I still think that going after people – at every level, from the bottom to the top – was a smart move.
Q: Why go after the boots first?
A: To inspire moments of reflection such as this. 👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/UtOAq8QYOo
— Jack E. Smith ⚖️ (@7Veritas4) August 16, 2023
“Names of jurors popped up in pro-Trump extremist forums as supporters weighed the benefits of digging into jurors’ lives against the risks that it would backfire and make themselves unwitting pawns.”
What else is going on?
Open thread.
Joe Falco
The condensed version: “Trump supporters weigh the risk of FAFO”
lowtechcyclist
Crazy that the jurors’ names are public.
Baud
Better than being unwitting prawns.
Alison Rose
@Baud: Unwitting fawns.
Alison Rose
@lowtechcyclist: Agreed. I feel a little worried for them, maybe especially for the ones who have such unique names.
MomSense
It has also helped to prevent violence at the arraignments.
Villago Delenda Est
“Unwitting pawns”? Self-awareness index hits new nadirs.
TheOtherHank
I have what I thought was a unique name until I lived back in my ancestral homeland of Minnesota and in the Twin Cities metro area, there were at least 5 of us with the same first and last name. In California, though, I am back to being somewhat unique.
Jay C
The phraseology of “unwitting pawns” is a curious one: I would imagine that the main (only?) concern of those on “pro-Trump extremist forums” (aka sicko Internet trolls) about conducting an online campaign of vicious and unrelenting harassment against any Grand Jurors who dared to vote to indict their beloved Leader* wouldn’t be being thought of as “pawns”, but rather possibly suffering the legal (/social?) consequences of such harassment if/when unmasked. Which is why I’m sure the obscene abuse and death threats, etc. which said jurors will likely experience will all be diligently anonymized. By the same folks who will whine and wail endlessly about restrictions on their “freedom of speech”…
*sounds better in the original German.
cmorenc
The problem isn’t limited to jurors who returned the indictments. If as a result of trial, Trump is convicted of felonies, MAGAs bent on harassment or revenge may wait until weeks post-trial to harass jurors e.g. vandalizing their cars in parking lots, or worse. Jurors may need protection for months following the trial.
Hilbertsubspace
Since this is an open thread, I’ll go way off topic. I have noticed people previously asking why a Jewish person would help Nazi adjacent fascists. I will tell a story to offer an explanation.
The short, short version: A coworker who claimed to be Jewish was actually a Nazi* and lied about their heritage.
Think on that when evaluating those claiming Jewish descent. (Stephen Miller)
*Person was the child of Nazis who fled the fall of Germany and still followed and believed in the ideology.
Chief Oshkosh
I don’t think that that was in any way, shape, or form a consideration in how DOJ or others proceeded in investigations and indictments.
It’s a beneficial side effect observed post hoc.
Origuy
@Alison Rose: Also the people who have the same name as one of the jurors and aren’t prepared for harassment.
way2blue
Oh. I hope Georgia is prepared to protect the jurors and track down anyone who harasses them online (& elsewhere).
rikyrah
BWA HA AH AHA HA HA HA HA HA HAH A
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
No better for them.
Trump stiffed his alleged co-conspirators, whose false claims brought in $250 million
PUBLISHED TUE, AUG 15 20235:10 PM EDT
UPDATED 4 HOURS AGO thumbnail Brian Schwartz @SCHWARTZBCNBC
Several of former President Donald Trump’s allies, including Rudy Giuliani, who are now facing criminal charges for helping him try to overturn the results of the 2020 election were never paid by the Trump political operation for work they did in late 2020.
The failure to pay Giuliani and his team came up last week in a private interview between special counsel Jack Smith’s team and Bernard Kerik, a Giuliani associate, according to an attorney for Kerik.
Trump and his allies raised $250 million off false claims that were peddled nationwide by people including Giuliani and Kerik, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot said. That money is now helping Trump pay a small army of lawyers defending him against criminal charges.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/15/trump-alleged-co-conspirators-never-got-paid-by-trump-team.html
Jay C
@cmorenc:
This.
In comment #9 I was assuming that harassment of jurors (prosecutors, witnesses, etc.) would remain more-or-less online: sadly, I’m not sure that will be the case.
Alison Rose
@Hilbertsubspace: This can sometimes be the case. But there are also certain Jews who want to be seen as one of “the good ones” so as to ostensibly protect themselves, and some who feel no allegiance to their heritage, or at least not enough to outweigh a desire for stature.
schrodingers_cat
OT: Two of my Twitter mutuals who walked along with Rahul Gandhi in his Bharat Jodo Yatra in the Maharashtra leg, have come out with a book and a documentary about it.
The trailer for the documentary just dropped yesterday.
*Rahul Gandhi walked the entire length of India last fall from Kanyakumari, TN to Kashmir.
Betty Cracker
I’m not sure Fake Smith’s rationale holds water. Possibly there are disadvantages to addressing the crimes of coup plotters second, including potentially a lack of deterrence to their lying and fundraising off the lies, thus entrenching the central falsehood about the 2020 election even more deeply in one of our two major political parties. But regardless of timing, it’s good to see FO more evenly distributed now.
coin operated
It appears the base has finally wised up to the fact that it ain’t antifa going to prison for 1/6. Harrass jurors at your own peril….
Alison Rose
@Origuy: Yeah, a couple of them have names which are probably shared by numerous people in the greater Atlanta area.
Edmund dantes
@Hilbertsubspace: we don’t have to think on it. History is full of people that were part of the “out” group that worked with the “in” group to punish the out for a variety of reasons (self preservation, they don’t think they are one of the bad “ones”, delusion, etc).
JoyceH
I agree that taking down the foot soldiers is important. Trump could never have done all that he did without willing minions certain they were immune from consequences. I mean, come on! – the My Pillow guy? Kanye West’s publicist? And who livestreams a riot that they’re leading?
