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Saturday Evening Open Thread: Happy Holidays, Fellow Citizens
by Anne Laurie | December 21, 2019 4:40 pm | 196 Comments
This post is in: Criminal Justice, Open Threads, All we want is life beyond the thunderdome
Is this a metaphor or what?
Sign on a local manger. pic.twitter.com/iDtneq4Y82
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) December 20, 2019
Note: the above manger is in a police station parking lot. Kid you not.
There are two random citizens sitting outside the jail today at a table giving out coffee, donuts, and bus passes to people as they are released. For Christmas, ostensibly.
My heart is warm.
— Kevin Horne (@KevinHornePSU) December 20, 2019
This is a bullshit charge and it was his pal Sully who was stayin' over from Lower Allston who got him to do it https://t.co/kOYPN2N34k
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 21, 2019
(He's a professional! That baby was frozen with terror!)
And a happy thought for the year to come:
It used to be I'd check Twitter at 7AM west coast, and Twitter would be buzzing about whatever Trump's 7AM east coast insane tweets were. Now I can scroll for a good five minutes before I find anyone talking about his tweets. He's done it. He's worn out Twitter.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) December 20, 2019
Saturday Evening Open Thread: Happy Holidays, Fellow CitizensPost + Comments (196)
Peaceful Assembly & Personal Security: Reposted
by Adam L Silverman | December 16, 2019 11:42 pm | 22 Comments
This post is in: America, Civil Rights, Criminal Justice, Domestic Politics, Election Year, Impeachment, Open Threads, Organizing & Resistance, Politics, Silverman on Security
I'm sure a number of you are planning to join one of the various marches tomorrow night in support of impeachment. So I wanted to re-up my post on personal security at protests, marches, and demonstrations for anyone that missed it the first several times I posted it.
I really don't know what to tell anyone in regard to counter-protests. While there were some vocal protests at a number of Democratic members of Congress's town halls over the past weekend, none were violent. But, as we've seen stated often enough on social media and in interviews with the news media, the President's supporters are not shy about threatening the use of force. So you need to prepare yourself that there may be violence from counter-protestors. If possible, I would recommend designating one member of your group to begin to record video as soon as the march you're attending starts and and to do so through the duration of the march. If possible, you should be on the buddy system with the person videoing events so they don't have to worry about being blindsided if counter-protesters decide to become violent.
(Originally posted on 18 December 2016)
Congress shall make no law… abridging…the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. — Amendment 1, Bill of Rights, US Constitution
One of our readers/commenters emailed me about a week ago and asked if I would put up a post about personal security for those going to peaceably assemble to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. I put a list together and ran it past a select group of our Balloon Juice legal eagles (those I've corresponded with before/have corresponded with me, so if you didn't get asked, don't be insulted I didn't want to just impose on you with a cold request) – thank you all for getting back to me. Here's my list of what I think anyone going to peacefully assemble should do to enhance their personal security.
Go with a buddy, that way you have at least one person looking out for you/watching your back and vice versa.
Carry cash and make sure to carry a valid picture ID!
Bring a pocket flashlight.
Get and wear a go pro or equivalent that is automatically updating to the cloud.
Bring a charged back up power source for your cell phone and go pro regardless of whether it is supposed to be a long day.
Make sure your personal electronic devices all have sufficient password protection and encryption on them. And have them set to upload to the cloud at a regular interval.
Turn off fingerprint access to unlock your phone and delete your finger prints from the memory. Some jurisdictions allow law enforcement to compel you to unlock your phone if it has finger print based access. Or get a disposable phone just for this occasion.
Turn off your phone and other personal electronic devices option to connect to known wifi as it can be used as a way to fail your encryption.
Bring a bandana or neck gaiter and water so you can make a make shift gas mask in case things get out of hand and tear gas or pepper spray is deployed.
Bring a bottle of saline eye rinse in case you need to rinse your eyes out if tear gas or pepper spray is deployed.
Bring a tourniquet or something that could be used as a tourniquet if necessary.
Bring plenty of water and some snacks to make sure you're properly hydrated and you've got enough fuel in your system to get through the day.
Dress in layers so you are prepared for the weather and make sure you have good shoes/boots and a change of socks in case they should get wet. A set of silk base layer undersocks is a good idea regardless of the weather. They'll help keep your feet warm or cool as needed and they'll provide some protection in case your shoes/boots and socks get wet. And something to keep the back of your neck and your ears warm if you're going to be someplace cold. Also, if you're going to be somewhere cold, bring gloves.
Bring/wear a hat to keep the sun off your head or to keep it warm depending on the weather.
Bring/wear eye protection. Specifically sunglasses that are impact rated. (You should be able to pick up military surplus ones pretty cheap).
Sunscreen, skin moisturizer, and lip balm. Even if its cold you'll need these.
If you need to take regular/routine prescription medication: bring it in its original container, with the prescription details on the label. If its a gel based application and comes in a packet, make sure you've got a hard copy of the prescription with you.
Be aware of your surroundings at all times. You don't have to be paranoid, but have a sufficient level of situational awareness. If something looks and/or feels hinky or the hair on the back of your neck stands up, head on home or go get a drink or go back to your hotel. Know who and what is around you, keep your valuables in front pockets or in secure/securable purses/bags, and keep those where they can't be easily snatched or accessed.
Have a contact plan for both linking up and communicating in case you get separated from anyone you're with.
Have a contact plan to stay in touch with someone who isn't at the march, but knows that you're there and a regular set of contact times.
Have a lawyer you can contact with if necessary and that your outside contact could contact if you don't check in. Make sure you have all of your contact's phone numbers memorized in case your phone is damaged or taken by law enforcement should the worst happen and you're arrested.
Bring a sharpie to take down badge numbers if necessary. And if necessary write them on your hand.
Should the worst happen and you get caught up in a peaceable assembly that suddenly turns not so peaceable:
Do not resist law enforcement. Just do what they say, let your arms go limp, and do what you can to avoid a reflex response to resist – that can get you charged with assault on a law enforcement officer.
Be respectful and polite when dealing with the authorities – law enforcement, the National Park Service, whoever.
If you are arrested, ask for a lawyer and then shut up. Do not say anything else or answer any other questions until your lawyer arrives. In fact let the lawyer do the talking.
One last item: some of you probably carry a pocket knife or multitool everywhere. Or everywhere that you're normally allowed. I would recommend not carrying anything on your possession that could be construed as a concealed weapon or even an openly carried one. Even if you're in a state/jurisdiction that allows for concealed or open carry of knives and/or other weapons – don't. Being part of a march or peaceful assembly that turns ugly is not a good time to attempt firearms (or knife) normalization.
Stay Alert, Stay Alive!
Peaceful Assembly & Personal Security: RepostedPost + Comments (22)
Late-Night Dystopia Open Thread: Floriduh Cops
This post is in: Open Threads, Shitty Cops, Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You, All Too Normal, Decline and Fall
*into a vehicle with a hostage https://t.co/qYvWhv1rc1
In a world with less terrible / outrageous news every day, I have the feeling this incident might've gotten more attention.
… Most of those officers — 13 — were from Miami-Dade Police Department, having followed the truck into Broward County during a long chase, said Rod Skirvin, president of the Broward County Police Benevolent Association.
Four people were killed in the shootout Thursday evening at an intersection in Miramar: two robbery suspects who'd hijacked the truck; a UPS driver they had taken hostage; and a bystander, police said.
The shootout happened as a police chase ended after the hijacked UPS truck got stuck in traffic. Gunfire erupted from inside and outside the truck, though it's not clear who fired first.
Police officers left their vehicles and crouched behind cars — their own and others at the intersection — as shields as they approached, video from the scene showed.
Suspects Lamar Alexander, 41, and Ronnie Jerome Hill, 41, both of Miami-Dade County, were killed, the FBI said.
Also killed were the hijacked UPS driver, Frank Ordonez — who relatives said had been substituting for a colleague who'd called out from work — and bystander Richard Steven Cutshaw, officials said.
Whether Ordonez and Cutshaw were shot by police is under investigation, the FBI has said.
At least 13 police officers were shot at, but none was injured, according to Steadman Stahl, president of the South Florida Police Benevolent Association.
