Sic Semper Tyrannis

Reading the appellate en banc opinion as Judge Sullivan readies a hearing in the Michael Flynn case

By Robert Willmann

The 10 judges on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals eligible to rehear a three-judge panel's decision in favor of Michael Flynn's petition for a writ of mandamus cancelled the panel's prior ruling with an 8-2 vote.   Flynn's attorneys have decided they will not ask the U.S. Supreme Court whether it will agree to hear that mandamus action.  In the trial court, Judge Emmet Sullivan has set a hearing for oral argument on the request by the Department of Justice to dismiss the criminal case against Flynn.  The hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, 29 September 2020, at 11:00 a.m. eastern time. 

All of the judges eligible on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to participate in a rehearing of the mandamus action did so as a group called "en banc".  Eight judges decided to deny all the relief requested by Flynn, with seven of them agreeing on a majority opinion, plus one who filed a concurring opinion.  Two judges wrote dissenting opinions.  The primary author of the majority opinion was not revealed, as the generic term "per curiam" was used.  The decision and opinions were handed down on 31 August 2020, and were made available here on SST that day [1].

Reading past the language on the surface of the en banc majority opinion makes it clear as to what was going on.  The opinion is carefully designed to minimize the chances that the supreme court would decide to hear the mandamus case at this stage of the proceedings.  Neither the law applicable to a federal government's motion to dismiss under Rule of Criminal Procedure 48(a), nor the facts of Flynn's case in the trial court, were discussed at all.  Not one time.  Nothing.  Only a passing reference was made to harms to Flynn and the Department of Justice (DOJ) if a mandamus order was not issued, but those harms were waved away as either being speculative or no big deal.  A real issue exists about whether Judge Sullivan was disqualified or should be recused from presiding over the case.  However, the supreme court would probably not think that the issue by itself would justify getting involved in the case.  The 8-judge majority smiled and said that the mandamus action was premature, since Sullivan had not yet ruled on the motion to dismiss.  That is a position that has a certain logic to it, if what has occurred in the trial court is ignored.  They also minimized and blew by the evidence of Sullivan's partiality and bias, and refused to remove him as the judge presiding.  And they allowed John Gleeson to continue as an outside lawyer and "friend of the court", to argue against dismissing the case.

You can now see why Sidney Powell, and the other two lawyers representing Flynn, decided not to approach the supreme court at this time. The en banc majority opinion was sanitized to the extent that an analysis of the government's motion to dismiss, and the circumstances in which a judge might grant or deny it, was nowhere to be found.

Picking a judge for the U.S. Supreme Court and elsewhere

By Robert Willmann

In the "old days", people appointed to be federal judges were usually practicing lawyers who had developed a positive reputation in the community.  This was especially the case when picking federal district court judges, the trial courts.  But   in the 1980's, the focus began to slant towards being agenda-oriented and result oriented, which would dovetail with particular political, social, and economic ideas.

The lawyers nominated since that time seem to not always have had a broad, practical experience.  Nor have they spent a lot of time scratching around in the courthouse.  The great Texas trial lawyer Warren Burnett was the finest extemporaneous speaker I have ever listened to [1].  One time, when complaining about how bureaucratic the practice of law had become, he said, "I remember falling out the back door, hunting for the client while the secretary was hunting for the file, and if we found either one, the trial was going to take place!"

All laws, including the awful thing called "administrative law", have an effect on real people in the real world. That is what matters, but attention to it has been drifting away.  Especially for federal courts of appeal and the supreme court, the pool of people from which nominations have been considered has become smaller, even though many others are well-qualified for the job.  This is producing the equivalent of what Army Col. David Hackworth called "Perfumed Princes".  A federal judiciary of perfumed princes and princesses.

The nomination of a judge to the U.S. Supreme Court for the vacancy after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be announced this afternoon by president Donald Trump.  Leaks to the media yesterday said it will be Amy Coney Barrett.

It is a world of individuals.  A person without much experience, or mainly an academic, can also be fully capable of analyzing a legal doctrine, visualizing its application, and can have the guts to make a courageous ruling.

Exercising judicial authority -- or any authority, for that matter -- requires a sense of humility and humanity.  But seeing it happen is not as commonplace as one might think.  After four and a half months, 11 federal judges, and two different federal courts, a request by the Justice Department to dismiss the criminal case against Gen. Michael Flynn has still not been granted.

[1]  https://www.texasobserver.org/1132-a-creature-of-the-courts-warren-burnett/

Buck the Terrible

"Congressman Ken Buck (R-CO-04) joined Brian Kilmeade to discuss his new book "Capitol of Freedom: Restoring American Greatness" and how it ties into the need to look into who is financing Antifa. Buck explained that while he does not know specific donors he said they appear to have a a well-funded leadership structure. Buck says the DOJ is doing their best to find out where the funding is coming from but there needs to be cooperation between local and federal officials to fully determine where Antifa is getting their funding."

https://radio.foxnews.com/2020/09/15/rep-ken-buck-on-antifas-well-funded-leadership-structure/

---------------

I heard this fellow being interviewed this AM on Varney & Company.  He seems quite reasonable (to me).  He is now famous for wearing a T-shirt, gifted by his son, that bore the sentiment "Kill 'em all.  God will sort 'em out."  This thought was first expressed by the papal legate in the Albigensian Crusade at the the capture of Bezier.  That is in France Escarlata.  About 7,000 men, women and children were then rendered into used people for God's perusal.

Silly man.  Nevertheless, Ken Buck has occasioned an enquiry by DoJ into the sources of funding of Antifa', BLM, and all the other bits and pieces of the Marxist scumworld that now infests the US and hopefully soon ...   As Buck points out, the agitprop cadres are being transported in style from hot spot to hot spot, put up in hotels, paid a daily stipend, and supplied with fighting gear and palletized loads of bricks, frozen water bottles, commercial fireworks, wire cutters, etc.  The Buckster's questions to DoJ have to do with "agency" as people here like to call it and funding in support of sedition and revolt.

I have long postulated, based on Smilyesque reverse azimuths, that there are one or more Lefty operations rooms, manned by callow Lefty Utes that do the donkey work of devising all the different propo memes in support of the "coming revolution."  Is some of that just "a woman scorned?" Probably.  But some of the rest deals with logistics and financing.  That is what Buck the Terrible is after.

It is very important for a lot of people that the Democrats win in November.  pl 

Senate committees release a report on Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, and business in Ukraine and China

By Robert Willmann

Today the U.S. Senate committees on Finance and on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs released a report called "Hunter Biden, Burisma, and Corruption:  The Impact on U.S. Government Policy and Related Concerns".  Charles Grassley (Repub. Iowa) is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.  Ron Johnson (Repub. Wisconsin) heads the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

As the last paragraph of the 87-page report says, "The Chairmen’s investigation has faced many obstacles from the minority and from executive agencies that have failed to comply with document requests. Accordingly, there remains much work to be done". 

https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/HSGAC%20-%20Finance%20Joint%20Report%202020.09.23.pdf

 

A transcript and court documents in the criminal case against former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith

By Robert Willmann

For your information, here are relevant court documents and a transcript of the plea hearing in the Kevin Clinesmith criminal case.  The former in-house lawyer at the FBI altered a communication from the CIA to make its meaning false, and it was then used for an application to get a surveillance warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).  Surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act turns the target into what is essentially a "walking wiretap". 

This is the first criminal case brought publicly by John Durham, the U.S. Attorney for Connecticut and a Special Attorney to the Attorney General to investigate the issue of surveillance of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and related matters. 

The agreed charging document against Clinesmith--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/clinesmith_charging_doc.pdf

The plea agreement--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/clinesmith_plea_agreement.pdf

The statement of the offense--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/clinesmith_statement_offense.pdf

Transcript of the plea hearing on 19 August 2020--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/clinesmith_transcript_8-19-2020.pdf

His sentencing hearing is set for 10 December 2020.  Sometimes when a defendant is going to testify at the trial of another person, the sentencing hearing will be postponed until after the defendant testifies.  There is not enough time between now and 10 December for Durham to charge another person with a crime and have a trial at which Clinesmith would testify.  Either Clinesmith is not going to testify against anyone, or they trust that he will do so truthfully and completely after he is sentenced.

The judge in Clinesmith's case is James Boasberg, who is also at this time the presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.  He has been on the FISC since 19 May 2014 and was made the presiding judge on 1 January 2020, replacing Rosemary Collyer [1].  In the transcript on pages 4-5, Boasberg says he will recuse himself if either the government or Clinesmith want him to, but they both said they did not want him to.

After all the fraud on the FISC and false statements made to it, there is no indication that Judge Boasberg has tried to initiate a contempt of court proceeding against any person in the Department of Justice, the FBI, CIA, NSA, or anyone else for the misconduct done to the court going back several years.

 

[1]  https://www.fisc.uscourts.gov/current-membership

https://www.fisc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/FISC%20FISCR%20Judges%20August%202020%20200824.docx.pdf

 

Nancy Blows It! The Unmasking ..... by Fred

Another day, another story, another reality revealed. 

If it is safe for an 80 yo member of congress to get a haircut, it is safe to vote in person. 

If it is safe for an 80 yo member of congress to get a haircut, it is safe for our children to got to school.

If it is safe for an 80 yo member of congress to get a haircut, it is safe for us to go to church. 

If it is safe for an 80 yo member of congress to get a haircut, it is safe to open small businesses. Just don't mention hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) + zinc + azithromycin, that gets you purged by Gulag.

In Dallas, opening a hair salon was a week in jail for the owner.

Bitch set me up, says speaker Marion Barry Pelosi.

The en banc court of appeals switches and denies a mandamus in the Michael Flynn case

By Robert Willmann

 Without saying which of the 10 judges doing the rehearing wrote the majority opinion, the federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit switched the earlier three-judge panel decision and denied the request of Michael Flynn for a mandamus order that would have directed the trial court judge Emmett Sullivan to grant the motion by the Department of Justice to dismiss the criminal prosecution of Flynn [1]. 

