User-Supported News Commentary Hosted by Craig Crawford
It’s Saturday 4/22/23
and you are here
why? We’ll take up the who, what and where later.
Author: patd
“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."
"How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
View all posts by patd
18 thoughts on “It’s Saturday 4/22/23”
for starters: it’s Earth Day and it’s still here — for now. what some folk are doing to be sure it continues:
thanks to trail friend BiD last night we now know the wheels of justice are still grinding away according to CNN:
The plot to breach voting systems in Coffee County, coordinated by members of Trump’s legal team including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, is part of a broader criminal investigation into 2020 election interference led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
Willis’ office is weighing a potential racketeering case against multiple defendants and is actively deciding who to bring charges against, sources tell CNN. Willis has subpoenaed a number of individuals involved in the Coffee County breach, including the two men who carried it out who were in touch with Penrose and Logan.
Willis has also subpoenaed Giuliani and Powell as part of her probe. Giuliani has been told he’s a target in the Fulton County probe, CNN previously reported. The special grand jury convened for the case recommended issuing multiple indictments in its final report completed in February, according to the jury foreperson.
A source familiar with Willis’ investigation tells CNN that Willis and her team have in their possession evidence that Trump allies planned to use the breached voting data from Georgia to try to decertify the state’s senate runoff election. Emails obtained by CNN show Penrose and Powell arranged upfront payment to a cyber forensics firm that sent a team to Coffee County on January 7, 2021.
The Coffee County breach is also under investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
that’s racketeering as in the R.I.C.O Acts both in federal and several states, particularly those swing states.
But does the Georgia investigation lead to Trump? Or another case of targeting the soldiers but not the boss.
Over in the twit world there is a push back on needing to pay the big twit eight dollars to get a blue check mark. If you look you will see virtually all the major media, writers, scribes, commoners all without the check mark. However, the russians, trolls, white supremacists, white nationalists are happy to have a blue check mark, whether they needed to pay for it or not. Block the blue is more than a motto, it is a reaction and it is working.
Tucker Carlson has a blue check. So does Sean Hannity and Elon Musk. The NAACP and NY Times don’t. I’m more than good being one of the latter.
–Dan Rather
Twitter used to exist outside the control of certain billionaires….they couldn’t take that so they had to rope it in no matter the cost (44 Billion?). Now it’s under their control and whatever it becomes is whatever they want it to become. They aren’t “bumbling”……they are ruthless pirates.
And about that rocket…..something tells me they couldn’t care less whether or not it exploded.
One of those songs the old ones used to sing in the evening in front of the fire.
i used to work in chicago,
In a department store.
I used to work in chicago,
I did but i don’t anymore.
A woman came in for a hose,
I asked her what kind she came for.
“Rubber,” she said; so rub her I did
I did but I don’t anymore.
The verses could go on and on.
Sturgeone – rocket shots are insured. What is funny is that now that the garbage nasties from a launch are gone a few pictures of the remains of the launchpad are showing up. Yup, it was a big fat lie that the launchpad was not damaged. It is going to take a while to remove the scrap and build a new one.
craig, looks like the dots are connecting that way. fani brought the school system there a RICO indictment. surely the maga don’s case would be even easier for her.
RICO fits the bill for Trump, experts say
Willis’s investigation has two prongs: Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia by asking authorities to “find” votes that would reverse his loss to now-President Joe Biden, and efforts by his allies to send fake electors to Congress on January 6, 2021, and try to install him as president even though he lost.
[…]
In 2021, Willis hired John E. Floyd, the author of a widely used RICO legal textbook, for her office, increasing the speculation that she considered using Georgia’s RICO statute in the Trump investigation.
According to a Brookings Institution analysis, Willis has the opportunity to bring charges against Trump for election fraud, forgery, influencing witnesses, and other potential crimes. RICO fits the bill as well, according to the Brookings report.
“Georgia’s RICO statute fits those facts like a glove,” Norm Eisen, a co-author of the Brookings report and legal ethics expert, told Insider. “That’s because the attempted coup DA Willis is investigating was a comprehensive assault on our democracy, and doing a larger case under RICO would better get at that and would achieve broad accountability against those responsible, above all Donald Trump.”
Georgia even has precedent for bringing RICO cases against public officials. In the 1980s, Georgia labor department head Sam Caldwell was tried and convicted under the state RICO statue over an insurance fraud scheme. According to the Brookings report, prosecutors must show “an interrelated pattern of activity by and through the [public] office” to win a conviction against a public official — and can do so with Trump.
“Prosecution based on predicate acts like ‘false statements’ and ‘false swearing’ by a public official seeking reelection — similar to crimes that Trump could well have engaged in or solicited — validly formed the basis of a RICO prosecution,” the Brookings report says.
Trump’s call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger telling him to “find 11,780 votes,” along with evidence dug up by the House January 6 Committee about Trump’s involvement in the fake elector scheme, are all evidence that could point to RICO charges, according to Eisen.
“We already know a great deal about this case, and those facts do lend themselves to bringing charges under Georgia’s RICO statute, which is quite broad,” Eisen said. “I’ve seldom seen a case with as much public evidence as we have here.”
Georgia’s RICO statute is also helpful for prosecutors, according to Carlson, because it allows them to threaten defendants with more potential jail time.
“Criminal solicitation to commit election fraud, false statements to state and local government officials — these are the most serious charges under Georgia law in the potential list of charges,” Carlson told Insider, adding: “On the potential list of charges is RICO, the one that carries up to 20 years. So it’s a heavy-duty charge.”
Willis can use the threat of RICO charges to turn Trump allies into cooperating witnesses in the criminal investigation, according to Neama Rahmani, the president of West Coast Trial Lawyers and a former federal prosecutor.
“You can rope in a lot of defendants because they’re all on the hook for the substantive conspiracy,” Rahmani said. “It’s a good way to flip lower-level people. Because all the co-conspirators — they’re liable for the substantive crimes, right? So that’s how you can potentially get Trump’s inner circle to flip.”
here’s a rundown by a law firm knowledgeable about GA rico on possible penalties:
A conviction under Georgia’s RICO statute will result in a 5- to 20-year sentence, a fine, or both. A judge may fine a defendant up to three times the amount of any money obtained by the defendant during the scheme.
Georgia also possesses the power to impose civil remedies. A judge may order a defendant to give up any business interest or property gained through a RICO violation. Defendants may also have other restrictions levied upon them, such as a prohibition from engaging in the same type of endeavor as the unlawful business.
Injured parties may file suit against defendants for three times the actual damages sustained, and may seek punitive damages when appropriate.
An alternative to the traditional plus bubbles
Cinco De Derby
Ingredients
2 oz G.H. Mumm Grand Cordon Champagne 1.5 oz Avion Blanco Tequila .5 oz blackberry cinnamon syrup* .5 oz fresh lime juice
Instructions
Combine all ingredients except champagne into a cocktail shaker, and fill with ice. Shake to chill and strain into a rocks glass over ice. Top with champagne
*Blackberry cinnamon syrup: Combine 1 cup of water, 1 pack of blackberries, and 2 cinnamon sticks broken up in small saucepan. Warm the ingredients on medium heat until the blackberries start to split and release juice. Add in 1 cup of sugar and gently stir to dissolve. Allow the syrup to cool down, then strain out the solids.
BB
Some of my Twitter friends are adding a blue heart. Maybe those losing a check could come up with a mutual alternative.
Jamie – I have been contemplating what to add, I already have American and Finnish flags, don’t know what happened to Ukraine flag. KO has a blue block with a white arrow pointing to lower left corner.
Of interest to some, and may affect others who did not know, Microsoft has dumped the twit, no more advertising buy, no more support. This is due to the idiot twit changing the way outside applications interface with twit, and charging a lot (a massive amount for big companies like MS). So MS said Aloha.
That got me thinking about who would take twit off the hands of the idiot twit. Who is big enough? Who has the ability to run big projects? My first was a company like MS or Google. Either one would like the framework (of old) and could rebuild twit back to Twitter. There are others but those two come to mind. This is if the idiot twit bought twit as a toy and now that it is broken would agree to get rid of it as a broken toy, i..e. cheap.
BB
Google would be my choice since it is my favored search engine already and I have to jump through hoops to use it since my basic program uses Bing which is complete garbage and so overloaded with ads as to be almost unusable.
I miss Ask Jeeves.
When will one or more of the “soldiers” roll over on Orange Adolf?
“Details about multimillion-dollar stock holding concealed in abortion pill judge’s financial disclosures”
“The federal judge who issued a nationwide ruling blocking the approval of a common abortion medication redacted key information on his legally mandated financial disclosures, in what legal experts described as an unusual move that conceals the bulk of his personal fortune.”
“The whole point of a disclosure is to explain where you have conflicts,” said Michael Lissner, the executive director of the Free Law Project, a nonprofit that has published judicial disclosures. “If you have stock and you’re not saying what it’s in and it’s this much of your personal wealth, that’s a conflict you have. The public deserves to know.”
“CNN reported Thursday that Kacsmaryk failed to disclose during his Senate confirmation process two interviews in which he discussed contraception and gay rights. And The Washington Post reported last week that Kacsmaryk removed his name in 2017 from a pending law review article criticizing protections for transgender people and those seeking abortions as he was being nominated.”
“In several instances, including the abortion pill case, conservative groups seem to have strategically filed their lawsuits in Kacsmaryk’s Amarillo-area jurisdiction in order to guarantee he hears their cases.”
“The redacted stock that Kacsmaryk reported on his disclosure form was significantly larger than any other financial holding he disclosed, the largest of which in 2021 were two mutual and index funds that he listed as between $100,001 and $250,000 each.”
ps – Two relatives in California who do not live together have gotten covid in the last week or so. One only had one shot, but one was fully vaxxed. It’s bad. Mask up.
for starters: it’s Earth Day and it’s still here — for now. what some folk are doing to be sure it continues:
The Top 10 Earth Day Events of 2023 – Earth Day
thanks to trail friend BiD last night we now know the wheels of justice are still grinding away according to CNN:
that’s racketeering as in the R.I.C.O Acts both in federal and several states, particularly those swing states.
But does the Georgia investigation lead to Trump? Or another case of targeting the soldiers but not the boss.
Over in the twit world there is a push back on needing to pay the big twit eight dollars to get a blue check mark. If you look you will see virtually all the major media, writers, scribes, commoners all without the check mark. However, the russians, trolls, white supremacists, white nationalists are happy to have a blue check mark, whether they needed to pay for it or not. Block the blue is more than a motto, it is a reaction and it is working.
Tucker Carlson has a blue check. So does Sean Hannity and Elon Musk. The NAACP and NY Times don’t. I’m more than good being one of the latter.
–Dan Rather
Twitter used to exist outside the control of certain billionaires….they couldn’t take that so they had to rope it in no matter the cost (44 Billion?). Now it’s under their control and whatever it becomes is whatever they want it to become. They aren’t “bumbling”……they are ruthless pirates.
And about that rocket…..something tells me they couldn’t care less whether or not it exploded.
One of those songs the old ones used to sing in the evening in front of the fire.
i used to work in chicago,
In a department store.
I used to work in chicago,
I did but i don’t anymore.
A woman came in for a hose,
I asked her what kind she came for.
“Rubber,” she said; so rub her I did
I did but I don’t anymore.
The verses could go on and on.
Sturgeone – rocket shots are insured. What is funny is that now that the garbage nasties from a launch are gone a few pictures of the remains of the launchpad are showing up. Yup, it was a big fat lie that the launchpad was not damaged. It is going to take a while to remove the scrap and build a new one.
craig, looks like the dots are connecting that way. fani brought the school system there a RICO indictment. surely the maga don’s case would be even easier for her.
here’s a rundown from last month on possibility according to Trump Georgia Investigation: Fani Willis May Use RICO Charges (businessinsider.com)
here’s a rundown by a law firm knowledgeable about GA rico on possible penalties:
An alternative to the traditional plus bubbles
Cinco De Derby
Ingredients
2 oz G.H. Mumm Grand Cordon Champagne
1.5 oz Avion Blanco Tequila
.5 oz blackberry cinnamon syrup*
.5 oz fresh lime juice
Instructions
Combine all ingredients except champagne into a cocktail shaker, and fill with ice. Shake to chill and strain into a rocks glass over ice. Top with champagne
*Blackberry cinnamon syrup: Combine 1 cup of water, 1 pack of blackberries, and 2 cinnamon sticks broken up in small saucepan. Warm the ingredients on medium heat until the blackberries start to split and release juice. Add in 1 cup of sugar and gently stir to dissolve. Allow the syrup to cool down, then strain out the solids.
BB
Some of my Twitter friends are adding a blue heart. Maybe those losing a check could come up with a mutual alternative.
Jamie – I have been contemplating what to add, I already have American and Finnish flags, don’t know what happened to Ukraine flag. KO has a blue block with a white arrow pointing to lower left corner.
Of interest to some, and may affect others who did not know, Microsoft has dumped the twit, no more advertising buy, no more support. This is due to the idiot twit changing the way outside applications interface with twit, and charging a lot (a massive amount for big companies like MS). So MS said Aloha.
That got me thinking about who would take twit off the hands of the idiot twit. Who is big enough? Who has the ability to run big projects? My first was a company like MS or Google. Either one would like the framework (of old) and could rebuild twit back to Twitter. There are others but those two come to mind. This is if the idiot twit bought twit as a toy and now that it is broken would agree to get rid of it as a broken toy, i..e. cheap.
BB
Google would be my choice since it is my favored search engine already and I have to jump through hoops to use it since my basic program uses Bing which is complete garbage and so overloaded with ads as to be almost unusable.
I miss Ask Jeeves.
When will one or more of the “soldiers” roll over on Orange Adolf?
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/21/politics/judge-kacsmaryk-financial-holdings-abortion-pill/index.html
“Details about multimillion-dollar stock holding concealed in abortion pill judge’s financial disclosures”
“The federal judge who issued a nationwide ruling blocking the approval of a common abortion medication redacted key information on his legally mandated financial disclosures, in what legal experts described as an unusual move that conceals the bulk of his personal fortune.”
“The whole point of a disclosure is to explain where you have conflicts,” said Michael Lissner, the executive director of the Free Law Project, a nonprofit that has published judicial disclosures. “If you have stock and you’re not saying what it’s in and it’s this much of your personal wealth, that’s a conflict you have. The public deserves to know.”
“CNN reported Thursday that Kacsmaryk failed to disclose during his Senate confirmation process two interviews in which he discussed contraception and gay rights. And The Washington Post reported last week that Kacsmaryk removed his name in 2017 from a pending law review article criticizing protections for transgender people and those seeking abortions as he was being nominated.”
“In several instances, including the abortion pill case, conservative groups seem to have strategically filed their lawsuits in Kacsmaryk’s Amarillo-area jurisdiction in order to guarantee he hears their cases.”
“The redacted stock that Kacsmaryk reported on his disclosure form was significantly larger than any other financial holding he disclosed, the largest of which in 2021 were two mutual and index funds that he listed as between $100,001 and $250,000 each.”
ps – Two relatives in California who do not live together have gotten covid in the last week or so. One only had one shot, but one was fully vaxxed. It’s bad. Mask up.
NEW THREAD by Jack