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Post by mhbruin on Jan 4, 2024 9:11:53 GMT -8
A man's home is his castle, in a manor of speaking.
One Step Over the Line
Coaches across college basketball need to take a step back, literally, and dial down the calisthenics.
For far too long many of them have paid little heed to the coaching box, a 28-foot-long area that runs parallel to, and extends past, the bench. It's commonplace to see coaches stride onto the floor as if it's their territory, even though it's not. On Saturday, we saw one of the more egregious violations when Shaka Smart did this.
I admit the whole thing looks hilarious, but at the same time, um, hello? At minimum, Smart should have been sanctioned with a warning.
"Clearly a coaching box warning," one official told CBS Sports. "By rule, coaches outside the box get one warning and it is recorded in the score book."
Smart's spectacle came close to technical foul territory, too. Instead, nothing was issued. And that's the problem. Refs seldom keep coaches in check in this realm, even when they literally cross the line. There's a case that Smart's positioning induced Creighton's Baylor Scheierman to halt himself from continuing to move toward the corner.
One Jump Over the Line
Shocking new video shows a man who was in the process of being sentenced in a Las Vegas courtroom launch himself over a judge's bench and attack her.
Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus tried to take cover when Deobra Redden yelled out expletives during the sentencing and ran at her. Video shows him flying over the bench and violently pull her to the floor.
One Toke Over the Line
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 4, 2024 9:24:38 GMT -8
It's Not Nice to Annoy the Judge
With Donald Trump's last-ditch attempt to delay a second E. Jean Carroll defamation civil trial slapped aside, his lawyers are reportedly scrambling to avoid another multi-million dollar judgment — and their filings are making the judge overseeing the case grow "increasingly impatient."
According to a report from the Daily Beast's Jose Pagliery, the Trump legal team is "grabbing at straws" with their attempt to relitigate the first Carroll defamation lawsuit which ended with a quick verdict ordering the former president to pay her in excess of $5 million.
As the Beast report notes, Trump's lawyers want to exclude testimony and evidence used in the first trial that found the former president defamed the New York writer after she accused him of sexual assault.
In particular, Trump's lawyers attempted to exclude the damning Trump deposition where he "repeatedly insults a lawyer with sexist remarks, mistakenly identifies his sexual assault victim as his ex-wife, and even blurts out that stars like him get away with sexual harassment 'unfortunately — or fortunately.'"
According to Pagliery, the former president's lawyers have already been admonished about refiling complaints that have already been dismissed and U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan is losing patience.
The report notes, Judge Kaplan likely views the Trump team's latest as "another Trump legal ploy to revive issues he already decided long ago, something that appears to keep annoying the judge."
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 4, 2024 9:26:50 GMT -8
I Will Run if Nominated, and If Elected, I Will Not Serve
Reacting to a filing Donald Trump's lawyers made to the Supreme Court this week to keep him on the ballot on Colorado after an adverse ruling, former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade laughed at their wording that seems to open the door to their client being able to run for office but not serve if he wins.
Appearing on MSNBC, the legal analyst discussed the appeal that revolves around the use in Colorado of the 14th Amendment to bar Trump from running for office due to his part in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
"One he led with that is interesting to me is that the 14th Amendment only bars someone from holding office, not running for office," she continued. "Therefore, he should be permitted to run, be elected, and only on January 20th of 2025, should it be said, 'Sorry, folks, he can't serve.'"
Laughing she added, "You know, that sounds like a textualist argument, and maybe the court bites on it, but imagine the absurdity? He can't serve, so his vice president is the president of the United States. Maybe that's how we'll see the court play out."
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 4, 2024 9:29:28 GMT -8
This Legal Brief Isn't Legal, and It Isn't Brief.
Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Thursday morning, conservative attorney George Conway held up a copy of Donald Trump's appeal to the Supreme Court to stay on the ballot in Colorado, labeled it "bizarre," and then proceeded to tear it apart point by point.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 4, 2024 9:32:43 GMT -8
It Wasn't About Anti-Semitism
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 4, 2024 9:37:09 GMT -8
The Cases Aren't So Moot When He is Running Again
Donald Trump’s businesses received nearly $8 million in payments from foreign governments while Trump was president, according to new research by Democrats on Capitol Hill.
Unlike Republicans in their efforts to pin corruption on President Joe Biden, Democrats on the House oversight committee have receipts — more than 400 pages of them — that show payments to Trump’s businesses from foreign officials likely seeking to influence the U.S. government.
Trump refused to divest from his business empire when he became president, creating an opportunity for anyone hoping to win his favor to put money straight into his pocket by staying at his hotels.
“When he arrived in the White House, Trump was determined not only to keep this well-branded global corporate empire going but to seize a new and unprecedented opportunity to make it ever more lucrative for himself and his family,” the oversight committee’s Democratic staff, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), said in their report.
Democrats and nonpartisan ethics experts have long argued that Trump’s refusal to divest violated the U.S. Constitution’s ban on presidents accepting gifts or “emoluments” from kings, princes or foreign states. Trump faced emoluments lawsuits, but the Supreme Court declared the cases moot after he left the White House in January 2021.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 4, 2024 9:39:17 GMT -8
75% of Americans Might Not Be Idiots
Twenty-five percent of Americans say it is “probably” or “definitely” true that the FBI instigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, a false concept promoted by right-wing media and repeatedly denied by federal law enforcement, according to a new Washington Post-University of Maryland poll.
The Post-UMD poll finds a smaller 11 percent of the public overall thinks there is “solid evidence” that FBI operatives organized and encouraged the attack, while 13 percent say this is their “suspicion only.”
