quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
what does it mean to "contest the case at no risk" ?


****************

piggy backing,

DJT : I will be announcing my decision on the Iran Deal tomorrow from the White House at 2:00pm.

There is no risk to this corporation. It can’t be jailed, has no assets to seize to pay fines, etc. The officers and shareholders are outside the jurisdiction of the court.

By showing up and appearing, the defendant has forced the prosecutor to try the case, hand over discovery, file or respond to motions, etc.

If the special counsel filed a sloppily supported case, it might be embarrassing, real embarrassing, to lose a motion to dismiss to a defendant with nothing to lose. Heads we win, tails you lose! Or they can just quietly dismiss the whole thing, but that won’t be so quiet either. Makes them look stupid.

thanks JALLEN. this could be quite a mistake for team Mueller. Let's hope so.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
thanks JALLEN. this could be quite a mistake for team Mueller. Let's hope so.

Well, its not the kind of mistake of substance that gets cases tossed for lack of evidence, but rather it is the kind of unforced error that corrodes moral, and your aura as champions of the universe, trims your swagger.

You know, you are No. 1, beating up opponents every week, running up big scores. Fans are going wild, pretty women are lining up to wink at your teammates, wealthy alums are getting out checkbooks, Pro scouts are angling for interviews, the Heisman Committee is asking for video of games, and one Saturday, you go over to Podunk State, where you are favored 63-0, and at half time, you are down 35-6. After a long sweaty, miserable second half, the score is 56-13.

Alan Dershowitz, The Hill

An experienced federal judge has confirmed what I have been arguing for months, namely, that the modus operandi of special counsel Robert Mueller is to charge associates of Donald Trump with any crime he can find in order to squeeze them into turning against the president.

This is what Judge T.S. Ellis III said at a hearing Friday: “You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort’s bank fraud … What you really care about is what information Mr. Manafort could give you that would reflect on Mr. Trump or lead to his prosecution or impeachment.”



This tactic is as old as Adam turning against Eve. But, as the judge correctly pointed out, it risks the possibility that the squeezed witness will not only sing, he will compose. Here is what Ellis said about that: “This vernacular is to ‘sing,’ is what prosecutors use. What you got to be careful of is, they may not only sing, they may compose.”

I have been using this “compose” metaphor for decades and I am gratified that a judge borrowed it to express an important civil liberties concern. Every experienced criminal lawyer has seen this phenomenon at work. I have seen it used by prosecutors who threaten wives, parents, siblings and, in one case, the innocent son of a potential witness who was about to graduate law school. Most judges, many of whom were former prosecutors, have also seen it. But few have the courage to expose it publicly, as Ellis has done.

Defenders of Mueller’s tactic argue that the threatened witnesses and their relatives are generally guilty of some crime, or else they wouldn’t be vulnerable to the prosecutor’s threats. This may be true, but the crimes they are threatened to be charged with are often highly technical, elastic charges that are brought only as leverage. They are dropped as soon as the witness cooperates.

This was precisely the point Ellis was making with regard to Manafort. A similar point could be made with regard to Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and perhaps to his personal attorney, Michael Cohen. Indeed, Flynn pleaded guilty to a highly questionable charge precisely because his son was threatened with prosecution.

Civil libertarians have long criticized this tactic, since the time it was used by Joseph McCarthy and his minions to pressure witnesses to testify against suspected communists in the 1950s. In recent decades it has been deployed against mobsters, terrorists and corporate predators. But Ellis has accused Mueller of using this questionable approach to develop a political case against the duly elected president of the United States.

For those who argue that everything is fair, if the goal is to prevent a president from being above the law, Ellis provided a compelling response: “What we don’t want in this country, we don’t want anyone with unfettered power … It’s unlikely you’re going to persuade me the special counsel has unlimited powers to do anything he or she wants.”

He was referring to the manner by which the special counsel was using his power to “tighten the screws” on Manafort by indicting him for an alleged crime that the judge believes has nothing to do “with what the special counsel is authorized to investigate.” Civil libertarians should be applauding Ellis for seeking to cabin the “unfettered power” of the special counsel to do “anything he wants.” But no, because his ruling may help Trump, and because Trump has applauded it, the civil liberties and criminal defense communities have not been heard from.

