"I didn’t have any doubts. As I tried to explain different possible theories during deliberation, I kept getting cut off as if I had doubts based on the evidence present."

"Based on all the physical evidence, key witnesses, and what the prosecution presents, I thought it was enough proof that she [Clancy] knew exactly what she was doing and planned."

Said Michael P. Desronvil, quoted in "Holdout juror in Lindsay Clancy mistrial, Michael P. Desronvil, speaks out for first time after intense backlash" (NY Post).

Desronvil reportedly believes he’s been “targeted” by the media over the mistrial because he’s a staunch Republican on a jury panel he claimed was mostly leftist “activists,” according to YouTuber Ray Marcel, who posted a video to his channel “Fugitive TV” on Tuesday....

"I’m real and these are my real beliefs. You could ask your xAI researchers about me if you hadn’t fired them."

Said Jacob Coxon, after Elon Musk wrote "Seems like a setup."

Quoted in "AI researcher who warned of ‘disaster’ is now a target of the right/Critics accuse Jacob Coxon of being a plant after he warned of looming 'disaster'" (WaPo)

Coxon is the person we were talking about yesterday, in that post about the belief that A.I. might end the world in the next 10 years. I've updated that post with a video about how instantly Coxon's post went viral, boosted by Bernie Sanders and various high-level Democrats.

Now, reading WaPo, I see that video is part of what's now being disparaged as right-wing targeting. Does WaPo acknowledge what came from Bernie and the Democrats? It interviews Coxon, who is paraphrased saying "he didn’t work with any organizations to promote his announcement before posting it on X."

Loopholes may be found in the words "work," "organizations," and "before." Did he do something other than "work"? Did he work with individuals, e.g. Bernie Sanders, rather than organizations? Did he work with organizations/individuals after he posted? I don't know. I just see the weasel words, WaPo.

I hate to see this issue turn into a left/right face off! Reminds me of climate change. So unhelpful. 

ADDED: From the WaPo article: "[Coxon] faced accusations, with little evidence, from people on the political right claiming that he was a plant meant to scare lawmakers into clamping down on the industry." With little evidence? That means there is evidence, or they'd have used their favorite anti-right-wing phrase, "without evidence."

"[Jill] Biden is a longtime English professor who casually uses the correct group noun for starlings ('murmuration')."

"She quotes many writers here — Albert Camus, Robert Frost, Nikki Giovanni, James Salter — but the author the book recalled most vividly to me, in its careful catalog of small details, was William Carlos Williams, who in his epic poem 'Paterson' wrote 'no ideas but in things.' This tracks, because Biden acknowledges the help of Ada Calhoun, the author of [a book] about Frank O’Hara. Indeed, Biden’s description of being hustled for security reasons through the service entrance to hotels made my O’Hara stand on end, so cleanly could it be broken into stanzas, if you’ll forgive the liberty: 'right by garbage cans/ reeking of rotting room service leftovers/mixed with discarded mini shampoos/ — an odor so sour and pungent/that it almost knocks you down.'"

So writes Alexandra Jacobs in "Jill Biden’s New Memoir Shows Off a Sharp Eye, if Not a Sharp Elbow/Beyond a few pointed digs at her husband’s successor, 'View From the East Wing' largely sticks to the head-spinning details of first lady-hood" (NYT).

Speaking of "no ideas but in things," we're told that, in her new memoir, her second, Jill Biden "marvels at the perks of the office, the masses of flowers, attentive staff and fine art, such as 'Morning on the Seine, Good Weather,' the oil painting that Angela Merkel said Trump called 'my Monet.' ('Our Monet,' Biden corrects, meaning the American people’s.)"

I looked it up. Here's "Our Monet":

According to The White House Historical Association's Facebook page: "On December 4, 1963, the family of John F. Kennedy donated the painting 'A Morning on the Seine; Good Weather' to the White House collection in memory of the late president." That was 2 weeks after the assassination. I'm only noticing this painting now, because I'm reading about Jill and Donald verbalizing possessively about it. And now I feel as though I can see, in that fuzzy image, 2 profiles yelling at each other. And both look like Trump.

Oh! The derangement! An odor so sour and pungent....