The chase began after Alexander and Hill robbed a jewelry store Thursday afternoon in Coral Gables, near Miami, and hijacked the UPS truck, police said.
Police radioed that gunfire occasionally erupted from the truck even as police chased it, CNN affiliate WSVN reported…
Ooooh, hot pursuit! Stealing jewelry is wrong, and pistol-whipping a store employee is worse, but I can't see how making sure the perpetrators didn't escape was worth shooting two people whose only crime was going to work that day.
… "Just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong," said David Klinger, a criminal justice professor at the University of Missouri in St. Louis. The incident "was really, really bad."
But as chaotic and calamitous as the episode was, it was also "a perfect example" of why police are allowed to use deadly force against dangerous criminals, Klinger said. Authorities said Lamar Alexander and Ronnie Jerome Hill had left a trail of violence behind them that evening. Stopping them by any means — even with bullets — was "absolutely the right thing to do," Klinger said.
"In a situation like this, the police are reactive," Klinger added. "This is not a situation they want to be in. Their hand was forced."
show full post on front page
The dramatic exchange of gunfire followed a high-speed chase through two counties that thwarted residents' commutes at rush hour. The men had tried to rob Regent Jewelers in Coral Gables, triggering a silent alarm about 4:15 p.m., police said.
They said a female employee of the store was injured as the robbers and the store owner shot at each other. The gunmen fled north in a truck, then commandeered a UPS truck while the driver was making a delivery, police said. Several police cars pursued the UPS truck, with the UPS driver trapped inside, until the vehicle was boxed in by traffic in Miramar and officers surrounded it….
Geoff Alpert, a criminology professor at the University of South Carolina, said that other than having a SWAT truck with heavily armed tactical police officers, he did not know of alternative ways that police could have safely ended the pursuit. The gunmen had proved that they were willing to resort to violence to escape and could have endangered other people in the area, such as by hijacking other cars, Alpert said.
"This is why the police are trained to do what they do," he said…
Cops: We are the only thing standing between the criminals and you
Also cops: [stands behind you when criminals start shooting] https://t.co/SJ68aeNqaa
— Flushcount:TenHat (@Popehat) December 7, 2019
Seems like the cops could've given the perpetrators a few minutes, just so the "they shot first" defense would be a little clearer. (Unlucky damned hostage was about to end up dead anyways.) I'm told that Coral Gables is "one of South Florida's most sought-after shopping destinations", but we haven't quite descended to the point where richer zip codes get a free pass on extrajudicial murder, have we?
judge the cops all you want, you have NO idea how you'd react in a hostage crisis so it's easy to say you wouldn't murder the hostage and a bystander while using innocent people as cover in order to save three grand worth of jewelry and a truckload of Amazon packages
— Law Boy, Esq. (@The_Law_Boy) December 6, 2019
Hey in the cops defense, using NPCs as human shields to defend low level loot is perfectly acceptable if your entire view of policing comes from Grand Theft Auto
— Big Malarkey Lobbyist (@MenshevikM) December 6, 2019
Bonus cameo from another newsmaker:
"If you don't start showing enough respect to these officers, they might not protect your community." – Bill Barr, paraphrased https://t.co/DZyl5rWAlW
— Daily Trix (@DailyTrix) December 7, 2019
Late-Night Dystopia Open Thread: Floriduh CopsPost + Comments (14)
Kristallnacht 81 Years Later
by Adam L Silverman | November 9, 2019 9:21 pm | 66 Comments
This post is in: America, Civil Rights, Crazification Factor, Criminal Justice, Domestic Politics, Foreign Affairs, LGBTQ Rights, Open Threads, Politics, Racial Justice, Silverman on Security, War, Women's Rights
Tonight is the 81st anniversary of the NAZI pogrom of November 1938 known as Kristallnacht.
9-10 November 1938 | #Kristallnacht – a pogrom against the Jews throughout Nazi Germany. Almost 100 killed, 30,000 men arrested, over 1,000 synagogues burnt, over 7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed or damaged: https://t.co/hrrnJUqR3e pic.twitter.com/m9K2AB7Wpu
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) November 9, 2019
In an article on the evening of 11 November, Joseph Goebbels ascribed the events to the "healthy instincts" of the German people: "The German people are anti-Semitic. It has no desire to have its rights restricted or to be provoked in the future by parasites of the Jewish race."
Only three years after the Kristallnacht the physical extermination of Jews began in Germany & German-occupied European territory – first the murder was perpetrated in the East by shooting of the Einsatzgruppen & later in gas chambers of extermination camps, such as Auschwitz..
I'm not sure 81 years on what there is left to say. Especially that I didn't say in a post memorializing this day last year and the year before and the year before that and the year before that… Or in the posts I've done on the Red Summer or any other number of atrocities.
Perhaps we just need to pay attention because the revanchist, neo-fascist, and neo-nationalist descendants of the NAZIs and the other fascists that set the conditions for and carried out the atrocities on Kristallnacht and the even worse atrocities during the Holocaust proper still need to be combatted. They need to be exposed whenever possible. Dragged out into the sunlight for all to see and, should it come to it, once again physically combatted until they are defeated on the battlefield as they were during WW II.
Just this past week a neo-NAZI was arrested for trying to blow up a synagogue in Pueblo, Colorado. A young African American man had to stand his ground in Georgia in the face of a racist attack from a now deceased white man.* And we learned that the President and his racist, white supremacist administration have actually separated an additional 1,500 migrant children from their parents and that number may still be an undercount. I'm sure there are more examples of the revanchist, racist, and fascist throughline that runs from Kristallnacht in 1938 to the President, his administration, his surrogates, his supporters, and the tyrants and dictators that he so idealizes with just a few minutes more searching, but I don't think I need to belabor the point.
Also, the Auschwitz Memorial is trying to get 750,000 followers by the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in January 2020. So if you're on Twitter, give them a follow!
We hope to get 750,000 followers for the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on 27 Jan 2020.
This will not be possible without your support & engagement.
Help us to honor all victims and preserve their memory online. RT & encourage others to follow @AuschwitzMuseum. pic.twitter.com/PDbTvDcOyg
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) August 23, 2019
* I'm actually surprised it has taken this long for a person of color to have to use force/lethal force to defend him or herself from a white racist's attack. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the courts, given that Georgia is a stand your ground state, but the person who stood his ground this time is African American. As I've written here many times in comments, I expected this to happen. And I expect that once white people realize that the old maxim that "G-d made man, Samuel Colt made all men equal" doesn't just apply to white people, they'll freak out. I'm honestly not sure what the nature of that freak out will be. It might be a response similar to that of then Governor Reagan's to Black Panther's openly carrying unarmed long guns in the California state capitol building by signing gun control legislation. Or it may be more similar to the Tulsa Race Riot, the Red Summer, and the response to Forest Joe's slave revolt in the 1820s among others. But if people of color exercise their statutory rights to self defense, and they are both justified in doing so and do so in response to attacks on their persons and property by racist whites, there will be a backlash. And we all need to be prepared for it.
Kristallnacht 81 Years LaterPost + Comments (66)
Election 2020 Open Thread: Kamala Harris Took the Lead This Weekend
by Anne Laurie | October 28, 2019 9:30 pm | 87 Comments
This post is in: Civil Rights, Criminal Justice, Election Year, I'm With Her, Kamala Harris 2020, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Seriously
We must change people's perceptions, and it starts at the top. When those in charge don't see the value of people like Tamir Rice or Atatiana Jefferson, there can be lethal consequences. pic.twitter.com/J4MznO7Abb
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) October 27, 2019
Rep. Shirley Chisholm, one of my earliest political idols, said "If they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair." After Friday's HBCU Trump debacle, Senator Harris took her chair, and changed the conversation.
Good story on @KamalaHarris today. https://t.co/oYKH04lQ7i
— Bakari Sellers (@Bakari_Sellers) October 27, 2019
… In the hours after Harris initially announced she wouldn't be present at the forum, talks began between her campaign, Mayor Benjamin and Benedict College to create an end result that didn't include the 20/20 Bipartisan Justice Center with a breakthrough happening overnight, a Harris campaign aide said.