The judge has not yet ruled on the propriety of the special counsel’s actions, and it is unlikely he will dismiss the charges against Manafort. But Mueller is on notice that he may not have unfettered power to indict Trump’s associates for old crimes that are unrelated to the Russia investigation for the purpose of making them sing or compose against the president. The civil liberties community no longer has an excuse to ignore or defend, as some have done, tactics that pose considerable dangers to civil liberties, just because they are being used against Trump.

Last week was not a good one for special counsel Mueller. Nor was it particularly good for Trump, as his new lawyer Rudy Giuliani presented a somewhat garbled narrative with regard to the payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. But it was an excellent week for the Constitution and for all Americans, because a federal judge made it clear that no one — not even the special counsel — is above the law and beyond scrutiny by our system of checks and balances.

Link

Joey D 5/7/18

“The judge has not yet ruled on the propriety of the special counsel’s actions, and it is unlikely he will dismiss the charges against Manafort.

<snip>

But it was an excellent week for the Constitution and for all Americans, because a federal judge made it clear that no one — not even the special counsel — is above the law and beyond scrutiny by our system of checks and balances.“

I had to laugh at these two statements. Hopefully the consequences are more than just a judge bad mouthing someone like Meuller who doesn’t give a shit what that judge thinks. Let’s see if this judge has any teeth.

Have we consideres this is an orchestrated plan by trump to run out the clock and make the libs feel defeated for midterms, all the turning thier voters against the dems for nit focusing on real issues? Seems plausible. Republicans are forced to vote hard in midterms to protect trump while. Seems like a DJT plan to me.

Looks like old Hillary isn't as healthy as she assured us. Seems she has taken to wearing long coats and scarfs in 80* weather - perhaps to cover a back brace?



But for sure she definitely would have had the stamina and fortitude to take on the world's toughest job. She told us herself. Must be true.

[URL= http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...d-brace.html]Hillary wearing a back brace[/URL]

Four Women Accuse New York’s Attorney General of Physical Abuse

https://www.newyorker.com/news...al-of-physical-abuse

Update: Three hours after the publication of this story, Schneiderman resigned from his position. “While these allegations are unrelated to my professional conduct or the operations of the office, they will effectively prevent me from leading the office’s work at this critical time,” he said in a statement. “I therefore resign my office, effective at the close of business on May 8, 2018.”

That is a back brace, and it appears to be forcing her to stand up straight. She could have a lumbar or thoracic problem, or possibly a neurological issue. She was having seizures during the campaign, it might be linked. Or, she is trying for another run for president, and wants to look upright and strong.

Can you imagine that crippled old hag trying to run this country???? Thank God we dont have to anymore.

quote:

Originally posted by medic451:
Can you imagine that crippled old hag trying to run this country???? Thank God we dont have to anymore.

Being crippled (physically handicapped) is not a disqualification for the office. We've had disabled Presidents before: FDR was unable to walk and JFK had serious pain problems and most people agree that they were fairly effective (although there is disagreement with where they led us sometimes).

Nevertheless, I am glad that Hillary is not President and sincerely hope that she is never able to achieve that position; however, my stance is not predicated on her being "crippled" physically (she is mentally and emotionally crippled, though, IMHO).

flashguy

quote:

Originally posted by flashguy:

quote:

Originally posted by medic451:
Can you imagine that crippled old hag trying to run this country???? Thank God we dont have to anymore.

Being crippled (physically handicapped) is not a disqualification for the office. We've had disabled Presidents before: FDR was unable to walk and JFK had serious pain problems and most people agree that they were fairly effective (although there is disagreement with where they led us sometimes).

Nevertheless, I am glad that Hillary is not President and sincerely hope that she is never able to achieve that position; however, my stance is not predicated on her being "crippled" physically (she is mentally and emotionally crippled, though, IMHO).

flashguy

Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke midway through his second term and his duties were carried out by his wife and physician.

Weren't we lucky that didn't happen with BJ?

The Trump Land Mine

Explosives require careful handling. Sometimes they blow up in your face.

National Review
Victor Davis Hanson

After the 2016 election, the so-called deep state was confident that it had the power easily to either stop, remove, or delegitimize the outlier Donald Trump and his presidency.

Give it credit, the Washington apparat quite imaginatively pulled out all the stops: implanting Obama holdover appointees all over the Trump executive branch; filing lawsuits and judge shopping; organizing the Resistance; pursuing impeachment writs; warping the FISA courts; weaponizing the DOJ and FBI; attempting to disrupt the Electoral College; angling for enactment of the 25th Amendment or the emoluments clause; and unleashing Hollywood celebrities, Silicon Valley and many in Wall Street to suffocate the Trump presidency in its infancy.

But now the administrative state’s multifaceted efforts are starting to unwind, and perhaps even boomerang, on the perpetrators. If a federal judge should end up throwing out most of the indictments of Paul Manafort on the rationale that they have nothing much to do with the original mandate of the special counsel’s office, or if Michael Flynn’s confession to giving false statements is withdrawn successfully because the FBI politicized its investigation and FISA courts were misled in approving the surveillance of Flynn, then the Mueller investigation will implode.

Indeed, the Mueller investigation would likely lose so much public support that the Department of Justice could probably dismiss it with impunity. So, in an ironic sense, Mueller’s overreach might well end once and for all the absurdities of the special counsel/prosecutor law that for nearly half a century has plagued the nation.

Until recently, deep-state apparatchiks such as John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey and Andrew McCabe seemed immune from accountability after lying either to Congress or to federal authorities. In a perverse sort of way, the more Robert Mueller plays the role of the obsessed but impotent Inspector Javert, the more he demonstrates that there is no Russian-Trump collusion. Meanwhile, he is establishing precedents that those whom he exempts from his own zeal will inevitably have to account for their own lawbreaking. One cannot justifiably hound Michael Flynn for supposedly misleading FBI agents, when agency investigators were told by Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills that they had known nothing about Hillary Clinton’s private server during her tenure as Secretary of State — despite evidence that they themselves had communicated over it (as had the former president of the United States).

In his increasing desperation, Mueller may manage to finish off the declining reputation of FBI’s Washington office to the degree that there is not much left of it after the work of James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page, and Peter Strzok. And he may only fuel more criminal complaints against deep-state bureaucrats who worked at the FBI and the DOJ.

In truth, the multiplex world of the establishment is crumbling in a variety of arenas, from entertainment to the workplace. Certainly, the NFL is both bleeding viewers and now seen as an ancillary of the progressive movement. The sports channel ESPN is losing its audience that is tired of being lectured about its supposed ethical shortcomings instead of being enlightened about three-point shots and no-hitters. The century-old White House Correspondents’ Dinner is going the way of the 90-year-old Oscars: It’s an increasingly incestuous night of progressive virtue-signaling, crudity, and mediocrity that permanently turned off millions of former viewers. Americans can forgive a lot of shortcomings in their entertainers; boredom is not one of them.

Between the Me Too movement and the Russian-collusion hysteria, not much remains of the reputations of Hollywood and the media. When, fairly or not, Tom Brokaw is lumped into the ranks of Mark Halpern, Dustin Hoffman, Garrison Keillor, Larry King, Matt Lauer, Ryan Lizza, Charlie Rose, Tavis Smiley, Kevin Spacey, Harvey Weinstein, and a host of others, there is really not much left of the old power brokers. Once upon a time, Americans assumed that a Tom Brokaw, Matt Lauer, Dan Rather, or Charlie Rose were their go-tos for ethical and sober journalism. Again, justly or not, that norm no longer holds. NBC and CNN, which have long routinely parodied Fox News, are far less likely than Fox to permit ideological and political diversity on the air.

Silicon Valley likewise has lost its luster. Once upon a time, America loved a hip Steve Jobs, decked out in black, fiddling with a new Apple gadget on stage in front of an entranced televised audience of millions. Jobs appeared as a brilliant and typically American entrepreneur, not a partisan talking down to hoi polloi.

Things have radically changed since then. The reputation of Big Tech is one of hyper-partisan politics, data miners, snoops, Bowdlerizers and censors, monopolists, progressive multibillionaires, and adolescents in arrested development who exempt themselves from the consequences of what their ideologies inflict on others.

If the deep state really wanted to dismantle and disarm Donald Trump, it would have been wise first to carefully learn how he was constructed and wired — and thus why he was especially dangerous to them.
In Wizard of Oz fashion, it’s as if the public is no longer frightened of the omnipotent imperial faces on their screens — once it drew apart the high-tech curtains and exposed tiny little nerds with nasal voices furiously working levers and gears to project deceptive all-powerful images. Even a four-trillion-dollar industry can take only so many scandals like those at Theranos, Facebook data mining, deliberately slowed-down iPhones, fatally texting drivers, and Mark Zuckerbergs.

