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TwiceHorn

Certifiably Surly
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Posts posted by TwiceHorn

  1. 1 hour ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

    Welp, this explains the crazy tweets

     

    Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III informed President Trump’s attorneys last month that he is continuing to investigate the president but does not consider him a criminal target at this point, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

    In private negotiations in early March about a possible presidential interview, Mueller described Trump as a subject of his investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Prosecutors view someone as a subject when that person has engaged in conduct that is under investigation but there is not sufficient evidence to bring charges.

    The special counsel also told Trump’s lawyers that he is preparing a report about the president’s actions while in office and potential obstruction of justice, according to two people with knowledge of the conversations.

    Mueller reiterated the need to interview Trump — both to understand whether he had any corrupt intent to thwart the Russia investigation and to complete this portion of his probe, the people said.

    Mueller’s description of the president’s status has sparked friction within Trump’s inner circle as his advisers have debated his legal standing. The president and some of his allies seized on the special counsel’s words as an assurance that Trump’s risk of criminal jeopardy is low. Other advisers, however, noted that subjects of investigations can easily become indicted targets — and expressed concern that the special prosecutor was baiting Trump into an interview that could put the president in legal peril.

    John Dowd, Trump’s top attorney dealing with the Mueller probe, resigned last month amid disputes about strategy and frustration that the president ignored his advice to refuse the special counsel’s request for an interview, according to a Trump friend.

    Trump’s chief counsel, Jay Sekulow, and Dowd declined to comment for this report. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders referred questions to White House attorney Ty Cobb.

    “Thank you, but I don’t discuss communications with the president or with the Office of Special Counsel,” Cobb said Tuesday.

    Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel’s office, declined to comment. 

    The wide-ranging special counsel investigation, which began as an examination of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, has expanded into other areas, including whether Trump sought to obstruct the probe.

    Mueller’s investigators have indicated to the president’s legal team that they are considering writing reports on their findings in stages — with the first report focused on the obstruction issue, according to two people briefed on the discussions.

     

    Under special counsel regulations, Mueller is required to report his conclusions confidentially to Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, who has the authority to decide whether to release the information publicly.

    “They’ve said they want to write a report on this — to answer the public’s questions — and they need the president’s interview as the last step,” one person familiar with the discussions said of Mueller’s team. 

    Trump’s attorneys expect the president would also face questions about what he knew about any contacts by his associates with Russians officials and emissaries in 2016, several White House advisers said. The president’s allies believe a second report detailing the special counsel’s findings on Russia’s interference would be issued later.

    The president has privately expressed relief at the description of his legal status, which has increased his determination to agree to a special counsel interview, the people said. He has repeatedly told allies that he is not a target of the probe and believes an interview will help him put the matter behind him, friends said. 

    However, legal experts said Mueller’s description of Trump as a subject of a grand jury probe does not mean he is in the clear.

    Under Justice Department guidelines, a subject of an investigation is a person whose conduct falls within the scope of a grand jury’s investigation. A target is a person for which there is substantial evidence linking him or her to a crime.

    A subject could become a target with his or her own testimony, legal experts warn. 

    “If I were the president, I would be very reluctant to think I’m off the hook,” said Keith Whittington, a professor of politics at Princeton University and impeachment expert.

    “My sense of it is the president — given that information — ought to have pretty fair warning anything he’s saying in the deposition would be legally consequential. Depending on what he says, it could wind up changing how the special counsel is thinking about him.”

    Still, several legal scholars and impeachment experts believe Mueller may conclude he does not have the authority to charge a sitting president with a crime under an opinion written by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in 1973 and reaffirmed in 2000.

    If Mueller finds Trump engaged in criminal conduct, he could detail it in a report, experts argue, and let Congress to decide whether to launch impeachment proceedings based on Mueller’s findings. 

    “The president’s personal risk is primarily on the impeachment front,” Whittington said. “Even if there are not things that lead to indictment, there may be matters that warrant an impeachment investigation and proceedings.”

    Some of Trump’s advisers have warned White House aides that they fear Mueller could issue a blistering report about the president’s actions. 

    Several of Trump’s public actions have called into question whether he sought to blunt or block the criminal probe, a line of inquiry that prosecutors began pursuing last year. He has repeatedly called the investigation a “witch hunt” that has unfairly sullied his administration and hampered his ability to accomplish his policy agenda. He fired FBI James B. Comey in Mayafter Comey told Congress that the bureau was investigating possible coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Trump was furious that Comey did not state that he was not personally under investigation, The Washington Post previously reported.

    The president also asked top intelligence officials to issue public statements denying the existence of any evidence of coordination between his campaign and the Russian government.

     

    Mueller’s team has told Trump’s attorneys over recent months that they are seeking to learn more about the firings of Comey and national security adviser Michael Flynn last year and the president’s efforts to get Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign. 

    Nevertheless, Trump has repeatedly expressed an eagerness to sit down for a voluntary interview to answer Mueller’s questions — a move Dowd believed would be a mistake, according to a longtime Trump friend.