Lyrebird
@Hilbertsubspace: WOW.
As others have said, thhere are also cases without that kind of let’s say interesting backstory.
I recall that at least one of Stephen Miller’s family members read him for filth, a true shame before the nations, in an op ed.
craigie
Lots of people, apparently
dr. luba
@TheOtherHank: I am the only person with my name in North America. When you add in my middle name, I’m the only one in the world.
It definitely helps with medical records and such.
RaflW
I dunno. If one goes to the trouble of digging into jurors’ lives, isn’t the “unwitting” defense out the window?
I’m fairly sure the idea is that unwitting is without being aware; unintentional. The act of digging based on a list in a government document suggest plenty of intention.
Lyrebird
Word.
So many times, it’s only the footsoldiers that pay a price.
The other day, I was uncomfortable with the Fake Smith account comments about giving DA Willis that gift, etc., since it could sound patronizing. Didn’t want to criticize, since I am so dependent on WaterGirl and Anne Laurie giving me my fix of clever tweets, sprouts, what have you.
schrodingers_cat
IANAL but it makes sense to wrap up the easier trials first. When you are doing any project or writing any exam that’s the path that yields most results. Easy stuff first than the difficult
To run a marathon one starts with a 5
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Did you see this?
https://apnews.com/article/florida-new-college-desantis-lawsuit-71df93aab84b7d09ca17fec46ceb6a4c
Roger Moore
@JoyceH:
People who think they’re going to win and who want to preserve a record of their participation in perpetuity. There were plenty of them who thought this was going to be the spark of a new American Revolution. They wanted to make sure their role in kindling that spark was preserved so they would receive proper credit for it. As an example, look at how DAR exists to exalt any patriot who fought for the right side in the American Revolution, and by extension their progeny. Those people thought they were going to get the same treatment.
ChuckInAustin
*half-witted pawns.
Alison Rose
@craigie: The devolution will apparently be televised repeatedly.
Baud
If we’re talking about the people who actually invaded the Capital, I don’t see how you just put them aside for several years while you’re investigating the ring leaders. Especially when there’s video of them doing the deed.
Alison Rose
@dr. luba: One of these, maybe?
RaflW
@Baud: I read an article this morning at insidehighered.com about the severe shortage of profs and classes. Something like 40 academics have left. Kids can’t get classes required for their majors. Information from the registrar is scarce “Sorry this class is cancelled. Select a different one!” is pretty much the email going out.
Total shitshow.
Chaos at New College of Florida
With the start of the semester two weeks away, students are grappling with absent professors, canceled classes and severe housing woes.
…as students prepare for the fall semester, the impact of the faculty exodus is becoming apparent: many classes won’t be offered at New College this term.
The course catalogue was already sparse when students first began looking at classes last spring. Dani Delaney, the mother of one former New College student who is transferring to Hampshire College in Massachusetts—which guaranteed admission to all New College students in good standing—said her son could only find two classes that counted toward his “area of concentration” (which is what New College calls majors). When he contacted the institution about the lack of relevant courses, she said, he was told the course catalogue was “in flux” and to “choose something else.”
…And as more electives get canceled, it becomes harder for students to meet the requirements for their area of concentration. “For neuroscience, there’s only one elective beyond the introductory level right now, which is not healthy,” Leininger [a biology and neuroscience professor who left New College] said, noting that the number of faculty in NCF’s neuroscience program has declined from three to one. …
More…
M31
J6 perps living their lives in fear that they’re next?
J6 perps knowing that their pics are circulating and they could be turned in by friends/family/coworkers any time?
J6 perps knowing that Trump didn’t pardon anyone and if they get time they do time?
you love to see it
Subsole
@Alison Rose:
Unwitting lawns??
smith
On getting to both the top and the bottom of the coup attempt: Still to come is the connection between them. There undoubtedly was a link, and we have some good guesses as some of it (*cough* Roger Stone *cough*). The story won’t be complete until that chapter has been filled in. The fact that some of the ringleaders of the riot footsoldiers have apparently flipped makes me optimistic that Jack Smith already has a good idea how that link was made. It may also be behind the intense pressure he (and Fani Willis) are putting on co-conspirators to flip, as some of them probably know about that link from the other side. My fervent wish is that we’ll find some members of Congress in that trap when it’s sprung.
RaflW
@Roger Moore: “preserved so they would receive proper credit for it”
Well, they are getting that, at least!!
Alison Rose
@Subsole: Unwitting swans moving unwitting pawns against unwitting fawns on unwitting lawns while eating unwitting prawns and emitting unwitting yawns under unwitting dawns.
Subsole
@Villago Delenda Est:
“Hello! Yes, welcome in. Just step right over that self-awareness-shaped hole in the floor…”
@rikyrah: I cannot fathom these people. I just can’t.
I have never hated anyone enough to eat the shit these people eat on the daily in service to their hatred of various and sundry outgroups.
Leto
@Baud: agreed; personally I’ve always wanted them to see the inside of a cell for a protracted period. All of them, from the simple trespass up to the Orange Traitor-tot.
sdhays
@RaflW: Seems like students would have a case for a class-action lawsuit against the state for destroying the institution and then taking their money, but maybe the laws are written so that they have no rights in this regard.
Leto
@rikyrah: it’s not like there’s not a 50+ year history of him shirking payments to everyone. They deserve all the shit that’s raining down on them. I hope it just keeps rolling downhill.
The Lodger
@schrodingers_cat: It took me a minute to realize this but Kanyakumari, TN is in Tamil Nadu, not Tennessee.
cain
@RaflW: Education in Florida is going to go off the cliff with academic freedom goes out the window. From kindergarten to ph.d – Florida is fucking itself.
