Grrrrrrrrrrrrr
Category: Domestic Affairs,
Louisiana DA tries to remove black judge from 300 cases over comments alleging racial bias
Sixteenth Judicial District Attorney Bo Duhé’s office has moved to remove a black judge from more than 300 criminal cases across the district’s three-parish area, arguing she’s made unfounded comments alleging their office is biased against African Americans.
…District Court Judge Lori Landry’s reported comments include statements that certain assistant district attorneys “deliberately incarcerate African Americans more severely and at a higher rate than others.” She also intimated the District Attorney’s Office knew or should have known about misconduct at the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office that eventually led to a federal civil rights case, the motion says.
…First Assistant District Attorney Robert Vines, who is white, filed the recusal motion on behalf of the District Attorney’s Office.
…Landry’s reported comments about racial bias focused largely on perceived injustice and inconsistency in the District Attorney’s Office’s plea offerings and selective use of the state’s habitual offender statute to harm black defendants, the court documents say.
Oh, Louisiana…
As a prosecutor in heavily white Minnesota, Amy Klobuchar declined to go after police involved in fatal encounters with black men
As chief prosecutor for Minnesota’s most populous county from 1999 to 2007, Klobuchar declined to bring charges in more than two dozen cases in which people were killed in encounters with police.
At the same time, she aggressively prosecuted smaller offenses such as vandalism and routinely sought longer-than-recommended sentences, including for minors. Such prosecutions, done with the aim of curbing more serious crimes, have had mixed results and have been criticized for their disproportionate effect on poor and minority communities.
…Michelle Gross, a local activist who launched Communities United Against Police Brutality in 2000, said incidents with police caused a total of 40 civilian deaths during Klobuchar’s tenure. The Post counted more than 25 such cases in a review of news coverage from the time; the majority of those killed were people of color or mentally ill.
“She did not prosecute a single one of them,” Gross said. “Not one.”
…Her campaign noted that the prison incarceration rate for African Americans in the county declined during her tenure, though experts said that did little to ameliorate a dramatic disparity between black and white prison rates.
…During her campaign, Klobuchar vowed a zero-tolerance approach toward nonviolent crimes by young people, including petty theft and vandalism.
“The broken windows theory is correct,” she wrote in a 1998 candidate statement, embracing the policing theory popularized by then-New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and his police commissioner, William Bratton, in the mid-1990s. The idea was that cracking down on minor offenses can prevent more serious crimes.
…In the interview with The Post, Klobuchar acknowledged that her rhetoric about not letting juvenile crime “go unpunished” might have been perceived as harsh by some African Americans but said her actions were directed by what county residents wanted.
“I understand how those words mean something that is not good in the African American community. It makes it sound like you want to put their kids behind bars, and that is not what I did when I was county attorney,” she said. [Um, clearly she did NOT understand. Or, at best, she simply did not think it was important enough to weigh into her decisions.]
…Reflecting on Klobuchar’s tough-on-crime record, some experts said she would have had limited awareness of the impact of her policies on African Americans. [Or she simply chose to ignore it. Emphasis: peanut gallery]
…Jeff Hayden, a Democratic state senator in Minnesota who is African American and a friend of Klobuchar’s, said he “wouldn’t disagree” with critics that race relations “hasn’t been something that’s been her focus in Minnesota.”
Not wanting to rock the boat is a bad look sometimes.
Taking conventional wisdom as gospel and not thinking through for yourself is not the mark of a leader.
Inside Beto O’Rourke’s collapse
The signs of disorder were startling. He announced his candidacy before hiring a campaign manager.
…O’Rourke’s initial handling of the media was just as clumsy. He alienated reporters by refusing to provide basic information about his schedule — including, for many outlets, the location of his campaign’s first public event.
…He performed poorly in the first primary debate, appearing shaken when a fellow Texan, Julián Castro, tore into him over his opposition to decriminalizing border crossings. O’Rourke disliked debates and preparing for them, and he felt after the encounter with Castro that he had been stilted and over-prepared, according to a source familiar with the campaign.
Inside Beto O’Rourke’s collapse – POLITICO
The peanut gallery’s opinion diverges from the author in that there are some very simple reasons why the O’Rourke campaign failed.
He started without a infrastructure in place and drifted aimlessly like a boat without a rudder.
Sometimes eschewing conventional wisdom isn’t just unconventional, it’s also unwise. To put it another way sometimes conventional wisdom becomes so because there is a great deal of wisdom to it. No matter how passionate one feels, it is important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
He thought he was too good to play ball with the press. (The same way Dean ultimately tanked his own chances.) A campaign needs publicity to amplify and spread its message; not cooperating with the press is biting the hand that feeds you.
He should have seen Julian Castro coming and prepared for it.
