You Know You Done Fucked Up, Right?

nakedcapitalism  |  “Jury Instructions & Charges” (PDF) [Judge Juan Merchan, New York State Unified Court System]. Merchan’s instructions are 55 pages long. Apparently, Merchan isn’t allowed to give the jury a copy (hence their request to have them read aloud to them again). In any case, Merchan’s instructions are not devoid of interest. Let me start with an epigraph:

“The Law is the true embodiment. Of everything that’s excellent. It has no kind of fault or flaw. And I, my Lords, embody the Law” –Gilbert and Sullivan, Iolanthe

I’m reminded of G&S by this passage from the transcript. Merchan before he launches his Instructions:

I am, however, not necessarily being fair to Merchan. He consistently uses the word “our law,” which could imply the majestic principle that the law applies to and is for the benefit of all of us, or should do so. On the other hand, Merchan could also be using “our law” exactly as liberal Democrats use “our democracy.” Given lawfare, the latter may be more likely.

Now let me move to some extracts, helpfully annotated. A technical matter, page 22:

[1] Merchan quotes from the Guide to New York Evidence, 6.10. I have to assume that with enough time, I could come up with similar boilerplate for all the instructions.

On “Accessorial Liability,” p. 25:

And:

[1] To this layperson, this notion of “unanimity” since strange (“I don’t care who broke the vase or who hid the pieces”), though I’m sure it comes from somewhere in the Guide. But certainly “acting in concert” maximizes the paths to conviction (not that I would expect a good, or at least an effective, prosecutor to do anything else).

On “Intent to Defraud,” p. 29 (as I understand it _{MR SUBLIMINAL Hollow laughter}, the “intent to defraud” applies to the business records, and not to the “other crime”):

[1] As, for example, a candidate’s misrepresentations in an election. Ideal for the Censorship Industrial Complex, when you think about it. Who would have thought five Pinocchios from Glenn Kessler could end up as a criminal offense?

[2] Underlining that “election interference” could theorized as fraud. (If true, this principle is certainly arbitrarily applied in the State of New York; RussiaGate, Clinton’s email server, and the suppression of Hunter Biden’s laptop could all be considered criminal.)

On “Intent to Commit or Conceal Another Crime” (this is the heart of the matter: the theory that bootstraps 34 business records misdemeanors into 34 felonies; the “other crime” (“object offense”) that the business records were falsified in aid of (if falsified they were), pp. 29 et seq.:

[1] Once again, the paths to conviction are maximized.

[1] As I showed here (early), the “object offense” did not appear in District Attorney Bragg’s charges, but evolved — with a great deal of puzzlement here and in the press generally — in the course of the trial, much assisted by Merchan in his pre-trial ruling (as I show here). To this layperson, it seems very much like the Defendant was not informed of the charges against him (SIxth Amendment: “to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation“). Now, Bragg might argue that the Defendant was informed; the “accusation” was the business records violation, and the “other crimes” were merely icing on the cake, as it were. Perhaps “our law” is ambiguous in that regard. If so, the matter of whether converting misdemeanors into felonies requires “notice of accusation” may be settled in an appeal.

[2] “Promote or prevent” is the election interference part (and nothing in this case is distinguishable from normal campaigning, to my simple mind, and this includes business records stuff like the Clinton campaign laundering payment for the Steele dossier through Marc Elias’s highly reputable law firm).

[3] So some member of the alleged conspiracy must act, but not necessarily the Defendant, once again maximizing the paths to conviction.

[4] One question why the Defendant was never charged with conspiracy. This is the charge of conspiracy.

[1] This “Merchan’s Chinese Menu: One from Column A, one from Column B… The concept of “unanimity” seems to take on strange forms in Merchan’s court.

[2] Turley argues: Suppose there are three “unlawful means” (the object offenses) A, B, and C. A verdict where 4 jurors voted for A, 4 for B, and 4 for C would be treated as “unanimous”; to this layperson, an absurd result. But I think this argument can be made more pointed: The jurors who vote for A must necessarily believe that the Defendant is not guilty beyond reasonably doubt of offenses B and C, and so with the remaining jurors. So we could have a verdict where 12 jurors do not believe in the Defendants guilt beyond a reasonable doubt of any one object offense. That strikes me as a very bad precedent and worthy of consideration on appeal. From Thomas P Gallanis, “Reasonable Doubt and the History of the Criminal Trial,” The University of Chicago Law Review: “Reasonable doubt was originally a protection not for criminal defendants, but rather for the ‘souls of the jurors’ (p 3). Reasonable doubt was “designed to make conviction easier” by reassuring anxious jurors that they would not be damned for voting to spill the defendant’s blood (p 4 (emphasis omitted)). Jurors could safely convict as long as their hesitations did not rise to the level of reasonable doubt.” So what is the state of the individual juror’s soul when the entire jury votes to convict, but without unamimity as to the cause of the conviction?

[3] These are the the three “unlawful means” proposed by the Prosecution. I presume that “other” business records does not include any of the 34 business records in the charge, so I don’t think that item (2) is necessarily circular, or “loops back on itself,” in an infinite regress, but without clarification, it could mean that records 1-17 would fall under the business records offense, and records 18-34 could be redeployed as object offenses…. One wonders what form of “unanimity” would be required to sort this, if so (but see on “Falsification of Other Business Records” below):

On the first of the three unlawful means, “The Federal Election Campaign Act,” p. 32:

[1] Leaving aside the question of whether Federal laws should be enforced at the state level, and leaving aside Merchan’s curious refusal to let the defense expert on FECA testify, the obvious agenda here is to urge that NMI’s “catch and kill scheme,” which suppressed news stories, was not a “legitimate press function.” However, suppressing news stories is obviously a legitimate press function, and only a child of six would think otherwise (one thinks at once of The New York Times suppressing James Risen’s story on warrantless surveillance until after Bush was safely elected).