The 18-page majority opinion by seven judges said it was "per curium", which does not identify which judge was assigned and wrote the majority opinion.  Judge Thomas B. Griffith wrote a two-page concurring opinion.  Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson wrote a 10-page dissenting opinion, which was joined by Judge Neomi Rao.  Judge Rao wrote a 30-page dissenting opinion, which was joined by Judge Henderson.  Judge Rao had written the original decision, joined by Judge Henderson, which granted the mandamus and vacated the appointment of John Gleeson by Sullivan to oppose the granting of the motion to dismiss.  Judge Robert Wilkins wrote a dissenting opinion in that earlier panel decision.  Here is the en banc decision of today--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/michaelflynn_opinions_en_banc_mandamus.pdf

There are colloquial expressions that precisely describe the majority's decision denying a mandamus, but it would not be proper for me to say them in the presence of ladies.

I have to get on the road now, but today's opinions and order are here for you to read and download as desired.  I anticipate that Flynn's lawyers will ask the U.S. Supreme Court if it will agree to hear the mandamus action.

 

[1]  Order by the en banc court denying a writ of mandamus. 

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/michaelflynn_order_denying_mandamus.pdf

 

Virginia To Force COVID Vaccine On Its Citizens. by J

 

How can the State Health Commissioner Dr. Norman Oliver force COVID Vaccine on the citizens of Virginia?  He apparently thinks he can.

Virginia Health Commissioner says he’ll mandate a COVID-19 vaccine

J.

Pandemic unemployment payments in Virginia

The maximum weekly state unemployment benefit in the once great Commonwealth of Virginia (now East California) is $398  based on what your pay was before you became a public trust.

The GOP proposed continued weekly supplement to the state benefit is $400.

On an annualized basis  (398+400x52) that amounts to $41,496 for an individual and $82,992 for an unemployed couple with both collecting unemployment benefits.

In the previous situation the individual federal plus up was $600.  That was providing an additional $10,400 per week on an annualized basis.  That amounted to $51,896 per individual and $103,792 for an unemployed couple.

I wonder if you could still get food stamps under this set up.

Let me know if my arithmetic is bad.    pl

The court of appeals wants oral argument about disqualifying Judge Sullivan in the Flynn case

By Robert Willmann

In its first order allowing a rehearing en banc of the Michael Flynn mandamus action, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit specified an issue to be discussed at the oral argument, and added that a second order would follow with the amount of time each lawyer participating would have to argue.  The second order, filed on 5 August 2020, said that each lawyer can argue for 20 minutes in the rehearing en banc, which is a consideration of the mandamus by all of the active judges eligible to take part, and which starts it back at square one.  Granting the rehearing vacated the earlier decision by a three-judge panel in Flynn's favor.  However,  the second order contains a little surprise--

"Further ordered that, in addition to the issue set forth in the court's order filed July 30, 2020, the parties be prepared to address at oral argument the effect, if any, of 28 U.S.C. sections 455(a) and 455(b)(5)(i) on the District Court judge's Fed. R. App. P. 35(b) petition for en banc review".

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/michaelflynn_2nd_order_rehearing_en_banc.pdf

The court of appeals was being polite to trial court Judge Emmet Sullivan in its order because it left out the name of that particular section 455:  "Disqualification of justice, judge, or magistrate judge" [1].

The court of appeals worded the issue carefully by saying, "... the effect, if any, ... on the District Court judge's ... petition for en banc review".  It speaks to the effect of the disqualification statute on Sullivan's "petition for en banc review".  This raises the question:  Disqualified from doing what?  If Sullivan should be disqualified, would he be disqualified from asking for a rehearing en banc, which should restore the earlier decision in Flynn's favor?  Would he be disqualified from asking the U.S. Supreme Court if it will agree to hear the case if Flynn prevails in the court of appeals?  Would Sullivan be disqualified from continuing to preside over the Flynn criminal case in the trial court?  All or part of the above?

Someone is Lying About Covid by Larry C Johnson

Contrary to claims by the media and the ego maniac Dr. Fauci about a tidal wave of Covid infections, I have first hand, albeit anecdotal evidence, that there is a lot of bullshit surrounding reports of people who have "tested" positive for Covid. My old friend Janet, who was the GM of a very popular hair salon, heard yesterday from two of her former employees that they had "tested positive" for Covid. At first she was very alarmed and concerned for their welfare until she heard the rest of the story (Paul Harvey's signature line). Both reported neither had been to any testing facility nor had they provided any sample of any body fluid. But both were notified in the mail that they had "tested positive."

Then there is my friend Rob. I learned from him this week that four of his buddies in the Miami area had gone to a testing facility and had filled out paperwork in preparation for being tested for Covid. But faced with a long line and interminable wait they drove off and did not have any samples collected. But guess what? All four were informed that they too were "positive" for Covid.

While this is anecdotal, these accounts are real and are not just isolated mistakes. Somebody in the testing chain is playing a dangerous, dishonest game. Informing perfectly healthy people that they have a positive result for a disease they have never been tested for is nothing more than Mega Bullshit.

A rehearing is granted by the court of appeals in the Michael Flynn mandamus action

By Robert Willmann

The opinion and order in Michael Flynn's favor in his mandamus action issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on 24 June 2020 has been vacated, and a rehearing by all of the judges on the court of appeals eligible to to participate will occur (a rehearing en banc), with oral argument set for Tuesday, 11 August 2020, at 9:30 a.m.  Appeals are almost always heard and decided by a panel of three judges.  A rehearing by all of the judges is rare--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/michaelflynn_order_rehearing_en_banc.pdf

Although this is not good news, the law is on Flynn's side that the case should be dismissed in the trial court, as requested by the Department of Justice (DOJ).  The en banc rehearing might be decided in Flynn's favor.   But if the court of appeals issues a new opinion and order denying the mandamus and rules against Flynn, he will certainly ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, although it does not have to, since a decision on whether to hear the case is in its discretion.

The danger zone is a possible race against the clock if the case goes back to the trial court for Judge Sullivan to rule one way or the other on the DOJ motion to dismiss.   He could then deny the motion to dismiss and end up sentencing Flynn to prison, which would result in more legal action in the court of appeals to reverse the ruling denying the dismissal and to reverse the judgment of conviction and the sentence.  Or, Sullivan might sit on the case without making a prompt ruling, and if president Trump loses the election in November, the judge might then continue to sit on it until a new Attorney General is appointed, who might then withdraw the DOJ motion to dismiss.  However, if Sullivan sits on the case without making a ruling on the motion to dismiss, Flynn will likely file another application for a writ of mandamus in the court of appeals asking for an order instructing Sullivan to rule on the motion to dismiss by a date certain and to stop delaying. 

Doctors go to Washington about hydroxychloroqine and COVID-19. Censorship follows.

By Robert Willmann

Today, 28 July, a story popped up that some doctors had a little press event about the SARS-CoV-2 virus in front of the Supreme Court building yesterday in Washington D.C., introduced by Congressman Ralph Norman (Repub., South Carolina), but now the Internet websites called Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have removed the video.  The "main stream media" did not seem to be there.  By the time Facebook censored the video, it had received over 17 million views.  A group of medical doctors called America's Frontline Doctors participated in the event, and had a conference scheduled for yesterday that would end today.  The Tea Party Patriots organization helped to sponsor the events.

Dr. Simone Gold organized the doctors.  She received a medical degree in 1989 from Rosalind Franklin University, the Chicago Medical School, and has a law degree, but she does not appear to have a law license in California.  She practices emergency medicine in Los Angeles, California.  The little event had been on the vimeo.com video website earlier today, but then was removed [1].  The America's Frontline Doctors website was available this morning, but after a while today it said:  "Website Expired.  This account has expired. If you are the site owner, click below to login" [2].  

Dr. Gold said that hydroxychloroquine can be purchased over the counter in Indonesia and Iran!

The breitbart.com website has its its own video, which is still available, and it is about 44 minutes long.  During the event, a study from 2005 on chloroquine was mentioned, which is entited, "Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread".  SARS is said to be a worse virus than SARS-CoV-2.  The study is on the National Insitututes of Health website--

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1232869/

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/07/27/facebook-censors-viral-video-of-doctors-capitol-hill-coronavirus-press-conference/

The program the group had scheduled for yesterday and today included presentations indoors.  Two of them as videos were on the YouTube section for the Tea Party Patriots earlier this afternoon, but one is now gone:  "This video has been removed for violating YouTube's community guidelines" [3].  The remaining one is about 3 hours, 11 minutes, and the audio is out until 4 minutes, 53 seconds into the video. It was still available as of 5:52 p.m., central time--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKbQbcInHnA

This morning, the CNN network followed the censorship with its own misdirection, starting out by saying: "A video featuring a group of doctors making false and dubious claims related to the coronavirus was removed by Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube after going viral online Monday" [4].

"Let the Cities Burn (or Not)" Real Clear Politics

"There is no police power in the federal Constitution. The police power is left to the states. To the extent the President can send federal officers into Portland, Oregon, and other cities, it should be to protect federal property.

The President cannot save Portland from itself, and he should not. He cannot save the other cities either."  RCP

"When people move out, the tax base collapses and crime goes up, the people will either change their behavior or be democratically marginalized in their voting power. If life goes on as normal, or more people move in to embrace what is happening, then they've chosen it, or the problems have been exaggerated by conservatives, as they claim. Let the market decide by letting the actions of a free people control their fate.

The President should withdraw from Oregon and not send supplemental help to these other cities. Instead, he can campaign on their descent to chaos at the hands of Democratic mayors.

A President sending in a police force to a city is a dangerous precedent that will be expanded upon by future presidents, even though they lack a general police power. A city allowed to choose its own fate is a positive precedent, from which we can all draw lessons.

Let Portland burn or not. Let the other cities descend into violence or not. But let the cities decide without intervention from Washington."  RCP

----------------

There are federal police forces, but they all exist to deal with violations of FEDERAL law.  They were justified when created or developed as regulatory in nature and/or investigative tools intended to provide information for decision making.  The FBI began its existence as a small group manned by lawyers and accountants.  It stayed that way until  Hoover found it useful to his personal needs..

I agree with the opinion expressed by the author of this piece.  The US is a federal republic.  Much power was denied  to the federal government by the states who were and are the contracting parties in the federal constitution.