His messaging was sporadic and poorly executed. (It’s always, always good to have a plan!)
Choosing to go after Elizabeth Warren in a style that was reminiscent of the classic white bro who is secretly afraid of women in power was pointless. Unless, he wanted to cement the idea he was of the opinion that women are there to serve, look pretty, and build up men and if, heaven forbid, they espouse a strong opinion, they are hostile and what was it? Oh, that’s right “punitive.” If on the other hand, he was trying to sound like a middle aged GOP Congressman blustering about because HRC had the audacity not to defer to them he was spot on!
It might not have looked so bad if he hadn’t made tellingly backwards comments about how his wife did the child-raising and housework while he free-wheeled around the country side not referring to her by name in his speeches – as if he thought of her not a fully developed person in her own right but as a silent and subdued helpmate and accessory. In the context of this backdrop, his debate comment to Warren made him look like a misogynist.
And last but not least, his disregard for down-ballot Democrats made him look like a spoiled, self absorbed child. He might have gotten a little bump in small dollar fundraising from progressive for threatening to take people guns but he basically shut down his longterm fundraising prospect with that ill-advised stunt. The rank and file don’t take kindly to having their lives made more difficult. And by that the peanut gallery means their ability to empower themselves and others to enact positive change. Democratic policies are not enact when Democrats aren’t in the majority. All the being passionate or believing ones own position to be right in the world won’t change tat.
What an absolute waste of good policy proposals.
His decent from the most intersectional approach to politics a Caucasian has shown on the national stage to a myopic, self absorbed manchild with a willingness to throw others under the bus was beyond disappointing.
The lessons here?
Running for office is a huge undertaking, even more so on the national stage. Do not dive in without having a plan. Do not not dive in without having a few key staff or supporters in place to help enact it. If you micromanage, you are showing that you are a poor administrator and do not trust your own hires. Again, no one is an expert in everything.
You do need the press. Be respectful and play nicely or you will certainly regret it.
Do not ever, ever, ever think yours is the own way, yours is only voice that matters. Enacting legislation takes compromise. Running a campaign is a team effort. Do not eschew the positions and challenges of the rank and file as less important or enlightened than your own. No candidate gets anywhere without cooperation and support.
Sigh….
First Step Act Isn’t Sweeping Criminal Justice Reform
The legislation, when enacted, would enable some federal inmates to seek early release, while also granting federal judges greater freedoms with regards to minimum sentences in certain cases, among other minor reforms.
…THE REFORMS IN the First Step Act would be very real — just not very big. Measures included in the bill would retroactively end the discrepancy in federal sentences for drug offenses involving crack and the powder form of cocaine; this would reduce jail time for thousands of prisoners already serving time for crack offenses. Federal judges would be granted more flexibility from mandatory minimum sentences, and some mandatory minimums would be reduced. The bill’s provisions also include increased funding for educational and vocational training programs, and would allow prisoners to earn greater sentence reductions through good behavior and vocational training. Up to 4,000 of the 180,000 people incarcerated in federal prison could see early release on the new good behavior standard.
…The legislation could make a crucial material difference to the lives of thousands of incarcerated people — something that should not be dismissed — but it would hardly make a dent in America’s mass incarceration problem.
First Step Act Isn’t Sweeping Criminal Justice Reform
hmmm
Fox News’ Catherine Herridge joins CBS News, saying ‘facts matter’ – CNN
Herridge, Fox’s chief intelligence correspondent, was a founding employee of Fox News in 1996 and a leader in the network’s Washington bureau.
…In a statement released through CBS, Herridge also invoked the importance of facts, but in a way that could be interpreted as a criticism of Fox: “CBS News has always placed a premium on enterprise journalism and powerful investigations,” she said. “I feel privileged to join a team where facts and storytelling will always matter.”
Fox News’ Catherine Herridge joins CBS News, saying ‘facts matter’ – CNN
hmmmm
Judge chides DOJ for trying to block star Mueller witness testimony – POLITICO
Justice Department attorneys have asserted, as they have under previous administrations, that senior White House advisers like McGahn can essentially ignore subpoenas related to their official duties.
There is no binding legal precedent on the point, but in a dispute a decade ago about President George W. Bush’s firing of U.S. attorneys, a District Court judge rejected the White House’s claims of absolute immunity for one of his White House counsels, Harriet Miers.
…Jackson also expressed discomfort with the Justice Department’s claim that McGahn and other former senior officials were entirely immune from a congressional subpoena, even though many such individuals regularly speak out in public.
Judge chides DOJ for trying to block star Mueller witness testimony – POLITICO
hmmm
Kamala Harris’s Offices Fought Payments to Wrongly Convicted
The Diaz case is one of a series of battles Harris’ prosecutors waged — in both the offices of San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general — to resist innocence claims, often using technical timeliness or jurisdictional arguments, lawyers and innocence advocates say.
…Whatever her involvement in the Diaz case and other innocence claims, actions by Harris’ offices — carried out in her name, by people working on her behalf — have left some voters and advocates distrustful. Criminal justice advocates are critical of her handling of wrongful conviction cases, in particular, saying her offices resisted at least five such claims despite compelling evidence of innocence.
…The following April, Diaz says, Harris’ office told him that, in fact, he must continue to register as a sexual offender — although by that time he had obtained a formal judgment of innocence — because he’d been released on parole before he filed the petition to vacate his conviction.
…Diaz said he believes Harris’ office was trying to intimidate him out of seeking compensation.
…Harris’ office continued to fight Diaz’s right to compensation for almost a year. Documents filed by Schwartzbach detail filings and arguments both the compensation board and the attorney general’s office used to try to block the claim.
In October 2014, more than two years after his conviction was vacated, Diaz was awarded $305,300 for his almost nine years in prison. The requirement to register as a sex offender was also eventually dropped.
…“The idea that some innocent person should have to labor under the branding of a sex offender for the rest of their lives because they didn’t meet the technical requirements, that’s just wrong,” Green said.
…Newly-elected attorneys general, Green said, often find a certain culture and set of practices in place in the offices when they take charge. “If you start to overturn convictions others obtained, it doesn’t make you popular with your staff,” he said.
…In the Maurice Caldwell case, Harris’ DA’s office filed for multiple extensions rather than responding to his innocence petition, causing Caldwell to spend an extra year in prison before he was exonerated.
…A judge declared in 2014 that false statements made by a prosecutor working for Harris about the fears of the only eyewitness against Jamal Trulove had likely prejudiced the jury.
…Harris’ office also contended that Larsen’s arguments were too late. “A federal habeas petition filed even one day late is untimely and must be dismissed,” the office said. After Larsen was released, Harris’ office successfully campaigned against compensation for the more than 13 years he was imprisoned.
Kamala Harris’s Offices Fought Payments to Wrongly Convicted – Bloomberg
Whether these incidents occurred because she is a poor administrator or because she was afraid to rock the boat (or -as is more likely- both) doesn’t matter. All that matters is that it happened on her watch and she is ultimately responsible.
“There Is Definite Hanky-Panky Going On”: The Fantastically Profitable Mystery of the Trump Chaos Trades
Traders in the Chicago pits have been watching these kinds of wagers with an increasing mixture of shock and awe since the start of the Trump presidency. They are used to rapid fluctuations in the S&P 500 index; volatility is common, of course. But the precision and timing of these trades, and the vast amount of money being made as a result of them, make the traders wonder if all this is on the level. Are the people behind these trades incredibly lucky, or do they have access to information that other people don’t have about, say, Trump’s or Beijing’s latest thinking on the trade war or any other of a number of ways that Trump is able to move the markets through his tweeting or slips of the tongue? Essentially, do they have inside information?
…There is no way for another trader, let alone an outsider such as me, to know who is making these trades. But regulators know or can find out. One longtime CME trader who has been watching with disgust says he’s never seen anything quite like these trades, not at least since al-Qaida cashed in before initiating the September 11 attacks.
…Market manipulation also yields political dividends. Perhaps the most obvious example dates to late August, when Trump, desperate to reignite trade talks with China, boasted during the G7 summit that his counterparts in Beijing had come back to the table. “We’ve gotten two calls—very, very good calls,” he told reporters. “They mean business.” The market rose more than 900 points over the next few days. …Two U.S government officials later told CNN that Trump misspoke and “conflated” comments from China’s Vice Premier Liu He with direct communication from the Chinese. According to CNN, the officials said Trump was “eager to project optimism that might boost markets.”
hmmm
Google’s acquisition of Fitbit is clearly a data play
Google will now have information on not only the temperature of my house, to the extent I’ve got four Nest thermostats or whether or not I have a smoke alarm going off or things like that, they’ll know, in fact, how much I move on a given day, how many steps I take, things of that nature,” D.A. Davidson analyst Tom Forte told Yahoo Finance. “This is very interesting data for Google. And if you think about Google’s efforts, again, Amazon with Alexa and Apple with its various devices, they’re all just collecting data for consumers. But this helps round out the data set for Google, given that it gives you, again, health care-related data.
Google’s acquisition of Fitbit is clearly a data play
hmmm
NRCC sent Democrats in battleground states ‘moving boxes’
NRCC sent Democrats in battleground states ‘moving boxes’
Beyond classless, in this day and age of security threats this asinine and irresponsible. Who is running the show over there? Preteens??
Comments From The Peanut Gallery 