Among Republicans, 34 percent say the FBI organized and encouraged the insurrection, compared with 30 percent of independents and 13 percent of Democrats.
The results confirm that misinformation about Jan. 6 is widespread as the United States heads into a presidential election year, during a campaign in which the former president and leading 2024 Republican candidate Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed support for those who participated in the insurrection. Despite a detailed congressional investigation and more than 725 completed federal prosecutions of Jan. 6 participants that did not yield evidence of FBI involvement, a substantial minority of Americans still embrace conspiracy theories not unlike the ones that drove many rioters to storm the Capitol three years ago.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 4, 2024 9:44:36 GMT -8
A Little Ink Can Have Big Consequences
Prominent Los Angeles civil rights attorney Sandra Muñoz spent her eighth Christmas countries apart from her husband, Luis Acensio Cordero, after the federal government denied him a visa, in part, over his tattoos. The black ink images of La Virgen de Guadalupe, theater masks, a pair of dice and Ace playing cards were throwbacks to his high school days. But to government officials conducting a body search, the tattoos showed he was an MS-13 gang member. The couple sued, securing a victory in California's 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, only to have that decision challenged by the Biden administration. (Why?) Now the case is headed to the Supreme Court. On Friday, justices are scheduled to review the case and decide whether to take it up. If they decline, the appeals court decision would stand and Acensio's lawyers believe he would likely be allowed to return to live in the U.S. for the first time in nine years. The outcome of the case could have ripple effects for immigrants like Acensio because it's so rare to win challenges to the government's visa denials. But his attorneys fear that if the Supreme Court sides with the Biden administration, former President Trump, if reelected, would use the decision, and the underlying authority, to justify blanket bans of people from certain countries, as he did during his first term. A Los Angeles man was denied a green card over his tattoos. The Supreme Court might take up his case
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 4, 2024 9:46:30 GMT -8
Molasses Merrick Screwed It All Up
Recently, the Supreme Court declined to expedite a final hearing on whether presidential immunity protects Trump from criminal prosecution by Jack Smith for January 6 related crimes.
This refusal to act means the case will first be decided by the D.C Circuit. Once they rule, one or the other party will certainly appeal back to the Supreme Court.
The March 8 trial date in the Jan. 6 insurrection case is in grave jeopardy and even whether we will see Trump on trial in federal court before the 2024 election is in question.
It seems highly doubtful that a verdict on Trump’s Jan. 6 guilt will be reached before the election.
This mess is the direct and exclusive fault of Merrick Garland.
Merrick Garland was confirmed as Attorney General on March 10, 2021.
On that first day Garland had enough information to begin a criminal investigation of Trump’s Jan. 6 actions. Trump’s speech to the crowd before they marched to the Capitol was available on television as were the actions of the mob.
If he had begun a serious criminal investigation of Trump we (the public) would have seen subpoenas being served, searches conducted, potential defendants hiring criminal defense lawyers, potential defendants receiving target letters, grand juries being empaneled, etc.
But, instead, Merrick Garland did nothing.
For 20 months, he did nothing.
Why? He has never so much as hinted at his reasoning. (I believe he dithered because he is weak and indecisive.)
I believe that the January 6 commission hearings forced his hand. From June 9, 2022 to December 19, 2022 Congress conducted 10 televised hearings. These hearings, staged brilliantly, provided indisputable proof of Trump’s criminal actions TO THE PUBLIC. In the face of this evidence, Merrick Garland could not continue to do nothing.
Jack Smith was appointed on November 18, 2022, just before the final committee hearing in which the final results of the investigation were summarized and criminal referrals to the justice department were made.
A total of almost 20 months elapsed between Merrick Garland’s confirmation and his appointment of Jack Smith.
Twenty invaluable, irretrievably lost months.
That is why we are in this infuriating mess.
The public deserves a verdict on Trump’s criminal guilt or innocence before the presidential election. The nation needs it. The nation deserves it.
That we might not get it---thank you Mr. Garland.
If Trump is reelected (which I believe is improbable) and we lose our democracy, Merrick Garland will be remembered as the worst attorney general in the history of the United States. (I think he is already in the bottom 3.)
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hasben
Resident Member
Posts: 1,023
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Post by hasben on Jan 4, 2024 13:01:13 GMT -8
Among Republicans, 34 percent say the FBI organized and encouraged...
We already know that 34% of repubs are total maga morons and I think the number is even higher.
If Trump is reelected (which I believe is improbable)...
I admire your positivity but I don't think it's at all improbable with the result depending on a handful of votes in a few electoral states. In fact if it were held today I think he'd have a very good chance of winning.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 5, 2024 9:42:02 GMT -8
Among Republicans, 34 percent say the FBI organized and encouraged... We already know that 34% of repubs are total maga morons and I think the number is even higher. If Trump is reelected (which I believe is improbable)... I admire your positivity but I don't think it's at all improbable with the result depending on a handful of votes in a few electoral states. In fact if it were held today I think he'd have a very good chance of winning. Honestly, I have no idea what his chances of winning are. The consequnces of a second term seem catastrophic, so even a small chance of his winning is VERY disturbing. Frankly, I am frightened. |
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hasben
Resident Member
Posts: 1,023
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Post by hasben on Jan 5, 2024 15:20:13 GMT -8
Honestly, I have no idea what his chances of winning are.
The few polls that have been done, which don't mean much at this point, say trump would win. With Biden's terrible approval rating, and losing so many minorities, and the 5 swing states with rajor thin margins it's actually likely trump would win the electoral vote. So fear is certainly justified.
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