The ever present consolidating US nationalists have striven endlessly to expand the power of the federal government through the constitutional interpretative power of the federal courts by using such devices as the commerce clause and the 14th Amendment but there limits to the elasticity of the document.

And, of course, there was the outcome of the Civil War which might have settled the matter in favor of federal power but did not because the victorious states found in the post-war years that they needed the political support of the defeated states.  To achieve that end the defeated Confederates were restored to power as the occupation forces were withdrawn.

We should remember that there exists the "Insurrection Act" of 1807.  It has often been used in US history and it may be again although I would advise caution in its application.

Having always been an original intent constitutionalist, I would be a hypocrite if I supported federal occupation and rule of cities and states that resist federal authority in their internal affairs.  pl

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/07/24/let_the_cities_burn_or_not_143792.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrection_Act_of_1807

What is causing all the damage in Iran?

"A building used for producing centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear site was blown up with a powerful bomb, the official told the newspaper.

A member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also confirmed to the newspaper an explosive was used. He ruled out cyberattacks as the cause.

The unnamed official said, however, Israel was not responsible for the other fires occurring around the Islamic Republic.

On Wednesday, seven ships caught fire at the Persian Gulf port of Bushehr which houses Iran’s only nuclear plant. It was the second blaze reported that day, with another breaking out at an aluminum factory in Lamerd in southern Iran.

There have also been a series of mysterious gas blasts and explosions in the Tehran area.

An explosion at the Parchin military complex, which analysts believe houses missile production facilities as well as a subterranean tunnel system, occurred a week before the Natanz blast."  Breitbart

---------------

Well, well.  the number, nature and distribution of these explosions and fires make it tempting to think of the incidents as targeting.

If it IS targeting, the pattern seems to be a drip-drip campaign of de-stabilization attacks in conjunction with other covert action to try to bring the mullocracy down.  Now, I have zero actual information official or otherwise about this phenomenon but consider one fanciful but perhaps entertaining possibility.

The USG and other countries have been doing R&D on directed energy weapons for decades.  They are all reputed to be still in R&D stage having major problems including diversion and/or obstruction of the death ray itself in the case of massive pumped lasers.   One such project was "Excalibur" (link below).  I never worked on any such project.

In the dark world of secret projects the US and other governments conceal projects that are too valuable to risk in public exposure or that are of dubious international legality.  The really valuable ones are often declared to be cancelled even as the work is moved into a SAP where it can be adequately protected.  The F-117 and the B-2 bomber were both carefully concealed in that way until the day of terrible revelation.

So, how about an orbiting pumped nuclear laser weapon aimed at targets on the ground?  Fun, eh?  I know there are problems with clouds and such like getting in the way but, you can wait for the clouds to clear.

This could be Space Force's first major operation.  pl

https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2020/07/19/another-mystery-blast-hits-iranian-power-plant/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Excalibur

VA nursing assistant charged with murdering seven elderly vets.

"Reta Mays is a former nursing assistant at the Clarksburg VA Medical Center in West Virginia who on Tuesday, July 14, pleaded guilty to killing seven veterans through insulin injections between 2017 and 2018. The second-degree murder charges carry a maximum penalty of life in prison, WCHS reported."  heavy.com

"She also pleaded guilty to assault with the intent to murder another veteran, according to her plea agreement.

The charges against May, 46, were unsealed Tuesday before she pleaded, and followed a two-year federal investigation, West Virginia Metro News reported.

U.S. Attorney Bill Powell told reporters Tuesday that the investigation eventually came down to who was present during one-on-one appointments at which the patients were given insulin. Although Mays denied the charges until July 13, Powell said, “Ultimately it led to her in every instance.”" heavy.com

"According to Mays’ federal charging document, she started working at the VA Hospital in June 2015; she worked the night shift in a surgical ward, dealing with a number of diabetic patients. In June 2018, another employee at the medical center brought concerns to their supervisor about several patients who suffered hypoglycemic deaths — a condition of low blood sugar caused by being injected with too much insulin. An investigation commenced, and Mays was removed from her role, according to the document.

Mays was never authorized or licensed to administer insulin to patients, according to a Department of Justice release."  heavy.com

--------------

Every once in a while there is an incident in which a nurse, a nursing assistant or a janitor is responsible for patients' deaths in hospital.  I remember a case some years ago in France in which a janitor woman killed a number of people by unplugging their life sustaining equipment and then plugging in her vacuum cleaner or floor buffer oblivious to the dying patients in the beds around her.

In this case I would not be surprised to learn that this woman (Reta the Terrible) thought she was helping them on their way.  This would be something like the trope about pneumonia being the old man's friend.

As you can see the Clarksburg VA medical facility is quite large.  I don't use VA medical facilities , being cared for quite well in other ways, but such facilities are extremely important to former military people who are qualified by service connected illness for VA provided health care but are not retired from the military for longevity of service or wounds and who are therefore not a continuing responsibility of the military.  pl

https://heavy.com/news/2020/07/reta-mays-former-va-employee-pleads-guilty-to-multiple-veteran-murders/?utm_source=OneSignal

https://www.clarksburg.va.gov/

Ghislaine Maxwell wants out of jail with a personal recognizance bond and an ankle monitor!

By Robert Willmann

In the face of agitating propaganda pushing a marxist cultural attack and conditioning the public about a virus, a little humor is always welcome.  After Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyers filed their memorandum in opposition to the government's motion for detention, I eagerly looked for their proposal for her pretrial release from jail, and there it was on page four.  When reading number one I started laughing and could hardly stop, at their bulls**t that would make Donald Trump blush: "(i) a $5 million personal recognizance bond, co-signed by six financially responsible people, all of whom have strong ties to Ms. Maxwell, and secured by real property in the United Kingdom worth over $3.75 million ...."

I thought I better jet up to New York City and tell Maurene Comey and the other two prosecutors that Maxwell and her lawyers were just about to hand the court an empty sack! A personal recognizance (PR) bond is a piece of paper signed by the defendant and maybe others that says they will pay the government 'X' dollars if the defendant fails to show up in court. No money is deposited with the clerk. No bail bond company that has given collateral to the government to write bonds signs it.  Is $5 million too small an amount for Ghislaine? Then just write on that PR bond $10 million, or $100 million, or whatever amount you want, sucker.

But do not worry. This piece of paper is "secured" by real property worth "over $3.75 million" that is located in the United Kingdom. Wait a minute. I thought the Southern District of New York (SDNY) was in the United States, not the United Kingdom.  Do Maxwell and those New York and Denver lawyers think this is the year 1775?

Now, who are these "six financially responsible people" who are going to co-sign this worthless piece of paper? Page 20 (pdf page 24) tells us -- and the court -- in marvelous detail: "Ms. Maxwell's siblings, relatives and friends -- many of whom [but not all!] reside in the United States".

Judge Sullivan asks for a rehearing in the mandamus action, but that allows Michael Flynn to get more exculpatory material

By Robert Willmann

When filing his request for a rehearing in the Michael Flynn mandamus action in the court of appeals, Judge Emmet Sullivan fully exposed his personal obsession against Gen. Flynn, which may have been encouraged and helped along by others.  But this act might come back to bite him and his enablers, because it keeps the whole case active and has allowed the Department of Justice (DOJ) to give more exculpatory material to Flynn, and his lawyers have promptly filed it with the clerk of the trial court. 

After Sullivan's filing on 9 July, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued an order directing Flynn to file a response within 10 days, and the DOJ may in its discretion do so also.  The court helpfully said that "the effectiveness of this court’s order issued June 24, 2020, will be stayed pending disposition of the petition for rehearing en banc"--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/michaelflynn_court_of_appeals_orders_response.pdf

Flynn then filed a Second Supplement in Support of Agreed Dismissal, and described the material from the DOJ that was disclosed to him on 7 July--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/michaelflynn_2nd_supp_supporting_dismissal.pdf

When the DOJ gives discovery material to Flynn, it files a notice that it has done so with the trial court clerk, and includes the cover letter to Flynn that accompanied the material.  The letter for this disclosure says, in part [1]--

"The enclosed documents were obtained and analyzed by USAO EDMO during the course of its review. The documents include handwritten notes of former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Tashina Gauhar from a January 25, 2017 meeting (23487-80), notes of former Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok from that same meeting (23491-92), an internal DOJ document dated January 30, 2017 (23493-97), and handwritten notes of then Acting Attorney General Dana Boente, dated March 30, 2017 (23498-500)".

The material is in an exhibit to Flynn's second supplement supporting dismissal, with some large areas blacked out and redacted--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/michaelflynn_exhibit_2nd_supp_supporting_dismissal.pdf

Judge Sullivan's motion in the court of appeals asks for a rehearing "en banc", which would be a reconsideration of the mandamus by all of the judges on the court who are in "regular active service" and not disqualified to hear the case.

"British court rules against Christopher Steele ..." just the news

"Justice Mark Warby of the High Court of England and Wales ordered Steele’s firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, to pay a modest 18,000 English pounds – about $22,596 in American currency – each to Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman as compensation for a violation of Britain’s Data Protection Act 1998 .

Warby ruled that while Steele had a national security interest to share his intelligence with U.S. and British authorities, several of the allegations in Memo 112 of the Steele dossier were “inaccurate or misleading as a matter of fact.”" just the news

*********

"The judge ruled that in Memo 112, one of several that made up Steele's dossier, there were six factually inaccurate or unproven claims that Steele provided from his alleged intelligence sources including that:

• the businessmen did not do favors for or receive favors from Putin as the memo claimed;
• Fridman and Aven did not provide informal foreign policy advice to the Russian leader as Steele alleged;
• Fridman did not meet with Putin in September 2016 as claimed by Steele's source;
• the businessman did not bribe Putin when he was Deputy Mayor of St Petersburg;And Fridman and Aven did not do Putin’s political bidding as the dossier alleged." just the news

**********

"The ruling further accentuates that much of the Steele dossier contained unproven Internet rumor or false information, some possible from Russian intelligence, as the Justice Department inspector general concluded last December. Nonetheless, the FBI used evidence from Steele's dossier to support a warrant targeting Trump campaign figures in four occasions, claiming to the court that agents had verified the information.'  just the news

*****

"The judge also concluded that Steele's notes of his first interaction with the FBI about the dossier on July 5, 2016 made clear that his ultimate client for his research project was Hillary Clinton's campaign as directed by her campaign law firm Perkins Coie. The FBI did not disclose that information to the court.

