Tag: law

The Republicans Cave, As Always

I very much doubt that anyone is surprised that the usual suspects switched sides in order to ensure that a pro-pedophile Negro is installed on the highest court in the land to rule over occupied America.

The Senate passed a procedural motion Monday night to proceed with Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation – voting 53-47 to discharge her Supreme Court nomination from the Judiciary committee and bring up her name for a vote before the full chamber.

Moderate Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah all joined Democrats after an 11-11 vote earlier on Monday left her Supreme Court nomination in a dead-lock.

Democrats want to vote on her confirmation by April 8, when Congress breaks for a two week spring recess. With a 50-50 split Senate, and the backing of at least three Republicans, Brown will all but assuredly be confirmed in the coming days.

Brown will be the first black woman ever to serve on the Supreme Court bench.

This does raise the obvious question: how do we know Brown is “the first black woman” given the impossibility of determining what a “black” or a “woman” is? For that matter, do we even still recognize the abstract and artificial concept of the number “one” representing some sort of theoretical precedent?

DISCUSS ON SG

How Lawyers Lie

First, read this post on ProFootballTalk concerning a claim made by former Dolphins coach Brian Flores and the response by the team’s lawyers.

The Dolphins have responded to a claim made by former head coach Brian Flores during an interview with Bryant Gumbel of Real Sports. In the interview Gumbel asked Flores if it was true “that you were asked to sign an NDA, a non-disparagement agreement” when the Dolphins fired him earlier this year. Flores said he was and left “a lot” of money on the table because it would have “silenced” him.

Flores said Dolphins owner Steve Ross presented him with the NDA and talked about it with him. The Dolphins called that “categorically false” in a statement released on Tuesday evening.

“This latest assertion by Brian Flores that Steve Ross mentioned an NDA to him is categorically false,” the statement said. “This just did not happen and we simply cannot understand why Brian continues this pattern of making unfounded statements that he knows are untrue. We are fully cooperating with the NFL investigation and look forward to all of the facts coming out which we are confident will prove that his claims are false and defamatory.”

Sounds convincing, right? Where is this guy coming from? The Dolphins simply cannot understand this pattern of unfounded, untrue statements! Of course, Florio of PFT is a lawyer, so unlike his readers – read the comments if you want to see the customary cluelessness of the average non-lawyer – he saw through the team’s statement immediately, as he next posted this:

Flores told Bryant Gumbel that the three-year head coach left a “lot” of money on the table by declining to sign a document that would have “silenced” him. The Dolphins issued a statement specifically denying that team owner Stephen Ross presented Flores with a non-disclosure agreement and spoke to Flores about it.

In response, the lawyers representing Flores posted the documents that Flores opted not to sign. The materials show that Flores specifically waived his buyout by not signing the documents that would have required him to forfeit any legal claims…. Thus, even if Ross wasn’t specifically involved in the communications regarding what Flores could and couldn’t say or do (oligarchy, after all, has its privileges), someone apparently was.

In other words, all the histrionic rhetoric about untrue and unfounded statements that are false and defamatory rely upon the team’s claim that it wasn’t Stephen Ross himself that offered him millions of dollars to sign an NDA, it was Stephen Ross’s representatives doing so on his behalf.

Keep this in mind any time you see a lawyer making a big deal about something being entirely and absolutely false. In most cases, the statement is 99 percent true, but there is some minor and irrelevant detail that isn’t correct. What is particularly dishonest is that they will a) use the detail as an excuse to deny the whole, then b) make an expanded statement that doesn’t refer to the errant detail at all and is completely false.

In the Miami case, the team lawyers actually came out and expanded “This latest assertion by Brian Flores that Steve Ross mentioned an NDA to him is categorically false” to “we did not ask Brian Flores to sign an NDA” even though the documentary evidence clearly proves that they did the latter.

Never forget that lawyers have absolutely no hesitation about lying to the media, the other party, and the judge in any and all circumstances. But they generally do so in a manner that the average individual is unlikely to easily see or understand.