ADDED: Did Trump say "my Monet"? It's hearsay — at least double hearsay. Jill Biden is asserting that Angela Merkel said that Trump said something. There's room for mishearing, misquoting, misinterpreting, and lying from Merkel (supposedly hearing Trump) and Biden (supposedly hearing Merkel) and from anyone else who's passed this statement along.

Interestingly, Trump has used the phrase "my Monet," but not to refer to an artwork by Claude Monet. Trump has called one of his golf courses "my Monet": "I have friends who buy Monets. Turnberry is my Monet and it’s far more beautiful." But that quote too is hearsay. Eric Trump wrote it in a book, it says here: "Donald Trump: Turnberry is my Monet — and it’s more beautiful/US president ‘obsessed’ with details about his golf courses in Scotland and continually makes suggestions to improve them, according to his son Eric’s book" (London Times).

Googling for more reporting of Trump's use of the phrase "my Monet," I got a good laugh:

 

I'd like to hear the "Apprentice" theme song with "Monet!" taking the place of "Money!":

"Skipping meetings and sending an A.I. note taker instead has been called 'the latest office power move.'"

"Wallet-size recorders that use A.I. to log live interactions have become a product category.... A.I.-generated transcripts... preserve all sorts of things — offhand comments, quickly corrected statements, jokes — that humans would rarely write in the meeting minutes.... In a lawsuit or an investigation, that can make every word uttered discoverable. Even worse, say corporate lawyers: Sharing the meeting with an A.I. bot may void attorney-client privilege.... [Another] concern is accuracy. An A.I. transcript could, for example, record 'does matter' as 'doesn’t matter.' If that sentence comes up in court years later, the mistake may be difficult to remember. Corporate lawyers also worry about A.I. note takers’ lack of context and discretion. For example, recording every word of a board meeting, no matter how tangential the remark, could be legally perilous...."

From "All Those A.I. Note Takers? They’re Making Lawyers Very Nervous. A trendy productivity hack, A.I. note takers are capturing every joke and offhand comment in many meetings. They could also potentially waive attorney-client privilege" (NYT).

Human memory is also not perfect. Who remembers old conversations and can testify about them with verbatim accuracy? And yet we've relied on frail humans all these years. 

"We are not going to get into issues of catastrophe and extinction...."

"But we’re not going to get into that. We just are not going to have this whole thing explode for the world to view it."

Said Judge Gonzalez Rogers, quoted in "Is A.I. a Threat to Humanity? Not in This Trial. One of Elon Musk’s abiding fears is that A.I. could one day threaten humans. But the jurors deciding his suit against OpenAI probably won’t hear about it" (NYT).

The anachronistic yoga mat.

Via Instapundit, I'm reading this X post by John Ziegler, who makes many good criticpoints, and I'm only extracting one:

The @nytimes is being lavished with praise by the virtue-signaling brigade, but there are very basic problems with their Cesar Chavez story… 

One of the VERY few details in the two claims of child sex abuse from the early 1970s includes the key use of a 'yoga mat,' but yoga mats were not even a thing until at least 10 years, and possibly 20 years, later

Is it true there weren't things called yoga mats in the 1970s in California? I asked Grok. Answer:

"We've seen it since the 1960s.... Police violence lands on this country in a tinderbox fashion."

"And so what is so important for leaders to do in that circumstance is: to obviously lament the lives lost, pledge an independent transparent investigation, and pledge to... seek justice no matter where it leads.... It strikes me that the exact opposite of that is what has occurred. And  immediately after [Renee Good] was killed, she was called a domestic terrorist, very publicly. There are people who then accuse the cop of murder, very publicly, right off the bat. That is pouring gasoline on this situation, and it's horrific.... This incredible rush to judgment results in fixed positions about complicated matters.... And then... there's this assertion, well, this is completely your fault because... when a federal officer gives you instructions, you abide by them and then you get to keep your life. No, no, no, no. That is not what a free society says. We should respect officers... but it is simply not the case that... your right to your life depends on compliance with federal officials.... It's dangerous to drive away from the police. You should not drive away from the police. But under no circumstances is America a country where the command should be obey the men and women in uniform or your life is forfeit. That's not the standard of the United States of America."

Says David French on the new episode of the Advisory Opinions podcast (transcript and audio at Podscribe).

ADDED: If you are questioning the usage in the phrase "or your life is forfeit," know that C.S. Lewis used in in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" (full text at Gutenberg):

"How many people have that much cash buried in tubs under their property?"

Wrote the trial judge, quoted in "Police Found $1 Million in a Tub Under a Garage. The Government Gets to Keep It. A court ruled that the hidden cash, which the police found while searching for an illegal gun in Ontario, did not lawfully belong to the man living on the property" (NYT).

On Dec. 1, 2009, the police searched a house on the outskirts of Thunder Bay, Ontario, looking for an illegal .22-caliber handgun. Instead, they found cash....

"Looks terrible — until you learn that [VICTIM] is the late Virginia Giuffre, who had worked for Trump before she fell into Epstein’s clutches, and had publicly said time and again that the future president never misbehaved in the least toward her."

Writes the Editorial Board of the New York Post, in "Epstein emails: The Dems and their lapdogs with laptops cry Wolff again."

What an incredibly sleazy move, redacting the name Virginia Giuffre, as if it were to protect her, when her name has already been public, she wrote a book to get her story out, she's told us she believed Trump did nothing wrong, and she's no longer alive. It's plainly and deliberately deceptive, and it's stupid too, because the name was going to come out, as it did in less than one day.

Such an idiotic distraction. I'm happy to look at any new evidence about the Epstein story, but I don't want to waste my time on manipulations like this. I refuse to read the NYT article, "Michael Wolff, Chronicler of Elites, Provided Epstein With Advice on Trump/Mr. Wolff was enough of an insider to provide advice to Jeffrey Epstein on how to handle his dealings with Donald J. Trump." What does "enough of an insider" even mean?? Enough of a Trump hater? I made that a gift link, in case you want to figure out how straight the NYT is playing it.

"As people increasingly turn to A.I. chat tools as confidants, therapists and advisers, we urgently need a new form of legal protection that would safeguard most private communications..."

"...between people and A.I. chatbots. I call it 'A.I. interaction privilege.'... At present, most digital interactions fall under the Third-Party Doctrine, which holds that information voluntarily disclosed to other parties — or stored on a company’s servers — carries 'no legitimate expectation of privacy.' This doctrine allows government access to much online behavior (such as Google search histories) without a warrant.... To leave these conversations legally unprotected is to invite a regime where citizens must fear that their digital introspection could someday be used against them. Private thought — whether spoken to a lawyer, a therapist or a machine — must remain free from the fear of state intrusion."

Writes the historian Nils Gilman, in "If You Tell ChatGPT Your Secrets, Will They Be Kept Safe?" (NYT).

"She is the Rosetta stone. She knows everything. She arranged every single trip, and if she was just given… immunity, she could be compelled to testify."

Said Alan Dershowitz, quoted in "Trump’s MAGA allies zero in on Ghislaine Maxwell as Epstein furor persists/The intensifying focus on Ghislaine Maxwell represents the latest turn in a winding case that has long been a focus of conspiracy theorists" (NYT).

I'm sure her testimony is valuable, but I see at least 5 problems with the Dershowitz assertion: 1. She may have misunderstood or misperceived what she witnessed when she witnessed it. 2. She will have forgotten some things, 3. She may misremember when she attempts to recall when she is questioned now, 4. She has so much reason now to lie, distort, or at least shape her story to serve her obvious self-interest, 5. Arranging a trip doesn't mean that you know everything that happens everywhere on the plane and at the destination.

ADDED: I know what I've listed are typical problems, and of course, Professor Dershowitz know what they are, but he's the one who chose to say: "She knows everything."

"The only thing that might make a quiz show seem political is if you’re living in an era where there’s one side of the political spectrum that benefits from depreciating knowledge, the importance of knowledge and fact itself.”