"The supposition that the Clinton campaign was the ultimate client "is in line with the FBI Note of 5 July 2016, which records Mr. Steele telling the FBI that Orbis had been instructed by Mr. [Glenn] Simpson of Fusion and 'Democratic Party Associates' but that 'the ultimate client were (sic) the leadership of the Clinton presidential campaign.' The FBI Note also indicates that Mr Steele had been told by that stage that Mrs Clinton herself was aware of what Orbis had been commissioned to do," Warby concluded." just the news

---------------

Justice Sir Mark Warby is, I take it, something like a SCOTUS justice in the US.   His decision makes it clear that the "Steele Dossier" is a work of fiction constructed by Steele for the express purpose of helping Clinton defeat Trump.

For this to have taken so much time to emerge indicates to me that the present FBI director is neither loyal to President Trump  nor to the truth.  Who is the idiot or political enemy who suggested him as FBI Director to Trump.  Pence maybe?  No, it was Chris Christie.  pl

https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/british-court-rules-against-christopher-steele-orders

Bound for Glory? - The Seattle City Council

"The Seattle City Council on Monday approved adopting a new tax on large businesses, two years after the council repealed a big business tax amid pressure from corporations such as Amazon and the prospect of a voter referendum.

The new tax called “JumpStart Seattle,” from lead sponsor and council member Teresa Mosqueda, will target companies with many highly paid employees, whereas the 2018 “head tax” would have applied to all employees at large companies.

The council voted 7-2 on the measure, which is expected to raise more than $200 million per year. The tax repealed by the council in 2018 weeks after it was adopted was expected to raise $47 million per year.

Mosqueda and council members Lorena Gonzalez, Kshama Sawant, Tammy Morales, Lisa Herbold, Dan Strauss and Andrew Lewis voted for the new tax Monday. Alex Pedersen and Debora Juarez voted against it. In last year’s council elections, five candidates defeated opponents who were supported by big business groups.

“This is a huge win,” Mosqueda said. “This is about caring for Seattleites now and into the future. It will help Seattle survive the crisis of COVID and emerge stronger and more equitable.”

Under the new tax, companies with annual payrolls over $7 million will be taxed based on their pay to employees making over $150,000 per year. As amended in committee last week, the tax rate would range from 0.7% to 2.4%, with tiers for various payroll and salary amounts." Seattlemedium.com

-----------------

Yup.

Kshama Sawant (a member) stated after the vote that "this is a wonderful opportunity to begin the destruction of the United States and its replacement by a socialist world state." Well, pilgrims, she should get high marks for honesty.

It is apparent that the City Council does not credit the idea that these companies will simply move away.  Texas or some other tax haven would seem possibilities.  Would there be any benefit in moving to western Canada?

It seems that what we are watching is a lot of children playing with big people toys.  How interesting.  pl

https://seattlemedium.com/seattle-city-council-approves-new-tax-on-big-business/

The Supreme Court enters a labyrinth and will rule on 3 cases about disclosing Trump financial records

By Robert Willmann

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed last year in December to hear three cases that can directly affect the relationship between the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, and between federal courts and State legal systems.  Two of them involve subpoenas from three committees of the U.S. House of Representatives, which were consolidated into one case in the Supreme Court.  The third one is about a subpoena from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office through a grand jury.

Decision time is here, as the court has said that it "will announce all remaining opinions ready during this Term of Court tomorrow morning, July 9, 2020, beginning at 10 a.m. [eastern time]".

The tantalizing part is that the subpoenas are for tax returns and financial records of president Donald Trump. 

I think that the more important case of the two is the one about a grand jury subpoena from the Manhattan DA's office.  It was discussed here on SST in November 2019, after the federal Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the decision of the trial court (on an alternate ground) and ruled that the grand jury subpoena was to be honored and enforced--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/11/a-federal-appeals-court-decides-that-trump-tax-returns-can-be-subpoenaed-by-a-state-grand-jury.html

The basic question is to what extent, if at all, a federal court can intervene in State criminal law processes.  In predictable fashion, Trump has taken an extravagant position and has claimed that a president is absolutely immune from State criminal law process while in office, even when the subpoena is not directed at him but to his accounting firm or to a financial company that has the records, and the records are not the result of official presidential conduct or communications.  His fallback position is that if he does not have absolute immunity, the District Attorney has to show a "heightened need" for the subpoenaed records, and has not done so. 

The three House committees that issued subpoenas are Oversight and Reform, Financial Services, and Intelligence. 

The lawyer dunnit.

"they also noted that she had been hiding out on a 156-acre property in Bradford. She lived in an estate with “a fabulous barn for hoedowns, square dances, and hay rides,” according to the property site Zillow."  BG

"Maxwell, a citizen of three countries, apparently bought the home in an all-cash purchase at the end of December through an anonymous LLC, a prosecutor’s memo said. The LLC has a Boston-based mailing address, according to public records.

“We had been discreetly keeping tabs on Maxwell’s whereabouts,” said William F. Sweeney Jr., the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York office, at a press conference. “More recently we learned she had slithered away to a gorgeous property in New Hampshire, continuing to live a life of privilege while her victims live with the trauma inflicted upon them years ago.” The memo said she had been “hiding out in locations in New England” for the past year."  BG

----------------

When I was a kid I used to drive my father back and forth from Sanford, Maine to Grenier, AFB at Manchester, NH.  He had a retirement job at the base (long closed) as the budget analyst for the facility.  He never learned to drive.  Central New Hampshire is a forested and somewhat gloomy land both east and west of Manchester.  Bradford looks to be 40 miles NW of Manchester.  I never had any reason to go west of Manchester into the center of the state.  All of central NH is a land of coniferous forest and tiny villages like Bradford.  South of Manchester the scene is dominated by immigrants from Massachusetts centered around a big town, Nashua.  The actual locals in greater NH refer to them as Massholes.  They moved to NH to escape MA taxes.

A million bucks for 156 acres of pine and fir with a nice house and the wondrous barn mentioned above?  Sounds like a great deal to me, even in an all cash deal.  A million dollars wouldn't get you anything like that where I live at Alexandria in Occupied, Virginia now ruled by the Quisling Northam.  So, who set up the dummy LLC through which the property was acquired?  A law firm, right?  And who found the place?  Were they steered to this property by the FBI?

The FBI in NY gave a presser and handed out a memo on the "score."  Why the NY City office of the FBI?  My WAG would be that they have had one or more sources on the books in NY City telling them where she has been since her "disappearance," and keeping them up to date on her activities and location.  Who?  There must be at least one lawyer in the mix.  A lot of lawyers would "rat out" a client in a heartbeat if approached by the FBI.  They know the cost of refusing to cooperate.

The FBI brought the NYPD as well as the local flics to make this arrest?  Why did they do that? I just checked in Wikipedia and Bradford has not been ceded to NY City. 

My uber WAG would now be that she probably never left the US.  In an age of digital passport controls at frontiers it is not easy to move around internationally without being reported electronically.  I suppose she could have sneaked across the Canada/US border in northern New England, but she doesn't look the type for spooking around in some little border town or hiking through the Maine woods.  And, the Canadians would have noticed her when she arrived at one of their airports even by private jet.

No, on balance I would bet that all the stuff about her residence in Israel or France is probably hot air, but I could be wrong.  pl

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/07/07/metro/ghislaine-maxwells-new-hampshire/

The first New York City court appearance for Ghislaine Maxwell may be Friday, July 10

By Robert Willmann

(Update, Tuesday, 7 July:  The hearing is now set for Tuesday morning, 14 July)--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/gmaxwell_letter_hearing_to_be_14july.pdf

After being arrested in Bradford, New Hampshire last Thursday, before the Fourth of July weekend, Ghislaine Maxwell, charged with helping Jeffrey Epstein abuse underage girls, may have her arraignment, initial appearance, and bail hearing in Manhattan, New York City on Friday afternoon, 10 July.

In a letter dated and filed in the federal court on Sunday, 5 July, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) said that when in New Hampshire Maxwell had what would have been a brief appearance before a judge.  This is required after an arrest, and is to occur "without unnecessary delay" [1].--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/gmaxwell_letter_initial_appearance.pdf

The government asked that Maxwell be detained in custody until a trial, in a paper filed the day of the arrest.  The motion for detention contains a few items of interest.  She was born in France and is a citizen of and appears to have passports for at least France, Britain, and the U.S.  The request for detention says:  "Based on the Government’s investigation to date, the Government has identified more than 15 different bank accounts held by or associated with the defendant from 2016 to the present, and during that same period, the total balances of those accounts have ranged from a total of hundreds of thousands of dollars to more than $20 million"--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/gmaxwell_motion_to_detain.pdf

The criminal indictment of Maxwell, which was unsealed the day of the arrest on 2 July, charges a curious time period of only "at least in or about 1994, up to and including at least in or about 1997", and refers to only three victims--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/gmaxwell_indictment.pdf

The very limited written criminal charge can of course be seen as an opening gambit by the prosecution, since it can be expanded in a superseding indictment.

The letter filed with the court clerk identifies Christian Everdell as the current attorney for Maxwell; he had been a federal prosecutor in the SDNY for nearly 10 years [2].  In court documents a familiar surname appears as one of the SDNY co-prosecutors for the federal government -- Maurene Comey -- who was in the same role in the aborted prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein.  The legal communities in New York City and Washington D.C. are two little clubs that sometimes tend to overlap.

“All this room will be dead by tomorrow.” Nurse supervisor at the Holyoke abattoir.

"Staff members told investigators that they were initially discouraged from wearing protective equipment, in an effort to conserve a limited supply, and that they felt “annoyed, paranoid and fearful for their lives because they could not find masks,” the report said.