Florida has decided that they want old retirees as the primary population.
Reducing the population of Florida hopefully means less representation in the electoral college eventually.
narya
@smith: While I think it’s possible that members of Congress could be Found Out, I think anything that only or primarily goes through Stone isn’t gettable. He’s a ratfucker of longstanding and of the highest order, and I think he has a better idea of how to protect himself (that documentary notwithstanding) than do most of the rest of them.
cain
@The Lodger: Considering you can probably find an indian city named here – why not? We have a Madras, OR. :-) (the old name for Chennai)
trollhattan
Wrapped watching “PainKiller” last night–Netflix miniseries on the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma. The feds went after the Sackler lieutenants and not Richard Sackler himself, in their criminal trial, which was headed towards felony convictions and Purdue receiving hefty fines and taking the drug off the market, and then one member of the Purdue defense team [spoiler alert] Rudy Giuliani makes some calls and the next thing you know, the AG forces a wrist-slap settlement upon the prosecution team.
The strategy seemed correct but the deus ex machina ending shows the rich and connected aren’t necessarily subject to either the law, nor law enforcement. You still need to take the shot.
Subsole
@JoyceH:
The filthy secret rotting at the heart of modern conservatism and the Beltway Bubble is that Trump never took that party and it’s voters anywhere they weren’t already begging to go.
@Alison Rose: Brava!
Subsole
@The Lodger:
In fairness, I absolutely could see a town with that name in Tennessee.
The Lodger
@cain: However, Rajneeshpuram, OR is no longer a thing.
Baud
@trollhattan:
Biden is fighting the release the Sacklers got in the Perdue bankruptcy. Supreme Court will decide next year.
schrodingers_cat
@The Lodger: Ah yes, I should have written it out. BTW Kanyakumari where the 3 seas met is a great place to visit. The sunsets are awe inspiring.
RaflW
@sdhays: Not a lawyer, but I’m not sure what the grounds for a suit would be.* This is an extreme case, but schools trim programs and cut courses. Acceptance of a student isn’t a promise to continue to offer the specific coursework expected.
All that said, I have believed from the very day Ruffo was announced as a ‘trustee’ (wow, there’s a word that is abused in this context… trust? Huh.) that his goal would actually be to just fully destroy the New School.
Oh, sure, he might try to make it into a state-sponsored version of Hillsdale. But that takes effort, man. Even a crappy, ideologically closed and incurious bunker needs people, plans, programs and an appearance of an academic sheen. Ruffo is a useless shit. I doubt the other five DeSantis appointees have much more interest in actual accomplishment.
No, it’s just a wrecking ball.
*The suit Baud linked to is of a different scope.
Sister Golden Bear
@Betty Cracker:
I’m treating it more as a rhetorical question, since normally RICO cases proceed from the bottom up — real Jack Smith’s Trump indictment being an exception.
But regardless, the J6 prison sentences are having the side effect of causing MAGAts to already think twice — witness the absence of mobs at any of Trump arraignments — and Willis’ charges against foot soldiers reinforces that FAFO.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I did, and I wish them luck! People have filed a ton of lawsuits in response to the authoritarian diktats. The suits seem well-grounded to me, but I’m not an expert.
The Tampa Bay Times published a fascinating story today on a similar topic — they’ve chronicled a New College professor’s efforts to hold the fascists at bay. Might be paywalled, but here’s a link.
cain
@The Lodger:
Thank goodness – I got so much shit in high school about that whole episode.
wjca
@cain:
But they have yet to figure out that somebody has to provide goods and services for those retirees. Until now, a lot of that was immigrants (legal or illegal), but they are driving those out, too.
Gonna be a lot of chickens coming tragically home to roost before this is over.
schrodingers_cat
@cain: Indian charlatan babas always seem to find gullible followers everywhere. The latest is the wife murderer Sadhguru.
Leto
@cain: I know some of us are old enough to have seen the exodus of kids from desolate areas that no longer had anything to keep them there. Rust belt, mid-west states, etc… I think we’re now witnessing the same thing from America’s spleen. Like wjca said at #60, they were able to rely on migrants/undocumented people but they’re driving them out too. Line from Dodgeball comes to mind: “Bold move Cotton, lets see if it plays out.”
JaySinWA
@smith:
There is a good deal of that in the Georgia indictment around the Coffee county voting machines. TPM is looking at the Trevian Kutti (harassment of poll workers) connections to the Trump campaign.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trevian-kutti-harrison-floyd-steve-lee-fani-willis
WaterGirl
@RaflW:
In a normal world, yes. In bizarro Trump world, they are always innocent. Never responsible!
Roger Moore
@Subsole:
The Republican Party has been a cult in search of a leader at least since the days of Reagan. It took them a long time to find one, primarily because of the reticence of establishment Republicans to step into the role. Reagan’s acolytes tried to set him up as a cult leader, but he either didn’t want the job or was too out of it with Alzheimer’s to take it, so the best they managed was the cult of zombie Reagan. Neither Bush really wanted to be a cult leader. Neither did Dole, McCain, or Romney, though they were never going to win the job when covered with loser stink. Sarah Palin was obviously gunning for cult leader, but McCain lost and then she was too flaky to do the work of maintaining the position. Trump was really the first person who wanted to be cult leader who managed to solidify the position by winning.
WaterGirl
@schrodingers_cat: Plus, the flipping starts from the bottom up!
I like Andrew Weissman, but I am getting tired of his Merrick Garland bashing.
Timing is everything, and after seeing the Jan 6 committee hearings, and more information coming out, the general view of things was different for a lot of people.
Do something too soon and you can meet a ton of resistance.