    Dowd told the president the case against him was weak, but warned Trump he could create criminal jeopardy for himself if he agreed to an interview and misspoke under oath, the friend said. Dowd repeatedly pointed to the Trump campaign advisers who have pleaded guilty to making false statements in the Mueller probe — including Flynn, adviser George Papadopoulos and former campaign official Rick Gates.

    “Mueller hasn’t hesitated to [charge] people for lying on some pretty tangential stuff,” said Solomon Wisenberg, a former deputy independent counsel in the probe of President Bill Clinton.

    However, Sekulow and Cobb gave the president the opposite advice as Dowd: that it would be politically difficult for Trump to refuse to answer questions after insisting for months there was no collusion or crime, according to three people familiar with their advice.

    Wisenberg, who interviewed Clinton about allegations that he obstructed justice, said Trump has handled himself well in previous depositions but should be cautious.

    “I think he would do much better than people think,” Wisenberg said. “But there are plenty of instances where a guy walks into a grand jury a subject. He gets out and is told: ‘Guess what, you’re a target now.’”

    I would guess that this more means that Mueller would not have the temerity to attempt to indict any sitting President rather than Trump committed no criminal (or impeachable) offense.

    Also, re VanDerZwaan:

    "This glass was dropped on a very thick carpet" is a quote I am going to have to remember.  And though not mentioned in this article, I am pretty sure the calculated guideline range in this matter was 0 to 6 months, so perhaps we ought also remember that the first sentence imposed in this matter emerging from the special counsel was a within-guideline (and not-bottom-of-the-range) sentence.

    Douglas Berman, professor of law and recognized authority on sentencing.

  2. Also, she apparently considered Wisconsin and USC.  USC is close to home and apparently the new coach is her club coach, but is untested at the NCAA level.  Both Wisconsin and Corn have fielded better-rounded, better--passing and -defending teams than Texas has in recent history.  I guess Penn State was too far away.  Not sure why she didn't check out Minnesota, as it arguably qualifies, too (but you could make an argument that Minnesota over-emphasizes backcourt and setter play, to the detriment of pin-hitters like her).

    The fact that she chose Nebraska tells me that it was a coach-driven choice.  But I dunno shit, that's just a guess.

    And we will be playing Nebraska, in all likelihood, in the early fall.

  3. 8 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

    There are probably 100s of millions of standard capacity 30rd magazines in circulation. Shit, I got enough to last me and all my children and their childrens lifetimes in the closet 20ft from where I sit.  And you can print these things on your desktop. Magazine capacity limits aren't a real solution unless you want to turn millions of Americans into felons overnight. Improving the background check system and its inputs, requiring background checks on all transfers, and starting to address the real societal mental health issues at play are where we should focus efforts. 

    True enough, but it's less drastic and less of a problem than confiscating an entire class of weapons.

    I see Australia bought back about 650,000 guns in their most recent gun-banning effort.  There are more guns than that in Texas alone.

    Also, ironic note, England now has a knife violence problem.  London's murder rate exceeds that of NYC.  https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/london-murder-rate-higher-new-york-city-first-time-surging-knife-gun-crime/

  4. Here's my thinking on the semi-auto, center-fire, >5 round mag ban or restriction argument.  Fully auto weapons are effectively banned, that's the status quo, so that level of firepower is off the table.

    The thing that makes "assault rifles," however defined, effective at mass shootings is firepower, which is a combination of semi-automatic firing rate and magazine capacity.  There are totally legit semi-auto shotguns, hunting rifles and rimfire rifles (the majority of rimfire rifles sold are semi-auto).  This wouldn't affect those.  People who have a preference for AR-style rifles or even AK's can still have them, just not with a >5 round magazine.

    There would be a "confiscation" problem only with >5 round mags, not with an entire class of weapons.  It will still be a problem, but a more manageable one.

    The "dangerous" level of firepower would be curtailed.  Also, a lot of "yahoo-ism" on youtube etc. that makes "black guns" attractive to less-than-law-abiding owners. 

    Will this solve or even reduce the mass shooting problem?  I don't know.  Maybe they'll switch to semi-auto pistols.  Maybe Marlin 60s and Ruger 10/22s.  Maybe shotguns. Maybe lever-action rifles.   Study of it will yield some insight on a variety of issues presented by "gun control" more broadly.

  5. 22 minutes ago, BERT said:

    Was she not happy here?? Seems odd

    She started out as a six-rotation player, meaning not coming off after her serve and playing the back row.  She was such a player in high school and club.  Elliott started taking her out of the six rotation as the season progressed and competition intensified (her back row play did need some work).  Best guess is that she was unhappy with that and did not see herself developing into a top-level six-rotation player at Texas/under Elliott, which is not an irrational thought at all.

     

    Without even looking at the schedule, we are virtually certain to encounter Nebraska before she leaves.  Wonder how that will be?