The most troubling portions of the report describe the weekend of March 28 and 29, when staffing was so short at the home that two wards were hurriedly combined, a decision one employee described as “the most insane thing I ever saw in my entire life.”

A social worker described listening to the chief nursing officer say “something to the effect that this room will be dead by Sunday, so we will have more room here.” Another social worker recalled seeing a supervisor point to a room and say, “All this room will be dead by tomorrow.”"  NY Times

-------------

Were they thanked for their service at some point before the end?  Did they receive "the thanks of a grateful nation?"

The Democrats want to f---k around with Trump over the names of Army posts where a lot of these men trained before going overseas.  I was trained at Fts. Bragg and Benning.  Are the Democrats interested in anything but their power and the present goodwill of their Marxist allies?

I doubt it.  pl 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/us/holyoke-soldiers-home.html

 

For BLM and the Antifa Zoo the Union is the real enemy, not the Rebs.

(Grant)

The statues of long dead Johnnies were easy pickings, low hanging fruit for the revolutionary movements now ravaging the land.

I was in college in Virginia during the Centennial of the US Civil War at a school drenched in the history of that period (VMI).  We had all kinds of distinguished historians come to speak to the cadet corps in Jackson Memorial Hall.  As an outlander new to the South I watched the reaction of the cadets carefully, curious to see how much the tale would stir them.  It did not.  They listened with some level of polite interest but that was the limit of their engagement.  The fire had gone out even then.

Today, with the exception of re-enactors and antiquarian eccentrics involved in the literature of that time, few people care.  That is why there has been no serious or effective resistance to defacing and removing Confederate Memorials.  Few care, certainly not "practical people."

But, pilgrims the Confederate caper was merely a warm-up for the big game, the game intended to smash the present social and governmental  order in the US and replace it with something other, something better in the collective mind of the revolutionary movements.  "White Supremacy" is code for the present forms  of government and economy.  These movements are deeply Marxist, deeply against private enterprise, deeply anti-democratic except for the Soviet definition of the word. "Government ownership of the means of production and distribution."

The insurrectionists are hoping for a collapse of the will to resist, a PTA moment in which the weak willed throw up their hands and surrender.  To get to that point a constant barrage of abusive language and childish behavior is part of the program, something like the way badly behaved children take control of weak parents.

Disbandment of police forces are a necessity long the way.

Weak politicians who in their hearts are filled with guilt over "White Supremacy" are a convenience.   

I would give the insurrectos high marks for their progress thus far.  pl 

A Coupla Things - 29 June 2020

"Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday that he’s come up with a plan to cut or transfer $1 billion from the NYPD’s $6 billion budget and would not guarantee the department’s headcount won’t shrink — even as shootings surge across the city.

“I’m excited to say we have a plan that can achieve real reform, that can achieve real redistribution — while at the same time ensure that we keep our city safe, while we make sure that our officers are on patrol around where we need them around this city,” de Blasio said during his daily City Hall press briefing.

“We can do this, we can strike the balance, we can keep this city safe,” he later added.

While Hizzoner offered few details about his spending cuts plan, he would not guarantee that the NYPD’s police force would remain at its current level of roughly 36,000 officers when pressed by reporters.

“We have found a plan that will keep this city safe, that will achieve the billion dollars in savings,” de Blasio claimed during his daily press briefing Monday.

Separately, de Blasio also said his plan would move at least half-billion dollars from the NYPD’s construction and major projects budget to help fund building improvements at youth centers and public housing.

De Blasio and the City Council must reach an $87 billion budget deal by Tuesday that would cut expected spending by an estimated $8 billion overall."  NY Post

https://nypost.com/2020/06/29/de-blasio-plans-to-cut-nypd-budget-by-1b-as-nyc-shootings-spike/

------------------

New York City may become uninhabitable and largely uninhabited.  New York City people love left wing Democrats because they themselves are mostly left wing Democrats.  De Blasio lives in Cloud Cuckoo Land where the necessity to maintain order and find actual money to fund his fantasies is simply unimportant.  The God that De Blasio may or may not believe in will provide in a world filled with benevolent and progressive human beings.    Flight from New York state and city taxes is well underway.  People have discovered that staying home with momma, the kids and the dog is not so bad and you save money on commuting costs.  Hmmm.   And, New York may well be leading a trend away from the cities.  Good . pl

**********

New  Subject.  I just heard someone named Colonel David Hunt (don't know him) tell Bill Hemmer on Foxienews that he doesn't believe the intel people would decide not to brief Trumpy and Pence about the Russia! Russia! Russia! story of marauding GRU men paying the Taliban to kill their joint adversaries (us).  Why?  In Hunt's view because it was sooo important.  I doubt that Hunt IS an intel guy...  As I have tried to explain several times, analysts exist in the IC for the purpose of deciding which of the bits in the flood of raw information that comes to them is true and which are just bits of junk.  Non-intel people really believe that intel analysts functionally and as humans have no value because if they were not losers they would not be intel people.   The media, the operations combat arms people, State Departmet foreign service fops and politicians all generally believe that to be true.  Steven Hayes the journalist is a prime example.  He made his reputation by insisting that information DIA had rejected as false must be true because there was a lot of it.  He had gotten that rubbish from the Office of Special Plans (OSP) in Douglas Feith's DoD empire.  Nobody in OSP had ever worked in intelligence.  They were all neocon former congressional staffers.  In other words, they were ignorant of the process.  Congressional committees  do intel budget, not intel work.  In the same period endless hordes of newly emergent neocon savants (mostly childlike creatures) assured me that nothing I knew mattered because they and their colleagues  were creating a brave new world in which old things and data would be meaningless.  So, pilgrims, bottom line.

If you think a story is BS you do not brief it at the WH where it will spin the president up against the Russians or anyone else.  pl 

More Silliness About The DC Guard.

As I have written here before it is nothing less than murder to place unarmed soldiers on the streets with the mission of guarding anything in the face of mobs who have no respect for government and certainly no respect for soldiers.  

The mob tried to capture and occupy Lafayette Park across the street from the White House last night.  They tried to overturn and demolish the statue of President Andrew Jackson in the center of that park.  Do you think they won't be back?

The District of Columbia National Guard are part time amateur soldiers.    They will be very afraid of the mob.

Esper, McCarthy and that ass, Milley, think this is a good idea?  Incredible.  pl

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/504282-national-guard-deploying-unarmed-personnel-to-protect-dc-monuments

The Court of Appeals orders that the Michael Flynn case be dismissed, and the Gleeson appointment be vacated

By Robert Willmann

In a 2-1 decision, the federal Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ordered the trial court judge Emmet Sullivan to dismiss the criminal case against Gen. Michael Flynn.  The order also vacated Sullivan's appointment of John Gleeson as an amicus curiae (friend of the court) to oppose the dismissal and to advise about whether to charge Flynn with criminal contempt of court for perjury.

In the words of a judge on a Texas court of appeals:  "The written judgment is what matters.  The opinion is nice to read".  (That is an over-simplification, but it is still a good line!)  The appellate court's order of today--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/michaelflynn_appeals_court_mandamus_judgment.pdf

The majority opinion by Judges Rao and Henderson is 19 pages, and the dissenting opinion by Judge Wilkins is 19 pages--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/michaelflynn_appeals_court_mandamus_opinion.pdf

As was discussed here on SST, an open issue in the mandamus action was the fact that the trial court judge had not yet decided the motion to dismiss by the Department of Justice, and so it would be premature to issue a mandamus to change a ruling that had not yet been made.  That issue became the basis for the dissenting opinion.  The dissent also took the position that the order appointing Gleeson should not be cancelled and vacated in this situation.

The court papers can be viewed or downloaded for reading.  If a party in interest in a mandamus action does not like the decision, usually there is a new application for a writ of mandamus filed in a higher court, which would request a mandamus of the mandamus. 

UPDATE, Wednesday, 24 June:  A comment by kgbgb below mentioned that he saw a report that John Gleeson had filed a motion about his status and for additional time.  The schedule in the trial court was for Gleeson to file his brief by 10 June (he did); Flynn and the Justice Department were to file their responses to it by 17 June (they did); and Gleeson can file a reply brief by noon today.  Here is the request by Gleeson for a clarification about his ability to file a reply brief and for more time to file it if he is allowed to--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/michaelflynn_gleeson_wants_time_to_reply.pdf

 

Oklahoma - 20 June, 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbrnXl2gO_k

The Lynching of Officer Derek Chauvin by Larry C Johnson

I am troubled by the lynch mob mentality towards Chauvin. The media and much of the public have concluded that he is guilty and must suffer. One of the worst offenders on this point is Sean Hannity, who has enthusiastically used his radio and TV platform to convict Derek Chauvin of murder. Last I checked I thought there was a presumption of innocence for the accused in the United States. But that Constitutional protection is  certainly not being applied to Officer Chauvin when it comes to discussing the death of convicted criminal and drug user George Floyd. 

 

While I am not arguing that the neck restraint used to subdue Floyd was appropriate, the media and the public continue to ignore the fundamental fact that knee to the neck restraint employed by Chauvin was taught to him by the Minneapolis Police Department. He was doing what he had been trained to do. That type of restraint is described in detail in the Minneapolis Police Department policy manual. Chauvin and others were taught how to apply that method at the police academy in Minneapolis. In fact, it has been an approved technique since 2012. Not my opinion. It is there in black and white.

 

What we do not know is how that technique was taught. Were the police instructed to only apply it for a specific amount of time? Were they taught as the standard of practice to check on vital signs.

 

I think I was the first to point out this fact but it has received little traction. I came across another piece by Gavrilo David today, who not only reached the same conclusion that I did, but he also provided a wealth of additional information and insight. With Gavrilo's permission, here is his post:

Why Derek Chauvin May Get Off His Murder Charge

A deeper look at the policies behind the death of George Floyd

by Gavrilo David

The world has united in protest after a graphic video emerged showing a Black man dying under the restraint of a White police officer. The victim, George Floyd, was in clear distress. He was pinned to the ground by three officers, with one officer — Derek Chauvin — placing a knee on his neck. For over five minutes, he tells the officers that he is unable to breathe. George Floyd died as horrified bystanders told the officers they were killing him.

The video is unquestionably horrific.