One does not pick Jack Smith without knowing exactly who he is and what he would bring to the table.
schrodingers_cat
@WaterGirl: Bashing Garland and Biden is what makes you popular on Twitter and other social media
Yep these people who criticize Garland don’t realize what a gift a quick but botched prosecution of the Orange Error would be to the Republicans.
RaflW
@cain: “Florida has decided that they want old retirees as the primary population.”
Seems to me old people in Florida will be in for a sad surprise. What do they need? Gerontologists. Orthopedic surgeons for their frequently fracturing hips. PTs and OTs. ER, med-surg, and regular ol’ nurses.
Billing office people who can sort out their nightmare copays and Part Bs (or whatever). Pharmacists. Grocery clerks. On and on.
Making Florida an educational and economic backwater is off the charts stupid. I’ve seen what happens to elder care in communities in decline (like the de-industrialized UP of Michigan, or similarly struggling areas of rural MN). Hospitals close or at least lose specialties. Call bells to nursing home rooms go unanswered for extended periods. Nutritionists hie out for greener pastures.
Good damn luck, MAGA retirees. You’ll need it.
bbleh
@RaflW: @WaterGirl: but what they might be referring to is the (admittedly heretical) idea circulating in some parts of the Trumposphere that the Big Guy sold them down the river. That is, they’re not “unwitting” in the sense that they don’t know what they’re doing — they certainly do — but that the cause for which they think they’re fighting doesn’t care about them at all.
Loyalty goes only one way in the Trumposphere. Some of them seem to be catching on to that.
bbleh
@Roger Moore: this. Trump is the avatar, and he’s a bit of a catalyst — things wouldn’t have gone as far or as fast without him — but he’s still much more symptom than cause.
debit
That tweet should be titled Prelude to the Afternoon of an Unwitting Pawn.
...now I try to be amused
I’ve read that what deters crime is not the severity of punishment so much as the certainty of punishment. It seems to be working on the MAGA demographic.
patrick II
It is not the “bottom-up” approach that bothers me so much as the “bottom-up-only” approach that bothers me. If Justice couldn’t investigate both the riot and the White House Plot because of a lack of resources — get more resources. We had an insurrection and near overthrow of the government. It’s really important. People did not realize how close to success it had come until recently — when the White House plot was finally investigated and more details came out. Trump and his fellow plotters should have been treated like criminal suspects from day one. Instead, we have had over two years of repeated lies and a 70% group of Republicans believe him.
Also, the bottom-up approach is eventually supposed to reach the top. I heard of no deals, confessions, shortened sentences or anything else that as a result of any testimony of riot leaders that tied them directly to Trump and would implicateTrump in his and his immediate minions’ crimes. It should have been two (at least) parallel tracks from the start.
trollhattan
@debit: As the French would say, Les Rimshot!
lee
Not sure if anyone mentioned or noticed this but you no longer tweet but you ‘post’ and ‘re-tweet’ is now ‘Repost’.
Roger Moore
@schrodingers_cat:
India has no monopoly on religious charlatans.
trollhattan
Has the corpse of Twitter kneecapped the nitter extension again?
Betty Cracker
@cain:
So far, the population keeps growing, even though rent has almost doubled over the past five years, homeowners insurance rates have quadrupled and inflation is higher here than in any other state. Sometimes it takes a while for perceptions to catch up with reality.
If the population does start declining eventually, that would actually be the best damn thing to happen to Florida in a long time because growth has been out of control. Bad cause, good effect — sort of like how the pandemic was a temporary reprieve for GHG emissions.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker: Florida and Texas keep attracting the flockers. IDK how or why. “It’s a hot heat.”
Miss Bianca
@lee: and a rebuttal tweet is now a “riposte”?
prostratedragon
@WaterGirl: Nor can you just call him one day on the spur of a candidacy announcement.
debit
@lee:
Oh. Just like on https://post.news/ Huh.
JaySinWA
@trollhattan: I believe the correct terminology is “Has the necrosis of X-Twitter spread to the Nitter extension again”
CaseyL
Not really O/T, since this is about deterrence…
I just happened to see a news story about a 19 year old woman who has been found guilty of deliberately driving into a building to kill the other two people in her car (her bf and a friend of his). Evidence included a long history of her threatening to do exactly that to the bf. It’s a ghastly story about a ghastly person.
But it also made me think about something I did on a bicycle back when I was 12-13 years old.
I rode deliberately into a friend of mine on his bike. It was totally deliberate. I had no animus against him, I wasn’t angry, I can say with perfect truth (because I remember it very clearly) that my impulse was “Let’s see what happens.” No more and no less. The impulse came out of nowhere, while I was about 10 feel away from him.
No one was hurt, the bikes weren’t even damaged. But I got an earful from my friend, his parents, my parents, and quite possibly everyone in Atlantic City. I also felt completely awful afterward – not because of the feedback, but from the instant I crashed into him I knew I had done something Very Bad.
It was one hell of an inoculation, is what I’m saying. I mean, not just about not riding a bike into anyone ever again (duh), but also about not being careless, thoughtless and, instead, being very conscious of consequences for my actions. Consequences not only in the “I’ll get in trouble” way, but also in the “you’ll do damage you can’t undo” kind of way.
It made me ponder how childhood and youth can be – should be? – a kind of testing ground for giving in to destructive impulses, when the consequences are less dire but the lessons learned are seared into your mind.
And I wonder how many people either don’t do that as kids and thus never learn that actions can have consequences, back when the lesson would really “take” – and how many people DO do that as kids, but for whatever reason never learn the lesson, and go on to a life of doing damage to everyone and everything around them.
Alison Rose
@lee: I did see that. I was wondering how they would change those terms. Although people will still call it Twitter until the sun dies.
debit
@Alison Rose:
I have no idea why they don’t go with xit and re-xit. That wouldn’t sound like shit at all.