     

    • Like 3
  6. 17 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

    Our system seems to be set up for retribution instead of justice.  I don't know how we get to the point where both sides seek justice or maybe there shouldn't be sides. I don't know shit.

     

    Very true from a sentencing perspective.  For a while there, there was concern about "uniformity" of sentences, particularly in the federal system.  But little thought seems to have ever been given to the "rationality" of sentencing, i.e. what are we trying to accomplish here and why and does this sentence actually do anything to accomplish it?

     

    But that is a legislative problem, not so much a problem with the prosecution.

  7. The service I am referring to is entirely domestic.  And the delay is with DHL.  Similar with the other "smart posts."  They go on some sort of slow boat or hand carry from Wooster, OH or wherever to a relatively nearby "distribution center," whereupon they are received by USPS and delivered within a day.

     

    It was originally called DHL Global Mail, but according to DHL and their tracking site, it is now "Ecommerce."  All the vendors seem to send tracking notices that still say Global Mail, which is a misnomer because these are domestic sellers.

  8. 7 hours ago, Lobwedgephil said:

    Lol, lawyers don't start out idealistic, they go to law school thinking about the money. 

    While there is a great deal of truth to this, there is also usually at least a latent bit of idealism.  They're going to do great things!  Be intellectually challenged!  Play 3-D chess with other brilliant lawyers!

    And, of course, it has been 25 or more years since you could go to law school and count on money when you got out.  Now it's probably 75-25 against making over 100K coming out. For the last 10 years, it has been delusional/idealistic for the average law student to even assume having a job.

    And those who go to law school aiming for public service/DA careers either did not have money in mind or were delusional/idealistic.

    I'm not making this shit up, this is why there is a huge dissatisfaction with legal careers and a substance abuse rate double the rest of the population.  The NC Bar and UNC have done some very in-depth studies on these issues.

  9. I'm a bit of a contrarian in that I have had uniformly good service from USPS and will choose first class delivery whenever available.  Considering its low cost, I get less agitated if it is a day late, but it rarely is.

    Whenever I order something from Amazon or someone else and get a tracking notice that it's DHL Global Mail, I groan.

  10. So I have noticed shipping services like DHL Global Mail/Ecommerce and various "Smartpost" services used by online vendors.  Apparently, they are specially "tailored" for "ecommerce" vendors, and the implication is that they are super cheap or otherwise easy for vendors to use.

    They are slow as fuck.

    They use the mail (USPS) for "last mile" and are actually timely once the package hits the USPS, but may take a week or more to get to USPS.

    Because they are slow as fuck, they must be cheap as hell or somehow really easy to use.

    Can anyone explain how these work?  Are these the type of things where private business is getting balls deep in USPS?

  11. Serious answer.  To one degree or another, lawyers start out fairly idealistic.  The practice of law, with harsh realities of tedium and business or dealing with human nature (depending on civil vs. criminal, to some extent) or both, frequently dashes that idealism to pieces, turning an idealist into a cynic.  A couple of things then happen, often both.  One is that it just becomes about winning.  Another is that one deludes oneself into believing one does "God's work" or some other form of (self) righteousness.  That can be a toxic and dangerous combo.

    Add in the fact that everyone you deal with is some form of law enforcement or the enemy (librul defense lawyer turds) and you get an echo chamber.

    It becomes very difficult, personally and institutionally, to admit error.  It takes more character than a lot of people possess.

    • Like 1
  12. I remember the shitshow surrounding that poster and that he passed away not too terribly long after.

    I seem to recall that someone came and posted of his death without connecting the dots.

  13. 3 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

    Thanks.

    What types of interference would be off limits?  Could I set up a mister that sprays deer urine across the doorway so nobody would cross the threshold?  (Only half kidding.  At some point it just has to be within the business' rights to seek some kind of relief.  Hell, I'm offended that Academy sells A&M gear, but I'm not going to try to stop them.)

    Well, the problem here really is the nature of the relations interfered with.  It isn't a contractual relationship it is at best a prospective customer relationship.  In Texas, the classic tortious interference is inducing a party to breach their contract with another party.  As mentioned, it could also be a contract not-yet-entered, but sure to be, but for the interference  See, e.g., Pennzoil v. Texaco.  And if the interference is privileged by being protected by the 1st Amendment (this is Canada, aint no such thing), then even if a sure contract were breached as a result, then tortious interference wouldn't lie. 

    As SKJ said, this situation isn't really addressed by tortious interference.

     

    Probably the most apt traditional tort would be the protestors creating a private nuisance that interferes with the restaurant's business.

  14. 29 minutes ago, SmokeyBear1861 said:

    Can you post statistics on this?

    I would counter with 

    http://www.fathers.com/statistics-and-research/the-consequences-of-fatherlessness/

    ...as soon as you abandon traditional culture that got civilization this far (marriage) you return to chaos.

    That is an ENTIRELY different argument.

     

    And brisket and I agree far more often than we disagree.  Like 95-5.  I think he may be a tad unhinged about the state of affair represented by Trumpworld, but I can't say definitively that he's wrong.

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