But in our rush to condemn an aggressive use of force and pursue justice for George Floyd, we have ignored crucial information which is necessary in judging the conduct of the officers. While nothing can absolve George Floyd’s death, these facts do cast doubt on the appropriateness of a murder charge for Chauvin, and paint a more nuanced picture of the events leading up to the tragic encounter.

 

Jim and Joe's political allies

""Every day that I show up here, I'm not here to peacefully protest," Grayson told the "U.N. Me" filmmaker, who also embedded himself in Minneapolis protests earlier this month.

"I'm here to disrupt until my demands are met," Grayson continued. "You cannot rebuild until you break it all the way down."

STREET PREACHER TELLS SEATTLE PROTESTER: ELECT BIDEN 'TO SEE BLACK MEN GET KILLED'

The CHOP group has blocked off six city blocks in downtown Seattle, where the East Precinct is located, as an act of protest for the police-involved death of George Floyd on May 25. On Tuesday, protesters reached an agreement with the city to reduce the occupied area to three blocks and to allow traffic. The agreement came a day after the Seattle City Council voted to ban police from using chokeholds and crowd-control devices like tear gas and pepper spray."

*********** 

"It's not a slogan. It's not even a warning," Grayson said. "I'm letting people know what comes next."

"If the Seattle Police Department turns in their badges, we'll have made a move forward," Grayson said.

The group has published a list of demands for the city council and mayor, including abolishing the police, prisons, courts and criminal justice system "as we know it today."

******

""If there's no change, there might be a lot more destroying until there is!" a hooded man wearing sunglasses and a black face cover, told him, "but I think some destruction and looting kinda sends the message to people and breaking their s--t is justified."

Another said, "'F--k the property. f--k the consumption, f--k capitalism."

A woman then said, "white people owned slaves so f--k them."

https://www.foxnews.com/us/seattle-chop-protest-police-video

----------------

What does Biden say about this or more importantly what does Clyburn say?  ?  Who among you condones this?

I watched video yesterday from the "new country."  Men urinating  and defecating on the streets, some of them with their pants stained with their diarrhea.  The level of drug consumption seems very high.

Ms. Grayson says that she is an African forcefully brought to the US.  Could she be persuaded to return to her ancestral homeland?  Probably not.

Our British and Canadian cousins should not feel smug.  Canada has a colonial past and the treatment of the metis by the colonial Canadian government will be examined in spite of all the modern day BS that claims Canada to be a "metis nation."

Oxford University is taking down a statue of Cecil Rhodes.  Baden Powell's statue is under threat as is a statue of Churchill in downtown London.  Who will be next, Gladstone, Disraeli, Joseph Chamberlain?  Do you think the mob will spare the Albert Memorial, or statues of the Queen Empress herself?

I do not.  pl 

Judge Sullivan created an awkward situation for the DOJ, Michael Flynn, and the Court of Appeals

By Robert Willmann

The audio recording of the oral argument from last Friday, 12 June, in the mandamus action brought by Gen. Michael Flynn in the federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit became available that afternoon [1].  In the dry, almost bland style of most arguments before courts of appeals, it revealed an awkward situation created by Judge Emmet Sullivan for the Department of Justice (DOJ), Flynn, and the Court of Appeals.  But not for himself.

Judge Sullivan has been presiding over the criminal case since Judge Rudolph Contreras recused himself in December 2017 shortly after conducting the hearing at which Flynn pled guilty through a plea bargain with "special counsel" Robert Mueller's group.  In June 2019, Flynn replaced his original lawyers with new ones, and began to dig into what had happened to him as information started to be disclosed about misconduct by the FBI and others in an investigation of the Donald Trump presidential campaign and Russia.  The fascinating developments in Flynn's case have been discussed here on SST after he changed attorneys last year.

The disclosures got so bad that the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, Jeffrey Jensen, was asked by Attorney General William Barr to check the Flynn case going back to its beginning.  Jensen had been both an FBI agent and an Assistant U.S. Attorney before being appointed to his present position.  He began to give exculpatory and mitigating evidence to Flynn which had not been previously turned over by the Justice Department and the Mueller group, as required by law.  Flynn had filed a request to withdraw his guilty plea, which can be done pursuant to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure [2].  What was brought out by Jensen then led to a request by the DOJ to dismiss the case against Flynn entirely.

Normally, this would have ended the whole sordid affair quickly and quietly, since motions to dismiss criminal cases by the government are usually granted; "leave of court" is required for the dismissal [3].  But nothing has been normal about the investigation and prosecution of Michael Flynn.

“The Spook Who Sat By The Door” - TTG

Earlier today one of our fellow correspondents, longarch, offered a link to an article on theorganicprepper.com that contends the current unrest is unfolding, step by step, in accordance with a playbook… the US Special Forces Unconventional Warfare Manual. This article by the organic prepper herself, Daisy Luther, asks the question, “who is behind this?” That’s a question deserving a whole discussion by itself. I offer only one comment about that right now. If you think all that’s going on right now requires massive funding and coordination, you’re out of your freakin’ mind.     

That article did remind me of a long ago incident. Back when SWMBO and I were young college students, one of the first movies I took her to see was “The Spook Who Sat By the Door” in late 1973 at a theater in downtown Troy, NY. By that time I had my airborne wings, having attended jump school at Fort Benning the previous Summer, and I began developing a friendship with Master Sergeant Albert H. Rivers, a Green Beret with three tours in Viet Nam and Thailand newly assigned to our ROTC element. I chose this movie because of my growing interest in guerilla warfare. Obviously, I was and remain romantically challenged. SWMBO remembers it as the time we were the only two white people in the theater. 

This movie freaked out the FBI. Theater owners who showed the film were visited by local FBI agents. The film’s distributors were visited by the FBI. Copies of the film were confiscated. It was disappeared. Bootleg copies were still available, but it wasn’t until Tim Reid (yes, WKRP in Cincinnati’s own Venus Flytrap) discovered a negative copy of the film in 2004 that it became widely available again. The FBI missed that one. The film has the feel of those blaxploitation films of the 70s, but it’s much more than that. I implore everyone watch the trailer of “The Spook” and imagine if Spike Lee did a remake of this today. The full film is also available on YouTube if you’re interested. If nothing else, you can see what a failure I was as a suave romantic.

IMO Sam Greenlee, the film’s writer and co-producer, and Ivan Dixon, the director, created a thought provoking masterpiece. The very making of the film was an act of guerilla warfare. Scenes shot in Chicago were done surreptitiously over Mayor Daly's objections. In fact, Sam Greenlee, the film’s writer and co-producer, and Ivan Dixon, the director, used the veneer of blaxploitation to get their creation through the Hollywood studios. True guerilla warfare. The FBI certainly thought so. They collectively pissed their pants. Whites were collectively pissing their pants a lot during those years. A few years before the film’s premier, the NRA, Ronald Reagan and the California State Legislature were all for banning open carry of loaded weapons when members of the Black Panther Party showed up at the California state house carrying shotguns and carbines demanding their Second Amendment rights. The Oakland-based Black Panther Party included this point in their platform.

“We believe we can end police brutality in our Black community by organizing Black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our Black community from racist police oppression and brutality. The Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States gives us the right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all Black people should arm themselves for self-defense.”

I guess that’s one solution. Imagine if all those witnesses with smart phones when George Floyd was being murdered also carried weapons. Maybe the cops would have backed down. Most likely there would have been a lot of dead cops and civilians and we would still be in the middle of a nationwide uprising. Americans have not demonstrated the self-discipline or fire discipline to have everyone packing a roscoe. It’s a bad idea, especially now that so many of our cops have their asses pumped up with the “warrior ethic.” We may need cops to be those rough men to allow us sleep at night, but if they can’t turn off that rough man, they should not be cop or we will end up in a widespread guerrilla war.

TTG  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw0TEAadKu0  (the trailer)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s59OaRxN_40  (a decent copy of the film preceded by a half hour of commentary)

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/the-troubling-fate-of-a-1973-film-about-the-first-black-man-in-the-cia (a fairly recent commentary)

UPDATE: Here's a version of the film with a better audio track. Thanks to Enrico Malatesta for providing this version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkyX-Yx-8NM

Minneapolis and Seattle - a tale of two cities

"This past Sunday, a veto-proof majority of the council announced plans to disband its police department and invest in community-based public safety programs.

According to Friday's resolution, the city council will begin a year-long process of engaging "with every willing community member in Minneapolis" to develop a new public safety model.

"We acknowledge that the current system is not reformable — that we would like to end the current policing system as we know it," council member Alondra Cano said.

The council declared it would create a "transformative new model" of public safety in the city.

A "Future of Community Safety Work Group," will be formed and will include staff from city departments, including the offices of violence prevention and civil rights.

The council also voted unanimously on Friday to end the local emergency order that had been declared due to protests in the wake of Floyd's death. "  Forbes

----------------

And then out in Seattle we have the "summer of love" mayor on TeeVee accepting something that looks like a miniature version of the Paris Commune while being framed on one side by "Old Glory" and on the other by Washington State's green flag with the face of George Washington (a prominent slaveholder and planter) featured thereon.  Will it not be necessary to change the name of the state?

To repeat my earlier assertion it seems inevitable that there will be more, many more, "Communes" springing up across the US.  The locale will be all important of course.  I would recommend against trying this gambit anywhere in Texas.  OTOH, just about anywhere in California will be fertile ground and Boston might be welcoming to an "Autonomous" enclave somewhere downtown.  Any Democrat run area is a possibility really.

Trump is at West Point bloviating today.  He has the right instincts concerning the need to maintain public order but he has never learned how to drive the machine of the Executive Branch and his personnel decisions have often been appalling.  

