Glenn Kirschner – Donald Trump’s attack on wife of Special Counsel Jack Smith is a sign of Trump’s desperation
Ukrainian Canadian Congress – Holodomor Information Video 2022 (It was on Saturday the 26th. Better, I hope, late than never)
Ring of Fire – Matt Gaetz Goes On Thanksgiving Rampage Against Everyone And Everything
Real Subtitles? Wartime infomercial.
Tropical Bird Walks Into Family’s House
Beau – Let’s talk about Trump, Evangelicals, and numbers….
Yesterday, I finished knitting a sweater, finished knitting a collar extention onto a sweatshirt, started a new sweater – and took a fairly deep dive into Joyce Vance’s newsletter, which was in the category of “The Week Ahead” – she doesn’t do one of those every weekend, but she often does. For this coming eeek, she is anticipating the circus (not her term, my interpretatin only) than can be expected in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals pursuant to Jack Smith’s demolition of Judge Cannon. It’s long and nerdy (she says so herself), and I’ll not try to boil it down further here, but I do provide a link. I do hope she is 100% correct – and I feel there is a good chance of it. ALso, I did a few December cartoons – just enough to take me several days past my next visit to Virgil (this Sunday).
Cartoon – 28 Blackbeard loaded
Short Takes –
Democratic Underground (multigraincracker) – Her mother was also her uncle, DNA test.
Quote – The mother had XY chromosomes in her blood and saliva, but her hair and cheek cells had XX chromosomes. Parts of the daughter’s genome matched each kind of her mother’s mismatched DNA. The daughter had inherited some DNA from her mother which originally belonged to her mother’s fraternal twin brother, who was never born. That makes the mother a chimera, the result of an embryo that had absorbed and incorporated cells from a twin who had vanished before anyone knew he had existed.
Click through for article, and don’t neglest the comments, which include more links to other anomalies. We are constantly learning so much more about genetics – and all of it makes the arrogance of people who insist there are two sexes, period, more outrageous.
Mother Jones – Hundreds of New York Women Are About to Sue Alleged Rapists (and Enablers) Under a Revolutionary New Law
Quote – Now, Carroll and thousands of other sexual assault survivors in New York state are getting a new chance to seek legal accountability against people who harmed them years or decades ago. Under the Adult Survivors Act, New Yorkers who were sexually assaulted as adults but who have run out of time to seek accountability in court will have a one-year “lookback window” to sue their abusers, as well as institutions that were negligent in responding to the assault.
Click through for details. To me, in a kind of rarefied way, this is analogous to the Federal statute of limitations’ exception for availability. But here, its society’s contempt for and distrust of women which conctitutes the unavailability.
DNYUX (also the NY Times, which is paywalled) – At Protests, Guns Are Doing the Talking
Quote – Across the country, openly carrying a gun in public is no longer just an exercise in self-defense — increasingly it is a soapbox for elevating one’s voice and, just as often, quieting someone else’s…. Whether at the local library, in a park or on Main Street, most of these incidents happen where Republicans have fought to expand the ability to bear arms in public, a movement bolstered by a recent Supreme Court ruling on the right to carry firearms outside the home. The loosening of limits has occurred as violent political rhetoric rises and the police in some places fear bloodshed among an armed populace on a hair trigger.
Click through for more – examples and analysis. This is what happens when people (I’m looking at you, SCOTUS) are allowed to conflate speech with something which isn’t speech at all.
Food For Thought
(Just till after the runoff)
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
In the light of the Q-Club massacre, and since Colorado does have a red flag law (which appears to have been violated), I thought it was time for this article. I’ll just highlight (using color, bold, and italic, since I don’t have an actual “highlight” tool) a couple of parts which I think deserve particular attention, and, at the end, I’ll make my case to the Furies.
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Alex McCourt, Johns Hopkins University
The killing of five patrons in a Colorado LGBTQ bar on Nov. 19, 2022, is the latest mass shooting to garner headlines in the U.S.
Police have said they have yet to determine a motive. But one thing that has emerged is that the suspect had a history of violent plans, having allegedly threatened to attack his mother with a homemade bomb more than a year before the attack at Club Q.
It has led to questions over why that earlier alleged incident did not trigger Colorado’s “red flag” law – something that may have prevented him from acquiring the AR-15-style semi-automatic weapon that police say was used in the Club Q attack. The Conversation asked Alex McCourt, an expert on gun laws at Johns Hopkins University, to explain how red flag laws are supposed to work – and why they weren’t triggered in this case.
Red flag laws – also know as extreme risk protection orders – allow for judges to make a ruling that results in firearms being taken away temporarily from a person who is deemed to be at high risk of harming themselves or others. They also prevent that person from purchasing guns for a set period of time.