Roger Moore
@bbleh:
It would be great if they really caught on. Disillusioned former members are often the most vicious opponents cults have. I would love to see a substantial number of current Trump cultists switch to hating his guts.
Rob in CT
Most people don’t move due to political considerations. We’re politics junkies. Most people aren’t. Jobs, housing, climate, ammenities… stuff like that dominates. FL isn’t suddenly going to get its comeuppance (medium to long term is another matter). I love my home state, but it is expensive, the job market is meh, has no world-class cities (but but NYC and Boston are close!) and has winter.
Frankensteinbeck
‘Unwitting pawns’ has a meaning in the fever swamp, folks. In their conspiracy-slimed minds they are convinced that the FBI set them up. They are absolutely obsessed with this false flag and FBI entrapment shit.
There was a recent Proud Boys march where Neo-Nazis in masks showed up, and the Proud Boys attacked them and ripped off the masks. Why? Because they believed those must be undercover FBI agents pretending to be Nazis to get them in trouble.
Geminid
@trollhattan: Texas has got some factors going for it in terms of attracting businesses (although its reactionary politics may prove to be a headwind). Florida’s attracts people also, but the more dynamic part of its economy seems to be servicing retirees, tourists and people with portable jobs and wealth.
Georgia and South Carolina to the north are growing also, but they are adding factories and such and are more similar to Texas. One thing I notice when surveying clean energy news is that factories for EVs, batteries etc. seem to be popping up everywhere in the Southeast except Florida. That state’s economy seems static by comparison.
Rob in CT
@Frankensteinbeck:
Bingo. I’ll take it, though. If they refrain from committing violence because they think they’re being set up by the libs, fine.
Bonus points for fash on fash fights. You love to see it.
Anoniminous
@trollhattan:
And the neat thing is the Texas power grid is at the cusp of failure. It’s at max load so more people moving to the state means power demand moves beyond max to melt-down.
Jeffro
@Baud:
@RaflW:
I’m sorry for Florida.
I do hope the professors (and especially, the PreK-12 teachers) in the state think about heading up & out to other states, where they are desperately needed and would be welcomed.
coughVirginiacough
Alison Rose
@debit: LOLOL
louc
@Hilbertsubspace: Stephen Miller is Jewish. The NY Times really did have good profile of him. I happen to know someone who went to high school with him (also Jewish) and his descriptions make that story ring true. Rumor had it that he tried to go out with Latino girls at the school and they all turned him down.
And I think any group of people has self-haters. Look no further than Clarence Thomas.
oatler
@Alison Rose:
yur hi
kindness
Oh now… Who among us has not cast stones against a juror before?
The correct answer is none of us.
Baud
5th circuit issued its mifepristone decision. Onto the Supremes!
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: That’s true. However, right now they are enjoying a resurgence under the Sangh sarkar in India and seem to be proliferating more copiously than before.
The charlatan who calls himself Sadhguru (I call him Sadguru) got himself a spot on TDS with Trevor Noah and reportedly has Hollywood followers.
UncleEbeneezer
@WaterGirl: Weissman is especially annoying because he constantly pushes the bullshit notion that “well, if DOJ was doing something, we’d know about it” even though he knows damn well that DOJ usually doesn’t broadcast their moves to the public.
Lack of overt activity does not equal lack of activity by DOJ. But he keeps pretending otherwise when he presumes he (or anyone else) knows what DOJ was/wasn’t doing in 2021.
prostratedragon
@CaseyL: Interesting stories. The first one of course is like Abre los ojos (Vanilla Sky, with serious malice aforethought. Yours raises the question whether some minds don’t resolve to the awareness of wrong that conscience requires before some external recrimination kicks in, and that becomes the thing to react to. Disapproval, even from one’s own belated awareness, becomes the thing one must defy.
Chief Oshkosh
@Rob in CT:
No world-class cities?! Whaddya call Stars Hollow? Chopped liver? C’mon, man!
WaterGirl
@prostratedragon:
And we are back to timing is everything. I’m sure it took Merrick Garland a bit of time to get his feet on the ground and get the lay of the land, but I suspect he soon figured out that some of the career folks were standing in the way of the insurrection investigations, and Jack Smith was the perfect way to put the kibosh on that.
WaterGirl
@Baud:
What was the decision? Guessing, since it’s there 5th, but would like to know.
cmorenc
Appears Lara Trump is furious with Hillary Clinton for grinning in reaction to Trump’s indictment, and Laura still thinks Clinton’s emails back in 2016 are the real problem the Justice Department ought to be prosecuting.
Well, fuck your feelings Lara.
Chris
Possibly the two most important quotes I heard from 1/6 participants were the woman on the actual night of hearing loud noises and screaming “they’re killing us! They’re supposed to be killing Antifa, but they’re killing patriots instead!” and the woman who some weeks after the riots was caught saying “I’m white, I have a great job, I’m not going to jail.”
1/6 occurred in a context where, for wingnuts, storming a government building had become so normalized (see the Bundys and various other examples) that it’s just another social activity for them. It literally ranks somewhere alongside “go to the movies,” “go to the barbecue,” and “go to the football game” on the list of things they might do if they’re feeling bored and want to go out and have some fun. They stormed the Capitol in the full certainty that it was something that carried no risk, any more than the movie, barbecue, or football game would have. If the fascism’s ever going to be rolled back, they need to absorb the notion that it does carry risk, and that there will be consequences if they’re caught doing it.
So, yeah. Deterrence needs to happen, and this is a good place to start.
Roger Moore
@WaterGirl:
I think a lot of the Garland bashing is typical pundit second guessing. If Garland had been as fast as they now claim he should have been, they’d say he was reckless and didn’t spend enough time putting together the case. What’s really important is coming up with something to criticize him for, since their alternatives can never be tested and proven faulty. Even if their target succeeds, they can always claim their alternative would have been better for some reason.
Alison Rose
A bit of good news:
The stupid investigation is apparently still ongoing, though. And as the paper’s lawyer said: “However, it does nothing to recompense the paper for the violation of its First Amendment rights when the search was conducted,” he added, “and most regrettably, does not return Joann Meyer.”
LAO
Per NYT: authorities have withdrawn the search warrant of the newspaper.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/16/business/media/authorities-return-items-kansas-newspaper-raid.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
ETA: beaten to the punch!
UncleEbeneezer
Another reason why DOJ likely went after the foot-soldiers first: they are the ones who actually did the violence, are more likely to do other violence. They are the ones that need to be locked up first as a matter of public safety. They are also the bigger flight risks as relative nobody’s who can disappear much easier than the famous people can.
Either way, DOJ has a freakin’ 90% conviction rate so it seems rather silly for everyone to be second-guessing them. They’ve indicted Trump (TWICE!!) and will likely indict his five other Co-Conspirators. And the investigation “is ongoing” according to Jack Smith, so possibly other people too. Call me crazy, but I’m just gonna savor all of that reality for awhile and enjoy watching the rest play out.
Jay C
@WaterGirl:
(via TPM):
cmorenc
@Roger Moore:
The big hitch is that people who have been victimized by a con or cult are often stubbornly resistant to recognizing and admitting such, because doing so requires them to admit they were gullible fools to get sucked in by the con. But you are right in that those who are able to get past that barrier are likely to turn into extremely harsh critics who hate their victimizer’s guts.
Chetan Murthy
@Hilbertsubspace: IIRC, that nutjob Luna (the Rep) had a grandfather like that. She claimed he was Jewish, but in fact, he was a German Nazi.
Sure Lurkalot
@RaflW:
Not to minimize the deliberate sabotage happening in Florida, there is a teacher shortage everywhere in America (and a bus driver one as well). The Republicans’ forever war on public education comes up with new battle plans every year. Between the relative low pay, the banning of curricula and books, threats of violence from parents and gun nuts…all supported by the GOP, our public school system, one a source of pride, is being decimated from the inside.
MCA1
@Rob in CT: I guess. I’d rather the reflection be something like “Oh, shit, we probably shouldn’t break the law because it does, in fact, apply to us” and/or “What we’re contemplating here is morally wrong.”
But I suppose I’ll take it. Gives more chances for the temperature in the room to lower, because they’re deterred one way or another.
MattF
@WaterGirl: The appeals court placed some limits on mifepristone, but the SCOTUS stay on any changes will prevail until a final decision. SCOTUS will have to decide if it really really really wants to mess with abortion. My guess is they will back off, but if they don’t it’s a perfect promotion for a political wipeout next year.
rikyrah
Unwitting pawns?
Never seen a bunch of muthaphuckas more unwilling to take responsibility for their actions.
rikyrah
@Jay C:
They can’t unlink mifepristone from the rest of the drugs that the FDA oversees..
So, mess with mifepristone
and there goes Big Pharma
I’ll forever believe that’s what happened with the Supreme Court with this case.
Chris
@Hilbertsubspace:
Even without the literal Nazi ancestry to conceal, in the post-civil-rights world, a lot of conservatives think they can hack the game of wokeness by claiming membership in some oppressed group or other. Either that or, when liberals fail to support everything they’re saying based purely on their supposed identity, they’re still validated, because they’ve “proved” that liberals are hypocrites who won’t follow their own rules. It’s all rooted in their understanding of how progressive politics and victimhood work.
rikyrah
@LAO:
The publicity surrounding this is what made this happen.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: I posted a review a Made in Heaven’s season 2 in the last thread in my reply to you.
Super Dave
Just heard on MSNBC that some online extremist groups have already begun doxing the jurors.
prostratedragon
@Alison Rose: The lawyer covered it, but these goons need to hear it in their dreams: Ms. Meyer will be so pleased!
NotMax
OT.
Sure Lurkalot
@WaterGirl:
Hard to read his mind but one of the reasons he stated at the time of the appointment of special counsel was Trump’s announcement he was running for president. We can only guess what level of importance that had on Garland’s decision and where we would be if Trump had delayed the announcement.
LAO
@rikyrah: 100%. Absolutely!
Roger Moore
@WaterGirl:
I haven’t looked at the decision, but it sounds like it’s mixed. According to TPM:
Not all of the recent changes were reversed, either; apparently they allowed the recent decision to allow it to be prescribed via telemedicine.
cwmoss
@Lyrebird: usually you need the boots to flip on the suits. Here, the written record of communication at the top is so extensive that DA Willis’ approach seems to have been, to quote Frank Booth, “I’ll fuck anything that moves!!!!”
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@LAO:
@Alison Rose: “Insufficient evidence”. If I heard correctly, they got a friendly judge to issue that search warrant based on no freaking evidence at all!
Alison Rose
@rikyrah: SERIOUSLY. It’s aggravating as hell.
Alison Rose
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: “Your Honor, the evidence is: I wanna do it so I’m gonna.”
WaterGirl
@MattF: Thank you. And fuck them.
Women’s lives are being sacrificed, not to mention our right to self-determination.
WaterGirl
@Sure Lurkalot: Yeah, but Garland already had to have Jack Smith lined up in advance. It was obvious that Trump was going to announce.
Also on the Jack podcast they talked about the people at DOJ / FBI who wanted to start investigation the insurrection on day one, but some of the key people in positions of power stood in the way.
That’s why one of the warrants for phones had to be put in motion by the postal inspector, or someone like that. I forget the details, but I’m sure UncleEb will jump in with them.