It would be interesting to learn what a President Joe Biden and then the wise woman of color who succeeds him would do with the ongoing development of this situation.  pl

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/06/12/minneapolis-city-council-unanimously-votes-to-replace-police-with-community-led-model/#78964a8471a5

What was this about?

pl

Friend of the court briefs are filed and oral argument is June 12 in the Michael Flynn mandamus action

By Robert Willmann

Oral argument is set for this Friday, 12 June, at 9:30 a.m. on the petition for a writ of mandamus filed by Gen. Michael Flynn in the federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.  The action filed in the appellate court on 19 May 2020 was a new proceeding which asked that an order be issued directing the trial court Judge Emmet Sullivan to grant the request filed by the government to dismiss the criminal case against Flynn--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/michaelflynn_oral_argument_set.pdf

The public attention that has developed about the prosecution of Flynn, and the issues of what discretion a trial court judge has to deny a motion by the government to dismiss a case it brought, and whether a judge can seek to initiate a criminal contempt of court proceeding against a defendant who seeks to withdraw a plea of guilty, have combined to attract written arguments from lawyers not directly involved in the case as "friends of the court" (amicus curiae).  The court of appeals has agreed to allow 11 of those briefs to be filed; seven of them support Flynn's position and four support what Judge Sullivan has done.

Responses to the petition were filed for Judge Sullivan and for the federal government on 1 June 2020.

Any reply by Flynn and any further response by Sullivan or the Department of Justice for the government are to be made by 5:00 p.m. today.

The clerk's office for the court of appeals said that the oral argument may be done remotely by video conferencing, telephone hookup, or a similar arrangement, because of the situation with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.  The arguments are often streamed live on the Internet, but because the hearing might be done remotely, it may not be available live.  However, an audio recording is done of the argument and it may be available at some point Friday afternoon.

 

My take on the present situation.

1.  Mayor Muriel Bowser proudly stated that she "pushed the Army away from our city."  The Army she is talking about is the US ARMY and she wants it out of "her" city whether it be the Regular Army (active force) or the National Guard of the various states.  It appears to be her position that in the District of Columbia the US armed forces are foreign forces.  Bowser is also quite self assured in saying that she does not want to see any "exceptional" federal police presence in DC.   Does she have a future referendum on "sovereignty" in mind?  A city state?

2.  The antifa+ forces manipulating BLM, the happy camper crowds, Muriel Bowser et al on the left have now demonstrated the extent of their command and control capabilities.  They brought the crowds in Washington right up to the fence around the WH and then had them leave notes attached to the fence as markers as to the limits of federal government power.  The message is clear. "We bring violence when we wish and we turn it off when we please.  This is the limit of your territorial control, this fence.  We can guide the mob to you from any number of assembly areas, can guide them with free cookies, hot dogs, colored balloons.  Donald Trump you are now essentially imprisoned in the WH.  You can fly in and out of your prison but the streets ..."

3.  The logistical capabilities of antifa+ are also impressive.  They can move people around the country with ease, position pallet loads of new brick,  55 gallon new trash cans of frozen water bottles and other debris suitable for throwing on gridded patterns around cities in a well thought out distribution pattern.  Who pays for this?  Who plans this?  Who coordinates these plans and gives "execute orders?"  AVAAZ?  Maybe.

4.  Antifa+ can create massive propaganda campaigns that fit their agenda.  These campaigns are fully supported by the MSM and by many in the Congressional Democratic Party.  The present meme of "Defund the Police" is an example.  This appeared miraculously, and simultaneously across the country.  I am impressed.  Yesterday the frat boy type who is mayor of Minneapolis was booed out of a mass meeting of radicals in that fair city because he refused to endorse abolishing the police force.  Gutting the civil police forces has long been a major goal of the far left, but now, they have the ability to create mass hysteria over it when they have an excuse.  

5.  The senior civilians in DoD and the US military high command appear to no longer accept their constitutional subordination to the President of the United States.  They countermanded several of his instructions recently and simply ignored others.  IMO they are now de facto allies of Muriel Bowser and antifa+ in thwarting President Trump's ability to manage the street situation in the capital of the US and in confining him to the WH grounds unless he comes and goes by helicopter.  The House of Representatives want to have Esper and Milley testify this week as to their actions and attitudes.  Good!  I want to hear it.

6.  George Floyd.  A minister in Texas eulogized him yesterday and in doing so compared him to Jesus.  Really?  Really?  Perhaps a new religion will spring up based on his martyred sanctity.  Yes.  Chauvin is a brute, but George Floyd was no saint.

Antifa+ and their globalist political allies made a lot of progress recently, a lot.  The questions remain as to where the money, training in planning and logistics come from.  pl 

Shall George Floyd Have a Statue

A question posed by Fred.

Our ancestors raised many statues to men and women of renown. Leaders in war, in peace, in education, in medicine, in governance. In reflecting upon an oration by Charles Francis Adams I read some years past and in light of current events I thought it might be a question worthy of this Committee of Correspondense. He quotes Carlye, as a reference point to his comments:

"Carlyle wrote more than a century ago "Whom do you wish to resemble ? Him you set on a high column. Who is to have a statue ? means. Whom shall we consecrate and set apart as one of our sacred men? Sacred: that all men may see him. We reminded of him, and by new example added to old perpetual precept, be taught what is real worth in man. Show me the man you honor: I know by that symptom, better than by any other-. what kind of man you yourself are. For you show me there half a century ago, so now what your ideal of manhood is : what kind of man you long inexpressibly to be, and would thank the gods, wilt your whole soul, for being if you could.” ¹ 

In this vein I will lay out my considerations, and hope that each of you will consider this when refelcting upon the question, "Shall George Floyd Have a Staute. 

"... Antifa Agent Caught Paying And Giving Orders To Rioters."

https://www.bitchute.com/video/PiBS52P7Rds0/

pl

Large domestic disturbances, the U.S. Military, and the Insurrection Act

By Robert Willmann

When a dramatic event happens that receives widespread attention, public reaction can escalate into violence and rioting, which can also be initiated and pushed along by agents provocateurs, and used by opportunists to loot and gratuitously damage property.  With over 35 million Americans unemployed after being thrown out of work for about two and a half months and millions with their activity restricted by bad governmental policies about the SARS-Cov-2 virus, an environment for enhanced trouble now exists.  If the rioting that started in Minnesota and moved to other cities does not taper off or end, the issue of involvement by the U.S. Military in the execution of civilian laws can be raised.

There are three main federal laws about the military that could be looked at regarding the disturbances in the streets after the incident of obvious police misconduct which caused the death of a handcuffed man in Minneapolis, Minnesota this past week.  They are the Posse Comitatus Act, the Insurrection Act, and Military Support for Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies.

The Posse Comitatus Act makes it a federal felony to use the Army or Air Force to execute civilian laws, except as specifically authorized (Does this mean the Navy can do whatever it wants?!  Well, no, because Department of Defense regulations on the issue apply to all personnel.) [1]--

"Section 1385. Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus

Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

An exception created by Congress is the Insurrrection Act [2].  It has only five short sections, the last one of which makes it apply to Guam and the Virgin Islands.  Of the three operative sections, one may become applicable--

"Section 251.  Federal aid for State governments

Whenever there is an insurrection in any State against its government, the President may, upon the request of its legislature or of its governor if the legislature cannot be convened, call into Federal service such of the militia of the other States, in the number requested by that State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to suppress the insurrection."

Transcripts of Flynn - Kislyak telephone calls are declassified and released

By Robert Willmann

Transcripts of phone conversations between Gen. Michael Flynn (ret.) and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were declassified and released today by the new Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/michaelflynn_phone_calls_kislyak.pdf

 

A Bombshell Report from the New CNN

A report by Fred

There I was, first day on the new job. Trying to impress the boss with my worsmithing and insights on life, the universe, and, well - everything. Of course all good writing takes coffee, and some fresh air. So I went for a stroll and imagine, as luck would have it, what came by? I think this is what Joseph Campbell referred to as a 'call to adventure'. Take a look.

 

The court of appeals orders that Judge Sullivan respond in 10 days about the motion to dismiss in the Michael Flynn case

By Robert Willmann

In a short order on 21 May 2020, the federal Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said that Emmet Sullivan, the trial court judge in the Michael Flynn criminal case, shall:  "file a response addressing petitioner's request that this court order the district judge to grant the government's motion to dismiss filed on May 7, 2020 ...."

What is eye-catching is that the court of appeals is focusing only on the motion to dismiss, and not the other issues regarding the appointment of John Gleeson as an amicus curiae to oppose the motion to dismiss and to gin up a contempt case against Flynn, and the transfer of the case out of Judge Sullivan's court--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/michaelflynn_mandamus_order_for_response-1.pdf

The order cites the court of appeals opinion, U.S. v. Fokker Services B.V., which was discussed here on SST a couple of days ago in connection with the petition for a writ of mandamus filed by Flynn in the court of appeals [1].  That opinion resulted in a mandamus order against a federal trial court judge who denied a request to waive the statute of limitations that was part of a deferred prosecution agreement between the government and a defendant.  The opinion applied the principle that the executive branch has broad discretion to decide whether to file a criminal charge, which one to file, and whether to dismiss it, unless a charge is repeatedly filed and dismissed in order to harass a defendant, or the defendant objects to the dismissal.  The discussion about having to get "leave of court" to dismiss a criminal case under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 48 is on pages 11-12 of the Fokker opinion--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/us_v_fokker_services_818_f3d_733.pdf

Another item of interest in the order by the court of appeals is what it does not say. There is no mention of a lawyer who will represent the interest of the trial court judge in a response to the application for a writ of mandamus.  In the Fokker case, the court of appeals had two lawyers act as amicus curiae to argue in support of the trial judge's decision during that proceeding.  But who is going to write and file a response in support of Judge Sullivan's position?  Will it be John Gleeson, whom Sullivan appointed as an amicus curiae to oppose the dismissal of Flynn's case?  Are Sullivan's law clerks going to do it?

Michael Flynn files a new action in a court of appeals about the motion to dismiss and the appointment of an "amicus curiae"

By Robert Willmann

Yesterday afternoon, Gen. Michael Flynn (ret.) filed a new legal action in the federal Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit asking the appellate court to issue an order directing that three things happen in the trial court.  First, the cancellation of the appointment of an outside lawyer who is to argue against the government's motion to dismiss the case and advise about whether a contempt of court proceeding should occur about possible perjury by Flynn.  Second, the government's request be granted to dismiss the criminal case.  And third, that the case be transferred to a judge different from Emmet Sullivan, who is currently presiding in the trial court.