They are aimed at protecting against the actions of individuals who have made violent threats or may be going through some sort of crisis.
The way they work is that specific people can petition a court to issue an order when someone is deemed to be behaving dangerously or making violent threats.
The categories of individuals who can petition in this way vary from state to state. But all the states that have enacted such laws – 19 plus the District of Columbia – include law enforcement officers among those who can petition the court to have a red flag order imposed.
Household and family members are also commonly listed. And in Maryland, Hawaii and the District of Columbia, health care officials can petition the court should they be concerned over the behavior of a patient. In California, Hawaii and New York, teachers or school administrators are included in the list of people who can petition the court.
Typically, if the court finds there is sufficient evidence of risk of violence, a judge will issues an ex parte – or temporary – order. These cover a very short period until a hearing can take place. At that subsequent hearing the potential subject of the order can provide an argument that they aren’t dangerous.
If the court decides there is indeed a risk, it will deliver a longer-term order. In most cases it covers a period of up to a year. The subject of the gun ban may be able to petition for the order to be ended early, should they be able to prove, for example, that their moment of mental crisis is over or that they have sought sufficient treatment. The petitioner can also ask for the order to be renewed at the end of the year.
The first thing to note is that the laws are relatively new – most have come in over the past decade. So researchers are still evaluating the data. But studies have shown that they can be effective in preventing mass shooting events and possibly suicides.
Research from 2019 found that, among a group of cases in which guns were removed from individuals who made threats of mass shootings in California, none of the individuals went on to carry out mass shootings. A 2022 study evaluated extreme risk protection orders in six states. It found that all the states being observed were issuing orders on the basis of mass shooting threats – 20% of these cases involved threats toward schools and 15% toward intimate partners or family members.
Though these laws are relatively new, research analyzing the legislation suggests that they may help prevent suicide.
So there is enough evidence to say they can be used to prevent deaths. But these measures are so new, we need to know more about how well they are being implemented by states. So far, research suggests that public awareness of extreme risk protection orders is low and that efforts to educate the public and facilitate filing of petitions might help.
Connecticut and Indiana both had early versions of red flags laws, in place in 1999 and 2006 respectively, but the policy was really developed after the Sandy Hook shooting of 2012. Since that incident – in which 20 children and six adults were killed by a gunman – a further 17 states and Washington, D.C., have added extreme risk protection orders to their statutes. Most have come in since the Parkland school shooting of 2018.
One of the areas in which more research is needed is on implementation of red flag laws. There appears to be wide variation – both state by state, but also within states that have laws in place.
Spotty implementation might be the result of a combination of factors. As they are quite new, there is a knowledge gap – that is, would-be petitioners might not know that a red flag order is an option, or how to go about filing for an order.
But it is also true that there has been a fair amount of pushback from certain counties and sheriffs who have said that they won’t enforce these laws out of Second Amendment concerns. This appears to be the case more in rural areas. But that has not been systemically studied to date.
There has been some discussion among advocates about trying to pass federal legislation. But to date, the main actions taken at the federal level are to make it easier for individual states to adopt red flag laws. The Biden administration has pushed for their adoption, and the Justice Department has issued model legislation that states can use.
Meanwhile, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act passed in June 2022 allows for the distribution of funds to states for crisis intervention programs, including the rollout of extreme risk protection orders.
Colorado’s red flag law was enacted 2019. It allows for law enforcement and family or household members to file a petition to a court. If it is approved, a court can order that an individual’s guns be removed for up to one year.
A 2021 study of the first year of implementation of Colorado’s law found that in 85% of cases it was law enforcement that initiated proceedings, and in 15% of cases it was household or family members that petitioned.
There has been slower uptake in Colorado than in some other states. But there have been some questions over whether that is over the timing of the law – it was implemented just before COVID-19 pandemic began, so for a large chunk of the first year it has been in operation, people were under stay-at-home orders.
Nonetheless, the study found there were a significant number of sheriffs and counties that said they would not enforce the law. There is no real legal basis for them to do this; it is more of a symbolic or political stance. But it does have implications for red flag laws, as law enforcement officers may not have the training or inclination to pursue red flag orders.
There hasn’t been an awful lot of detail released on why a red flag order was not imposed on the Colorado shooter. Early reporting suggests that this appears to be a classic example of someone who made a threat, in this case threatening his mother with a homemade bomb – and as such would qualify for an order. But there is reportedly no public record indicating that law enforcement or any family member acted on that threat and petitioned the court.
Experts can only speculate about why this might be the case. But one point of note is that it occurred in a county where the sheriff has expressed opposition to Colorado’s law and has previously said that his officers will not petition for an order except under “exigent circumstances.”
Alex McCourt, Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, of course our county Sheriff is an elected official – elected by the same people who have been electing Doug Lamebrain Lamborn to Congress for the last sixteen years and just re-elected him again. They are unlikely to vote Sheriff Bill Elder out, or to replace him with anyone who doesn’t have the same character flaw. Yes, the Colorado Oath of Office includes the phrase “I will support the constitution of the United States, the constitution of the state of Colorado, and the laws of the state of Colorado.” And, yes, there is a penalty for breaking that oath (since perjury is presumed.) But I would think charges would have to be brought by the District Attorney (of the Fourth Judicial District, which comprises El Paso and Teller Counties), and, although I cannot find what party he belongs to (I even tried Ballotpedia), I assume he is also a Republican, since it’s essentially the same territory as the Sheriff’s territory. Teller Country isn’t as red as El Paso, but it also doesn’t contain enough people to overrule El Paso’s redness. Maybe you ladies would help me write a letter to the Governor? I don’t know whether there is anything he can do, but I’ve met him, and I’m confident that he will at least be willing to listen.
The Furies and I will be back.
Glenn Kirschner – Kevin McCarthy’s latest legislative thuggery: tells DHS Secretary Mayorkas, “resign or be impeached”
Meidas Touch – Herschel Walker’s former coach shakes up Georgia Senate race with HUGE announcement
Farron Balanced – Republicans Fear Trump Has Taken Their Party Hostage
Armageddon Update – I Give You The Bird!
Cat Who Spent 18 Years As His Dad’s Only Child Gets A Human Brother
Beau – Let’s talk about the Klamath River running free….
Yesterday, the radio opera was another comic one – +Falstaff” by Verdi (based on Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor.”) “The Merry Wives” is said to have been written because Queen Elizabeth I told Shakespeare she wanted to see “Sir John in love.” That seems odd to me, because a total jerk in love is still a total jerk, and an unmarried queen must see hundreds, if not thousands, of those. But maybe she meant she wanted them to be able to see themselves – that would at least fit with the way Falstaff acts and how the women react. But I kind of doubt that most jerks are self-aware enough to recognize themselves when they see them. Oh well, at least the rest of us can happily mock them. (Shakespeare, and Verdi in turn, were clearly aware that for Falstaff and his ilk, “in love” actually means “kind of in heat and definitely looking for a mark to grift.”) After beig subjected to various minor indignties (e.g., crawling into a laundry basket to hide because “the husband” is arriving, and then being thrown into the river), at the end, by which time it appears the whole town is in on the joke, he does get the bejeesus scared out of him and then is totally embarrassed – which all depends on the audience being aware that in Shakespeare’s day “fairies” were thought to be real and malevolent supernatural beings, and not tiny, but the size of humans. Much of the final scene is like something out of Margaret Murray (author of “God of the Witches”). But it does end with everyone happy.
Cartoon –
Short Takes –
Mother Jones – “Alito Was Using Phrases We Had Invented as Bumper-Sticker Slogans in a Supreme Court Decision”
Quote – By all rights, Rob should have pushed all my buttons. He was born and raised a secular Jew but accepted Jesus as a teenager. And he embraced his new faith with an extremism that we have seen among the religious right: he became an evangelical minister and one of the key architects of the anti-abortion movement, not only in protests across the country, but in the White House, the halls of Congress and, yes, the Supreme Court. He and his organization were responsible for some of the most provocative language and actions in the campaign against Roe vs. Wade. All sorts of other fundamentalist positions, such as opposition to gay marriage, came along with him. Shortly before we met, he had changed profoundly.
Click through for full interview with Rev. Rob Schenk – it’s from July but is of current interest in light of recent news about Alito.
The Daily Beast – The Complicated Relationship Between Kevin McCarthy and Hakeem Jeffries
Quote – It’s a new era of leadership in the House of Representatives, but the problems will be the same—maybe even worse. On the right, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is set—maybe—to ascend to the role of speaker. On the left, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is virtually guaranteed to become the minority leader for House Democrats. The move would make two fiftysomething men, both long been rumored for the top spots, the heads of their respective sides of the House chamber. Just don’t expect them to be chummy about it.
Click through for article. I’m not saying McCarthy will be the SPeaker, but I’m not saying he won’t. The Speaker must be elected by the full House, not just his/her party, although if there’s party unity, it might as well be just his/her party. The thing is, there isn’t party unity on the right. House Democrats therefore are a wild card.
PolitiZoom – A Clarification On My “Trump Is A Legal Imbecile” Article Yesterday
Quote – Here it is. In the federal statute of limitations, there’s a waiver clause for a little something called availability of a subject or target. Here’s how it works. Let’s just say I rob a bank and clean the place out. It doesn’t take long before you’re hot on my heels. Not wanting to go to the Crossbar Hilton, I cop the next flight to Bolivia. God knows I’ve got enough lucre to survive comfortably until the statute of limitations runs out. Except no, that’s where the waiver kicks in.
Click through for details. Though he refers to an earlier article, this one stands alone, since it is about the federal Statute of Limitations, and an analogous provision in New York. So it’s pertinent to the Daniels case, and possibly also E. Jean Carroll.
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – Mike Pence utters 7 words that should disqualify him from ever holding public office again
Ojeda Live- What Are The 10 Republican Commandments!?!
Ring of Fire – Polls Show Incoming Republican Majority In Congress Is Already DOOMED
Liberal Redneck – The Results of Rhetoric
Cop Kindly Walks Duck Family All The Way Home (no words)
Beau – Let’s talk about Colorado, stats, and speculation….
Yesterday was Black Friday – or, as the North SHore Animal League put it, Bark Friday. I used to be pretty good at using sales and coupons, butnow that I’m retired and my time is my own, that is more important to me. And the pandemic just made thatmindset even stronger. Not that I would shop on Black Friday on principle. But I hope that those who do shop (many of whom are working to hard for too little pay) find bargains that stretch their budgets farther than they dreamed. Also yesterday, I “printed” (to pdf) DCCC’s guide to what facts to have handy when dealing with Republican relatives. It was intended for Thanksgiving, but by the time I received the email, Thanksgiving was over. However, there’s always Christmas. It loads huge and prints weird (I ended up zooming out, snapshotting it a page at a time – it’s only 4 pages – putting the snapshots into a Word document, and “printing” that. But there are probably ways to manipulate the online pdf to print better.) If you have any Republican relatives, or know someone who does and could use it, here’s the link.
Cartoon – 26 1126Cartoon.jpg
Short Takes –
Crooks & Liars – Dems Already Going On Offense Against Coming House Investigations
Quote – The New York Times reports that a network of Democrat-aligned groups is planning “a multimillion-dollar counteroffensive,” including a “SWAT team,” to combat the coming deluge of GOP investigations into President Biden, his family and his administration. Although the White House is planning its own defense, the outside groups plan to push back “in a more adversarial manner,” the Times says…. The Democratic counteroffensive is designed to avoid another Benghazi which, fake scandal that it was, nonetheless dragged down Hillary Clinton. Some of those involved in the efforts include Facts First USA, whose president is David Brock, the former right-wing hit man turned left-wing advocate; the Center for American Progress; and the Congressional Integrity Project.
Click through for more informaion, and links to both the Times and Politico. The money is not taxpayer money but activist money (from some pretty flush activists.)
Mother Jones – After Decades of Public Service, Dr. Fauci Gives His Final White House Briefing
Quote – His departing message to the public: get vaccinated before the holidays. “My final message, maybe the final message I give you from this podium, is, please, for your own safety and the safety of your own family, please get your updated COVID-19 shot as soon as you’re eligible,” Fauci told reporters.
Click through for article. I have nothing to add to the Food for Thought.
Lakota People’s Law – Help the Cherokee Nation Seat a Congressional Delegate
I had a video up on this yesterday (which was made before the hearing). Then O got this emai from Chase Iron Eyes, including:
“[A]fter nearly two centuries of delay, Congress held its first ever hearing on the subject — and it went very well! To be clear, it isn’t a done deal. However, as NPR accurately reports, last week’s House Rules Committee hearing represents by far the biggest step the federal government has ever taken toward fulfilling a promise it made to the Cherokee way back in 1835’s Treaty of New Echota. And while we can’t celebrate prematurely, the U.S. government making progress toward doing what it said it would for any Native nation is historic and a reason for optimism.”
Now Chase is asking us to write to our Representatives and encourage them to accept the selected delegate, Kimberly Teehee. The link above is to the page to help you do that – thre is also a video, which is a bit over a half hour, and doesn’t have CC there, but it does on YouTube at this link
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – Special Counsel Jack Smith/DOJ seek interview with Mike Pence about Trump’s insurrection crimes
The Lincoln Project – Last Week in the Republican Party – November 22, 2022
MSNBC – Cherokee Nation Calls On Congress To Fulfill 187-Year-Old Promise
Armageddon Update – We Did Good!
Tigers Freed From Abandoned Train Car After 15 Years
Beau – Let’s talk about Colorado and what we can expect….