of Donald Trump. Immediately after Cohen set up the bank account, his transfer to Stormy Daniel's lawyer, Keith Davidson violated Cohen’s claims that his LLC would engage in real estate deals. Had it ended with the hush payment remaining secret, Cohen might have gotten away with it. But then as Trump’s private lawyer, he used the same account to accept payment from many foreign companies, some controlled by foreign governments.

The most alarming of those payments involved $416,665 over five months from Columbus Nova, which Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg ultimately controlled. Those payments were a concern because Andrii Artemenko and Felix Sater had used Cohen to pitch a “peace deal” for Ukraine to Mike Flynn.

Artemenko had become a suspect in Mueller’s Russia probe because he attempted to back-channel a deal to President Donald Trump that would have had his administration drop sanctions against Russia imposed by the Obama White House. Felix Slater is a Soviet-born convicted felon who worked on real estate deals with President Donald Trump and was accused of plotting to use Trump-branded skyscrapers to launder money allegedly stolen from a Kazakhstan bank.

The payments from Columbus Nova — plus payments from Korea Airspace Industries, Kazkommertsbank, and Novartis — would undoubtedly have resulted in more reporting by First Republic Bank to the government, but the “peace deal,” substantiated probable cause to suspect that Cohen was acting as an agent of a foreign power and violating FARA, which authorized the FBI to investigate.

Michael Cohen, and so, Donald Trump, was not investigated simply because he had ties to Donald Trump. It ignores Cohen’s actions, including boneheadedly stupid moves he made as he tried to profit from his proximity to Trump.; 6/2/24, 10:05 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: More tea leaves from the sham Trump trial. From a column by a CNN legal analyst, writing in NY Magazine:

“But when you impose meaningful search parameters, the truth emerges: the charges against Trump are obscure, and nearly entirely unprecedented. In fact, no state prosecutor - in New York, or Wyoming, or anywhere - has ever charged federal election laws as a direct or predicate state crime, against anyone, for anything. None. Ever. Even putting aside the specifics of election law, the Manhattan DA itself almost never brings any case in which falsification of business records is the only charge.”

(Bold text my doing); 6/2/24, 10:24 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Meanwhile, what does Biden prolonging the war in Ukraine accomplish?

Link to X video; 6/2/24, 10:36 PM
chickelit said...: Lem wrote: Meanwhile, what does Biden prolonging the war in Ukraine accomplish?

Are you willing to die for "The Big Guy"? Or should you maybe only give 10%. Maybe just a kidney?; 6/2/24, 10:51 PM
Mike of Snoqualmie said...: Gadfly's writing a novel on Michael Cohen, but still can't provide references to RCWs that show Trump will be kicked off of the Washington State November ballot.; 6/2/24, 10:55 PM
n.n said...: maybe only give 10%. Maybe just a kidney?

Shared/shifted responsibility.

Kidneys are binary, but you can remain viable with one. In this month when we celebrate the transgender spectrum, and the politically congruent ("=") raise their albinophobic banners, let's celebrate diverse prides on the plains... roar! Lions, lionesses, and their unPlanned cubs playing in gay revelry.; 6/2/24, 11:11 PM
Drago said...: Mike of Snoqualmie: "Gadfly's writing a novel on Michael Cohen..."

No, he's not.

What The Hopeless soy boy gadfly is doing is what he has always done: steal the thoughts and content of others without attribution in a sad and pathetic attempt to make it appear as if he is more knowledgeable than he is.

You should have seen him when he, like LLR-democratical Rich, hilariously attempted to dip their toes into the entire SpaceX vs Legacy Old Space controversy!

It didnt take very long for those dolts to be driven from the conversational arena after their astonishing ignorance was exposed in about 15 minutes!

Gadfly is a pure moron cut and paster with nothing to add.; 6/2/24, 11:47 PM
MadTownGuy said...: Are the times a-changin' in Minnesota?

Prosecutors to dismiss charges against Minnesota trooper who shot motorist Ricky Cobb
(Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/prosecutors-dismiss-charges-against-minnesota-020410628.html)

"Prosecutors plan to dismiss murder and manslaughter charges against a white Minnesota state trooper who fatally shot Ricky Cobb II, a Black motorist, as Cobb tried to pull away from a traffic stop, saying the decision comes in response to recent statements from the trooper's attorney and new analysis of video from the scene."

[snip]

Referring to the decision to drop the charges, Londregan’s attorney, Chris Madel, told the Star Tribune, “It’s about goddamn time. That’s going to be about my only on the record comment.”

Troopers pulled the 33-year-old Cobb over on Interstate 94 in Minneapolis last July 31 because the lights were out on his car. They then found that the Spring Lake Park man was wanted for violating a protection order in neighboring Ramsey County. Londregan shot Cobb twice as Cobb tried to drive away after troopers ordered him to get out of his car.

Prosecutors and a law enforcement expert reviewed footage from the scene and found that, as Londregan’s partner clung to the passenger’s door, Cobb moved his hand upward. Cobb did have a gun in the vehicle. Moriarty told the Star Tribune there is still no evidence he intended to grab it but that the defense team's statements caused prosecutors to reconsider the evidence through a new lens.

“They could have told us that before we charged it, they could have told us that at any time,” she said. “And that is information that we would have considered — and obviously have considered.”

Law enforcement and Republican leaders had been calling on Democratic Gov. Tim Walz to take the case away from Moriarty, a former public defender who was elected on a platform of police accountability following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis officer in 2020, and turn it over to Democratic Attorney General Keith Ellison. Walz had expressed concern about the direction of the case but had not acted."; 6/3/24, 3:16 AM
wendybar said...: Watters: "There’s something very fishy about how Judge Mershon came to preside over this case. There are 24 sitting judges who were supposed to be randomly selected from to take this case.

Judge Merchan wasn’t even on the list of judges.

He’s an acting judge.

And he’s not just a Biden donor. Judge Merchan donated to the Progressive Turnout Project and to an organization called Stop Trump, and he never recused himself.
Judge Merchan was allegedly randomly selected for the Trump Hush Money case, the Trump Organization Fraud case, and for the Steve Bannon case.

This is almost statistically impossible that an acting judge, not within the pool of sitting judges, who happens to be a stopped Trump donor, is randomly selected to all three of these Trump cases within the same year. It’s probably another conspiracy theory."

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/06/jesse-watters-there-is-something-very-fishy-about/; 6/3/24, 4:07 AM
wendybar said...: Why is Merrick Garland HIDING and CLASSIFYING AS TOP SECRET, Lying Joe Bidens interview with Special Counsel Hur, in which Hur decides not to indict Biden because he is mentally incompetent, but Progressives and his deranged elder abuser wife are pushing him to run for reelection of the most important job in the world?? If he is too senile to stand trial, then he is most certainly too senile to be the Leader of the supposed Free World.

What are you hiding Corrupt Merrick who thankfully will never be on the Supreme Court and is despicable as his boss???

Paul Sperry
@paulsperry_
·
15h
BREAKING: Attorney General Merrick Garland has classified at the highest level the audio tapes of Biden's embarrassingly incoherent interview with Special Counsel Hur over two days, and has locked the tapes away in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF (somebody should sneak in and STEAL THEM ala Joe Biden!!); 6/3/24, 4:17 AM
wendybar said...: "As the outsider – in Europe – looking in, few in Europe are impressed with the outcome of such a charade of a trial. Almost every reputable American lawyer, even those from CNN know what a travesty of justice was recently committed.

Without a shadow of a doubt, the 30th of May 2024, will forever be remembered as America’s Day in Infamy."

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/06/america_s_day_in_infamy_may_30_2024.html; 6/3/24, 4:25 AM
Kevin said...: Biden's Deal Gives Hamas Everything It Wanted

For his friends, everything.; 6/3/24, 5:42 AM
gadfly said...: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.; 6/3/24, 5:47 AM
Leland said...: Blogger Drago said...

You should have seen him when he, like LLR-democratical Rich, hilariously attempted to dip their toes into the entire SpaceX vs Legacy Old Space controversy!

I remember when Gadfly came here like Buttigieg’s personal assistant to tell us that because of M/V Dali, we needed a marine navigation system as robust as aviation’s ability to track vehicles. This despite the fact that everyone knew exactly where the M/V Dali was at all times, the were able to radio to have the bridge cleared as best they could, and YouTubers were showing side by sides of camera footage and the AIS tracks to describe where and what speed the vessel was at each second from initial blackout.