"People were figuring out a solution where the group honoring President Trump wasn't involved and students had access to speeches and the ability to ask questions," the aide said.
Another aide said Harris, the only graduate of a historically black college in the 2020 field, wouldn't stand for the 20/20 Bipartisan Justice Center "disrespecting" the legacy of HBCUs and their history rooted in protest, justice and equality.
"When it became clear Donald Trump would receive an award after decades of celebrating mass incarceration, pushing the death penalty for innocent Black Americans, rolling back police accountability measures and racist behavior that puts people's lives at risk, and then learned all but ten Benedict students are excluded from participating, I cannot in good faith be complicit in papering over his record," Harris said in a statement Friday…
Kamala Harris: "What do we have in Donald Trump? Someone who dares — dares — to use the word 'lynching' with the blood that has been poured on the soil of South Carolina and so many places." https://t.co/Hg8Ui0kIWv
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 26, 2019
"On that debate stage in terms of whose running, l am probably the only or one of a very few who has spent her career actually working on reforming the system as oppose to just talking about it." pic.twitter.com/SQ06vteqbU
— Daryon (@daryongeronimo) October 26, 2019
Folks, let's stop for a minute and reflect on what Kamala Harris did in the last 24 hours.
— Wyeth Ruthven (@wyethwire) October 26, 2019
So Kamala Harris pulled her support for the forum. She was prepared to hold a counter-program with her own people.
It's also important to note that Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin, one of the co-sponsors of the event, had a choice to make — he could side with the Trump friendly sponsors, or side with Kamala.
He sided with Kamala.
So tactically and strategically, this was a big win for Team Kamala. /end
"Kamala Harris stood on principle, but she had to stand alone. The fact that the entire composition of the event was changed as a result of her protest speaks to the power an individual with moral clarity and determination can have." https://t.co/RUR5BKrJgg
— Kirsten Allen (@knicole_a) October 27, 2019
I see a lot of valid commentary about Kamala standing alone in her advocacy at the criminal justice forum but at the same time I feel like that was absofuckinglutely the precise point she intended to make. What better platform to set herself apart, and with what better audience?
— Propane Jane™ (@docrocktex26) October 27, 2019
It was also a premeditated and fearless confrontation of the "Kamala is a cop" propaganda, truth be told. She isn't afraid to put her entire record under scrutiny, in fact she reformed the whole forum to make sure ample Black stakeholders/voters were in attendance.
Kamala isn't waiting for the game to catch up to her, she's changing the game on the ground in real time. She was ready for every question that came from the audience she cultivated, but the frontrunners weren't. That's not 'standing alone', it's leading and rallying the troops. pic.twitter.com/S7egYCjodQ
Let me be clear: the core of any fight for justice is that you speak truth, no matter how uncomfortable it may be. Thank you to the grassroots supporters who joined me in this fight. https://t.co/mW3wBDfvdy
Election 2020 Open Thread: Kamala Harris Took the Lead This WeekendPost + Comments (87)
Breaking: Amber Guyger Verdict: Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!
by Tom Levenson | October 1, 2019 12:46 pm | 225 Comments
This post is in: Criminal Justice, Shitty Cops, "Lock Her Up!!"
The jury in the trial of (former) Dallas police officer Amber Guyger took just a few hours to find her guilty of murdering her unarmed upstairs neighbor, Botham Jean.
The smell of fuckery was high in this one after the judge allowed the jury to consider the castle doctrine for a shooting in the victim's home, but the jury seems to have been completely unbefuddled by that move. ETA: as commentor Momentary points out below, there's some speculation that the instruction was given with an eye to appeal-proofing the verdict. IANAL, and have nothing useful to add to that thought.)
From the first story I found on the result:
Cheers erupted in the courthouse as the verdict was announced, and someone yelled "Thank you, Jesus!" In the hallway outside the courtroom where Guyger was tried, a crowd celebrated in raised voices. When the prosecutors walked into the hall, they broke into cheers.
Guyger faces between 5 and 99 years in prison. Court will resume at 1 p.m. Tuesday.
Not often a cop faces the full weight of his or her actions. Congratulations to the 12 women and men of that jury for seeing this one through.
Image: F. Luis Mora, The National Academy Jury of 1907.
*It's possible I may not have caught the concept of "jury" perfectly here.
Breaking: Amber Guyger Verdict: Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!Post + Comments (225)
A Much Needed Forceful Statement From Justin Herdman, the US Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio
by Adam L Silverman | August 29, 2019 9:54 pm | 62 Comments
This post is in: America, Civil Rights, Criminal Justice, domestic terrorists, LGBTQ Rights, LGBTQ Rights Are Human Rights, Open Threads, Politics, Racial Justice, Silverman on Security, Women's Rights
Justin Herdman, the US Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, made a blunt, powerful statement today regarding white supremacy and those who adhere to it.
In powerful remarks, U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman calls out white supremacists while announcing charges against a man accused of threatening an attack on Jewish community center.
"Those actions don't make you soldiers, they make you cowards." https://t.co/cGHs9h4cjX pic.twitter.com/lKlQGtu9AD
— ABC News (@ABC) August 29, 2019
This guy gets it!
Perhaps he can explain it to the President?
A Much Needed Forceful Statement From Justin Herdman, the US Attorney for the Northern District of OhioPost + Comments (62)
The Goal Is To Hold the Line
by Adam L Silverman | August 27, 2019 9:18 pm | 115 Comments
This post is in: America, Civil Rights, Climate Change, Criminal Justice, Domestic Politics, Economics, Election Year, Environmental Rights, Foreign Affairs, Health Care, Immigration, LGBTQ Rights, Military, Open Threads, Politics, Racial Justice, Silverman on Security
Those Who Seek to Control Others Know Power, Those Who Seek to Control Themselves Know the Way*
— Lao Tzu; The Tao Te Ching
There's been a lot of sturm and drang in the comments recently, not just today, about all is lost, there's no way out, we're doomed. This has often been married to doom and gloom about the primary, the differences between the candidates, and whether idealism, incrementalism, or pragmatism is the way to win the 2020 election. How about we all just step back, take a deep breath, and focus on the actual fight that is the 2020 campaign. That fight has five components:
Winning the presidential election
Keeping the majority in the House
Winning back the majority in the Senate
Holding the governors' mansions and state legislatures currently in Democratic hands
Flipping as many governors' mansions and state legislatures as possible
The fourth and fifth components are important to set the conditions for a more representative redistricting after the 2020 census. The first three are important for other reasons. Maintaining the Democratic majority in the House is a necessary, but not sufficient requirement to return the US back to a solid political and economic footing. Retaking both the presidency and the Senate are both necessary and sufficient requirements to actually being able to do so. If the Democrats retake the presidency, but don't retake the Senate, the next president will be a lame duck before her or his hand ever comes off the bible at the inauguration. No one they nominate, for political or judicial or diplomatic appointments, will ever get a vote. Nor will any legislation that passes a Democratic majority House, other than, perhaps, continuing resolutions to keep the government running at a previous year's top line budget number. Right now the only way to reverse the damage that has been done, and to ensure that we get good policy on the climate and the environment, on immigration, on healthcare, on the economy including trade, and on criminal justice is to not just be able to pass laws through both chambers of Congress, but to have a Democratic president to sign that legislation and her or his political appointees in place to administer the executive branch agencies and fill judicial vacancies.
The only good news out of Senator McConnell's court packing scheme, and that's what it was a decades long strategy to achieve a Republican majority in the Senate and a Republican president to fill the vacancies that McConnell abused the Senate to keep vacant, is that almost every judicial vacancy that McConnell has filled was a judgeship that was held by a judge appointed by a previous Republican president. Retaking the Senate stops this before McConnell can replace the last batch of Bush 41 judicial appointees still serving, as well as the older Clinton and Bush 43 judicial appointees who will begin to retire. And it also stops him from replacing the next three Supreme Court judicial vacancies, vacancies that are likely to come open over the next several years whether we'd like them to or not. And yes, I fully expect that even as I write this, McConnell and members of the White House Counsel's Office and Leonard Leo are working on Justice Thomas to get him to retire next year to both prevent a potential Democratic president from being able to replace Thomas after 2021 and to once again put the Supreme Court majority in play as a successful campaign strategy to both reelect the President and maintain a Republican majority in the Senate.
