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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Military / Chelsea Manning / Mid-day Open Thread

Mid-day Open Thread

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The Manning Court-Martial is currently ongoing.

The SCOTUS has denied certoriari in Behenna v US.  You can read the CAAF ruling in US v Behenna here.

SSG Robert Bales has plead guilty to all charges, save one charge of Obstruction of Justice in the murder of 16 Afghan civilians, mostly women and children in their sleep.  He is currently undergoing a Care inquiry (a providence hearing) to ensure that his pleas are full, knowing, and intentional, in order to satisfy UCMJ requirements and by so doing foreclose most avenues of appeal.

The weather here in OK has been very rainy. Three years worth of drought has essentially been (temporarily, at least) wiped away in two weeks.  While climate scientists are mostly hesitant to say that global climate change has contributed to our recent weather woes, primarily because they haven’t really studied the interaction of GCC and tornado creation, it seems to me that there may be something to the theory, when we had two EF5 storms within a 20-mile area within a two week period.

Reader Interactions

74Comments

  1. 1.

    ? Martin

    While climate scientists are mostly hesitant to say that global climate change has contributed to our recent weather woes, primarily because they haven’t really studied the interaction of GCC and tornado creation, it seems to me that there may be something to the theory, when we had two EF5 storms within a 20-mile area within a two week period.

    That’s bullshit. Clearly Oklahomans are too tolerant of teh gheys.

  5. 5.

    Soonergrunt

    @Raven: “the 45th anniversary of my first acid trip!”
    Well, that’s a red banner day, isn’t it? lol

  7. 7.

    Cermet

    Still too early to attribute to AGW but the results are adding up and it is starting to spell D-O-O-M; best not to depend on farming in the West/part of the mid-west. That will be no country for old any men people.

  8. 8.

    Raven

    @Soonergrunt: I was at Ft Lewis between Korea and the Nam. We went to Seattle on the bus, scored and got back on the bus. By the time we got back it was lights out so we grabbed a radio and went to the laundry room. That’s when we got the word on RFK. You don’t forget stuff like that very easily.

  9. 9.

    kdaug

    @Raven:

    the 45th anniversary of my first acid trip

    Ain’t far from my first embryonic fluid trip. (This is the old-folk’s home, no?)

    Hang tight, Grunt. Smells off in CenTex, too.

  11. 11.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    They will never claim a single, or even a couple, of events are related to climate change. At best, they will do the “it’s 80% likely that this was due to climate change.” It’s just not how climate, and therefore, climate change works. Day to day is called weather.

  13. 13.

    Face

    He is currently undergoing a Care inquiry (a providence hearing) to ensure that his pleas are full, knowing, and intentional, in order to satisfy UCMJ requirements and by so doing foreclose most avenues of appeal

    Just read recently that these guys’ superiors can override a jury in a court-martial and vacate the ruling (done recently in guilty verdicts in rape cases). Does that avenue exist here with a murder charge(s)?

  14. 14.

    Roger Moore

    @eemom:

    Note the part about “mentioned during Republican administrations as a possible Supreme Court nominee.”

    There’s a shocker for you. I wonder if burnsie will defend her.

  15. 15.

    Soonergrunt

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent): Oh, I know. And I distinguish that scientific tendency to speak in trends and likeliehoods over the false certainties of my Senator Wholly Owned Subsidiary of the Oil and Gas Industry Jim Inhofe.

  16. 16.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    While climate scientists are mostly hesitant to say that global climate change has contributed to our recent weather woes, primarily because they haven’t really studied the interaction of GCC and tornado creation, it seems to me that there may be something to the theory, when we had two EF5 storms within a 20-mile area within a two week period.

    Freak events happen; you’d have to look at how the average number or strength of tornadoes has changed over a period of time (on the order of 15 to 20 years) before you can make that statement. If the number of tornadoes has increased over the last 20 years, or if the average strength of the storms has increased, then we have a case.

    Personally I think it’s a no-brainer (more energy trapped in the atmosphere == more instability == more storms), but I’m not a climate researcher and have just the barest grasp of statistics.

  17. 17.

    gbear

    It’s also the 45th birthday of The Electric Fetus, Minneapolis’ legendary record store/head shop. Everything (including your clothes) comes out of that store smelling like incense.