On the second, “Falsification of Other Business Records,” p. 33:

This closes out my theorizing on infinite regression in other records, above. Too bad! I haven’t mastered the detail on these documents, but Merchan’s specificity makes me think that this “object offense”) is the most dangerous to the Defendant. (Of course, I don’t believe there are object offenses, because iff the initial counts 1-34 all pertain to the payments for Cohen that are allegedly not for legal services, they in fact were, because to my simple mind. a legal service is something you pay a lawyer to do, and thus there is no primary offense to begin with.)

On the third, “Violation of Tax Laws,” p. 34:

[1] If this is the only unlawful means, I can see at least one hold-out being unwilling to jacl up 34 misdemeanors to felonies based on it.

On “The Charged Crimes,” p 27:

“Verdict Sheet,” p. 53:

[1] These are the counts in Bragg’s indictment; each of the 34 counts is a separate business records offense.

[2] Notice the checkboxes that Merchan does not include:

Surely the voting public has an interest in knowing which object offense caused Trump’s misdemeanors (if any) to be converted into felonies. An absurdly minor tax violation? The much bruited and salacious catch-and-kill scheme? A campaign finance violation? Merchan, apparently, has no care for the voters. I would speculate that — with the possible assistance of the flex-net working the lawfare on this project — having maximized the paths to conviction with capacious definitions of unanimity, Merchan would prefer not to “show his work,” and reveal how those definitions worked out in reality. Whether this is grounds for appeal I don’t know, but I find it appalling. “Our law”! “Our democracy”!

.45 GUILTY!!! of being the antithesis of a man of culture.....,

President Trump reacts to the verdict:

“The whole country is being rigged right now. This is being done by the Biden Administration in order to hurt or wound a political opponent."

"We'll fight to the end and we'll win...this is long from over." pic.twitter.com/G93N5ZwiBH

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) May 30, 2024

dailycaller  |  A jury in the deep-blue New York City borough of Manhattan convicted former President Donald Trump on Thursday in the case brought by Democratic District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Trump was convicted on all 34 counts of falsifying business records charged in Bragg’s indictment. Defense attorneys cornered the prosecution’s witnesses at critical junctures of the trial in a case that stood on shaky legal grounds from the start, including when Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen, an admitted liar, took the stand as the prosecution’s star witness, a choice that resulted in Cohen revealing he stole from the Trump organization and committing what the defense demonstrated was potentially another act of perjury.

The charges stemmed from $420,000 Trump paid Cohen over 12 months in 2017 for “legal services,” which prosecutors argued was actually to reimburse Cohen for $130,000 he paid to secure a nondisclosure agreement with porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election and keep her quiet about claims of an affair with Trump.

To indict Trump on felony charges and circumvent the expired statute of limitations, Bragg had to claim the records were falsified to conceal or commit another crime — which remained unclear throughout the trial but was assumed to be either a campaign finance or election law violation.

Prosecutors argued Trump engaged in a conspiracy to influence the 2016 election by paying to suppress stories of former Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin, former Playboy model Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels. They suggested he violated a state election law that makes it a misdemeanor for any two or more people to “conspire” to influence an election using “unlawful means.”

Trump is the first former U.S. president to be convicted at a criminal trial. His sentencing is scheduled for July 11th, days before the Republican National Convention set to begin on July 15. Falsifying business record charges carry a maximum sentence of four years in prison.

The jury began its deliberations on Wednesday after Judge Juan Merchan read the jury instructions, which did not require jurors to agree on what “unlawful” means Trump allegedly used to influence the election.

Bragg’s team included Matthew Colangelo, who spent two years as a top official in the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ). While previously working at the New York District Attorney’s office, Colangelo also led both the investigation that culminated in the Trump Foundation’s dissolution and the investigation that later became Trump’s civil fraud case.

Colangelo joined the Manhattan District Attorney’s office as senior counsel in 2022 while Bragg was still investigating Trump.

 

 

The State Goes To Great Lengths To Protect Itself - You Taxpaying MF'ers Are On Your Own

mises  |  In all the media and regime frenzy over the Janaury 6 riots and the Pentagon Leaker in recent months, it is interesting to examine the contrast between how the regime treats "crimes" against its own interests, and real crime committed against ordinary private citizens. 

Witness, for example, how the Biden administration and corporate media have treated the January 6 riot as if it were some kind of military coup, demanding that draconian sentences be handed down even to small-time vandals and trespassers. Regime paranoia has led the Justice Department to ask for a 30-year sentence for Enrique Tarrio, a man who was convicted of the non-crime of "seditious conspiracy" even though he wasn't even in Washington on January 6. In recent months, Jacob Chansley, the "QAnon Shaman," received a sentence of three-and-a-half years, even though prosecutors admit he did nothing violent. Riley Williams was given three years for simply trespassing in Nancy Pelosi's office. Members of the Capitol Police force have been lionized in the media as great protectors of "sacred" government buildings, and any threat to the property or persons of Washington politicians has been equated with an assault on "democracy." 

Yet, had these supposed insurrectionists inflicted these same actions against an ordinary private individual, there's a good chance the perpetrators would not even be arrested, let alone given years of prison time. Consider, for example, the mobs that ransack private businesses in American cities, stealing tens of thousands of dollars of merchandise while police and prosecutors consider it all to be low priority.  Violent crime and property crime surge in many areas of the United States, with violent crime rising 30 percent in New York City in 2022. Unsolved murders in the US are at a record high. Meanwhile, progressives and social democrats are looking for ways to reduce criminal penalties against violent criminals. Police departments often devote only tiny portions of their budgets to homicide investigations, and if your property is stolen, odds are good you can forget about ever seeing it again. 