DISCUSS ON SG

Twitter and Treason

Mike Pence not only failed to do his duty as Vice-President of the United States on January 6, he also orchestrated the false claim that he did not have the authority to reject illegitimate electoral votes despite a brilliant constitutional scholar making the clear case that he did.

J. Michael Luttig: I was first called by the vice president’s outside counsel, Richard Cullen, on the evening of Jan. 4. We now know that that was after the fateful Oval Office meeting that day between the president and vice president, where John Eastman made the argument that the vice president could overturn the election unilaterally as presiding officer.

Ryan Lizza: And you know John Eastman?

Luttig: John Eastman was one of my clerks — over 25 years ago — and Richard Cullen is one of my closest friends in all of life. And we had been, at that point, talking seemingly every day — if not multiple times a day — throughout the entire Trump administration because, of course, our close friend, Bill Barr, was attorney general.

So he called me. I was having dinner. No big deal: this is like your best friend calling. He called the night of the 4th and says, “Hey, Judge, what do you know about John Eastman?” And I said, “He was a clerk of mine 30 years ago.” He says, “Well, what else do you know?” I said, “I don’t know. John’s an academic, he’s a professor, he’s a constitutional scholar — and he’s a brilliant constitutional scholar.”

Lizza: This is sort of shocking to hear you say this, considering the way that most people have been introduced to John Eastman.

Luttig: Well, read everything that was written about him before, you know, Jan. 6.

Lizza: So that’s interesting: the person who was the architect of the attempted coup, essentially — I think it’s fair to use that language — was actually a well-respected legal mind with sound views of the Constitution and not some legal quack.

Luttig: That’s correct: The farthest thing from it. So Richard said, “Well, you don’t know, do you?” And I said, “Know what?” He said, “John’s advising the president and the vice president that the vice president has this authority [to reject electoral votes] on January 6” — two days hence. And I said, “Wow, no, I did not know that. Well, look, you can tell the vice president that I said that he has no such authority at all. And Richard said he knows that, I said OK, and we hung up.

The “legal authority” cited by Pence was a tweet from a man who didn’t know how to use Twitter and hadn’t even read the Constitutional case presented by the well-respected scholar. All the talk about a coup is nothing more than projection by the traitors who successfully accomplished one by stealing the election with around 20 million fake votes.

DISCUSS ON SG

They Were Always Bluffing

As I predicted, Austria is relaxing its Covid restrictions rather than enforcing its much-ballyhooed vaccine mandates:

Austria will lift most of its remaining COVID-19 restrictions by March 5, including scrapping an earlier closing time of midnight for bars and restaurants and allowing nightclubs to reopen, Chancellor Karl Nehammer said on Wednesday.

The government said the steps were being taken cautiously with daily new infections hovering below their record peak and a manageable situation in hospitals due to the smaller incidence of severe cases in the latest wave of the coronavirus, dominated by the highly contagious Omicron variant.

Most, though obviously not all, vaccine mandates were nothing more than a bluff. Remember, evil always prefers your consent through submission. Threatening consequences, but not following through on the threat, has proven to be a moderately effective way to obtain compliance among the weak-willed and weak-minded.

Learn to recognize the patterns. Pattern recognition is prediction.

DISCUSS ON SG

Portrait of a Promethean

This socialite is the sort of individual in whose garden one would dread to dig. Note the customary link to the world of money as well as the charity circuit.

A Connecticut socialite has pleaded guilty to inappropriately filming minors as part of a mysterious plea deal in which other more serious child sex abuse charges were dropped.

Hadley Palmer, 53, is a mother-of-four, financier’s wife and the daughter of a wealthy hedge fund founder. She lives in Belle Haven, Connecticut, in a $10million home and has four kids with her estranged husband Bradley.

Palmer is a regular on the Connecticut social scene and is regularly photographed at charity events but in October last year, she was arrested on charges of felony voyeurism, felony invasion of privacy and felony causing injury to a child. More serious charges of employing a minor in an obscene performance, a Class A felony, and possession of child pornography, were on the table.