"And I’m afraid that is happening in a lot of fields today. Government policy used to be based on settled scientific consensus in fields — just basic things, like climate is changing, or vaccines help prevent disease. This should just be base-line stuff. And now, apparently, it’s very partisan to believe either of those things. Legal facts like birthright citizenship, or facts from the headlines like who won the 2020 election — these are not just contested things; now they are litmus tests for a certain kind of tribalism, and that’s terrible for a society. A society can’t stand with that kind of disagreement over what is true and what is error, and honestly, one great thing about quiz shows is we are a little microenvironment where these facts do have right answers and wrong answers. And they all get resolved in a matter of seconds. Someone will buzz in, and they are either right or wrong."

Writes Ken Jennings, in "'Jeopardy!' Is a Reminder That Facts Are Fun — and Essential/According to the host Ken Jennings, trivia is overlooked as a 'great social force'" (NYT).

Only "one side of the political spectrum" is "depreciating knowledge, the importance of knowledge and fact itself"? Or does it just seem that way from the point of view of the other side?

And the reason "Jeopardy!” is "a little microenvironment where these facts do have right answers and wrong answers" is because only unquestionable facts can be used as answers on the show. It's not that there isn't other material — facts yet to be nailed down and unknown and unknowable things of all kinds — it's that the other material isn't the stuff of "Jeopardy!" answers.

Yes, it's nice to appreciate the solidity of the facts that do make it onto the answer board, but that's not a basis for maligning the people who doubt and debate about what's true.

"... Mr. Haskell paid $500 to several day laborers to haul away several heavy black plastic trash bags from his home.... When they looked inside one of them, they found human body parts, prompting them to return the bags..."

"... and money to Mr. Haskell, whom they photographed — along with the bags — and reported to the police, prosecutors said. That same afternoon, investigators said, Mr. Haskell was seen in security camera footage removing a trash bag from the trunk of his Tesla and disposing of it in a dumpster in a parking lot in nearby Encino, Calif. A person sifting through the dumpster the next day found a beheaded torso.... During an initial criminal proceeding in December 2023, Mr. Haskell appeared shirtless in court, wearing a smock intended to prevent inmates from using it to hang themselves. At the time, his lawyer told Fox News that the Sheriff’s Department had forced him to appear that way, creating speculation that Mr. Haskell might harm himself...."

From "Son of Ex-Hollywood Agent, Jailed in 3 Murders, Dies by Suicide, D.A. Says/Samuel Haskell, 37, was accused of dismembering his wife and his in-laws. He was the son of Sam Haskell III, an Emmy-winning film producer and veteran talent agent" (NYT).

The father, we're told, "had several A-list clients, including George Clooney, Ray Romano and Whoopi Goldberg," was a producer of "several films and shows about Dolly Parton," and headed "the Miss America Organization until... he resigned amid reports that he and other pageant leaders had made misogynistic and derogatory comments about the competition’s contestants." The link on "resigned" goes to the 2017 HuffPo article, "The Miss America Emails: How The Pageant’s CEO Really Talks About The Winners/Internal correspondence reveals name-calling, slut-shaming and fat-shaming in emails between the Miss America CEO, board members and a pageant writer."

"If a lawyer brought me this file and asked if it was suitable for court, I’d say no. Go back to the source. Do it right. Do a direct export from the original system—no monkey business."

Said Hany Farid, "a professor at UC Berkeley whose research focuses on digital forensics and misinformation."

Quoted in "Metadata Shows the FBI’s ‘Raw’ Jeffrey Epstein Prison Video Was Likely Modified/There is no evidence the footage was deceptively manipulated, but ambiguities around how the video was processed may further fuel conspiracy theories about Epstein’s death" (Wired).

Metadata embedded in the video and analyzed by WIRED and independent video forensics experts shows that rather than being a direct export from the prison’s surveillance system, the footage was modified, likely using the professional editing tool Adobe Premiere Pro. The file appears to have been assembled from at least two source clips, saved multiple times, exported, and then uploaded to the DOJ’s website, where it was presented as 'raw' footage. Experts caution that it’s unclear what exactly was changed, and that the metadata does not prove deceptive manipulation. The video may have simply been processed for public release using available software, with no modifications beyond stitching together two clips. But the absence of a clear explanation for the processing of the file using professional editing software complicates the Justice Department’s narrative...."