The situation is quite different when it comes to protecting the state, its agents, and its property from any threat. During urban riots, such as those which occurred in Ferguson, Missouri and Minneapolis, Minnesota, the police went to great lengths to protect themselves and government property. If you were just a private shopkeeper or ordinary citizen, however, you were on your own. At the Uvalde School shooting in 2022, hundreds of law enforcement officers from all levels of government chose to protect themselves rather than the children who were being murdered inside. When Uvalde parents demanded the police act, the police attacked the parents. 

We find similar phenomena at the federal level. There are, of course, special federal laws against violence perpetrated against federal employees. Ordinary taxpayers receive no such consideration. Note how federal agencies move to arm themselves to the teeth while also seeking to disarm the private-sector. Federal agents will spare no expense finding someone who put his feet up on Nancy Pelosi's desk, but it's another matter entirely when we're talking about serious violent crime against regular people.  Federal agents, of course, allowed 9/11 to occur right under their noses, they refused to investigate known rapist Larry Nasser, and shrugged off reports about the man who would end up slaughtering children at a high school in Parkland, Florida. Contrast this with how long the federal government has been conniving to get revenge on Julian Assange for merely telling the truth about US war crimes.  

Naturally, law enforcement officers rarely face any sanctions for their failures to bother themselves with private property, life, or limb. The federal courts have made it clear that law enforcement officers are not obligated to actually protect the public. In other words, the taxpayers must always pay taxes to hold up their end of the imagined "social contract" or face fines and imprisonment. But the other side of that "contract," the state, has no legal obligation to make good on its end. This, of course, is not how real contracts work.

What If Qualified Immunity Isn’t Real?

TNR  | The provision comes from Civil Rights Act of 1871, also known as the Enforcement Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act. Radical Republicans in Congress and President Ulysses S. Grant pushed it through at the height of Reconstruction to strengthen protections for recently freed Black Americans living in the South. Section 1983 is most often associated with lawsuits over policing tactics and prison conditions since those interactions are far more likely to involve a person’s constitutional rights than, say, getting your driver’s license renewed at the DMV. But it can apply to all sorts of state and local officials, making it a valuable tool for Americans to vindicate their rights in court.

In response to Rogers’s lawsuit, the prison officials disputed the facts of the case and also invoked qualified immunity for their actions. As its name suggests, qualified immunity is a partial shield for state and local officials against Section 1983 claims. It falls short of the absolute immunity enjoyed by judges, prosecutors, and lawmakers for their official duties. But it can still be a potent barrier against lawsuits. An investigation by Reuters in 2020 found that courts were increasingly likely to use it to defeat excessive force claims against police officers.

Under the Supreme Court’s precedents, qualified immunity kicks in when a state or local official’s conduct does not violate “clearly established law” at the time of the violation. A federal district court ruled in favor of the prison officials in Rogers’s case and held that their conduct did not meet that threshold. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision in a March ruling.

“What happened to Rogers was unfortunate,” the panel concluded. “Maybe it was negligent. But was it the product of deliberate indifference? Not on this record. And even if it were, these officials did not violate clearly established law on these facts.”

But one of the Fifth Circuit panel’s three members, Judge Don Willett, wrote a separate concurring opinion. He explained that he agreed with his colleagues as a matter of precedent. He then took aim more broadly at qualified immunity, pointing to recent scholarship that cast serious doubt on its lawfulness and its historical basis.

“For more than half a century, the Supreme Court has claimed that (1) certain common-law immunities existed when Section 1983 was enacted in 1871, and (2) ‘no evidence’ suggests that Congress meant to abrogate these immunities rather than incorporate them,” Willett wrote. “But what if there were such evidence?”

That evidence, he wrote, can be found in a February article published in California Law Review by Alexander Reinart, a law professor at Yeshiva University in New York. Reinart, as Willett explained, noted that the Supreme Court had consistently read Section 1983 in the U.S. Code to not exclude so-called “common-law immunities,” which it then revived in the form of qualified immunity. But that reading was flatly contradicted by the text of Section 1983 itself when enacted in 1871.

“In between the words ‘shall’ and ‘be liable,’ the statute contained the following clause: ‘any such law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of the State to the contrary notwithstanding,’” Reinart explained. “And it is a fair inference that this clause meant to encompass state common law principles.”

How had the courts missed this part of the text over the last 150 years? It was not removed by Congress itself in subsequent legislation. The answer lies in a scrivener’s error. The United States Code is, technically speaking, not actually the law: It is merely a compilation of the laws enacted by Congress that is presented in a more readable and usable format. When it was first compiled almost a century ago, Reinart noted, it drew upon an earlier official attempt at codification known as the Revised Statutes of the United States, which were published in 1874.

The Revised Statute’s first edition was somewhat notorious for its errors, which prompted repeated updates and eventually a wholesale replacement. “Although the Revised Statutes were supplemented and corrected over time until the first United States Code was published in 1926, the Reviser’s error in omitting the Notwithstanding Clause from the reported version of the Civil Rights Act of 1871 was never corrected,” Reinhart noted.

This is the civil rights lawyer’s equivalent of double-checking the stone tablets that Moses brought down from Mount Sinai and finding that one actually says, “Thou shalt commit adultery.” Reinart’s discovery—and he does appear to be the first person to discover this—was a sensational find when his paper was published earlier this spring, even garnering coverage in The New York Times. The missing text upends the origin story for qualified immunity as a doctrine and indicates that it may be fundamentally flawed.