The case has only just been brought to light by matter of the plea deal – one of the only publicly available documents in the case. It was reported by The Associated Press – which has been fighting to make the story public – on Monday.

After her arrest in October, Palmer filed an application for a special probation program known as ‘accelerated rehabilitation’ which immediately sealed the file…. Legal experts tell the Associated Press – whose reporters opposed the seal – that it was a highly unusual move for her file to be sealed immediately and many say she did not even qualify for accelerated rehabilitation. They are demanding to know why she has been able to hide from public view, when other defendants have not.

This is what post-Christian societies look like. There is one law for the wicked and another for those upon whom they prey. When you see people who are not being held accountable for their confirmed crimes, and when you see their punishments are excessively light to the point of being absurd, then you can be certain that it is a member of the Promethean cult that has been exposed.

DISCUSS ON SG

Diversity Time Bombs

One danger of hiring Diversity Officers that has hitherto been ignored is the way their customary posture-and-lament routine places their employers at serious legal risk due to the way their rhetorical posturing will be interpreted as damning legal evidence of structural bias within the organization.

The civil lawsuit filed by former Dolphins coach Brian Flores includes this damning quote at paragraph 7 from Troy Vincent, the NFL’s longtime executive V.P. of football operations: “There is a double standard, and we’ve seen that . . . And you talk about the appetite for what’s acceptable. Let’s just go back to . . . Coach [Tony] Dungy was let go in Tampa Bay after a winning season. . . Coach [Steve] Wilks, just a few years prior, was let go after one year . . . Coach [Jim] Caldwell was fired after a winning season in Detroit . . . It is part of the larger challenges that we have. But when you just look over time, it’s over-indexing for men of color. These men have been fired after a winning season. How do you explain that? There is a double standard. I don’t think that that is something that we should shy away from. But that is all part of some of the things that we need to fix in the system. We want to hold everyone to why does one, let’s say, get the benefit of the doubt to be able to build or take bumps and bruises in this process of getting a franchise turned around when others are not afforded that latitude? . . . [W]e’ve seen that in history at the [professional] level.”

Paragraph 8 attributes this quote to NFL senior V.P. and chief diversity & inclusion officer Jonathan Beane: “Any criticism we get for lack of representation at the GM and head coach positions, we deserve. We see that we’re not where we want to be. We have to do much better. We’re focusing on all roles at the league, and all these roles are key roles . . . But certainly at the top of the house, general manager and head coach, that’s the responsibility of the NFL to make sure that we are representing our current fan base and we’re representing those that are in the league today. And if you look at it right now, we’re grossly underrepresented.”

Shed no tears for the NFL. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving organization; the NFL absolutely deserves to suffer for its embrace of its own convergence. But it is a salient lesson in the foolishness of permitting activists inside one’s organization, and the intrinsic danger of permitting even seemingly harmless token gestures in the direction of diversity, inclusion, and equality.

DISCUSS ON SG

No Corporate Mandate

But the nose of the federal camel into health care permits the health care mandate to stand:

The Supreme Court has stopped the Biden administration from enforcing a requirement that employees at large businesses be vaccinated against COVID-19 or undergo weekly testing and wear a mask on the job.

At the same time, the court is allowing the administration to proceed with a vaccine mandate for most health care workers in the U.S.

The court’s orders Thursday during a spike in coronavirus cases was a mixed bag for the administration’s efforts to boost the vaccination rate among Americans.

The court’s conservative majority concluded the administration overstepped its authority by seeking to impose the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s vaccine-or-test rule on U.S. businesses with at least 100 employees. More than 80 million people would have been affected.

It’s not an unreasonable outcome. It’s hard to argue with the logic presented by the Supreme Court.

The challenges posed by a global pandemic do not allow a federal agency to exercise power that Congress has not conferred upon it. At the same time, such unprecedented circumstances provide no grounds for limiting the exercise of authorities the agency has long been recognized to have,” the court wrote in an unsigned opinion.