The filing is a petition or an application for a writ of mandamus.  It is a new mini-lawsuit that starts in a court of appeals and is not an appeal out of a trial court while a case is still underway in the trial court.  When specifically authorized by law, you can appeal to a court of appeals while a case is going on in the trial court, and it is called an "interlocutory appeal".  But this is a new legal action asking that a court of appeals order a trial judge to do some specific thing.  As you might expect, the requirements to ask for a writ of mandamus make it a very limited and narrow doctrine.  Otherwise, people would be asking a court of appeals to intervene constantly whenever they did not like the ruling of a judge while a case was pending in the trial court and before it ended there.  A writ is a type of court order. 

The mandamus doctrine in federal court has three parts:  the petitioner must have no other adequate means to attain the relief he desires; the petitioner must show that his right to the writ is clear and indisputable; and the court in the exercise of its discretion, must be satisfied that the writ is appropriate under the circumstances [1].  The mandamus doctrine in Texas is more open and flexible and has two parts:  the petitioner has no adequate remedy by appeal for the trial court judge's alleged error; and the trial judge showed an abuse of discretion, violated a legal duty, or made a void order.  Although the doctrine may be phrased differently in states around the country and in federal court, the different versions establish the same basic concept.

"It all seems like a ruse for socialism" The Ceres Courier

"I know there are a lot of under 30’s who still live with their parents and play video games all day – products of the entitled generation – but many men find their worth and value in working and providing for their wives and children. I fear this pandemic shutdown – which has gone on too long, governor – is damaging the psyche of the average person. The government has some people in fears that if they pick up a gas nozzle or touch the door to a Circle K that COVID-19 will have them dead by evening.

Get past the fear and look at the statistics.

The death rate in Stanislaus County so far is 0.000025 percent. You get that by taking the 15 who have died divided by the population of 550,660.

As of Monday, 2,172 have been listed as COVID-19 deaths in California. Divide that number by 39,780,000 and you have a death rate of 0.0000546 percent. So Stanislaus County’s death rate is about half of the state’s. And so far all who have died have had compromised health or were elderly. If you took LA County out of the picture, California would have a death rate of 0.00002371 percent!

California is the most populous state yet our COVID-19 deaths account for 3.1 percent of all U.S. COVID-19 deaths. New York, by contrast, was at 27.5 percent. Is our death rate relatively low because of herd immunity or social distancing? I don’t know but I suspect it’s been traveling back and forth between California and China for some many months now.

So as you can see, the problem is in the highly densely populated areas, not in rural areas like Stanislaus County. So why are we still in lockdown?"  The Ceres Courier

--------------

Ceres is a little town out in the central valley of California.  To say that it is in America's agricultural heartland would not be an exaggeration.  Victor Davis Hanson (the philosopher historian) and Gavin Nunes (the congressman) are from places like that in the same valley.  The town is about 40% Hispanic  and the rest is White with a smattering of "others?"

Yes!  Why is Ceres still locked down?  pl 

https://www.cerescourier.com/opinion/editorial/it-all-seems-ruse-socialism/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres,_California

The NSA list of people asking that a name be unmasked which turned out to be Michael Flynn

By Robert Willmann

Released today is a list from the National Security Agency of officials who asked -- between 8 November 2016 and 31 January 2017 -- that a name be unmasked in intercepted communications, and the name turned out to be Gen. Michael Flynn--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/michaelflynn_nsa_unmasking_requests.pdf

Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, the Director of the NSA, included the list with a short memo to Richard Grenell, the Acting Director of National Intelligence, who declassified the list and then routed it today to U.S. Senators Charles Grassley and Ron Johnson.

I think the senators should have asked for a wider time frame.

 

The DOJ moves to dismiss the criminal case against Michael Flynn

By Robert Willmann

In a 20-page document filed today in the criminal case against Gen. Michael Flynn (ret.), the U.S. Department of Justice asked that the charging document against him, the "information", be dismissed with prejudice, meaning that it cannot be re-filed in the future.

Filed before the motion to dismiss was a notice by the Robert Mueller group lawyer Brandon Van Grack that he is withdrawing as an attorney for the government in the case.  He is still employed at the DOJ as chief of the Foreign Agents Registration Act section.

Thirteen exhibits were attached to the government's motion.  Here is the request, without the exhibits--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/michaelflynn_gov_motion_dismiss.pdf

I may have to get on the road, but I hope to provide more information soon.

 

A few thoughts - 24 April 2020

1.  IMO the US Navy will be doing a good thing if it persuades Trump to restore Captain Crozier to command of USS Theodore Roosevelt.  He did a very foolish thing by appealing to the whole wide world to support his position, but he did have the best interest of the ship's company in mind and as he said, we are not at war in the Pacific.   This would also be a humane decision on the part of the navy toward an officer in command, something unusual for them.

2.  IMO the medico bureaucrat academicians who insist that their group think about how to stop a pandemic are going to be discredited as it becomes clear that COVID-19 is wildly infectious but at the same time not very fatal except for the old, infirm and others compromised in health.  That would include HIV/AIDS sufferers.  You don't hear much about that, but IMO that is because such people are typically members of the LGBTQ "community" and therefore members of a protected group.  In pursuit of the power of policy dictation the doctor philosopher kings have contributed mightily to the near death of the greatest world economy in history (ours).  Let us hope the more sensible state governors can do enough to remedy this disaster to bring back some measure of prosperity.  I hope that Trump realizes that he does not have constitutional power over the governors.  As I have previously written he would have to declare states he targeted to be in rebellion or say that they had lost the power to govern themselves in order to have a claim to that sort of power.

3.  US foreign policy in the greater ME remains the shambles that Zionist and/or neocon infiltration of government and manipulation of election funding have made it.   There is little difference in responsibility  for this in the two major political parties.  As a result of Trump's continuation of the Israel inspired policy of meddling in the affairs of the Islamic culture continent the US now finds itself in a position in which policies of domination have caused us to have a thousand or so US military "hostages" scattered across NE Syria and all over Iraq where they are completely vulnerable to attack from Iran and its allies.  

4.  This potential hostage posture is a major inhibition to US freedom of action in the Gulf where Iranian aggressiveness is targeted toward a withdrawal of the US Navy from the Gulf.  IMO such a forced withdrawal caused by a minor power like Iran because we are afraid to fight would be a major milestone in the decline of America's power in the world.  Our enemies would rejoice.  IMO the navy can easily defeat any Iranian enemy but the hostage situation in Syria, and Iraq is a major impediment to naval action.  We should get out of those two countries. We should not have been there in the first place.   I am clearly on record about that from 2001 onward.  In the case of Afghanistan the hinge of fate swung in 2009 with Obama's disastrous decision to let the COIN generals persuade him to try to build a new and modern Afghanistan.  The resulting state has expenses for its security forces that are greater than its GDP.

5.  Some constitutional mechanism must be developed in the US for forcing the retirement from office of old people who are judged to be demented.  The ice cream interview comes to mind.  pl

 

Finally: a study on the SARS-CoV-2 virus in a specific county whether people had symptoms or not

By Robert Willmann

Posted on the Internet yesterday is a study dated 11 April 2020 that finally addresses a type of investigation avoided by the energetic creators of hype and fear on television and elsewhere about an illness resulting from a virus called SARS-CoV-2.  Using a sample from Santa Clara County, California, home of Stanford University, the study tested the blood of 3,330 people, using a new testing technique to look for antibodies that are expected to exist if the virus has been inside a person, whether they had any symptoms or not. 

In this case, by using the math of statistics, the attempt is made to extend the observed results to the population of a specific area, to try to figure out how many people in the area had the virus in them at some point, even if they have shown no symptoms.  Then -- using the population of the area, the statistical number of persons who had been exposed, the number who are thought to have the virus by other testing and clinical observation, and the number whose death was caused by the virus (a difficult determination) -- better opinions can be developed.  This use of statistical sampling can try to describe reality in a more correct way than the so-called "mathematical models" promoted in the media that whipped up hysteria about the virus, and those models could politely be called wild speculation.  The models were used to justify draconian and illegal orders by governors and mayors that destroyed incomes, closed businesses, and did not accurately and constructively address the problems that may be caused by the virus.

When you have an idea about how many people have developed antibodies and are still alive, whether having had symptoms or not, you can begin to see the status and effect of the virus.  Furthermore, people who have naturally developed antibodies have usually become immune.  You can also calculate the fatality rate of the virus in a better way. 

One of the authors of the study is John P.A. Ioannidis, who is a professor at the Stanford University Medical School [1].  He kicked up some controversy in an article in March when the hype about the virus was escalating by saying, "The data collected so far on how many people are infected and how the epidemic is evolving are utterly unreliable" [2]. 

The world economy is dying ... therefore ...

700,000 jobs were lost in March according to the US Government.  The unemployment rate is at 4.6% percent for March.  That would be bad enough but the computation was made early in the month when the full effect of the forced shut down of economic activity was yet to be felt.  In behind the scenes conversations government officials say that they think the real unemployment rate today is more like 10%.  Nearly all social and economically productive activity has either stopped or is decelerating toward ZERO; manufacturing, banking, office work of all kinds, restos, etc.  I was happy the other day to find a pet store that was open.

This plague will pass, perhaps to return in waves until a stable "herd immunity" is attained.   Work toward a cure and eventually a vaccine will contribute to that level of health for the long term.

Sadly, the herd will by then be living in poverty and social isolation in a vastly different world in which shortages of goods and services and a wildly inflated currency are the "new normal."  In that world the people will be living in a "country" much weakened by the failure of long range transportation.

The US government's herculean efforts at relief of people and business are admirable but are really only temporary measures the effect of which will expire leaving the country with a need for further inflationary projects.

In this situation, the Democratic Party seems to see a great chance to "kneecap"  Trump and blackmail its opponents into measures for the advance of "progress"  that may well lead to violence.

The economy must be relieved of our self-inflicted wounds.  We must "grasp the nettle" and accept the fact that while we can care for the ill, and seek to protect the old and infirm, their welfare must, to some extent, be sacrificed for the good of the herd of the young and fit.

LET the economy stand up!  pl