That reality recognized, this is all in our hands. We have the ability, we have the power to elect a Democratic president in 2020 and a Democratic majority in the Senate, as well as maintain the Democratic majority in the House. This is what the 2020 election is all about. And yes, it is about healthcare, immigration, climate, environmental, economic, foreign, defense, criminal justice, and trade policy, but it isn't actually about whether to take an incremental approach versus a revolutionary approach. Or something in between. It isn't really about a choice between VP Biden or Senator Warren or Senator Harris or Senator Sanders or any of the other Democratic primary candidates. The simple reality we face as Americans is that nothing positive, not a single damn thing, is possible on healthcare, immigration, the climate, the environment, the economy, foreign policy, defense policy, criminal justice, and/or trade policy if the President is reelected and if the Senate remains in Republican hands. The real issue right now isn't whether VP Biden's healthcare plan is too incremental or whether Senator Sanders is too idealistic and therefore unrealistic and improbable. And that either of them have the ability to deactivate Democratic voters because they're not having their ideological pleasure centers tickled. At the Federal level, the real issue is electing a Democrat president with a Democratic majority Senate and maintaining the Democratic House. That's it. Almost any of the Democratic primary candidates is acceptable given this reality. And even a one seat Democratic majority in the Senate is as well.
This is all doable. It is within not just the realm of possibility, but also probability and plausibility. But it is only doable if we both recognize the actual strategic objectives we're trying to achieve and don't give in to despair. One of the ways that tyrannies are able to subvert democracies, regardless of whether it is a democratic-republic like the US or a parliamentary democracy or any of the variations in between, is by exhausting the citizenry. Exhaustion and despair are the means to that end. The President, Senator McConnell, their trusted agents, their surrogates, and their supporters want everyone strung out, worn out, and so stressed out they can't respond effectively. Americans are tired, they're upset, they're angry. Even the President and his supporters are angry and they're getting everything they claim to want. They are the sorest winners in history. How about we give them something to actually be sore about!
It is within our power to turn this around. And to do so at the ballot box, which is the easiest way to do it. Trust me, you don't want me to have to write the post about how to deal with this the hard way! The ways and means to do this are registering voters and getting out the vote and staying as calm and focused as possible. This means that the Democrats in Florida need to get their acts together and mobilize the Puerto Rican community in Florida. Both those who have been there for a long time and those who have arrived since Maria devastated the island. Do actual, real outreach. Get them registered. Get them motivated. Stay in regular contact. Remind them who has their back, who recognizes them as fellow Americans, and who doesn't. Similar efforts need to take place, tailored to the demographic realities of each state, in each state to ensure the broad, multi-generational, ethnically and religiously diverse coalition that is the Democratic Party turns out to vote in such large numbers than no amount of shenanigans, no matter who is behind them, can thwart the will of the majority.
The fight right now is to elect a Democratic president, a Democratic majority in the Senate, maintain a Democratic majority in the House, maintain all the Democratic governors and state legislatures, and flip as many to the Democrats as possible. And the battlespace for the presidential election is the Electoral College, no matter how much we'd all like to see it placed in the dustbin of history.
We can do this. We can save ourselves. No one else will. But to do so we must stay focused, we must pace ourselves, we must not give in to despair and frustration and infighting. Because the alternative is simply unacceptable.
* Also translated as "Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power" and "He who knows others is learned, He who knows himself is wise", as well as several other variants depending on which translation one is referencing.
The Goal Is To Hold the LinePost + Comments (115)
There Is A Real Risk To Criminalizing Domestic Terrorism
by Adam L Silverman | August 6, 2019 4:21 pm | 115 Comments
This post is in: America, Civil Rights, Criminal Justice, Domestic Politics, domestic terrorists, Open Threads, Politics, Silverman on Security
(Full disclosure: In 2002 I was paid for my participation – preparing a scholarly paper with Ron Akers who supervised the criminological side of my doctorate and dissertation – in the National Institute of Justice's, which is the research arm of the Department of Justice, special conference on Violence and Terrorism. The proceedings of that conference were published in this edited volume. The definition and empirical theoretical explanation of terrorism that we presented, which were directly from my doctoral dissertation, were voted by the other participants in the conference as the best definition and empirical theoretical explanation of terrorism presented at the conference. That definition is closely mirrored in the definition used in the Federal statute that defines both international and domestic terrorism. I have had no funding from the NIJ/DOJ since 2002.)
After the white supremacist terrorist attack in El Paso on Saturday, which followed on one in Gilroy, CA the week before, and was then followed by a mass shooting in Dayton, OH that night and which is still under investigation for motive, there have been calls to revamp the US criminal code to criminalize domestic terrorism. The FBI Agents Association has now formally called on Congress to do this.
Many others have also called for this change because, as we've discussed here before, while domestic terrorism is defined in the Federal code, there is no criminalization of the behavior as there is for international terrorism. Many are arguing, and, perhaps, not incorrectly so, that it is time to bring the Federal code up to date and criminalize domestic terrorism so we have better tools to fight the surge in domestic white supremacist terrorism that has been spiking across the US over the past three years. And that, by doing so, Congress would be sending a message and ultimately be creating a deterrent. As a professionally educated and trained criminologist, I am highly skeptical of the deterrent power of law, especially Federal law, on most people's behavior.
That said, I have a different concern here. Specifically that a Federal criminalization of domestic terrorism will actually be used and directed against those who are ethnically, racially, and religiously non-conforming to the white, Christian majority that still exists in the US. The same goes for LGBTQ Americans, as well as members of immigrant communities who have not completed or have chosen not to become naturalized citizens. The US's history of applying law, is the history of law being directed by those with more cultural (ethnic, racial, religious, political/ideological, socio-economic, gender, sexuality) homogeneity to the majority against those with less. And I think it is highly likely that if domestic terrorism is criminalized at this moment in America, where the questions of who are and can be American and just what Americanness is are actually being fought over, including in the violent domestic terrorist attacks we saw in El Paso and Gilroy and Paloma and Pittsburgh and Charleston and other places in the US, then an actual criminalization of domestic terrorism will not be directed at white supremacists. Rather, it would be directed against Black Lives Matter; anti-Trump protesters in general, as well as the more specific antifa, which is often conflated with the Black Bloc anarchists; RAICES, the Jewish Never Again Action movement, and other groups protesting the President's immigration policies and practices; as well as a variety of other groups that regularly and routinely engage in peaceful assembly and protest and digital and social media activists protesting Federal, state, and local government leaders and action.
And this is before we even get to what the states will do to mirror a Federal criminalization of domestic terrorism. As it is, every state created some variant or version of homeland security, anti-extremism, and/or terrorism statutes in the wake of 9-11. Some were well thought out. Some not so much. Several years ago I was briefly asked to consult on a defense appeal in New Jersey* for someone who, when 15, got drunk and spray painted some swastikas and anti-Semitic graffiti on a synagogue. Unfortunately for this guy, when New Jersey decided to create a terrorism statute in the wake of 9-11, they just built out their hate crime statute. So stupid, drunken teenage behavior, no matter how much it is offensive, got this guy a long prison sentence as a terrorist under New Jersey state law instead of just a hate crime prosecution.
Last week Ken White, the former Federal prosecutor turned defense attorney who tweets as Popehat, and Above the Law's Elie Mystal had a very interesting and thoughtful discussion that, while tangential to criminalizing domestic terrorism, provides a loudly sounding klaxon of warning against doing so. Their conversation was about creating a 1st Amendment carve out to criminalize hate speech. While I highly recommend that you click across and read the whole thing, for the purposes of criminalizing domestic terrorism, this is the relevant section (emphasis mine):
Elie: JUSTICE MYSTAL, CONCURRING. The majority has well explained the law as it is, and explained well what the law is not. But I now write separately to argue not what the law is, but what it should be…
When applied to people of color, the incitement principle does not take into account the lived experience of colored people. It does not take into account how lynchings happen, how assassinations happen, and how run-of-the-mill "I'm just going to beat you half to death" hate crimes happen.