Anyway, lots of reasons led to my comment about people standing in the way. Not reading Garland’s mind.
wjca
@CaseyL:
How many people don’t do that as kids because their parents are so overwhelmingly overprotective that they simply don’t have opportunities to do dumb things and learn from them. So they get, effectively, blindsided when the consequences are dire.
Roger Moore
@MCA1:
I think worries about the FBI setting them up are just one form of realizing the law actually applies to them. It’s actually something stronger. It’s not just that the law applies to them but that the law may be coming after them specifically. You can think of this as having three levels:
trnc
@rikyrah:
Win win for DT. He gets the dough for his own purposes, and when his toadies flip, he can claim it’s because they’re mad at him for not getting paid, and of course, their substandard work is why he’s been indicted so obviously they don’t deserve to be paid and it’s all the evidence you need to see that he didn’t commit any crimes and so aren’t they the real criminals why yes they are and ….
Ruckus
@TheOtherHank:
Dad met a guy once who stuck out his had to shake and said “Hi, I’m xxx”. Dad said “Hi, I’m xxx.” This went on for a couple of rounds. Turns out same first and last names and middle initial. The both had sons with the same name and the II, not junior. We lived 3-4 miles apart. At the VA there are two of us with the same last 4 digits of SSN and same first and last name, with a different middle initial.
With 7 billion people on the planet, well over 325 million in the US and family names running back centuries of recorded history, I find it’s not really unusual that there can be a lot of confusion about names and IDs.
LAO
Apparently, names and addresses of the GJ members have appeared on the fringe far right web site.
https://x.com/ryanjreilly/status/1691890360119595134?s=46&t=X9PV5VKSwOZNT_u34CCUFQ
I’m not one for calling federal authorities in most situations but if the goddamn federal marshals aren’t at the homes of these bottom feeding scum bags as I type this, I’m going to have a heart attack.
sdhays
@Alison Rose: I guess that means he knows that the city is going to be paying millions of dollars to the Marion County Register, at minimum.
The people who orchestrated this should have legal consequences, not just the Marion Country taxpayers.
RSA
What an amazing shit show. Thanks for the link. And having lost 40 faculty, New College of Florida is advertising… for all of 8 new positions (one tenure-track, several “visiting”).
raven
@Ruckus: I was at Lowes and they called my name on the loudspeaker. I went to the counter and the had my drivers license. . .only it wasn’t mine!
LAO
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: The circumstances around how the search warrant was obtained must have been egregious for the KBI to act so quickly because, as is fairly obvious, law enforcement isn’t very sympathetic to the press in general.
Roger Moore
@wjca:
There are also people whose parents aren’t so much overprotective as they are defensive. They don’t try so hard to protect their kids from the physical consequences of their actions, but they step in any time an authority tries to punish them for their wrongdoing. People like that can also suffer really hard the first time their parents aren’t there to step in. Then there are the ultra-rich like Trump who manage to make it through to adulthood and have enough money to defend themselves from consequences after their parents stop. They can live their whole lives without ever facing consequences, but boy is it a shock to someone when they first learn about consequences as a 77 year old.
Geminid
@Chetan Murthy: That reminds of a joke I heard Don Imus tell on Pat Buchanan. One of his radio sidekicks set Imus up by bringing up Buchanan and then:
Imus: You know, Buchanan lost a relative in a concentration camp.
Sidekick: Really!
Imus: He fell out of a guard tower.
Manyakitty
@cain: and it’s not like they can just push a button and get all the teachers back. Florida is fucked for YEARS.
Dangerman
I can hear the dueling banjos and picture the in breeding now.
Oh, my bad. That was Deliverance, not Deterrence.
Carry on.
Manyakitty
@RaflW: I’m horrified by the size of their freshman class (biggest on record???? Trying to start athletic programs????). Nothing good will come from this.
Frankensteinbeck
@trnc:
That 250 million was during the ‘overturn the election’ period, because his followers reeeeeally wanted that. I don’t think there is hard info about how much it dropped off, but enough that he’s scraping the bottom of the PAC barrel for his legal fees. Of course, he has always been a wastrel with other people’s money.
WaterGirl
@Roger Moore: What you wrote is perfect:
You can think of this as having three levels:
Chris
@Roger Moore:
IIRC, this is one of the things that helped destroy the (third) Ku Klux Klan: Klavern leaders were accusing each other left and right of being federal plants trying to manipulate the movement from the inside, and the paranoia and suspicion just played havoc with any sense of unity and togetherness the movement had, not to mention impunity.
In all likelihood no more than a handful of these accusations were actually true – white supremacists were never the priority for the FBI that civil rights and anti-war groups were, even after political pressure forced them to sort-of get involved. But even a little bit of involvement made for a lot of alarm among people who’d never before had to worry about that.
Baud
I blame Biden.
misterpuff
@rikyrah:
“Mongo just unwitting pawn of White Supremist Fascists and maybe FBI plants.”
cintibud
Replace unwitting with nitwitting
trollhattan
@Geminid: Gold, Jerry, pure gold!
CaseyL
@wjca: Yes, I was thinking about “helicopter” parents, too, when I wrote that.
I also think of parents who keep their kids in line – not over-punitive, per se, but very controlling. Who they can hang out with, where they can go, what sort of books and movies they’re allowed to access. Those kids have trouble learning how to judge risks. A lot of them go wild once they’re away from home, with awful consequences.
stacib
@CaseyL: I wonder how many people were taught that using the words I’m sorry absolved you of any harm you may have done to others, and once you say that (whether you actually mean it or not) – everything should be “fixed”.
Baud
@stacib:
It’s what Jesus would do
Chris
@stacib:
“Jules, did you ever hear the philosophy that once a man admits that he’s wrong, he is immediately forgiven for all wrongdoing? Have you ever heard that?”
“Get the fuck out of my face with that shit! The motherfucker that said that shit never had to pick up itty-bitty pieces of skull on account of your dumb ass!”