“These are game-changing arguments, particularly in this text-centric judicial era when jurists profess unswerving fidelity to the words Congress chose,” Willett wrote in his concurring opinion. “Professor Reinert’s scholarship supercharges the critique that modern immunity jurisprudence is not just atextual but countertextual. That is, the doctrine does not merely complement the text—it brazenly contradicts it.”

Elderly Black LARP's Make The Empire Even More Ridiculous

justice |  A federal grand jury in Tampa, Florida, returned a superseding indictment charging four U.S. citizens and three Russian nationals with working on behalf of the Russian government and in conjunction with the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) to conduct a multi-year foreign malign influence campaign in the United States. Among other conduct, the superseding indictment alleges that the Russian defendants recruited, funded and directed U.S. political groups to act as unregistered illegal agents of the Russian government and sow discord and spread pro-Russian propaganda; the indicted intelligence officers, in particular, participated in covertly funding and directing candidates for local office within the United States.

This is an absolutely remarkable - and chilling - indictment. Several American black leftist groups and activists are being charged with felonies for posting memes and other political content against the war in Ukraine, protesting racial injustice: allegedly on behalf of Russia: https://t.co/SQ1K1VZG1v

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 19, 2023

Additionally, in a separate case out of the District of Columbia, a criminal complaint was unsealed charging Russian national Natalia Burlinova with conspiring with an FSB officer to act as an illegal agent of Russia in the United States.

“Russia’s foreign intelligence service allegedly weaponized our First Amendment rights – freedoms Russia denies its own citizens – to divide Americans and interfere in elections in the United States,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “The department will not hesitate to expose and prosecute those who sow discord and corrupt U.S. elections in service of hostile foreign interests, regardless of whether the culprits are U.S. citizens or foreign individuals abroad.”

“Efforts by the Russian government to secretly influence U.S. elections will not be tolerated,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “As today’s announcement demonstrates, the Criminal Division is committed to eradicating foreign malign influence from the U.S. political system and helping ensure the integrity of our elections.”

“Today’s announcement paints a harrowing picture of Russian government actions and the lengths to which the FSB will go to interfere with our elections, sow discord in our nation and ultimately recruit U.S citizens to their efforts,” said Acting Assistant Director Kurt Ronnow of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. “All Americans should be deeply concerned by the tactics employed by the FSB and remain vigilant to any attempt to undermine our democracy. The FBI remains committed to confronting this egregious behavior and ultimately disrupting our adversaries and those who act on their behalf.”

United States v. Ionov, et al.

According to the superseding indictment returned in the Middle District of Florida, Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, a resident of Moscow, was the founder and president of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia (AGMR), an organization headquartered in Moscow, Russia, and funded by the Russian government. Ionov allegedly utilized AGMR to carry out Russia’s malign influence campaign. Ionov’s influence efforts were allegedly directed and supervised by Moscow-based FSB officers, including indicted defendants Aleksey Borisovich Sukhodolov and Yegor Sergeyevich Popov.

“The prosecution of this criminal conduct is essential to protecting the American public when foreign governments seek to inject themselves into the American political process,” said U.S. Attorney Roger B. Handberg for the Middle District of Florida. “We thank our partners at the FBI for their tireless investigation of these events and their commitment to ensure justice is done.”

Among other illegal activities, the superseding indictment alleges that Ionov, Sukhodolov and Popov conspired to directly and substantially influence democratic elections in the United States by clandestinely funding and directing the political campaign of a particular candidate for local office in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 2019. For instance, the superseding indictment alleges that Popov expressly referred to this effort on behalf of the FSB as “our election campaign,” and Ionov referring to the candidate as the “candidate whom we supervise.” Ionov and Popov allegedly intended that this election interference plot would extend beyond the 2019 local election cycle in St. Petersburg, and subsequently discussed that the “USA Presidential election” was the FSB’s “main topic of the year.”

Moreover, from at least November 2014 until July 2022, Ionov allegedly engaged in a years-long foreign malign influence campaign targeting the United States. As a part of the campaign, Ionov allegedly recruited members of political groups within the United States, including the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement (collectively, the APSP) in Florida, Black Hammer in Georgia and a political group in California (referred to in the superseding indictment as U.S. Political Group 3), to participate in the influence campaign and act as agents of Russia in the United States, including the following indicted defendants:

• Omali Yeshitela, a U.S. citizen residing in St. Petersburg, Florida, and St. Louis, Missouri, who served as the chairman and founder of the APSP;
• Penny Joanne Hess, a U.S. citizen residing in St. Petersburg, Florida, and St. Louis, Missouri, who served as the leader of a component of the APSP;
• Jesse Nevel, a U.S. citizen residing in St. Petersburg, Florida, and St. Louis, Missouri, who served as a member of a component of the APSP; and
• Augustus C. Romain Jr., aka Gazi Kodzo, a U.S. citizen residing in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Atlanta, who served as a leader of the APSP and a founder of Black Hammer in Georgia.

One focus of Ionov’s alleged influence operation was to create the appearance of American popular support for Russia’s annexation of territories in Ukraine. For example, in May 2020, Ionov allegedly sent a request he stated was from “Russia, the Donetsk People’s Republic” – an apparent reference to a Russian-occupied region in eastern Ukraine – to Yeshitela and members of other U.S. political groups to make statements in support of the independence of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, a Russian-backed breakaway state in eastern Ukraine. Ionov later allegedly touted to the FSB that Yeshitela’s video-recorded statement of support was the first time that “American nonprofit organizations congratulated citizens” of the occupied region.

Chosen Whiteness: Israeli Ethnocracy Democratic Toward Jews Jewish Toward Palestinians

NYTimes  | For most of the Palestinians under Israeli control — those in the West Bank and Gaza Strip—Israel is not a democracy. It’s not a democracy because Palestinians in the Occupied Territories can’t vote for the government that dominates their lives. When Mr. Gantz sends Israeli troops to shut down their human rights groups, West Bank Palestinians can’t punish him at the ballot box. They can complain to the Palestinian Authority. But the P.A. is a subcontractor, not a state. Like other Palestinians, its officials need Israeli permission even to leave the West Bank. In Gaza, too, Israel determines, with help from Egypt, which people and products enter and exit. And Gaza’s residents, who live in what Human Rights Watch calls “an open-air prison,” can’t vote out the Israeli officials who hold the key.

This lack of democratic rights helps explain why Palestinians are less motivated than Israeli Jews to defend Israel’s Supreme Court. As the Israeli law professors David Kretzmer and Yael Ronen note in their book, “The Occupation of Justice,” “in almost all of its judgments relating to the Occupied Territories, especially those dealing with questions of principle, the Court has decided in favor of the authorities.” Enfeebling the court would undermine legal protections that Israeli Jews take for granted but most Palestinians did not enjoy in the first place.

To be fair, roughly 20 percent of the Palestinians under Israeli control enjoy Israeli citizenship and the right to vote in Israeli elections. Yet it is often these Palestinians who protest most vociferously against Israel’s democratic credentials. In 2009 the Palestinian Knesset member Ahmad Tibi quipped that Israel was indeed “Jewish and democratic: Democratic toward Jews and Jewish toward Arabs.” To many liberal Zionists, that might sound churlish. After all, Mr. Tibi has now served in Israel’s Parliament for almost 25 years. But he understands that the Jewish state contains a deep structure that systematically denies Palestinians legal equality, whether they are citizens or not.

Consider how Israel allocates land. Most of the land inside Israel proper was seized from Palestinians during Israel’s war of independence in the late 1940s, when more than half the Palestinian population was expelled or fled in fear. By the early 1950s, the Israeli government controlled more than 90 percent of Israel’s land. It still does. The government distributes that land for development and leases it to citizens through the Israel Land Authority. Almost half the seats on its governing council are reserved for the Jewish National Fund, whose mission is “strengthening the bond between the Jewish people and its homeland.”

This helps explain why Palestinians comprise more than 20 percent of Israel’s citizens but Palestinian municipalities, according to a 2017 report by a variety of Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups, encompass less than 3 percent of Israel’s land. In 2003, an Israeli government commission found that “many Arab towns and villages were surrounded by land designated for purposes such as security zones, Jewish regional councils, national parks and nature reserves or highways, which prevent or impede the possibility of their expansion.” Unable to gain permission, many Palestinian citizens build homes illegally — which are therefore subject to government demolition. Ninety-seven percent of the demolition orders in Israel proper between 2012 and 2014, according to the 2017 report, were against Palestinians.

This isn’t an accident. It’s the logical outgrowth of Israel’s self-definition. Israel is not a “state for all its citizens,” a concept Mr. Lapid said in 2019 that he has opposed “my entire life.” In 2018, when several Palestinian lawmakers introduced legislation “to anchor in constitutional law the principle of equal citizenship,” the Knesset’s speaker ruled that it could not even be discussed because it would “gnaw at the foundations of the state.” That same year, the Knesset passed legislation reaffirming Israel’s identity as the “nation-state of the Jewish people,” which means that the country belongs to Jews like me, who don’t live there, but not to the Palestinians who live under its control, even the lucky few who hold Israeli citizenship. All this happened before Mr. Netanyahu’s new government took power. This is the vibrant liberal democracy that liberal Zionists want to save.

Some Jews may worry that by advocating genuine liberal democracy — and thus exposing themselves to accusations of anti-Zionism — Mr. Netanyahu’s critics will marginalize themselves. But if they widen their vision they’ll see that the opposite is true. By including Palestinians as full partners, Israel’s democracy movement will discover a vast reservoir of new allies and develop a far clearer moral voice. Ultimately, a movement premised on ethnocracy cannot successfully defend the rule of law. Only a movement for equality can.

Adam Schiff's "Expulsion From Congress" Seems Like A Pretty Small Price To Pay

ronpaulinstitute |  With each new release of the “Twitter Files” we learn more and more about the deep corruption in Washington. We sensed during Covid that something was really wrong – for example the bizarre denial of natural immunity. But thanks to Elon Musk’s decision to open the books, our worst fears have been proven true. Each new release seems to show something even more criminal inside America’s rotten ruling class.

In the latest release, thanks to the excellent reporting of independent journalist Matt Taibbi, we see outgoing Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), continuously pressuring Twitter to validate his fantasies of “Russian bots” manipulating US politics.

The short version of what Taibbi reported comes from around the time then-Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) was about to release his Committee’s findings about the FBI misuse of the FISA Court to spy on the Trump presidential campaign. The FBI, it turns out, relied exclusively on the widely-discredited “Steele Dossier” – paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign – as justification to spy on the Trump campaign.

When pressure grew to release the Nunes findings, Twitter exploded with users demanding that Congress “release the memo.” That’s where then-ranking Member Schiff and his staff began relentlessly pressuring Twitter to show that the accounts demanding the release of the memo were actually Russian agents, out to help their supposed favorite, Donald Trump. Schiff was not alone. Fellow “Russiagate” hoaxers like Sen. Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) also pressured Twitter to find Russians behind the demand to release Nunes’ findings.

Over and over, Twitter – which was hardly sympathetic to Trump – told Schiff and his colleagues there was simply no evidence of Russian involvement. As much as some Twitter employees may have liked to report the opposite, to their credit they refused to participate in the scam.

Even after Twitter had informed Schiff and his fellow hoaxers that there was no Russian involvement, Sen. Blumenthal released a statement he knew was not true: “We find it reprehensible that Russian agents have so eagerly manipulated innocent Americans.” Again, this was right after he had been informed by Twitter employees - who were by-and-large strongly opposed to Trump - that there was just no evidence to back up such a statement.

We are moving closer and closer to a nuclear showdown with Russia over Ukraine. For political gain the Democrats – and plenty of Republicans – have been pushing the “Russiagate” hoax and in so doing have fertilized the ground for the obsessive Russia hatred prevalent in the US today.

I do not believe it is an exaggeration to say that if US/Russia relations had not been poisoned by the lie of “Russiagate” for pure political gain, we would not be anywhere near our current state of near-direct conflict with the largest nuclear power on earth, Russia.

It is shocking that Schiff and his "Russiagate" allies would potentially sacrifice millions of dead Americans to defeat Trump and other political enemies. 

Let’s not forget: Rep. Jim Trafficant was expelled from Congress for asking his staffers to wash his boat. Shouldn’t there be at least equal punishment for Senators and Members who are lying us into World War III?

Elon Musk Asks Adam Schiff If He Approves Of State Censorship In Violation Of The Constitution

jonathanturley |  This week, the media continued to fulfill that common view of a de facto state media by ignoring new evidence of FBI coordination in censorship targets with Twitter in the latest news blackout.

On Friday, Twitter released additional information showing that the FBI and CIA actively pushed for censorship, supplying lists of accounts to be suspended or banned.

Journalist Matt Taibbi described Twitter as acting as a “subsidiary” of the FBI and wrote that “between January 2020 and November 2022, there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth.”

The evidence continues to establish a system of censorship by surrogate or proxy.  While the First Amendment applies to the government and not private corporations generally, it does apply to agents or surrogates of the government. Twitter now admits that such a relationship existed between its former officials and the government.

As (outgoing) Chair of House Intelligence, did you approve hidden state censorship in direct violation of the Constitution of the United States @RepAdamSchiff?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 20, 2022

Once again, however, the major networks and newspapers have largely ignored the story. There has been a full mobilization of media, political, and business interests against Elon Musk and Twitter to oppose the restoration of free speech protections at the company. The media is heavily invested in suppressing this story after years of denials of any problems of censorship. Previously, they denied censorship was occurring. When such censorship became obvious, they denied that there was any involvement of the FBI and the government. Now that such involvement is confirmed, they are simply not covering the story.

Instead, the media is “all-in” on the doxxing suspensions (which Musk has now lifted).  I have been critical of Musk’s response to the doxxing controversy.  In part this is due to the scope of the suspensions and the fact that they occurred only 24 hours after the new policy was implemented. I would have preferred warnings and further clarity on the issue, particularly in what constituted doxxing in some of these tweets from journalists.

Despite the overwhelming coverage, there is little explanation of the media’s approach to the underlying doxxing question. Some have said that this is a “grey area” or may be below the threshold.

For years, the media has supported suspensions due to doxxing. In this case, the location of Musk’s plane may have been used by an individual to threaten his family. Most reports omit any discussion of whether the sending of such live locations information is doxxing. If it is, it has long been banned by most sites and journalists are not exempt.

Previously, figures connected with mainstream media from CNN to the Washington Post have been accused of doxxing. Liberal groups were accused of doxxing conservative justices and others, including dangerously posting information on the children of Justice Amy Coney Barrett. It does not seem to matter when the targets are conservative, Republican, or libertarian.

Elon Musk Asks Ted Lieu About His Censorious Lil'Bish Credentials Too

democraticunderground |  This is the tweet from Taibbi that started it, a continuation of the transparency in the Twitter Files Musk hired him to post on Twitter.

Instead of chasing child sex predators or terrorists, the FBI has agents — lots of them — analyzing and mass-flagging social media posts. Not as part of any criminal investigation, but as a permanent, end-in-itself surveillance operation. People should not be okay with this.

Lieu's response:

Dear @mtaibbi: I’m on the House Judiciary Committee that has oversight over the
@FBI and you are lying. The FBI has lots of agents chasing child sex predators and terrorists. Please stop undermining and lying about federal law enforcement.

Taibbi replied, and then Musk jumped in with a reply addressing Lieu, though his reply went only to Taibbi and the RW media outlet RSBN:

Taibbi to Lieu:

Being on that committee you should know:
- How much has been spent, and how many DHS/DOJ employees have been assigned, to monitoring and flagging social media?
- Why is the FBI asking for "location information" about ordinary Americans and media outlets like
@RSBNetwork?

Musk to Lieu:

Replying to @mtaibbi and @RSBNetwork

Congressman Lieu, were you aware of this program and did you approve it? Simple questions require simple answers.

While this is just on Twitter now, and probably the RW media outlets cheering Musk on, this will be affecting what the GOP majority does in the House, starting next month

Economics Of The American Prison System

smartasset  |  The American prison system is massive. So massive that its estimated turnover of $74 billion eclipses the GDP of 133 nations. What is perhaps most unsettling about this fun fact is that it is the American taxpayer who foots the bill and is increasingly padding the pockets of publicly traded corporations like Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group. Combined both companies generated over $2.53 billion in revenue in 2012, and represent more than half of the private prison business. So what exactly makes the business of incarcerating Americans so lucrative?

Most of it has to do with the way the American legal system works and how it has changed over the last 40 years. In the 1970’s, lawmakers were dealing with a nationwide rash of drug-use and crime. By declaring a nation-wide war on drugs in 1971, President Richard Nixon set a precedent for hard-line policies towards drug-related crime.

New York governor Nelson Rockefeller followed suit declaring “For drug pushing, life sentence, no parole, no probation.”  His policies once put into action promised 15 years to life in prison for drug users and dealers. His policies catalyzed the growth of a colossal corrections system that currently houses an estimated 2.2 million inmates.

The runaway growth of US corrections did not come overnight, and did not come from the government alone. Since the 1970’s federal and state correction agencies have consistently struggled to meet the increased demands brought on by the US Department of Justice and strict drug laws.

In 1982, three Texas businessmen, Tom Beasley, John Ferguson, and Don Hutto saw an opportunity in the shortcomings of the Texas corrections system’s inability to deal with this influx of incarcerations. They devised and executed a plan to secure the first government contract to design, build, and operate a corrections facility from the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Texas Department of Justice.

Contract in hand, the trio was given 90 days to open a detention center for undocumented aliens. As their January 28 deadline neared, Hutto, Ferguson, and Beasley had no facility, no staff and their experiment seemed doomed to fail.

On New Year’s Eve, 1983, Beasley decided to get crafty, “Well, we’ll just go to Houston and find a place,” he reportedly told Ferguson. Incredulous, Ferguson replied, “Tom, you’re crazy. There’s no possible way. This is New Year’s Day. There is no possible way we can find a place today.” Beasley simply responded, “We have to.”

The three men immediately got on a plane and began their search. After a litany of rejections they came upon the Olympic Motel at 1am on New Year’s Day and immediately began negotiations that lasted for three days.

After hiring the motel owner’s family and promising to return the motel to its original condition, the group was in business. They then converted all of the motel rooms to secure cells, procured secure transportation and opened shop on January 28, 1983 when 87 inmates were brought in. Hutto, Ferguson and Beasley formed Corrections Corporation of America, the largest prison private prison network in the United States.

With the precedent it set with the first private detention center, CCA changed the face of US corrections for good. The private sector came to be seen as a quick-fix to the problem of overcrowded, understaffed public prisons. Today, privatized prisons make up over 10% of the corrections market—turning over $7.4 billion per year.

 

Who Was The Gay Male Hustler Witness To Paul Pelosi's Memorial Day Porsche Crash?

NYTimes | Speaker Nancy Pelosi had just urged Brown University graduates to stay resilient and summon their “better angels” on Memorial Day weekend when she was forced to turn her attention to a less uplifting situation: her husband’s arrest in California.

The details emerging from the incident were not especially flattering.

The night before, May 28, Paul Pelosi, 82, had been in Oakville, among the country’s most exclusive enclaves, leaving a small dinner at the hedgerow-lined estate of Alexander Mehran, a longtime friend and Democratic donor.

Mr. Pelosi got behind the wheel of his black 2021 Porsche 911 to drive the six miles to the Pelosis’ Napa Valley country house. It was around 10 p.m., according to a police report and eyewitnesses.

He went a little more than half a mile and was trying to cross State Route 29 and make a left. But a Jeep was coming down the highway and hit Mr. Pelosi’s car as he made the turn.

The police who responded arrested him on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol and suspicion of driving with a .08 blood alcohol content or higher. He is due back in court on Aug. 3. If criminal charges are filed, he will be arraigned then. (The driver of the Jeep was not arrested.)

It may not have been only alcohol that hindered Mr. Pelosi’s driving. 

A person who witnessed the accident said both cars were totaled, and that Mr. Pelosi simply sat in the car, seemingly frozen, for several minutes, until the sheriff and members of the Fire Department arrived moments later.

Neither Mr. Pelosi nor the driver of the Jeep was injured.

Some friends felt that Mr. Pelosi’s full night in custody at the Napa County Jail after the accident was excessive. Others were puzzled why their friend hadn’t pre-empted the whole ordeal by simply taking a car service home.

And some local residents suggested that, in an earlier era in Napa, driving after drinking was met with understanding, rather than criminal charges.

“I feel just awful about what’s happened because there was a time when if a thing like this happened, the cops would take you home,” said the society doyenne Diane Wilsey, better known as Dede.

Ms. Wilsey, who is Mr. Pelosi’s fellow trustee at the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, is a Republican, but she has donated to several of the speaker’s political campaigns, and sees the couple socially in California.

“I don’t agree with Nancy on everything, but I cannot think of anyone nicer than Nancy or Paul,” she said.

 

On Huntergate - DOJ OIG Horowitz Tells Sen. Ron Johnson "Investigate Deez Nutz!!!!"

DailyMail |  The FBI deliberately dragged its feet on the Hunter Biden investigation and told agents not to look into the Hunter Biden laptop, according to new whistleblowers who spoke with Sen. Ron Johnson.  

Johnson, R-Wisc., sent a letter to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz on Tuesday bringing forth the new whistleblower claims. 

'Recently, my office heard from individuals with knowledge of the FBI’s apparent corruption,' Johnson said. 

'After the FBI obtained the Hunter Biden laptop from the Wilmington, DE computer shop, these whistleblowers stated that local FBI leadership told employees, "you will not look at that Hunter Biden laptop" and that the FBI is "not going to change the outcome of the election again,"' Johnson wrote to Horowitz. 

Johnson is demanding Horowitz look into the FBI's handling of the Hunter Biden laptop. 

'While I understand your hesitation to investigate a matter that may be related to an ongoing investigation, it is clear to me based on numerous credible whistleblower disclosures that the FBI cannot be trusted with the handling of Hunter Biden’s laptop,' Johnson said. 

'I hope you understand that the longer your office stands on the sidelines and delays investigating the FBI’s actions, the harder it will be for you to uncover the truth and hold individuals accountable for wrongdoing.' 

Horowitz told Johnson in February 2021 that the OIG would not investigate the FBI's handling of the laptop so as not to interfere with the Department of Justice's investigation into Hunter Biden's tax affairs.  

The new claims come after whistleblower allegations emerged in July that in the lead-up to the 2020 election the FBI labeled the laptop as 'disinformation.'  

In October 2020, one month before the election, 'an avenue of derogatory Hunter Biden reporting was ordered closed' by Timothy Thibault, a senior FBI agent at the bureau's Washington Field office, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who fielded the whistleblower complaints, claimed in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Thibault shut down the investigation despite evidence that some of the details were true, according to that whistleblower.  

 'Allegations provided to my office appear to indicate that there was a scheme in place among certain FBI officials to undermine derogatory information connected to Hunter Biden by falsely suggesting it was disinformation,' Grassley wrote.

Certain Cause Of Trump's Predicament

johganz |  “But, John, are you saying we should use the Justice Department politically? With the express purpose of getting rid of someone you don’t like.” Kind of! As Trump’s intellectual defenders love to remind us, there’s ultimately no neutral administration of justice, everything is political, and when you get the state apparatus in your hands you use it beat up on your enemies and help out your friends. So, in part, these are their rules. (If you start talking about how you are gonna apply the thought of Carl Schmitt when you administer the state, I may start to get the sense you are my enemy.)

Also, let’s not play innocent. Historically speaking, the F.B.I. has always been used “politically:” it was used against Reds, Nazis, Reds again, the KKK, civil rights leaders, black power leaders, Nazis again etc. A lot of this was abusive and terrible and you know where my political sympathies lie, but this was because the political establishment implicitly or explicitly viewed these groups as threats to the United States itself. In many cases, they were not. (Yeah, yeah, I know what you are gonna say, “but J. Edgar Hoover, blah, blah, blah”—The fact is that Hoover lasted so long because powerful people thought he was useful and mostly right.) But here is a case where the real deal has come along: a bonafide domestic threat to the constitution. People these days are willing to call everything from annoying college students to crummy D.E.I. consultants “totalitarian threats to democracy” or whatever, but when a big, fat threat to democracy is standing right there, suddenly everyone is like, “Well…it’s a little complicated, isn’t it?” No, it really isn’t. And, in this case, we don’t have to break the law or do anything underhanded: just actually try to uphold the law for a change and stop playing little political games around it.

A political class that can’t defend the constitutional order and the rule of law is worse than useless: it’s actually conspiring with its enemies. Trump attacked the very heart of our system of government. If the system can’t respond to that forcefully it doesn’t deserve to exist anymore. Let’s stop pretending Trump is anything but a mobster and a would-be tyrant. In this case, prudence demands action.

Mar-A-Lago Raid Was An "Insurance Policy" Taken Out By High-Ranking Democrat Officials

jonathanturley |  In the cult classic, “The Incredible Shrinking Man,” the character Scott Stuart is caught in a thick fog that causes him to gradually shrink to the point that he lives in a doll house and fights off the house cat. At one point, Stuart delivers a strikingly profound line: “The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet — like the closing of a gigantic circle.”

If one image sums up the incredibly shrinking stature of Attorney General Merrick Garland, it is that line in the aftermath of the Mar-a-Lago search.

Two years ago, I was one of many who supported Garland when he was nominated for attorney general. While his personality seemed a better fit for the courts than the Cabinet, he is a person with unimpeachable integrity and ethics.

If there are now doubts, it is not about his character but his personality in dealing with political controversies. Those concerns have grown in the past week.

In the aftermath of the FBI’s search of former President Donald Trump’s home in Florida, much remains unclear. The inventory list confirms that there were documents marked TS (Top Secret) and SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information) —two of the highest classification levels for materials. The former president’s retention of such documents would appear to be a very serious violation.

However, the status of the documents is uncertain after Trump insisted that he declassified the material and was handling the records in accordance with prior discussions with the FBI. While the declassified status of these documents would not bar charges under the cited criminal provisions, it could have a significant impact on the viability of any prosecution.

I have not assumed that the search of Mar-a-Lago was unwarranted given that we have not seen the underlying affidavit. Yet in another controversy, Garland seemed largely reactive and rote in dealing with questions over bias or abuse in his department.

In his confirmation hearing, Garland repeatedly pledged that political considerations would hold no sway with him as attorney general. Yet, in just two years, the Justice Department has careened from one political controversy to another without any sign that Garland is firmly in control of the department. Last year, for example, Garland was heavily criticized for his rapid deployment of a task force to investigate parents and others challenging school boards.

When Garland has faced clear demands for independent action, he has folded. For example, Garland has refused to appoint a special counsel in the investigation of Hunter Biden. But there is no way to investigate Hunter Biden without running over continual references to President Biden.

By refusing a special counsel, Garland has removed the president’s greatest threat. Unlike the U.S. Attorney investigating Hunter Biden, a special counsel would be expected to publish a report that would detail the scope of the Biden family’s alleged influence peddling and foreign contacts.

Likewise, the Justice Department is conducting a grand jury investigation that is aggressively pursuing Trump associates and Republican figures, including seizing the telephones of members of Congress. That investigation has bearing on the integrity and the status of Biden’s potential opponent in 2024.

The investigation also has triggered concerns over the party in power investigating the opposing political party. It is breathtaking that Garland would see no need for an independent or special counsel given this country’s continued deep divisions and mistrust.

Democrats often compare the January 6 investigation to Watergate but fail to note that the Watergate investigation was led by an independent counsel precisely because of these inherent political conflicts.

Then came the raid. While Garland said he personally approved the operation, he did little to help mitigate the inevitable political explosion. This country is a powder keg and the FBI has a documented history of false statements to courts and falsified evidence in support of a previous Trump investigation.