The mob is encouraged, riled up, and given a black or brown scapegoat for their problems. Eventually, some members of the mob are going to *act.* The people riling up the mob know that there is a chance one of their idiot flock will act. We have to be able to bring legal consequences to these people, *before* there are additional dead or beaten people of color in the streets. Prosecuting merely the act after the fact might make white people feel better, but it does nothing for the victims who are either dead, bloodied, or live in fear of being dead and bloodied.
To put that in the form of a question, what *good* do incitement standards, as we currently have them, do for the people most likely to be the victims of the kind of racial violence black people have known in this country for 400 years?
White: It's a perfectly fair question. The legal system disfavors the powerless — particularly racial and religious minorities. Rules devised by the system tend to do the same. The way the system works tends to do the same.
But — here's the key — exceptions to constitutional rights absolutely follow the pattern. Put another way, any exception to free speech will be disproportionately applied against the powerless, and especially people of color.
The history of free speech law bears this out. Very little of it is about trying to put limits on racists. Most of it is about trying to put limits on the powerless — about the system finding excuses to jail poor people, people of color, unpopular people.
So, consider the cases involving a broad reading of incitement, the ones that might support prosecuting someone for a billboard like this. Consider Schenck v. U.S., in which Justice Holmes gave us the fatuous "fire in a crowded theater" trope. Schenck's about prosecuting a socialist for distributing handbills suggesting that poor people resist the WWI draft. THAT'S what got the Supreme Court to articulate a very broad and unprincipled incitement standard, the type you'd need to reach a billboard like this.
Elie: Right. It's used to put people like me in jail for saying "we need to take a sledgehammer to the Wall" if one idiot sledgehammers the Wall and catches a border security guard in the face… "by accident."
White: Exactly. Or consider "fighting words," a doctrine almost never applied by courts but often raised by people wanting broader bans on speech like this.
Chaplinksy — the poor bastard whose case led to the "fighting words" doctrine — was a Jehova's Witness, a sect that was revoltingly prosecuted in the 30s and 40s. It's an ugly bit of history most people don't know about. Chaplinksy was streetcorner preaching and a crowd assembled and was threatening him, and a dude tried to RUN HIM THROUGH WITH A FLAGPOLE WITH THE AMERICAN FLAG. But the cops were wanted HIM to stop preaching, so he swore at a COP, and they arrested HIM, and the Supreme Court says that HE'S the one uttering the fighting words.
That's the way these cases go. True threats doctrine? Developed on the backs of Vietnam War protesters.
Elie: I had forgotten where we get fighting words from.
But, if I may respond as if you were Joe Biden… THAT WAS THEN, OLD MAN. The argument that we can't stop racists from inciting violence against us because the racists will use those laws against us is, at best, unsatisfying.
White: Elie, it may be unsatisfying, but sorry, it's true. Consider:
Right now, Ted Cruz wants to have ANTIFA investigated and prosecuted under RICO. Now, that's stupid for a number of reasons. But it illustrates that doctrines allowing broad attacks on speech are NOT going to be used against dudebros who run racist gun stores.
Who is going to get hit with broad definitions of incitement? It's not gun store dudes. It's Black Lives Matter marchers.
Consider all the efforts to pass new laws criminalizing unlawful assembly a couple of years ago after some particularly well-publicized Black Lives Matter marches.
Consider New York, right now, wanting to make it a FELONY to splash a cop. Now, that's not speech, but that's how the system works.
This isn't speculation. It's history. There is no rational reason to think that broad free speech exceptions will be used for the benefit of the powerless.
You are wickedly well-educated on the law, Elie. So remind our readers: in the first hate speech/hate crimes case to reach the Supreme Court, who was the aggressor and who was the victim?
Elie: [Furiously Googling] It's the Mississippi Burning case, yeah?
White: It's Wisconsin v. Mitchell, where the defendant was black and the victim was white. It was a case where a bunch of kids got riled up after watching "Mississippi Burning" and attacked a white guy. It is, by no stretch of the imagination a coincidence that the first hate crimes case involves black-on-white crime.
Elie: I mean, the reality that any speech law made to protect black people will be used against black people is one of the things that makes me hate this "land of the free" crap. But it also pushes me to my actually least favorite position. … Let's make hate speech unconstitutional. Or, to put that more legally, let's make hate speech unprotected speech.
Yes, that has the same problem that "PoC 'hate' speech" will be more prohibited than white hate speech, but it ALSO means that at least some white hate speech can be controlled. It's a murder-suicide pact, but it will stop some white people from encouraging violence.
White: And let's not confuse it with other popular proposed amendments to the First Amendment, like the deathless "no flag burning" amendment, or the right to pray in schools amendment.
So: I like specifics about law over generalities. So, Elie, how would you propose to word an anti-hate-speech amendment?
Elie: See, that's the problem right there. Wording it. I'd go with something like this:
"Speech intended to threaten, harm, or harass other Americans based on the race, gender, religion, country of origin, sexual orientation, gender at birth or [insert whatever ism I'm forgetting because I'm not woke enough] shall not be considered protected speech. Congress shall have the power to enforce this provision."
And yes, I've just written a Constitutional Amendment that still somehow doesn't take down the fucking billboard and I hate myself.
But I am getting at "harassment" which means I can basically shut down white supremacist Twitter. To say nothing of the fact that my Amendment has a chilling effect on Donald J. Trump.
White: Okay. Not to be the guy who asks what does that mean — but what does that mean?
Elie: Threaten = trying to nudge the true threat analysis away from "imminent" and towards "reasonable. Harm = trying acknowledge that there are speech harms that are more than mere physical danger. Harass = "get out of my mentions, you asshole." Threaten is enhanced, harm is new, harass is the one that will ruin free speech.
White: Since I'm having trouble analyzing this, can I ask how it would apply to an example? [we got through a couple of examples until]
OK, the Amy Wax example. Wax says, falsely, that no black students graduated with honors, right? So, reverse it, A prof who says that white kids at her school are privileged, racist, and indifferent to injustice, and ought to be ashamed. Protected or not?
Elie: Well, this gets to an important issue: TRUTH is always protected. At some point we need to stop white supremacists from spreading their trash. Wax was surfacing a lie. Not an opinion. Not research. Just lies. I'm just floored by how we can continue living in a society where freaking lying is protected speech, when we know how dangerous lies are to the very structure of our polity.
White: Do you want American courts adjudicating whether whites are racist? Would you like, say, a Trump appointee in the District of Mississippi ruling on that one?
Elie: Ugh. NO. No I do not want a Trump judge in Mississippi ruling on whether I have a right to a Slurpee. Much less on whether I can say what I want.
For those playing along at home, this is where Ken always gets me. I'M FREAKING RIGHT… but Ken knows this guy named Donald Trump and his mere EXISTENCE means that we can't have nice things.
White: Okay. Let's say public statements by professors, activists, political figures can be the basis for prosecution if they are factually false. Who is prosecuted first in America: Steve King, or AOC?
As White correctly points out, and Mystal recognizes in the legal and lived history that he and White are describing, is that law is all too often created by the powerful in response to something done by or to the powerless and is then directed against those with less power by those with more. And, as the sociology of law research tells us, this direction flows from the culturally (ethnically, racially, religiously, politically, socio-economically, sexuality, and gendered) more homogenous against those who are less culturally homogenous. And this is what I think will happen if domestic terrorism is criminalized. It won't do anything to deter the white supremacist or neo-NAZI terrorists we're concerned with, nor will it really change their potential prosecutions, which will focus on murder and assault and battery as defined either Federally or in the state jurisdictions they are tried in. What it will do, however, is provide another tool for those already in power who play footsie with the white supremacists, neo-NAZIs, neo-fascists, neo-nationalists, and/or nationalist-conservatives for political reasons to direct law against those appalled by the behavior of the members of these groups and the politicians that play wink-wink, nudge-nudge with them. And that means that Black Lives Matter activists, anti-Trump activists at the Federal level, anti-insert state governor's name here activists at the state level, those who might protest specific Federal or state legislators, RAICES, the Never Again Movement, and others protesting against the President's immigration policies and actions will be even more at risk. We need to be clear eyed that criminalizing domestic terrorism comes with a price. That price is that the criminalization of domestic terrorism will make members of all these protest groups, many directly tied to ethnic, racial, and/or religious minorities, will no longer just be potential targets of white supremacist terrorism, but also of the domestic terrorism law put in to place to deter and counter it.
Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it. Good and hard.
* The appeal didn't go forward as the new defense attorney brought in to handle the appeal, and who I was recommended to as someone with documented credentials as both a one time scholar of terrorism (pre 2007) and then counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism practitioner (post 2007), was unable to actually challenge the statute on appeal for technical reasons resulting from the original trial. So I didn't do much of anything but read a summary of the problem and say, I'm happy to consult, here's my rates, which turned into $0 billable hours.
There Is A Real Risk To Criminalizing Domestic TerrorismPost + Comments (115)
The 2020 Elections Present A Simple Choice: Pick A Torch
This post is in: America, Ammosexuals, Civil Rights, Criminal Justice, Domestic Politics, domestic terrorists, Election Year, Gun nuts, LGBTQ Rights, LGBTQ Rights Are Human Rights, Open Threads, Politics, Racial Justice, Silverman on Security, Women's Rights
Do you stand with this torchbearer?
Or this one?
And that should be the ad the Democrats should already be running on every station, across America, to set the conditions for a successful 2020 presidential campaign, as well as campaigns for the House, Senate, and gubernatorial and state legislative elections. Once nominees are in place, you can then superimpose the Democratic nominees for these positions and relevant portions of their platforms, tailored to the specific races, on the image of the Statue of Liberty and of the President on the image of the Charlottesville white supremacists and neo-NAZIs.
Back in January I wrote about the context in which the 2020 US election was going to take place. I specifically wrote that the US was currently experiencing a very specific type of resource war:
The 21st Century American Resource War: An Ideological and Partisan Dispute Over Who Gets to be an American
The most divisive political dispute, for lack of a better or less incendiary term, that is going on in the US right now and will continue into and through the 2020 election is one over resources. This is not a dispute over physical resources; and it is not really over even political and economic power in the sense that we're used to understanding those types of disputes in the post WW II United States. Rather, the actual resource in dispute is Americanness itself. As in who actually is, or may make a claim to be, an American. This is not a new fight within and between Americans. It goes back to the origins of the country. And it, as it is doing right now, usually flares back up immediately after there has been an extension of civil liberties and rights to groups that were not previously considered, whether for political, social, religious, and/or ethnic/racial reasons, to be entitled to the full rights, protections, and liberties of other Americans. We are, unfortunately, currently in one of these periods. And the fight is over two very different visions of what it means to be an American and who gets to be an American.
The President, his senior policy advisor Stephen Miller, fellow travelers like Congressman Steve King, many of his outside advisors like Anne Coulter and Ginni Thomas, and his base are committed to a very narrow, crimped, and small minded vision of what it means to be American and who gets to be an American. Those in opposition to this have a far broader, expansive, open minded, and welcoming understanding of Americanness. This is the real core political, social, and religious dispute in the US today. It is an ideational, ideological, and in some cases theological and dogmatic war over the resource of Americanness. And, for the time being, it is fortunately and largely non-violent. Though the acts of domestic terrorism that are being driven by the most extreme adherents of the narrow, crimped, small minded understanding of Americanness and who is an American are accelerating as we saw in Pittsburgh.
Unfortunately, the frequency of the domestic terrorism from within this long simmering American insurgency is escalating. The violence, or the attempts at violence, are increasing and, often, as we saw yesterday in El Paso, increasing in lethality. We know what side the President, his senior advisors, his surrogates, his supporters, the Republican Party, and the conservative movement have chosen. The rest of us need to get focused and realize that a political war is upon us. And that that political war is over who is and gets to be an American. And those seeking to narrow it are more than happy and willing to both promote violence to achieve their ends and to undertake it themselves. The separation of migrant children from their asylum seeking parents, their abysmal treatment in the concentration camps they're being detained in, and the violent rhetoric the President, his surrogates, his enablers, and his supporters use are all types of this violence. These often state directed actions are acts of symbolic and rhetorical violence intended to influence the President's most extreme followers and their fellow travelers to actual physical violence.
This is a political war that must be fought. And it must be won. It isn't going to be won by arguing over who is or is not the most progressive or whose policy proposals are more centrist or more socialist, when even the most centrist of them are far to the left of the leftmost proposals from a decade ago. It will only be won by recognizing that we are actually in a political war and that this reality changes the dynamic of our politics in general and the politics and politicking of the 2020 election. This is not political and campaigning business as usual. This is not an attempt to somehow reset everything to dawn on November 8, 2016. This is not about things going back to normal. This is a fight to preserve as much as can still be preserved, to clear American politics of those who promote this bigoted, racist, xenophobic, small minded, and narrow vision of who is and can be an American, and then build something stronger on what has been preserved.
Pick a torch!
It's that simple. You're either on the side of the Statue of Liberty or the side of the tiki torch neo-NAZIs and white supremacists. There is no both siding this. There is no "if my favorite candidate isn't the nominee, I'm not voting because I won't compromise my ideals and ideological purity". Refusing to pick a torch, is refusing to take a stand. It is putting yourself and whatever your pet issue or issues are over promoting the general welfare and providing for the common defense. None of your high minded, ideologically pure agenda is going to ever get enacted if you don't stand with those standing with Lady Liberty against the nationalist conservatives, the white supremacists, neo-nationalists, neo-fascists, and neo-NAZIs. Failing to pick a torch moves us one step closer to a white Christian herrenvolk democracy in the US where everyone who isn't white and Christian has their rights challenged, limited, and/or taken away.
Updated at 2:57 PM EDT
Redshift in the comments asked for a side by side, easy to use on social media version of the images. So here you go:
The 2020 Elections Present A Simple Choice: Pick A TorchPost + Comments (211)
Breaking News: Jeffrey Epstein Found Injured In His Cell
by Adam L Silverman | July 24, 2019 11:29 pm | 68 Comments
This post is in: Criminal Justice, Open Threads
Authorities at the Metropolitan Correction Center in New York are reporting that Jeffrey Epstein was found semi-conscious in his cell with marks on his neck earlier tonight.
NBC 4 New York has the details:
Accused pedophile and wealthy Manhattan financier Jeffrey Epstein was found injured and in a fetal position inside his cell at a New York City jail, according to sources close to the investigation.
Epstein, who is being held in Metropolitan Correctional Center during his trial for conspiracy and sex trafficking, was found semi-conscious with marks on his neck, two sources told News 4. Investigators are trying to piece together exactly what happened.
Two sources tell News 4 that Epstein may have tried to hang himself, while a third source cautioned that the injuries were not serious and questioned if Epstein might be using it as a way to get a transfer.
A fourth source said an assault has not been ruled out, and that another inmate was questioned. The inmate who investigators have talked to in Lower Manhattan facility has been identified as Nicholas Tartaglione, according to a source. Tartaglione is a former Orange County police officer who was arrested in December 2016 and accused of killing four men in an alleged cocaine distribution conspiracy, then burying their bodies in his yard in Otisville, according to court records.
Sources told News 4 investigators questioned Tartaglione, and the former cop claimed not to have seen anything and didn't touch Epstein, sources said.
The attorney for Tartaglione denied all the claims that his client attacked the financier, saying his client and Epstein get along well. The attorney added Epstein was seen today and appears to be fine.
"They are in the same unit and doing well,"said Bruce Barket, an attorney for Tartaglione. He said any claim that Tartaglione might have assaulted Epstein "is absolutely not true."
Epstein is now on suicide watch inside MCC, according to two sources. Attorneys for Epstein did not immediately return calls for comment.
A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons did not return calls and spokesmen for the U.S. Marshals and U.S. Attorney's office declined to comment.
More at the link.
Breaking News: Jeffrey Epstein Found Injured In His CellPost + Comments (68)
Epstein Denied Bail
by HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes | July 18, 2019 11:39 am | 173 Comments
This post is in: Criminal Justice
At least one piece of good news today. Here's the story. It took a week to decide whether he would be held without bail – I wonder how long his trial will take.