    They used to have an off-duty cop in the store on weekends and one day he was chiding me for not spending enough money on records, so I told him I’d go over and buy a pipe. The record clerk laughed…

  19. 19.

    Roger Moore

    @Grumpy Code Monkey:

    Freak events happen; you’d have to look at how the average number or strength of tornadoes has changed over a period of time (on the order of 15 to 20 years) before you can make that statement.

    This. Remember, it’s global climate change, not global weather change. If any event happened before GCC, you can’t say for sure that a similar event now was caused by GCC. But you can say that new extremes or shifts in the overall pattern are probably a result.

  20. 20.

    Punchy

    If the number of tornadoes has increased over the last 20 years, or if the average strength of the storms has increased, then we have a case.

    But then you have to ask whether the increasing ability to properly classify strong twisters as strong storms has lead to the increase, or they’ve actually increased in number. Akin to the age-old “has autism got worse, or our ability to diagnose it improved?” question, hard to know whether the phenomenon has increased, or if the abiilty to classify them has….

  22. 22.

    ? Martin

    Just noticed that MaddowBlog is now getting their news from BJ. Both awesome and kinda depressing (though it too really is awesome, because we really do have some great FP talent here).

  23. 23.

    Southern Beale

    A Tennessee Republican wants to (literally) school the rest of us on what “bias” is. Hil-fucking-arias.

    Speaking of literally, I’m working on a new project … give me your best English travel idioms. Stuff used when traveling, such as “travel bug” or “live out of a suitcase.”

    THANKS!!

  26. 26.

    kdaug

    @NickT:

    Public statisticizing will get you arrested in Oklahoma under an old state law designed to curb witchcraft.

    See, back in my day, we cubed witchcraft with 3-foot Pewgot shaker-thingies. Dogs and naps and mustard. The real deal.

    And I do mean cubed. (We tried squared… meh)

  27. 27.

    terraformer

    Crazy weather is the new normal, and probably just the beginning. Amazing what we’ve done in what? A mere 160 years or so since the industrial revolution and look how quickly that has changed the environment of the planet.

  28. 28.

    scav

    @NickT: Standing around publicly exhibenthusing about standard deviations of fat-bottomed curves might very well frighten the horses in certain places, so make that indecency along with sorcery. Go Limp and recite some error bars while being dragged away. If you want to add real heresy to the charges, insist the Rho is Spearman’s, not the Baby Chi’s.

  29. 29.

    Soonergrunt

    @Face: Currently, a Convening Authority has the legal authority to set aside the sentence under his/her clemency powers. That will almost certainly be sharply reduced by Congress, however.
    Right now, there are some very radical differences between the UCMJ and the civilian justice system.
    Service members may be convicted of non-capital offenses by a 2/3rds majority under UCMJ, where in the civilian system it generally takes a conviction by a unanimous jury. A court-martial panel can consist of as few as six members. So four people can put you away for a very long time.
    The CA can entertain matters that would never be seen by a members panel for various legal reasons.
    The charging and trial rate in the military is much higher for sexual offenses (and the definitions of those offenses much broader–the term “sexual assault” includes groping, even that which might be seen as accidental) than it is in the civilian world. In the civilian world, a DA who refuses to prosecute a ‘he-said/she-said’ case may do so because he or she has essentially limited resources, and is not sure of a conviction. In the service it generally goes the other way. Everybody is being paid no matter what happens, and general officers and senior field grades who want to be promotable generally won’t do anything to raise the ire of congress. So cases get charged and prosecuted that would never see the inside of a court room. The conviction rate in the service is higher than in the civil sector as well. If a Service member is convicted, his/her right to appeal the conviction is limited too. While in some cases, it is more than his civilian counterpart, in many cases it is less. If a Service member appeals and the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces refuses to hear the case, then that automatically cuts off SCOTUS appellate jurisdiction.
    So yes, a Convening Authority can grant clemency. Just like your state governor can. And it happens a hell of a lot less often, too.

  32. 32.

    Dee Loralei

    @? Martin: That’s happened before, except it wasn’t a front pager, someone in the comments wrote a skit once and Rachel actually said it on the show. (by skit, I mean 3 or 4 sentences of some imaginary convo, or something similar.) This was a few years ago, maybe during the primary. Totally can’t remember what it was about or who wrote it. But it happened. And Steve Benen has been a big John Cole fan for a long time. Even when John was still a right-winger, Benen would link to him as an occasionally, semi-sane Republican voice.

  36. 36.

    Violet

    @Southern Beale:

    give me your best English travel idioms.

    Not necessarily my best, but:
    Pit stop
    Take the red-eye
    Off the beaten track
    Montezuma’s revenge

  38. 38.

    Tonal (visible) Crow

    @Grumpy Code Monkey:

    Personally I think it’s a no-brainer (more energy trapped in the atmosphere == more instability == more storms), but I’m not a climate researcher and have just the barest grasp of statistics.

    There’s more total energy, but its distribution matters too, because uneven distribution causes temperature differentials, which drive the weather heat engine. Under greenhouse warming, the vertical temperature differential between the surface, troposphere, and stratosphere increases, but the horizontal temperature differential between the tropics and the poles (especially the north pole) decreases. At the same time, the temperature differential between the sea surface and the deep ocean increases.

    How that all plays out in storm number and intensity is far from simple. Current research suggests, e.g., fewer but stronger hurricanes. http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes .

  44. 44.

    Roger Moore

    @Southern Beale:

    Speaking of literally, I’m working on a new project … give me your best English travel idioms.

    Most of the travel classes (e.g. First Class, Tourist Class, Steerage) are pretty good. I also like “Puddle jumper” for a small, prop powered airplane.

  46. 46.

    IowaOldLady

    The RFK speech that knocks me out is the one he gave the night MLK was killed. He was on the campaign trail in Indianapolis, and had to tell the largely AA crowd that Rev. King was dead. He spoke mostly off the top of his head and quoted Aeschylus, for pete’s sake. I can’t imagine any politican speaking like this today.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyCWV_N0EsM

  48. 48.

    burnspbesq

    @eemom:

    this is kind of a big fucking deal for a federal appellate court judge

    Well, it is and it’s not.

    It’s appalling that anyone with those beliefs could sit on a U.S. Court of Appeals. The unfortunate reality is that she won’t be impeached, she’ll never recuse herself, and her failure to recuse herself is essentially unreviewable. So any appellant in a capital case who draws her on their panel is just fucked. And would have been fucked even if this hadn’t come to light.

  49. 49.

    Comrade Jake

    @IowaOldLady: he was a very gifted pol who seemed to genuinely care about the poor. Which is why they couldn’t let him live, of course.

  50. 50.

    Tonal (visible) Crow

    @burnspbesq:

    The unfortunate reality is that she won’t be impeached, she’ll never recuse herself, and her failure to recuse herself is essentially unreviewable.

    Violating judicial ethics rules — especially ones related to judicial fairness — can be grounds for disbarment.

  51. 51.

    MikeJ

    @? Martin:

    Just noticed that MaddowBlog is now getting their news from BJ.

    I once had the first comment on a 6am open thread and linked to a pretty obscure blog with a funny story about Focus on the Family. I was about a week late on finding it. Maddow ran it that night. Which I thought was pretty cool.

  53. 53.

    eemom

    @burnspbesq:

    But if this ethics complaint goes forward, as it seems likely to do, her rancid racist soul is going to face some most unaccustomed and most uncomfortable searching in the harsh glare of public spotlight. Yay for that.

  56. 56.

    burnspbesq

    @Tonal (visible) Crow:

    Violating judicial ethics rules — especially ones related to judicial fairness — can be grounds for disbarment.

    True, but strictly speaking not terribly relevant. There is no requirement that a judge be a member of the bar.

    @eemom:

    But if this ethics complaint goes forward, as it seems likely to do, her rancid racist soul is going to face some most unaccustomed and most uncomfortable searching in the harsh glare of public spotlight. Yay for that.

    Agreed. Fat lot of good that will do any death row inmate whose appeal she heard.

  57. 57.

    Tonal (visible) Crow

    @Tonal (visible) Crow:

    Violating judicial ethics rules — especially ones related to judicial fairness — can be grounds for disbarment.

    True, but strictly speaking not terribly relevant. There is no requirement that a judge be a member of the bar.

    True, but practically speaking it’d be a very good opportunity for Democrats to make political hay — “A far-right judge was disbarred, but now refuses to resign! And Republicans support her!” — and possibly enough (if they handle it correctly — ha!) to get her impeached and convicted.

    Fat lot of good that will do any death row inmate whose appeal she heard.

    Dunno about that. Justice Kennedy is not completely corrupt.

  58. 58.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate:

    In the USN, when I served, you were expected to be able pack all of your gear in a canvas sea bag. To be told to “pack your fucking sea bag” meant that your current command was getting rid of of you and/or that you had received orders to a very bad place. The USN was rife with ironic language (One of the reasons I loved it) and the flat statement “pack your fucking sea bag” was equivalent to the clap of doom.

  60. 60.

    burnspbesq

    @Tonal (visible) Crow:

    Dunno about that. Justice Kennedy is not completely corrupt.

    The part about Kennedy is arguably true, but there’s a statute called the AEDPA (Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Administration Act, or some such Newspeak) that really limits death-row inmates access to Federal habeas and has a bunch of Draconian procedural rules. It remains unclear to what extent actual innocence matters under AEDPA.

  61. 61.

    burnspbesq

    To be clear, I’m not saying that the complaint against Judge Jones shouldn’t have been made, or that it shouldn’t be pursued. If nothing else, it makes her radioactive in terms of a future Supreme Court nomination. And sometimes things that in the short term have only symbolic significance ought to be done if for no other reason than to shine a light on a problem and encourage a search for a legislative fix.

    But she’ll survive this. Even if she chooses to step down from the bench, there is some big firm in Houston that will throw duffel bags of money at her in order to get access to her experience and insight on the care and feeding of appellate judges. Or if she wants to go in a different direction, some law school in Texas (not UT, but maybe Baylor or Texas Tech) will gin up an endowed chair for her to teach appellate advocacy.

  62. 62.

    Roger Moore

    @burnspbesq:

    Even if she chooses to step down from the bench, there is some big firm in Houston that will throw duffel bags of money at her in order to get access to her experience and insight on the care and feeding of appellate judges. Or if she wants to go in a different direction, some law school in Texas (not UT, but maybe Baylor or Texas Tech) will gin up an endowed chair for her to teach appellate advocacy.

    Plus, the wingnut welfare circuit will be happy to pay her richly for speaking engagements in which she talks endlessly about how she was done wrong by the evil liberals who didn’t like the way she spoke truth to power.

  63. 63.

    Karl

    I read the above as “Benihana vs. US.”

    And then my mind pictured Judge Judy ruling while making an onion volcano.

    I will not click the link because that image is more entertaining than reality could ever be,

  65. 65.

    AdamK

    @Raven: I can’t remember the date of my first acid trip. Hell, I’m so old I can’t remember the date of the last time I took a crap.

  67. 67.

    jefft452

    No single instance of conservatives denying that global warming caused the latest severe weather event can be attributed to global warming

    But global warming predicts an increase in the frequency and intensity of conservative denials that global warming caused the latest severe weather event

  68. 68.

    Tonal (visible) Crow

    @burnspbesq: Well yes, the wingnutty habeas restrictions apply to everyone who’s been tried and sentenced by the judge and whose time for direct appeal has run out. But they don’t apply if direct appeal is possible, so not in future cases.

  72. 72.

    dmbeaster

    On climate change and tornadoes, the analysis by Dr. Jeff Masters over at Weather Underground is that there is no correlation yet, though that has a lot to do with poor data and uncertainty. I would go with that for now.

    Tornadoes are freak shows resulting from mesocyclones which are highly dependent on fickle local conditions. I guess you could conjecture greater mesocyclone activity over time, but it hasnt happened so far. Whether, when and how strong a tornado you get out of a mesocyclone does not seem dependent on any climate change dynamics. It just turns on random events of particular storms.

    It is weird to get two F5s so close in time and proximity, since they are so rare anyway. But they tend to occur in clusters in relation to the larger violent weather phenomena that has a chance to spawn them. Statistics also tells us to expect seemingly anomalous clusters of events — what is statistically unusual is for them to be spaced out in some more regular manner.

    Plus OK is the center stripe of tornado alley, and particularly so for the more violent tornadoes.

  73. 73.

    dmbeaster

    The common speculation about how global climate change is affecting tornadoes is that it affects distribution and time of year when they occur (i.e., occurring in anomalous places at odd times), as opposed to frequency or strength.

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