DISCUSS ON SG

Partygate Confirmed

The British Prime Minister, his wife, and 38 or so of his closest political associates are confirmed to have broken the lockdown laws.

At 6pm on May 20, 2020, the spring sky was still a deep blue, with the lawn bathed in dappled sunlight. Those entering the garden were reportedly met with a buffet-style spread of crisps and sausage rolls, while the drinks table was stocked with gin and rosé as well as red and white wine.

Some revellers ‘brought their own booze’ from the claustrophobic Tesco Express store that does a roaring trade in beer, wine and sandwiches next to Westminster Tube station.

Some of the dozens of guests were said to have been looking to the sky with paranoia in case a drone flew over, while other admitted that the trashed garden after the party ended was also a giveaway.

And amid the paranoia, Downing Street staff were allegedly advised to ‘clean up’ their phones by removing information and pictures that could suggest lockdown parties were regularly held at No 10, according to The Independent. A senior member of staff told people it would be a ‘good idea’ to remove any evidence that might even imply they had attended.

However, up to 40 people are believed to have taken up Martin Reynolds’ invitation. They included the Prime Minister and his then fiancée, sources told the BBC. Carrie was said to have been drinking with her friend Mr Newman, then an adviser to Cabinet minister Mr Gove and now a senior figure at No10.

One official is said to have joked about the risk of being filmed by drones, The Times reported. There were also claims of complaints from Downing Street staff about the state of the garden afterwards.

With Britain basking in 80f (27C) sunshine – the hottest day of the year so far – our beaches and parks should have been packed. But this was May 20, 2020, and the Covid lockdown rules could not have been clearer.

Indeed, they were laid out by a Cabinet minister on live TV that very afternoon. Gripping the podium at the daily Downing Street press conference at 5pm, Oliver Dowden told the nation: ‘You can meet one person outside your household in an outdoor public place – provided that you stay two metres apart.’

These were not just the rules, they were the laws of the land.

Given the utter shamelessness of their actions, very single individual who attended should be prosecuted. And the elders of the Conservative Party should inform Boris Johnson that it is time for him to resign the office that he has disgraced so foolishly.

DISCUSS ON SG

The New Blasphemy Laws

Freedom of speech and freedom of expression were never about free speech or free expression. If you haven’t figured that out yet, you simply haven’t been paying attention:

The Army and Air Force Exchange Service is emphasizing a ban on the sale of lewd or profane products in its stores after a vendor in Alaska sold figurines carrying a crude catch phrase aimed at the commander in chief.

In the days leading up to Christmas, a temporary vendor at the exchange on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage sold wooden bear figurines fashioned to resemble former President Donald Trump and holding signs reading, “Let’s Go Brandon,” according to the Anchorage Daily News, which first reported the sales.

The foot-tall bears sported long red ties and slicked-back blond hair in Trump fashion, the newspaper said.

“Let’s Go Brandon” serves as code for some who oppose Joe Biden’s presidency. Pro-Trump crowds routinely chant the phrase during rallies, and it now adorns T-shirts, hats, coffee mugs and a host of other merchandise popular with conservatives.

It’s time to start applying the actual anti-blasphemy and anti-obscenity laws, many of which are still on the books. The Christian society we had then was vastly superior to the inverted one we have now. It begins with a) Christianity, b) clean speech, and c) the parallel economy.

Don’t swear, don’t strip, and don’t support satanry.

DISCUSS ON SG

Maxwell Guilty

The jury found Ghislaine Maxwell guilty on 5 of 6 charges:

Ghislaine Maxwell has been found guilty of sex trafficking and other charges. After six days of deliberation, a jury of six men and six women found the British socialite guilty on five of six counts – all except enticing an individual under the age of 17 to travel to with intent to engage in illegal sex acts. She faces a maximum sentence of 60 years in prison.

And Epstein still didn’t kill himself.

DISCUSS ON SG