CaseyL
@stacib: …and how many of them refused to extend the same “forgiveness” to others?
Ruckus
@Geminid:
Some of that setting up of factories is the same as always in real estate – location, location, location. In FL once you go a little ways south, there are no other states in 3 directions. So you have a more fixed workforce and shipping issues. Other states have better ability to ship products to finish assembly locations in more directions. That makes manufacturing a better proposition. The snow belt can have some of the same issue. How much fun is it to drive a semi on ice?
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
I looked in the Soccer and the Wednesday Morning Thread, and didn’t see the review.
Do you have the number of the comment where you left it? Even went to your Twitter handle and your wordpress. Didn’t see it there.
wjca
@Ruckus:
There is also the detail that, having achieved global warming, a lot of Florida is going to be either under water or at least very swamp. Not a good basis for a factory, even before you get to what that does to transportation infrastructure.
Roger Moore
@Chris:
It only takes one or two informers to take down an organization that’s inherently criminal. I think that’s really key, both with the KKK and with groups like the Proud Boys. They know damn well what they’re doing is against the letter of the law. They’re just used to being able to act with impunity because law enforcement is on their side. Once they figure out that isn’t true and they might face consequences- especially when they see other people in their group facing consequences- they get justifiably scared. Nothing feeds paranoia like people actually being out to get you.
cain
@Super Dave:
They are just making more evidence that Trump is a dangerous threat – especially making that clear to the jurors. If they find out who the fuck that is doing that – the FBI is going to be after them.
UncleEbeneezer
@WaterGirl: It’s all in here. Trump holdovers in FBI, Republicans delaying Biden’s Justice appointees and a careful/cautious approach by Garland/Monaco (remembering well the nightmares of the politicized Barr DOJ and Comey press conference) all worked together to slow things down. But Leonnig’s report also fails to mention DOJ 1.) staring privilege review of Rudy’s phones, 2.) opening an IG investigation into Jeffrey Clark and 3.) investigating Sydney Powell’s fundraising. All of which would have overlap and info relating to 1/6 conspiracy.
It’s not that there isn’t ANY merit to criticisms about DOJ’s cautious approach, but I feel like the people who level them usually refuse to acknowledge the REASONS for it or the complexity of the situation and the numerous other factors that caused things to move slower than the critics wished they would.
Miss Bianca
@cwmoss: lol!
Doug
Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de poursuivre de temps en temps un ancien président et ses sbires pour decourager les autres.
(Pardon my French.)
MCA1
@RaflW: Agreed. The dude’s not even an apparatchik – he’s nothing more than a propogandist. He and DeSantis and the rest of them have no interest in remaking the school and have treated it like a culture war plaything from the start. When NSF fails, they’ll blame it on closed-minded snowflake professors and students shamefully leaving, instead of staying to defend their woke mind virus indoctrination against competing thought, or some bs like that.
There probably are people involved there who do actually want to remake the school into something else, like a Florida Hillsdale. I feel for them, because when the politicos exit stage left they’re going to be left with an absolute shitshow of an institution. It’s admitted far more students than it can house (including 70(!) freshman baseball players with no athletic accreditation or conference affiliation and no diamond) with no adjacent real estate available for expansion. Kids can’t get into classes because it’s lost pretty much all of its serious professors, which means the good students will all be transferring to UF and FSU. And before that even starts its student body academic quality has declined significantly from just a year or two ago because half of the freshman class is athletes with an average ACT of 22. Not exactly much to crow about in the materials they’ll carpet bomb the mailboxes and inboxes of rising high school seniors with. They’ve pretty much turned their public “honors college” into a juco in under 18 months.
Chris
@Doug:
On pourrait même le guillotiner, histoire de vraiment décourager les autres. Mais ce n’est pas dans les traditions américaines. Dommage.
Miss Bianca
@LAO: I have mentioned that I’m glad to see you back around these parts, right? Not to make light of your dire post here.
Manyakitty
@Sure Lurkalot: and we are living with the results of that intentional crisis of education right now. This is how they wanted it to play out. 😡
Manyakitty
@NotMax: I’d like to see the Obamas go along.
Manyakitty
@LAO: just imagine what will happen to the jurors for the actual trial. Holy fuck. They better get round the clock, closely vetted security.
artem1s
I think the opposite is true. Most people don’t have to do something egregiously stupid to realize there might be consequences that can’t be undone. And think there are plenty of kids who do and still learn nothing.
artem1s
@Chris:
lots of state capitols got stormed during COVID. Militia’s in OH were plotting to kidnap MI governor. It was insane what was going on leading up to 1/6. It was inevitable that someone would eventually take things too far.
The Pale Scot
@Betty Cracker:
It seems to me that the focus of the lawsuit should be on expenses already lost.
“I’m in the third year of the neuroscience program, your actions have devalued my monetary and time expenditures by making this program insufficient to current standards. If I want’d to go to a bible college I would of
The Pale Scot
@RaflW:
I’ve been in FL for too long, my impressions of the medicos are they are mostly losers. Confirmed by friends who are nurses. I go back to NJ for a 2cd opinion at least once every couple of years
Timill
@Manyakitty: All the jurors (all trials) are going to need Secret Service protection for life.
They won’t get it…
The Pale Scot
@Rob in CT
Man, you are a train ride away from Manhattan, I’d kill for that
NotMax
@Manyakitty
Negatory. That would turn it into a spectacle.
Manyakitty
@NotMax: fair enough. I suspect they’ll make a quiet trip or several soon enough.
Ruckus
@raven:
Fun isn’t it?
JohnC
@Manyakitty: Hard disagree – the Obamas can (and I’m certain will) go on their own – the President cannot be seen to be needing assistance, or campaigning.