Epstein Denied BailPost + Comments (173)
Watching the Disinformation Being Made and Transmitted: Jeffrey Epstein Edition
by Adam L Silverman | July 8, 2019 4:00 pm | 117 Comments
This post is in: America, Criminal Justice, Domestic Politics, Open Threads, Politics, Silverman on Security, Women's Rights
Shortly after it was announced on Saturday that Jeffrey Epstein had been arrested and was facing indictment for the sex trafficking of minors, the disinformation machine kicked into gear in order to protect the President. I want to make it very clear right now that there is no evidence that the President is implicated in Epstein's crimes. The DOJ is not alleging that in its indictment of Epstein, and neither am I. All we know at this time is that the President had a long standing personal relationship with Epstein and, at one point, commented that Epstein likes women who are on the younger side.
That stipulated to, here's what was quickly put up by a poster with ID: NKrYzbHL at 10:35 PM on 4Chan's /pol/ board:
COLLECTED COUNTER POINTS FOR MOCKINGBIRD SPIN
Can Anons add smth & help backing up with sauce, please?
– Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his Golf Club and banned him for life, when he found out, Epstein was hooking up with the 14 Year old daughter of an employer
-Trump is NOT in the flight log to Lolita Island, not even once. He "hitched a ride" back from Daytona Beach TO NYC with Epstein's son one time…and I have little doubt they tried like holy hell to get Trump to Lolita Island. Epstein assaulted a young girl at Mara Largo and Trump had him banned for life.
-At Epstein's first arrest Trump went voluntarily to the police to give a statement and at the time the Police commented "He could not have been MORE forthcoming".
-Trump knew what Epstein was up to "he's a fun guy, likes his girls young, really really young". People held that against him as if it were some form of agreement when in fact, in typical Trump fashion he slapped Epstein publicly..iron fist in velvet glove. He was NOT a politician and he had to do business with these people and he still managed to say something about what he knew was going on.
https://pagesix.com/2017/07/08/trump-was-the-boring-guy-at-studio-54/
You will not be surprised to find out that the link to the Page Six article does not mention Epstein, the President's relationship to Epstein, the President kicking Epstein out of and rescinding his membership to Mar-a-Lago! It is solely about the book written by Studio 54's former owner and the only references to the President in it outside of his name in the title of the write up and listing in the categories and tags are:
The former owner of infamous Manhattan club Studio 54 is releasing a tell-all book dishing on the wild cocaine parties and the antics of stars including John Belushi, Robin Williams — and even a "boring" Donald Trump.
Trump was another club regular, but "he never touched drink or drugs. He liked looking at beautiful women, even though he was married to Ivana.
Trump wasn't a lot of fun — when you're in a crowd drinking and drugging and one person isn't, that person seems boring."
In fact I have been unable to find any references to the President kicking Epstein out of and rescinding his membership to Mar-a-Lago, nor that he gave evidence to the Palm Beach Police. There is a December 2018 YouTube video interview of one of the victim's attorneys where he states that in 2009, the President was helpful when he was trying to serve subpoenas in his civil suit. Not that he went down and gave testimony to the Palm Beach Police, not that he assisted prosecutors in Florida in their case, but that he was helpful in regard to getting subpoenas served. That's it. We can all agree that was important help the President provided, but it is not giving testimony or assisting prosecutors, which is what is being alleged.
It is unclear if this was the first or even original post as screengrabs have been tweeted with a 1900 hours time stamp from what appears to be a different board, most likely either 8Chan or one of the subreddits. These are in response to other's tweets about Epstein and, in some cases, his relationship with the President.
Here's one from a Twitter thread by Ellen Barkin:
No he wasn't that's part of the talking points sent out pic.twitter.com/CrUKHXmnaZ
— (((Susan))) ?? ?? (@SusanMills158) July 8, 2019
It was also posted, as an explainer about centralized talking points being organized for pushback, in this Brian Stelter thread.
I've shared it a million times. These people don't read. They follow. pic.twitter.com/cj1Azv3eTg
— Rhonda Harbison (@rhonda_harbison) July 7, 2019
And here is another 4Channer, ID OBJzFf63, posting a copy of the screenshot at /pol/ with the statement that "THEY'RE CATCHING ON TO US".
These responses are now being tweeted, with no reference to the original point at 4Chan, to push back on allegations being made about the President's involvement and relationship with Epstein. The tweets below are responses to a tweet responding to Maggie Haberman's tweet about some of the incriminating information in the Epstein indictment, specifically that he maintained a safe full of incriminating pictures and CDs and he labeled both.
You do realize that it was Trump that reported Epstein to the FBI? Trump never flew on Epstein's plane the Lolita Express & never visited his island. He banned him from his clubs & turned him in to the authorities. Trump's been an FBI asset since at least the late 1970s!
— DawsonSField (@DawsonSField) July 8, 2019
Trump & his brother served up mob money launderers at BCCI on a silver platter & politicians blocked the prosecution. The DOJ team working with Trump on that case? Comey, Mueller, Rosenstein & Barr. They got the band back together to drain the Swamp.
From here it will continue to be pushed through the alt-right, QAnnon, Pizzagate conspiracy theory portions of social media, then get picked up by Russian trolls and bots and amplified. From there it will move into the fringe right/conservative digital news platforms, where it will once again be amplified by the Russian trolls and bots, and from there it will get picked up by first conservative news like Fox and conservative talk radio and then more mainstream news outlets like CNN because its news, so it should be reported. This is the usual trajectory for these disinformation influence operations. One of the Tyler Durdens has been pushing variants of some of this stuff since early this morning at Zero Hedge, including barbering a quote from the video interview posted above and presenting it out of context from the question that was asked and suggesting that the President aided prosecutors, which, again, is not substantiated by the interview.
And that is how the disinformation is made and transmitted.
Watching the Disinformation Being Made and Transmitted: Jeffrey Epstein EditionPost + Comments (117)
Breaking! Jeffrey Epstein Arrested in New York For Allegedly Sex Trafficking Minors
This post is in: Criminal Justice, Domestic Politics, Election 2016, Foreign Affairs, Open Threads, Politics, Women's Rights, Women's Rights Are Human Rights
From The Daily Beast:
Billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was arrested for allegedly sex trafficking dozens of minors in New York and Florida between 2002 and 2005, and will appear in court in New York on Monday, according to three law enforcement sources. The arrest, by the FBI-NYPD Crimes Against Children Task Force, comes about 12 years after the 66-year-old financier essentially got a slap on the wrist for allegedly molesting dozens of underage girls in Florida.
For more than a decade, Epstein's alleged abuse of minors has been the subject of lawsuits brought by victims, investigations by local and federal authorities, and exposés in the press. But despite the attention cast on his alleged sex crimes, the hedge-funder has managed to avoid any meaningful jail time, let alone federal charges.
The new indictment—which, according to two sources, will be unsealed Monday in Manhattan federal court—will reportedly allege that Epstein sexually exploited dozens of underage girls in a now-familiar scheme: paying them cash for "massages" and then molesting or sexually abusing them in his Upper East Side mansion or his palatial residence in Palm Beach. Epstein will be charged with one count of sex trafficking of minors and one count of conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of minors—which could put him away for a maximum of 45 years. The case is being handled by the Public Corruption Unit of the Southern District of New York, with assistance from the district's human-trafficking officials and the FBI.
Several of the billionaire's employees and associates allegedly recruited the girls for Epstein's abuse, and some victims eventually became recruiters themselves, according to law enforcement. The girls were as young as 14, and Epstein knew they were underage, according to details of the arrest and indictment shared by two officials.
Epstein's attorney Martin Weinberg declined to comment when reached by The Daily Beast on Saturday night. The SDNY also declined to comment.
"It's been a long time coming—it's been too long coming," said attorney David Boies, who represents Epstein accusers Virginia Roberts Giuffre and Sarah Ransome. "It is an important step towards getting justice for the many victims of Mr. Epstein's sex trafficking enterprise.
"We hope that prosecutors will not stop with Mr. Epstein because there were many other people who participated with him and made the sex trafficking possible," he told The Daily Beast.
None of this would be possible without Julie K. Brown's reporting at The Miami Herald, which reignited interest in Epstein, his crimes, his co-conspirators, his enablers, and his protectors by giving a public voice to some of his victims who were cheated out of their chance for justice by current Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta.
Epstein's arrest and pending indictment is going to have massive repercussions within the US, as well as in other countries. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, in response to legal intervention made by Brown, has recently ordered the unsealing of 167 pages of documents in a lawsuit brought by one of Epstein's victims, Virginia L. Guiffre, in her attempts to get Epstein's sentence overturned so that she and her fellow victims can seek actual justice, as opposed to the sweetheart deal that Epstein received. Here's the link to the 2nd Circuit's order. Lisette Voytko at Forbes explains:
A federal appeals court Wednesday ordered that 167 documents in a lawsuit that alleges famously well-connected financier Jeffrey Epstein participated in a sex-trafficking ring should be unsealed—and that many of his powerful friends could be named.
In its 27-page decision, the court cited the public's right to access the case information outweighed the privacy of certain individuals, "including numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well‐known Prime Minister, and other world leaders."
Virginia Guiffre (now Roberts) filed the lawsuit against Ghislane Maxwell, alleging that she had used her as part of a sex trafficking network of underage girls to Epstein and a number of his famous friends, including his lawyer Alan Dershowitz and Prince Andrew. Both men denied the accusations.
Dershowitz has supported unsealing the documents, according to the Daily Beast.
The documents will not be immediately available, as anonymous individuals involved in the case have two weeks to file appeals.
The court advised the documents be read carefully. "We therefore urge the media to exercise restraint in covering potentially defamatory allegations, and we caution the public to read such accounts with discernment," wrote the court in its decision.
Those 167 documents contain up to 2,000 pages of material! This has the potential to expose a lot of powerful men in the US and elsewhere. Democrats, Republicans, politicians, businessmen, as well as other elites and/or notables. And, most likely as was the case with Ghislaine Maxwell, some women who enabled or covered up this crime spree as well. Regardless of whose ox gets gored as a result of Epstein's pending indictment on Monday and the forthcoming release of the court documents from Guiffre's suit, we should all be pleased that these women are one step closer to justice that has been too long denied.
Breaking! Jeffrey Epstein Arrested in New York For Allegedly Sex Trafficking MinorsPost + Comments (171)
Look At Their Faces. Learn Their Names. Never Forget Them!
by Adam L Silverman | June 24, 2019 5:07 pm | 72 Comments
This post is in: America, Civil Rights, Crimes against humanity, Criminal Justice, Domestic Politics, Foreign Affairs, Immigration, Politics, Silverman on Security, Torture, Sociopaths
Anne Frank didn't die in one of the Zyklon B gas chambers. She died from typhus contracted from the unsanitary conditions in Bergen-Belsen, the concentration camp she was interned in waiting for execution. She contracted typhus in that camp because her father's attempt to get a refugee visa for the Franks to come to safety in the US was denied. The reason we have the immigration rules we have now, no matter how in need of updating and revision they are (like too much else in the US), is because of how the Franks, the refugees on The St. Louis, and others trying to flee NAZI tyranny and the Holocaust were treated in the run up to and during World War II. The stories brought back by American Soldiers of what they'd seen in the liberation of the camps and the historical documents found, utilized, and archived by both Civil Affairs personnel and US civilian personnel for the Nuremberg Trials shamed the US into making the changes. It are these changes, changes to prevent the US from ever again being a passive party to the death and destruction of tyranny, state terror, and genocide, that the President, Stephen Miller, former AG Sessions, Senator Cotton, Congressman King, the President's base of supporters, the base of the GOP and the conservative movement now seek to overturn in an attempt to return to the Immigration Act of 1924.
The children that are dying in the concentration camps that the Trump administration have established on or near the southern border are dying from disease contracted from unsanitary conditions or worsened by them. And they are in those camps because instead of processing their initial asylum requests and releasing them along with their parent or parents, they are being separated and detained in the hope that news of this will somehow get to desperate people in villages in Central American and that will deter them from trying to seek asylum in the US.
Here are the faces and the names of the children who have died in US custody or because they were in US custody* so far.
2/ Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal Maquin liked to climb trees. She jumped when her dad told her she could come with him to the U.S. She thought she might get her first toy; she'd just got her first pair of shoes.
She died on December 8 in our government's custody. She was 7. pic.twitter.com/4mxs5aBkKo
— Alvaro Bedoya (@alvarombedoya) June 21, 2019
4/ Juan de León Gutierréz was shy, a good student. When he missed class to help his dad harvest coffee, he'd run to catch his teacher after school to explain his absence.
He died on April 30 in our government's custody. He was 16. pic.twitter.com/Ic2Gv22p3W
6/ Carlos Gregorio Hernández Vásquez loved playing the piano and the bass. His family called him Goyito. He had 8 brothers and sisters. One of them, Edgar, had special needs. Carlos came to the U.S. to help support Edgar.
He died on May 20 in our government's custody. He was 16. pic.twitter.com/Oyxu8kDzyx
Here is the Google Docs document that has been created to record these crimes against humanity.
8/ This Google Doc has the names, faces, and stories of each of the 6 migrant children who died in our government's custody.
Post them where powerful people might see them. Make them think about what our country has come to. https://t.co/Aiw8iU5rVR
We will need a Truth & Reconciliation Committee to come through this. And it will not only need to have the authority to refer prosecutions, the legislation establishing the Truth & Reconciliation Committee will need to include language establishing a crimes against humanity tribunal for the people who conceived of this policy and strategy, who ordered it, who carried it out, and who have tried to cover it up.
Look at their faces! Learn their names! Never forget them and what is being done to others like them in the name of the United States.
* US personnel have, apparently, been transferring seriously ill detainees from custody to hospitals so that they technically do not die in one of these camps or other Customs & Border Patrol or Health & Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement facilities.
Look At Their Faces. Learn Their Names. Never Forget Them!Post + Comments (72)
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According to Microsoft itself, we should expect to see a beta version of Cortana for Android hit the streets in July. No information has been shared about the iOS release at this time.
Cortana "only knows what you want her to know and you are fully in control of how you use her across devices", the company says. Cortana's Notebook will be available across all platforms helping her keep track of what's important to you.
It will intelligently use whichever platform you're currently on to remind you of stuff. So, for example, if you set a reminder for 8 pm using your Android phone, but at that time are watching a movie on your Xbox, Cortana will interrupt playback to notify you.
You'll also be able to ask her questions on Android just like you can on other platforms, using the same natural language – and she should understand you. Obviously though, certain features will be missing on Android, because Microsoft doesn't have access to low-level OS stuff.


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IC 3099 - Spiral Galaxy in Virgo
IC 3099 is a Spiral Galaxy in the Virgo constellation. IC 3099 is situated close to the celestial equator and, as such, it is at least partly visible from both hemispheres in certain times of the year.
IC 3099 is below the horizon from Greenwich, United Kingdom [change]. See also rise and set times.
Given its B magnitude of 15.1, IC 3099 is visible with the help of a telescope havng an aperture of 20 inches (500mm) or more.
Available Resources for IC 3099 - Spiral Galaxy in Virgo
Position Angle 174°
DSS2 image of IC 3099 in the Red band. The green region on the image is a representation of the major (1.85 arcmin) and minor (0.33 arcmin) axes of the object's apparent size.
IC 3099 - Spiral Galaxy in Virgo morphological classification
IC 3099 - Spiral Galaxy in Virgo is classified as Spiral (SAc) according to the Hubble and de Vaucouleurs galaxy morphological classification. The diagram below shows a visual representation of the position of IC 3099 - Spiral Galaxy in Virgo in the Hubble de Vaucouleurs sequence.
Visualization of the morphological classification of IC 3099 - Spiral Galaxy in Virgo, Spiral (SAc).
Simplified finder chart for IC 3099 - Spiral Galaxy in Virgo.
Today's IC 3099 - Spiral Galaxy in Virgo rise, transit and set times from Greenwich, United Kingdom [change] are the following (all times relative to the local timezone Europe/London):
RIGHT NOW IC 3099 - Spiral Galaxy in Virgo is below the horizon from Greenwich, United Kingdom

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl