Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[SeattleLionsFan]

The Gestapo thing is among the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. The Geatapo didn’t oppress the rulers. They were tools of the ruler to oppress enemies of the ruler.

You know...like ICE is doing.

[Dr. Strangelove]

To interject some facts, what happened in court today:

A) Cohen's lawyers tried to have a restraining order put on the government's 'taint team' and prevent them from beginning a mechanical review of the seized evidence. This 'taint team' is separate from the Prosecution and will review everything to see if it's protected by privilege. This request was DENIED. Review will begin immediately.

B) The Judge allowed that she's still willing to consider the use of a 'special master', probably outside of the DOJ, who'd have ultimate say over this rather than the taint team. A final decision wasn't made today.

C) Trump's lawyer has been arguing that not a taint team, not a special master, but ONLY Trump himself can fairly judge what is privileged and what is not. That seems to have a fat chance of happening.

D) Trump's team got a small victory in that they will be shown/told everything the taint team is looking at and has. But the taint team, or maybe the special master, is probably who will have ultimate say. It seems highly unlikely that the defense team will be given the sole authority to pick and choose what's allowable.

E) The defense team has argued that the Feds illegally seized thousands upon thousands of privileged documents but on Friday struggled to name a single client other than Trump and even today, couldn't present more than three clients. The Judge was clearly skeptical that they could claim with confidence that there's a mountain of inadmissible evidence while at the same time acknowledging that Cohen has virtually no clients and never communicated with Trump via email.

[froot loops]

I must say Michael Avenatti is my favorite American TV lawyer since Jackie Chiles. He is quickly gaining on my favorite TV lawyer of all time Cleaver Greene.
.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Alan Dershowitz, who's become a darling of Trumpworld for his vigorous criticism of Mueller and the FBI, was just on CNN and said Hannity should have alerted viewers that he was a client/associate/friend/whatever.

Oh, Dersh. Don't you want to keep your airtime?

[CGVT]

Where have you been, Loops?

[Kapture1]

Kapture- Cohen's attorney argued in court today that they could not reveal the name of the 3rd client because it was protected by attorney-client privilege. Hannity now says he's no client; he just asked Mike a couple real estate questions, that's all.

So which one is lying?

Hannity clearly.

Dont you believe Hannity over Cohen? Honestly

[Dr. Strangelove]

I think it's quite possible that Cohen & his lawyer are exaggerating the number of clients he has in order to claim more privileged info than really exists. Sure. Anything to slow things down.

And btw, criminal charges could ultimately be brought against Cohen that have nothing to do with Trump. His own personal business ventures are being looked at, by most accounts.

[Kapture1]

[Kapture1]

[ame]https://twitter.com/TyEducatingLibs/status/986252585026777088[/ame]

[THE_WIZARD_]

heh

[Dr. Strangelove]

Whoa, Gorsuch sides with Supreme Court's Gentry Progs in a decision that strikes down a law that would've made it a requirement to deport immigrants convicted of 'crimes of violence'. The law wasn't about illegals, we're talking legal immigrants not yet naturalized.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/17/politics/supreme-court-federal-law-deportation-immigrants/index.html

[THE_WIZARD_]

shaddup

[CGVT]

Whoa, Gorsuch sides with Supreme Court's Gentry Progs in a decision that strikes down a law that would've made it a requirement to deport immigrants convicted of 'crimes of violence'. The law wasn't about illegals, we're talking legal immigrants not yet naturalized.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/17/polit...nts/index.html

[iam416]

Yeah, it was a question of what constitutes a vague criminal statue. Criminal statutes need specificity so as to avoid arbitrary enforcement. "Crimes of violence" was deemed too vague by Gorsuch (he joined in on that part of Kagan's opinion to give them the majority). The rest of the opinion is sort of muddled. There's a 4-judge plurality for two separate opinions. So, Gorsuch's concurrence is probably the law.

You should read his concurrence, DSL. He hits on some of my high points -- that, e.g., the legislature ought to legislate and not leave vast, general power to unelected judges, especially when it comes to criminal law.

His dispute with Thomas is also really interesting in an esoteric, wonky sort of way.

[AlabamAlum]

So, a GentryProg is a rich (read: white guilt) liberal?

What are the others?

PauperProg? Some poor person who benefits from the free stuff given to them through the sweat of others but doesn't really care about the gays and trannies.

I guess there are people who lean to the left, but are reasonable. We can call them PrudentProgs.

The left-leaning with employees' rights folks who are generally socially conservative are UnionProgs.

Finally, the far left person who wants all 39 genders to have a separate bathroom and wants to have dissenting opinions squashed because all conservatives are nazis can be the SJWProg.

Next, we need to do the conservatives. You have the GentryCons. This is the rich person in wire-rimmed glasses who flies a MAGA flag on his yacht.

Then the BourgeoisCons. These guys want a yacht but are driving a Hyundai (for now, anyway).

Then there are the PauperCons. These folks benefit from food stamps and all the social programs but inexplicably support people who would like to end or limit them.