If it was manipulated — and still presented as raw — that was done for a reason. What was the reason if not to deceive? You can't say there is "no evidence" of a proposition when there is a basis for inference. If you manipulate to deceive, you try to cover your tracks. Portraying the footage as raw when it is not raw is itself deceit. The question is how far does the deceit go.

The phrase "the metadata does not prove deceptive manipulation" jumps out at me, because it leaves open the proposition that the metadata is probative of deceptive manipulation and certainly doesn't mean that the the metadata proves that there was no deceptive manipulation.

And the phrase "processed for public release" is maddening. What we wanted to see was unprocessed video. Why process it for us? The processing is what makes us suspect manipulation, so it should be the last thing you would want to do. If there were 2 clips, you could give us 2 clips. You didn't need to "stitch" them together. So "no modifications beyond stitching together two clips" sounds fishy.

Finally: "[T]he FBI did not respond to specific questions about the file’s processing, instead referring WIRED to the DOJ. The DOJ in turn referred inquiries back to the FBI and the Bureau of Prisons. The BOP did not respond to a request for comment.... One media forensics expert... put it bluntly: 'It looks suspicious—but not as suspicious as the DOJ refusing to answer basic questions about it.'"

"Mr. Boelter had served on a state economic board with one of the victims, State Senator John A. Hoffman, who survived the shooting, though it is unclear if they actually knew each other."

"Mr. Boelter was appointed to the panel, the Minnesota Governor’s Workforce Development Board, in 2016 by a Democratic former governor, Mark Dayton. The board has 41 members appointed by the governor, and its members try to improve business development in the state. He was later reappointed by Gov. Tim Walz, also a Democrat.... Governor Walz has said that the shooting 'appears to be a politically motivated assassination,' though the exact motive for the attack is not yet clear. Voters do not declare political affiliation when they register in Minnesota, and a state report connected to the work force board listed Mr. Boelter’s affiliation as 'none or other' in 2016. A similar report in 2020 listed him as having 'no party preference.' But David Carlson, a roommate and close friend of Mr. Boelter’s, said Mr. Boelter voted for Donald J. Trump last year and was particularly passionate about opposing abortion...."

From "What We Know About the Minnesota Shooting Suspect/Vance Boelter, who is suspected in the attacks on two Minnesota politicians and their spouses, was taken into custody on Sunday, ending a major manhunt" (NYT).

I believe Carlson said those things after the shootings had taken place.

"U.S. Senator Tina Smith, Democrat of Minnesota, said in an interview that the gunman had a notebook with a list of names that included hers and those of other lawmakers, all of whom were Democrats. The list included about 70 potential targets, a federal law enforcement official said, including doctors, community and business leaders, and locations for Planned Parenthood and other health care centers. Some of the targets were in neighboring states."

Is Tina Smith the only source of this information? What's the basis of her knowledge? And why is the NYT presenting the information like that?

"The F.B.I.’s increasingly pervasive use of the polygraph, or a lie-detector test, has only intensified a culture of intimidation."

"Mr. Patel has wielded the polygraph to keep agents or other employees from discussing a number of topics, including his decision-making or internal moves. Former agents say he is doing so in ways not typically seen in the F.B.I.... Jim Stern, who conducted hundreds of polygraphs while an F.B.I. agent, said... that if someone violated policy, the F.B.I. could polygraph them. But if an agent who legitimately talked to the news media in a previous role had to take one, he said, 'that’s going to be an issue.' 'I never used them to suss out gossip,' he said. At a recent meeting, senior executives were told that the news leaks were increasing in priority — even though they do not involve open cases or the disclosure of classified information. Former officials say senior executives, among others, were being polygraphed at a 'rapid rate.' In May, one senior official was forced out, at least in part because he had not disclosed to Mr. Patel that his wife had taken a knee during demonstrations protesting police violence...."

From "Unease at F.B.I. Intensifies as Patel Ousts Top Officials/Senior executives are being pushed out and the director, Kash Patel, is more freely using polygraph tests to tamp down on news leaks about leadership decisions and behavior" (NYT).

I've made a new tag — "lie detector" — and gone back and applied it to old posts. Interesting to see how many times the topic has come up:

April 2004: "[E]ven if the lie detector was not to be used on [Omarosa], and, indeed, even if lie detector tests are not reliable, if she believed it was to be used on her and believed it was reliable, her running off at the sight of it is some evidence that she had lied in her accusation about the other contestant....."