Gadfly had the option to remain silent about things he knew he did not know and couldn’t understand, but he decided to opine like a fool anyway. And like a good socialist, he proposed to spend more money on a solution that already existed and didn’t work the first time to remedy the problem he identified.; 6/3/24, 5:56 AM
Meade said...: Gadfly, you start off your comment calling someone “fucking asshole” and then launch into complaining that same someone has called you names. Do you see a disparity there? Do you even want to be taken seriously around here or are you just enjoying the sport of trolling? Hard for one to have it both ways, don’t you think?; 6/3/24, 6:19 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: Fact Check Required

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiwJ3kTMX60&t; 6/3/24, 7:14 AM
Mike of Snoqualmie said...: I've had security clearances of CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, TOP SECRET and TOP SECRET/SAP (Special Access Program). The training for protecting classified data stress classifying the data at the right level, don't under classify nor over classify. Also, classifying a criminal matter to protect it is forbidden if not illegal.

So, wendybar's little tidbit about Attorney General Merrick Garland's little temper tantrum of classifying Biden's audio tapes smells like desperation. The release of those tapes would send the Biden campaign to the bottom of the Marianna Trench.

Call Garland in to a congressional hearing, demanding why he classified those tapes. Be sure and put a shock collar on him. It's the only way to get him to tell the truth.; 6/3/24, 7:26 AM
planetgeo said...: Hat tip to Narayanan for correctly pointing out what the "conviction" of Trump really confirms. It's not "No one is above the law", but rather, "The law can get anyone."

Words to seriously ponder, even by those temporarily rejoicing now.; 6/3/24, 7:32 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: Trust The Science...

https://nypost.com/2024/06/02/opinion/nih-scientists-made-710m-in-royalties-from-drug-makers-a-fact-they-tried-to-hide/; 6/3/24, 7:47 AM
Mike of Snoqualmie said...: Paying royalties directly to NIH scientists is corrupt. Those scientists work for the federal government and any royalties should go to the treasury, not the scientists. The scientists should have gotten a one time payment for their original work, but not a continuing stream of corrupting payments from the drug companies.

I and a friend got a patent for a new stall-management system for the P-8A patrol aircraft (a 737 NG platform). We got an award for Boeing accepting our work as patentable and a second award after the patent was awarded. Any royalties of the patent go to Boeing, not us. No conflicts of interest.; 6/3/24, 8:51 AM
Rusty said...: found something for Comrade Cook.
The year end profits for the top five defense contractors in 2022 was 13.8 billion dollars.
The Year end profits for Proctor and Gamble were 14.2 billion dollars.
Apple alone had profits exceeding 96 billion dollars.
So much for the greedy "War Department"; 6/3/24, 9:43 AM
Jersey Fled said...: As an engineer, this caught my attention.

“A little background: Despite the advances in battery technology and the decline in their costs, some scientific and engineering realities distinguish batteries from other forms of energy storage. Like fuels, batteries store their energy chemically. In practice, however, batteries store energy less efficiently than hydrocarbon fuels and release that energy far more slowly than fuels do during combustion. Absent major breakthroughs, the technologies for storing energy and providing power using electrochemical batteries require far more mass and volume than technologies that do the same using fuels. The energy density of a storage technology is defined by its ability to store energy in a given volume or with a given mass. It is relevant and more than ironic that the energy density of biomass fuels like straw and animal dung is twenty times greater than the today‘s best lithium-ion batteries, and gasoline has an energy density over 50 times greater.”

Source: Realclear Energy; 6/3/24, 10:27 AM
Leland said...: I was listening to a Jordan Peterson podcast on belief and skepticism. Taking that conversation into the abstract, which much of it already is, I've come up with two poll questions:

1) Based on the evidence presented in court in NYC, considering Alvin Bragg in describing the crime that was committed or Donald Trump in recording the payment to Stormy Daniels as legal fees, which of those two is more guilty of falsifying a business record?

2) Based on the intent of their actions, who is more guilty of conspiring to prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means: Juan Merchan (and associates) or Donald Trump (and associates)?; 6/3/24, 4:17 PM
Leland said...: Related to my poll questions, Michael Shellenberger has thoughts.; 6/3/24, 4:44 PM