Donald Trump proved to be a catalyst for much of the implosion of the deep state. Land mines require careful handling. Only arrogant naïfs think that they can rush in, grab them, and carelessly and safely toss them away — clueless that they themselves are exposed as reckless moments before they blow themselves up.

If the deep state really wanted to dismantle and disarm Donald Trump, it would have been wise first to carefully learn how he was constructed and wired — and thus why he was especially dangerous to them. Then to disarm him, elites would have had to offer superior agendas to his supporters, while engaging in reasoned debates and alternative visions — working with him when they found common and shared solutions, playing the loyal opposition when there did not.

Instead, the government, the political apparat, the media, tech, and entertainment conglomerates sought to reduce Trump to some monstrous entity deserving of hanging, stabbing, decapitation, incineration, and shooting. It sought to indict, impeach, and remove a sitting president, as the ancien régime rushed to break federal law with assumed ethical exemption — tapping, surveilling, lying, and leaking with impunity, assured that supposedly morally superior ends justified any means necessary to achieve them.

In other words, the custodians of the status quo arrogantly grabbed up the Trump land mine and thought they could easily toss it away — as it has blown them sky-high.

Link

Hillary Clinton still spouting her BS. Yesterday in New Zealand:

“The more professionally successful we are, the less people like us,”

"Historically, people like me when I’m serving a supporting role… But the minute a woman, at least in our country, stands up and says ‘I’d like a chance to lead’… everything changes.”

“a few days ago Michelle Obama pointed out the consequences of holding women to impossibly high standards.”

Michele Obama:

“In light of this last election, I’m concerned about us, as women, and what we think about ourselves and about each other,”

“What is going on in our heads where we let that happen. So I do wonder what are young girls dreaming about, if we’re still there?”

“When the most qualified person running was a woman and look what we did instead, I mean, that says something about where we are, if we as women are still suspicious of one another, if we still have this crazy, crazy bar that we don’t have for men … if we’re not comfortable with the notion that a woman could be our president, compared to what?”

*******************

"I'd like a chance to lead" guess she thinks that is enough to be president

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/m...uestions-in-writing/

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is now on President Trump's legal team, told CBS News correspondent Paula Reid Monday that special counsel Robert Mueller's office has rejected proposals to allow Mr. Trump to answer questions from investigators in writing.

The president's legal team has signaled that this would be their preferred format for a possible interview, since it helps protect Mr. Trump from the possibility of lying or misleading investigators, which is a criminal offense.

Giuliani told CBS News it will take up to three weeks for him to get fully up to speed on the facts of the investigation and be prepared to engage in formal negotiations with the special counsel about the terms of a possible interview with Mr. Trump.

Giuliani told Reid that he and the president's legal team continue to be in communication with the special counsel, but that he wants to have a better sense of the facts before engaging in formal negotiations about a possible interview.

In addition, Giuliani also told Reid he'd want to know whether the interview would become public, and whether they would have the chance to issue a rebuttal to anything alleged by the special counsel.

If they can come to an agreement on the terms of an interview, Giuliani says he would like to wait until after the North Korea summit to prepare Mr. Trump. He believes that it would take several days to prepare the president for this kind of interview and he would not want to take him away from preparing for talks with North Korea.

If negotiations are not successful and Mr. Trump is subpoenaed, he will fight it, Giuliani said. The case would likely end up at the Supreme Court.

Giuliani is not suggesting that Mr. Trump would ignore a subpoena, but rather that they will use it as another opportunity to negotiate an interview on their terms. If that does not work, they will challenge it in court.

time for another round of support emails to the whitehouse folks.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
Hillary Clinton still spouting her BS. Yesterday in New Zealand:

“The more professionally successful we are, the less people like us,”

"Historically, people like me when I’m serving a supporting role… But the minute a woman, at least in our country, stands up and says ‘I’d like a chance to lead’… everything changes.”

I hope this witch keeps flapping her lips all the way up to the mid-terms, which the Dems are rapidly losing their shot at regaining the House back, BTW.

Shrillary is not a well woman though. She's been spotted wearing some sort of brace under heavy clothing in 80-degree weather, I'm still convinced she's had Parkinson's for some years now and is still hiding it.

Dude. It's right up the page a bit. Heh.

Looks like they installed an extra capacity battery pack in HilBot. All of its incessant bitching, pissing and whining really drained the standard battery.

I hear that HilBot is due for a firmware upgrade, but no one really gives a shit to install it.