April 2005:  "Everyone on TV was into analyzing why [the groom-to-be of the Runaway Bride] would take a private lie detector test, but wanted special conditions before he'd take the police test. He wanted it videotaped, and the police refused...."

July 2005: "Some researchers attached sensors to 101 penises and then showed the possessors of these penises either all-male or all-female porn movies. It was kind of a lie detector test, because the men had all professed to being heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual...."

October 2008: Ashley Todd, the woman who claimed a black man had carved the letter "B" on her face.

June 2012: "'$1.1 million-plus Gates grants: "Galvanic" bracelets that measure student engagement.'... [I]sn't this basically a lie detector? And if so, won't students train themselves to fool the authorities?"

April 2013:

"Just days after giving birth, she returned to work on the Trump campaign, saying she was motivated to forgo maternity leave following the July 13 assassination attempt..."

"I looked at my husband and said, 'Looks like I’m going back to work.... I felt compelled to be present in this historic moment,' she added. 'The president literally put his life on the line to win this election. The least I could do is get back to work quickly."

From "White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, 27, Addresses Her 'Atypical' 32-Year Age Gap with Husband/Leavitt tied the knot with husband Nicholas Riccio, 59, in January 2025 after welcoming son Niko in 2024" (People). Niko was born on July 10th. Baby (and wedding) pics at the link.

Here's Leavitt at yesterday's press conference. I've cued up the discussion of the auto-pen pardons:

Leavitt: "The president was begging the question that I think a lot of journalists in this room should be asking about whether or not not the former President of the United States — who I think we can all finally agree was cognitively impaired — I know it took people some time to finally admit that but, we all know that to be true, as evidenced by his disastrous debate performance against President Trump during the campaign — I digress on that — but the President was raising the point that: Did the President even know about these pardons? Was his legal signature used without his consent or knowledge?

"The issue of the female aviator’s identity is particularly sensitive as Mr. Trump has also blamed diversity, without evidence, for the crash."

"In addition, Pete Hegseth, the newly confirmed defense secretary, has said that the military has diminished its standards by welcoming women and racial minorities into its ranks. He has echoed Mr. Trump’s comments on rooting out diversity programs in the government.... Mr. Hegseth said on Thursday that the Black Hawk helicopter was 'doing a required annual night evaluation' flight and was being flown by 'a fairly experienced crew.'..."

From "Army Withholds Identity of Helicopter Pilot Killed in Crash/The names of two male crew members were released, but the family of the third aviator requested privacy" (NYT).

The reason the Army gave for withholding the name, we're told, was "her family’s request for privacy." And "It is unclear what specifically motivated the aviator’s family to make the request."

If we had the name, everyone would be able to research her, to read anything she may have written on social media, to look at photographs of her, and to express all sorts of opinions about her, including — taking a cue from Trump — theories about how she was promoted beyond her merit. Her death — and the death of everyone else in the disaster — would merge with the discussion of DEI and Trump's dramatic effort to snuff it out nationwide.

Trump's word: "fight."

I have a simple point to make, but before I do, I want to acknowledge that "fight" was also Hillary Clinton's word, and here we see the music video shown at the 2016 Democratic National Conviction and it's full of celebrities brimming with determination to fight (for what we know they went on to lose):

Trump won in 2016, and he went on to lose — or are you one of the millions who think he won? — in 2020, and now he's fighting to win again. Out there fighting, we know what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, and we know that "fight" was Trump's word in the most immediate dire moment:

"I say, without evidence, that the media’s Trump qualifiers are backfiring."

A great headline — on a column by Matt Bai, in WaPo.

I know exactly what he's talking about —  even though "Trump qualifiers" is an awkward term — and I'm assuming he's going to articulate my position on the subject... but is he? The subheadline makes me wary:  "We in the news media are making him less accountable for his mendacity, rather than more so." I want you in the news media to be more accountable too. You're just throwing in "without evidence" all the time without establishing that you have honestly assessed whether there is evidence.

Now, I'll read it and make some excerpts and comments as I go: