Patterico's Pontifications

12/15/2017

Painful: Unqualified Trump Judicial Nominee Founders Under Questioning (VIDEO)

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 12:23 pm



Oh, man. This is just brutal. Under gentle questioning from Senator John Kennedy (R-LA), Matthew Spencer Petersen, a Trump nominee to the U.S. District Court, reveals that he is patently unqualified for the job:

He has never tried a case. He’s assisted with fewer than five depositions and never taken one himself. He’s never argued a motion in court. He starts stumbling and bumbling when asked when he last read the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. He last read the Federal Rules of Evidence in law school. He doesn’t know what the Daubert standard is. He initially says he knows what a motion in limine is, but ends up conceding that he could not give a definition of it. He doesn’t know what the Younger or Pullman abstention doctrines are.

And throughout, he stutters and filibusters.

Those of you who aren’t lawyers are probably wondering: to what extent these are trick questions? Can every lawyer articulate the Daubert standard? Not necessarily, if they don’t practice in federal court, but it’s pretty basic stuff for federal court practitioners. Most lawyers at least know that it addresses the admissibility of expert testimony. This guy doesn’t. Can most lawyers distinguish between Younger and Pullman abstention and tell you which is which? Again, you’re more likely to be able to do this if you’re a federal court practitioner; they have to know the ins and outs of federal vs. state jurisdiction and abstention doctrines. I learned about abstention doctrines in my Federal Courts class in law school, and applied them as a federal judicial clerk for a United States District Judge, but in 20 years as a state prosecutor I don’t deal with those doctrines any more.

But if I were a nominee to the federal bench, I would bone up on this stuff. Especially if I had never tried a case or argued a motion or taken a deposition. I would read the FRCP and FRE. I’d look at the basic jurisdictional rules, which federal judges have to know and apply whether the parties raise them or not.

In other words, I would try to show that I am worthy of the nomination.

Nominees to the federal bench aren’t supposed to be just any random lawyer. It’s a lifetime appointment. You’re expected to have at least some idea what you’re doing.

This guy is not only unworthy, he’s not even trying. It’s shameful and embarrassing.

Lefties will use this video to suggest that all Trump’s nominees are unqualified. WRONG!

By most accounts, Donald J. Trump has done a good job manning the federal judiciary. The New York Times is upset at the way he is reshaping the federal courts — in particular the appellate courts, whose rulings are final in all but the .1% of cases that go to the Supreme Court. Trump doesn’t care about judges, so he largely outsources the job to the Federalist Society — and as far as I can tell, they’re doing an excellent job by and large.

But the fella in the video above shows a hole in the process. Whether through cronyism or donations or some other kind of connection, he received a nomination for a position for which he is totally unqualified. Nobody should be on the federal bench who is this lacking in experience and basic knowledge.

Find the hole and fix it.

[Cross-posted at RedState and The Jury Talks Back.]

394 Responses to “Painful: Unqualified Trump Judicial Nominee Founders Under Questioning (VIDEO)”

  1. Meant to schedule this for 9 am but apparently neglected to.

    Patterico (4c6cec)

  2. President Trump’s very keen on appointing judges what are likely to sympathize with his deregulatory zeal.

    He’s doing a great job.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  3. President Trump fulfilled a major campaign promise with the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch on Friday, and here’s a bonus: The White House has also booted the American Bar Association from its privileged status as the semiofficial vetter of judicial nominees.

    This is the forest.

    Mr. Petersen is a tree.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  4. “But if I were a nominee to the federal bench, I would bone up on this stuff. Especially if I had never tried a case or argued a motion or taken a deposition. I would read the FRCP and FRE. I’d look at the basic jurisdictional rules, which federal judges have to know and apply whether the parties raise them or not.

    In other words, I would try to show that I am worthy of the nomination.”

    Disagree – a nominee to the federal bench should not have to ‘bone up’ like a college student to get over. He should know the relevant points upside down and sideways.

    There are plenty of good conservatives out there to replace this guy.

    The “hole” that needs to be fixed is whichever hole told the admin this guy was worth nominating. Instead he/she provided video for DNC ads for the next few years.

    harkin (d82f96)

  5. That’s why we hold hearings. To chop down the bad trees. One down, who’s next? Perhaps better selections are in order. It’s not a problem unless you make it one. He’s been weeded out. Everybody does not graduate summa cum laude now do they?

    Rev.Hoagie (6bbda7)

  6. Trump has made our government more moral by making less of it: fewer regulations, fewer judges who will write law instead of obeying the law, fewer bureaucrats seeking to expand the power of their agencies, less money for the government to spend on itself. He has made government treat us more fairly and equally by ceasing to use the IRS and Justice Department for political ends like silencing enemies and skewing elections.

    This is what moral government looks like.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  7. As harkin pointed out, we shouldn’t be giving the leftists commercials for free. I would think a lot more vetting should go into this.

    Rev.Hoagie (6bbda7)

  8. “The media could not be played”

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  9. For want of a nail, the shoe was lost.
    For want of a shoe, the horse was lost.
    For want of a horse, the knight was lost.
    For want of a knight, the battle was lost.
    For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost.
    For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost.

    nk (dbc370)

  10. There was another one, slated for Alabama, named in the same article. That guy was definitely a Shelby or Strange blue slip special.

    nk (dbc370)

  11. Bob Corker flips, will vote ‘yes’ on tax bill

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  12. nk (dbc370) — 12/15/2017 @ 7:47 am

    if you’re a Democrat, this is the kind of judge you want if you’re looking to admit a high school yearbook as evidence.

    Wouldn’t it bo evidence if introduced by testimony – corroborating evidence to testimony.

    She’d be subject to across examination though about it.

    Even if true, and if she wasn’t lying about the circusmstances under which it was signed, it would only establish that he knew her then and possibly reinforce her claim that she had the right man.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  13. “That’s why we hold hearings. To chop down the bad trees.

    You really don’t want to rely on a hearing with cameras to show you didn’t do your homework on a nominee.

    “Everybody does not graduate summa cum laude now do they?

    According to a link above he graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Philosophy degree from Brigham Young and UVA for his JD where he served on the Law Review.

    Certainly sounds qualified for the Election Commision post he chaired…..just probably not for the federal bench.

    harkin (d82f96)

  14. He was not a prisecutor, who else has been asked about dauber or younger at a confirmation hearing, why did they single him out. As a uva alumni he isn’t particular impressive I’ll admit.

    narciso (d1f714)

  15. Is GrASSley reaching peakidiocy before our very eyes?

    Nunes?

    Bueller?

    Rohrabacher?

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  16. He is from Nevada so was he healers blue slip?

    narciso (d1f714)

  17. I love watching y’all justifying whatever scraps of support you can muster for the Horde.

    Juggling with napalm should be an Olympic entry.

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  18. here’s an extremely long list of statements and opinions Mr. Petersen rendered while at the FEC (including quite a bit on the Citizens United case)

    looks like the petty butthurt little senator from louisiana may have robbed the judiciary of a stellar candidate

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  19. so what’s the argument for saying there should be a bias in the federal judiciary towards the nomination of those with a strong backgrounds in litigation?

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  20. oops with a strong backgrounds in litigation i mean

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  21. rubio and his obscene lust for wealth redistribution is obviously a play for the hearts of his new costplusorican constituents

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  22. Our host has been too generous: My very strong and confident impression is that almost every state has adopted something like Daubert for its own judicial systems. If you regularly try cases in either state or federal courts, you regularly either present or cross-examine expert witnesses, and if you don’t know how and when to make or defeat a Daubert challenge, you are incompetent — period, end of paragraph.

    I’ve seen other defenders of Mr. Peterson argue that the questions about Younger and Pullman abstention were “obscure.” Yet at least three sessions of my federal courts class in law school was devoted to those doctrines (plus Burford), and I was arguing them before a federal district judge two years out of law school on Christmas Eve 1982, so they’re not that obscure. More to the point, they’re federal jurisprudential doctrines that involve potential overlap with state-court proceedings; the Federal Election Commission, where Peterson has made his career and whose litigation lawyers he’s supervised, would encounter those doctrines (or variants on them) quite frequently, because even federal elections often depend on state election commissions and state court orders and state election laws (Bush v. Gore, for example). So by mentioning these doctrines, Sen. Kennedy wasn’t trying to trick or trap Peterson; to the contrary, he was trying to throw Peterson a lifeline, looking for something that Peterson might reasonably be expected to have bumped into as an FEC commissioner.

    Chief Justice John Roberts testified during his confirmation hearings that he had never tried a jury case, and had never tried any sort of case — civil or criminal, state or federal — to a verdict. He likewise had only very limited experience taking depositions. I’m pretty sure I recall him remarking upon that gap in his professional experience and conceding that it would be a disqualifying gap if he’d been nominated to a trial bench.

    But the job for which he was nominated didn’t require him to conduct trials — just to review them. In doing that, he’d have the benefit of additional resources, in the form of comprehensive briefing from the litigants, a wall (or an internet portal) full of prior appellate court precedents, and a staff of bright, eager young law graduates. Most of all, he’d have time to figure out, on the job, what he didn’t come to the job already knowing.

    Roberts almost assuredly had never argued a pretrial motion in limine, or a hearsay objection to a witness’ testimony. But he almost certainly knew what those things were, and the relevant law — indeed, he probably knew that law better than most trial lawyers and many trial judges — because for decades, going back to his own time as a circuit and SCOTUS law clerk, he’d been working on appeals in which the trial judge’s on-the-job performance was being heavily critiqued by the losing side: Those rulings on the hearsay objection or the Daubert challenge end up winning and losing appellate cases.

    But sometimes presidents will appoint lawyers to the appellate bench who don’t even have appellate litigation experience. The judge for whom I clerked, Carolyn Dineen King — now the longest-serving judge in the history of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit — was a business & securities lawyer who’d never tried a case, handled an appeal, taken a deposition, etc., when she was appointed. Within a couple of years on the Fifth Circuit, she’d begun to get a pretty good handle on trial court procedure and evidence rules, in the same way that John Roberts learned about those things by handling appeals as an advocate; and she had the staff, resources, and time to acquire that on-the-job training. In my opinion, however — and, I’m quite confident, the opinion of her fellow judges on the Fifth Circuit — what she lacked in litigation experience was more than made up for on the Fifth Circuit by her deep and extensive experience in securities law and in business & corporate law generally: She became the Fifth Circuit’s go-to resource on “deal lawyer” questions almost instantly, and the trial-lawyers-turned-circuit-judges with her on that bench were appreciative. She was a superb but unconventional appointment who’d been recommended to the then-POTUS by Bill Harvin, the then-managing partner at Houston’s Baker Botts, who was himself a trial lawyer and who well knew she wasn’t one. She would have been a lousy federal district judge, but for an appellate job, she was nevertheless well qualified overall and in some respects, uniquely qualified.

    It’s possible, then, that Peterson might be qualified to sit on a federal appellate court bench, or even on the SCOTUS. I’d need to be convinced that he brought something else to the appellate bench, something sufficient to make up for the disability of having never actually done what he was about to be entrusted with grading. But I’d be open to the argument if we were talking about an appellate nomination.

    A trial judge, by sharp contrast, has few of the luxuries that appellate judges enjoy every day. When a lawyer asks a question during trial, and the opposing lawyer stands up and says “Objection! Hearsay!,” the entire courtroom holds its breath while the trial judge makes an instant, on-the-spot ruling — one that smart lawyers like John Roberts may someday be critiquing on appeal.

    If Mr. Peterson volunteered to take a group of third-graders to watch a day in federal district court, he wouldn’t be remotely capable of explaining to those third-graders what they were watching — much less why things were happening in the way they did. It would be like me trying to explain brain surgery to those third-graders: “Well, I think that’s to put the patient to sleep. Or maybe to regulate his breathing. I don’t know. You’d need to ask a surgeon.”

    Yet we’re supposed to put him in charge of running the entire show? For at least a year, he’d be effectively guaranteed to be a walking, talking, and order-signing reversible error machine.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  23. yawn

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  24. bosh and pickles

    in texas people wholly without legal backgrounds are elected to Justice of the Peace positions all the time, and they’re given training and they make a go of it

    there’s no reason someone with Mr. Petersen’s solid legal background can’t learn the ins and outs of litigation prior to and during the assumption of his new job

    seems like the worst what can happen is he gets reversed on some technicalities, but what will determine his ultimate success will be his sagacity, temperament, and respect for the rule of law

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  25. hrm this are suggest that a federal district judge may not suffer from an extreme paucity of resources or assistance

    District judges usually concentrate on managing their court’s overall caseload, supervising trials, and writing opinions in response to important motions like the motion for summary judgment. Since the 1960s, routine tasks like resolving discovery disputes can, in the district judge’s discretion, be referred to magistrate judges. Magistrate judges can also be requested to prepare reports and recommendations on contested matters for the district judge’s consideration or, with the consent of all parties, to assume complete jurisdiction over a case including conducting the trial.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  26. A man’s got to know his limitations.

    crazy (d99a88)

  27. where is the Mr. shipwreck?

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  28. that Corker come to Jesus thing makes you wonder but that maybe Mr. Moore’s defeat has turned out to be the guarantor of the tax bill’s passage

    life comes at you fast

    like a gazelle

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  29. Sessions probably suggested this hack

    mg (60b0f7)

  30. the more i read the more it sounds like sleazy-assed grandstanding senator kennedy enjoys making an ass out of himself cause he’s a very very butthurt little man

    But Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican who sits on the Judiciary Committee, told reporters on Tuesday evening Trump is receiving “very, very bad advice.” Kennedy has made it a point at nomination hearings to ask potential judges about their blogging and social media habits, as well as if they have ever defended the KKK or called transgender children part of “Satan’s plan,” clear references to the Mateer and Talley nominations.

    President Trump brings out the petty and the picayune in people what fancy themselves his betters

    i think he might be a wizard

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  31. Now it would be interesting to see whAT part he played in the campaign Against the tea party, those are questions that suggest tie me.

    narciso (d1f714)

  32. One needs to vet trial bench nominees and appellate bench nominees differently. Trial experience is vastly more relevant for appointees to trial benches. Whoever recommended to Trump that he nominate this guy is obviously clueless about that essential distinction.

    The biggest single red flag, in fact, that makes me doubt Peterson’s overall competence is that he didn’t refuse this nomination when it was offered. If he thinks he’s qualified to be a trial judge, that alone suggests abysmally poor judgment.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  33. I wish our politicians were as reliable and flexible as the B-52 bomber. iIt just unloaded the largest amount of bombs dropped. On the dune dwelling goat fu##ers.

    mg (60b0f7)

  34. Seriously – how bad can this dope be- could never be as disastrous as the 9th circus minions.

    mg (60b0f7)

  35. at the end of the day Mr. Petersen’s most woeful shortcoming was not having the sense to tell the butthurt little man from Louisiana that he didn’t want to play his little pop quiz game

    he’d already been quite forthcoming about his lack of litigation experience so he should have turned that around and said while I’m not a litigator I have a solid grounding in this this and this which makes me well-suited to hear the kinds of cases the DC court presides over

    and then he should have said hey i brought cookies who wants a cookie

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  36. mg,

    If a civil case actually goes to trial, which is rare, then it matters a great deal if the judge is capable. It may take a year or more to get to trial, and it could easily cost tens of thousands of dollars in off-road expenses, not to mention the litigants having their lives dramatically affected by the cost and time needed to get a case to trial.

    It would be a tragedy to have that case end up with a judge who guesses at every ruling, and there might be dozens of rulings in every trial — any one of which could impact the result. Appealing and re-trying the case is not a viable option for most litigants, and would add years (if not decades) to the process. It might even bankrupt individual and business litigants.

    It’s hard enough to resolve disputes without adding the equivalent of a coin flip to the legal process.

    DRJ (15874d)

  37. Santa shaped sugar cookies would be seasonal

    mg (60b0f7)

  38. Heh. “Off-road expenses” should be pretrial expenses. Good grief, but it is funny.

    DRJ (15874d)

  39. Understood, DRJ.
    Always frustrating when one of Trump’s mistakes is going to cause the world to end in 15 minutes.
    He may be obnoxious, but no doubt about his attempt to have conservative appointments.

    mg (60b0f7)

  40. Is category error this obvious:

    http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=372971

    narciso (d1f714)

  41. The Trump administration has announced plans to withdraw a regulation that would have required organic egg producers to give their hens room to graze outdoors.

    pls to join me in bowing before this MAJESTIC ROCK GOD

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  42. @38 happyfeet

    Really he just needs to brush up on his job interview skills.

    Pinandpuller (eb80b2)

  43. John Robert’s illustrious schools and career never aquatinted him with the difference between a tax and a fine.

    Pinandpuller (eb80b2)

  44. bingo

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  45. Well he had Lawrence tribe as professor, he also taught Obama,,should be a flag.

    narciso (d1f714)

  46. Quite the dump of news this Friday afternoon. It’s truly amazing that Trump was elected, given the array of Deep State, media, #NeverTrump and Republican establishment types that have been engaged to do him!

    May they rot in a special place for all time and eternity…

    Colonel Haiku (ac2387)

  47. But if I were a nominee to the federal bench

    We should be so lucky. But we won’t be.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  48. Histhere been any other nominee that has given the kingsfield treatment, tanya chutkin was going to get away with presiding over two fusion gps connected cases. Ultimately she didn’t.

    narciso (d1f714)

  49. foremeat..obama style

    Republicans are advancing the measure through a process called reconciliation that prevents a filibuster from Democrats in the Senate. Under reconciliation, bills can’t add to the deficit after 10 years, so the bill’s tax cuts for individuals expire after eight years. The corporate tax changes and individual mandate repeal are permanent.

    The House and the Senate are expected to approve the bill next week and send it to Trump, delivering him his first major legislative victory.

    http://thehill.com/policy/finance/365177-republicans-release-final-version-of-tax-bill

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  50. First time this group of chumps were not out classed by the nominee.

    mg (60b0f7)

  51. We all make mistakes, mg. To me, the goal is transparency so we can find out what’s going on early instead of having Americans suffer because of certain choices. KEnnedy brought us that transparency, so I see this as the system working.

    Further, Peterson has been nominated to be a federal judge in DC. The DC courts hear more important cases than other federal courts because it is the venue for government cases, so this would be a bigger problem than usual. We especially need good judges in DC because appellate courts have to defer to the trial courts on fact issues.

    DRJ (15874d)

  52. @ DRJ (#39): “Off-road expenses”! Yes, exactly! When a mistrial has to be declared because the trial judge has screwed something up, the case has gone off the road and into the ditch!

    If your judge doesn’t know and hasn’t ever applied the rules of evidence and the rules of civil or criminal procedure (as the case may be), you’re going to have a lot of trials go into the ditch.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  53. There are no blue slips for DC judges. As for who prompted the committee to put the knife in instead of just sliding him through is hard to say with a milquetoast GOP Senate. It could have been a Republican Senator who wants his own pet for the job and that’s fair enough; or it could have been the Democrats who didn’t like his views on Citizens United and the Republicans were more than glad to wave the white flag lest they be accused of hyper-partisanship, tribalism, racism, sexism, homophobia, acrophobia, arachnophobia, and not observing the Sabbath.

    nk (dbc370)

  54. 35 The biggest single red flag, in fact, that makes me doubt Peterson’s overall competence is that he didn’t refuse this nomination when it was offered. If he thinks he’s qualified to be a trial judge, that alone suggests abysmally poor judgment.

    Well the ABA also thought he was qualified.

    James B. Shearer (951d11)

  55. And I thought Harriet Miers was a poor choice!

    ropelight (3b3fc1)

  56. Some Republican Senators are reportedly irritated that Kennedy thinks judicial nominees should be qualified. If so, shame on them.

    DRJ (15874d)

  57. even the sleazy conservative-hating communist ABA said he’s qualified and he IS qualified i promise

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  58. a lot of y’all just don’t understand law and stuff

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  59. Seriously?

    You savor a Law that encourages oligarchy? A person can go to jail but a corporation gets a free pass. And you call yourselves conservatives..

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  60. Apparently Kennedy and the ABA disagree. Or perhaps they have different definitions of “qualified”.

    Rev.Hoagie (6bbda7)

  61. you savor your butt

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  62. You have no status for criticising Trump for failing to drain the Swamp. You’re a Croc farm.

    The sheer torrent of dollars shouldn’t be overlooked, however. Outside spending of the sort facilitated by Citizens United — money spent not by the candidates themselves, but formally unaffiliated groups — has “exploded” during the three federal election cycles since the ruling, according to an analysis by the Brennan Center at New York University.

    On Senate elections alone, outside spending more than doubled from 2010 through 2014, to $486 million. In some competitive races, outside expenditures accounted for as much as two-thirds of the total. Small donors don’t play a role: In most cases, fewer than 1% of all contributions are $200 or less. The average contributions are in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

    The most shocking finding is that spending by so-called Super PACs — organizations whose contribution limits have been eviscerated by Supreme Court rulings — has reached $1 billion since Citizens United. Worse, more than $600 million of that total has come from just 195 donors and their spouses. That’s why Georgetown University law professor David Cole recently labeled Citizens United the Supreme Court’s “billion-dollar mistake.”

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  63. So which one of Clinton’s or Obamas nominees did the GOP reproach in the last ten years, in a Similar
    Ar manner,

    narciso (d1f714)

  64. Hilzik, that was amusing Ben of claremont emeritus

    narciso (d1f714)

  65. Now, what Beldar said about the demands placed on trial judges is absolutely correct as a general principle, but I don’t see what it has to do with federal district court judges. We saw, glaringly, in the “Muslim ban” cases, that federal district court judges are nothing more than the alter egos of their respective states’ Senators, with knowledge of, and adherence to, the law and trial procedure irrelevant details.

    Still, I would not want to have this gentleman try one of my cases.

    nk (dbc370)

  66. Can you identify the source of this quote..? ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  67. Marlowe stern quoting the yeargh of ptovidence, that ourobouros of category error.

    narciso (d1f714)

  68. @68

    Which of Clinton’s or Obama’s nominees were similarly unqualified.

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  69. About the time I got out of law school, Cook County established “judicial sub-circuits” in place of countywide races for judges, so that any three Democrat committeemen could elect their daughters, wives and mistresses to the bench as soon as they passed the bar exam. Still, these new so-called judges do not get assigned to any serious division. They go to traffic court mostly, or to pro se small claims and similar. For the chief judge to assign you to a criminal (at any level), law or chancery calendar, you need a minimum of seven years as a trial attorney. (A side effect is that the felony court judges are overwhelmingly former assistant public defenders or former assistant state’s attorneys, but what can you do?)

    nk (dbc370)

  70. @71
    It’s the sign on the LGBTWTF rest room wall at the Congressional Black Caucus. Directly below it is written with chalk is “It’s NOT okay to be white” in John Conyers handwriting.

    Rev.Hoagie (6bbda7)

  71. When a mistrial has to be declared because the trial judge has screwed something up, the case has gone off the road and into the ditch!

    You mean like Kozinski in the obscenity case?

    nk (dbc370)

  72. No, that’s incorrect, hoagie.

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  73. You made me look, Hoagie. It was one of Trump’s accusers picking her “co-stars” for a “Danish movie” she was starring in.

    nk (dbc370)

  74. Yellowcakers still can’t connect dots.

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  75. How you make the Federalist Society list:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SixGV_Gk9o

    [Warning, it’s flaps-down-harry and dirty.]

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  76. 77.No, that’s incorrect, hoagie.


    It could be incorrect, comrade Ben!. I read it on the internet from a 17 year old AA page of John Lewis with a sore butt and a scholarship to Howard University. Kid says he’s gonna be the first authentic African-American president actually from da hood. He’s studying hard to be a true blue leftist. He’s already read Das Capital, Mein Kampf and Catcher in the Rye. According to Lewis the kid has a future.

    Rev.Hoagie (6bbda7)

  77. This must be what Conan intended:

    http://freebeacon.com/issues/hundreds-epa-employees-quit-trump

    narciso (d1f714)

  78. Meanwhile……

    “McDowell tried to repeat Velshi’s argument back to him, stating, “okay so you’re talking about consumers and entrepreneurs and discrimination of your own products, like a Comcast provider?”

    “That’s NOT what I’m telling you!” Velshi claimed, even though earlier in the interview he was talking about companies giving preferential treatment to their own products.

    McDowell shook his head incredulously, as Velshi exclaimed that they would need to revisit their conversation at another time.

    “I’m saying that if someone has an advantage in streaming their content over the internet…because they got the money to buy better…access,” Velshi said, “then the incumbent is favored over the startup, that’s the only point I wanted to make!”

    “And that would be illegal, that’s the point I’m making,” McDowell responded. “It has been a for a long time and will be going forward, so it’s good news.”

    “Sorry it’s good news,” he finished. “I know it’s good clickbait to say the internet is being destroyed and it’s not.”

    http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/14/msnbc-anchor-loses-net-neutrality-debate-with-former-fcc-chairman-video/?utm_campaign=atdailycaller&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social

    harkin (c60926)

  79. Wow. Just wow. That performance is *terrible*.

    In a world where the Senate cared about the competence of nominees to judicial positions, he would be rejected 100-0.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  80. in a world where the Senate was compassionate and gracious this young man would be supported and welcomed into the halls of judicial justice with the politest of receptions, and there would be shrimp and there would be empanadas and the fernet would pour freely

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  81. Hiring Peterson to be a judge is like hiring a ‘programmer’ who doesn’t know what a pointer is.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  82. How long until Bill Priestap jumps?

    mg (60b0f7)

  83. I know our ‘esteemed’ state supreme court, has basically discarded the dauber standard.

    narciso (d1f714)

  84. 83.What Would Rev. Hoagie Do?


    First of all Rev.Hoagie would never be caught dead in a Starbucks. That said, if it happened in a WaWa I’d let the store employees handle it. I don’t need my family to see me on an episode of COPS.

    Rev.Hoagie (6bbda7)

  85. “REMEMBER THIS NAME AND REMEMBER THIS DATE: The name is Michael Horowitz. The date is Jan. 12, 2017. Horowitz is the Inspector-General of the Department of Justice. January 12, 2017, is the date Horowitz announced an investigation of these factors:

    • Allegations that Department or FBI policies or procedures were not followed in connection with, or in actions leading up to or related to, the FBI Director’s public announcement on July 5, 2016, and the Director’s letters to Congress on October 28 and November 6, 2016, and that certain underlying investigative decisions were based on improper considerations;

    • Allegations that the FBI Deputy Director should have been recused from participating in certain investigative matters;

    • Allegations that the Department’s Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs improperly disclosed non-public information to the Clinton campaign and/or should have been recused from participating in certain matters;

    • Allegations that Department and FBI employees improperly disclosed non-public information;

    • Allegations that decisions regarding the timing of the FBI’s release of certain Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents on October 30 and November 1, 2016, and the use of a Twitter account to publicize same, were influenced by improper considerations.

    The Horowitz probe is why Peter Strzok’s amazing emails were discovered. As sensational as those emails are, the more important question is what occasioned their becoming available to the Horowitz investigators. The DOJ IG is nobody’s fool and his report is just over the horizon. Just ask American Thinker’s Thomas Lifson.

    There are more than 70 IGs in the federal government in positions created in 1978 during the Carter administration. There have been some bad eggs among the IGs over the years but collectively, the IG community has been the unsung hero in efforts to expose and prosecute waste, fraud and abuse in government. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has been the IGs’ strongest advocate in Congress.

    And there’s this: The journo community in the nation’s capital has been rumbling in recent days about a bombshell report supposedly being prepared for publication by the Washington Post that will ruin the careers of dozens of Members of Congress, from both parties.

    Fasten your seatbelts, folks.“

    https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/remember-this-name-and-remember-this-date-the-name-is-michael-horowitz-the-date-is-jan-12-2017/

    Colonel Haiku (721af6)

  86. I know our ‘esteemed’ state supreme court, has basically discarded the dauber standard.

    Actually, nobody knows what the Daubert standard is-is. Theoretically, the judge is a gatekeeper but it’s a very flexible gate. That does not help Mr. Petersen in this particular instance because those are the kind of rules that require a judge with a lot of trial experience to know when to open the gate and when to keep it closed. Cf. the lady mechanic in My Cousin Vinnie.

    nk (dbc370)

  87. Good stuff, Col.
    I should have grown another row of popcorn!

    mg (60b0f7)

  88. Ditto, the dems tried to get rid of republican igs by association (Schmitz) and innuendo (krongard) the end result is there was no ig during red queens term, obama called walpin who was investigating his pal, the mayor of San Jose, a senile old man, we know what they dud with mcculough,a career FBI operative, and how lerner prespun Robert George, they didn’t bother with one in fast and furious.

    narciso (d1f714)

  89. Col.- I hope racist Louis Guitierez is one of the perverts.

    mg (60b0f7)

  90. Take the Kerry committee, one of these bipartisan affaors, that earned lurch the presidential nomination as well as secretary of state, his chief counsel jack Blum gave immunity to the worst of the worst cartel accountants drug smugglers to use against American officials and do the sandunistas work for them, it was an update of his winter soldier slander.

    narciso (d1f714)

  91. Has to be a reason behind that grifter Gutierrez resigning.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  92. I has to hold gibraltar of da meaning.

    Of the meaning like we made up. Ferr the funnin’ of it.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  93. How’s the Fiat.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  94. Nobody should be on the federal bench in the White House who is this lacking in experience and basic knowledge.

    Fixed!

    Dave (a5c373)

  95. The FBI, Clinton campaign and hack republicans have been trying to frame President Trump since the election. This type of behavior used to be a crime. It is time for these ingrates to be jailed.

    mg (60b0f7)

  96. And the injustice system needs to be bulldozed.

    mg (60b0f7)

  97. Mr. Sessions – get up and do your job…

    mg (60b0f7) — 12/16/2017 @ 3:34 am

    Maybe he is doing his job.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  98. 100.Nobody should be on the federal bench in the White House who is this lacking in experience and basic knowledge.

    Fixed!
    Dave (a5c373) — 12/15/2017 @ 11:29 pm

    You’re a tad late, Dave. The inexperienced empty suit left office last January. But Trump is setting the economy on fire (in case you don’t know since the MSM seems determined not to mention it) by reversing all that idiots stupid regulations. Thank you President Trump for showing what business experience and basic knowledge of economics can do to MAGA.

    Rev.Hoagie (6bbda7)

  99. Also notice that there’s not much mention of ISIS getting their asses kicked into oblivion.

    Democrat Operatives With Bylines Swine.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  100. “Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team is emphasizing its ejection of FBI agent Peter Strzok immediately upon learning about anti-Trump texts he exchanged with another FBI employee, Lisa Page, before the 2016 election. But when did the FBI learn of the messages? The inspector general’s investigation began in mid-January. The letter explains that the FBI was asked for text messages of certain key employees based on search terms, which turned up “a number of politically-oriented” Strzok-Page texts. The inspector general then demanded all of the duo’s text messages, which the FBI began producing on July 20.

    But when did the FBI dig up and turn over that very first tranche? How long has the bureau known one of its lead investigators was exhibiting such bias? Was it before Mr. Mueller was even appointed? Did FBI leaders sit by as the special counsel tapped Mr. Strzok? In any case, we know from the letter that the inspector general informed both Messrs. Rosenstein and Mueller of the texts on July 27, and that both men hid that explosive information from Congress for four months. The Justice Department, pleading secrecy, defied subpoenas that would have produced the texts. It refused to make Mr. Strzok available for an interview. It didn’t do all this out of fear of hurting national security, obviously. It did it to save itself and the FBI from embarrassment.

    This week’s other revelation of jaw-dropping FBI tactics came from a separate letter from Mr. Johnson. In November 2016, the Office of Special Counsel—a federal agency that polices personnel practices and is distinct from the Mueller probe—began investigating whether former FBI Director Jim Comey violated the Hatch Act, which restricts political activity by executive-branch officials, while investigating Hillary Clinton’s private server. The office conducted interviews with two of Mr. Comey’s confidantes: FBI chief of staff James Rybicki and FBI attorney Trisha Anderson.

    Sen. Johnson in September demanded the full, unredacted transcripts of the interviews. But it turned out the FBI had refused to let the Office of Special Counsel interview them unless it first signed unprecedented nondisclosure agreements, giving the FBI full authority to withhold the information from Congress. The bureau has continued to insist the office keep huge swaths of the interviews secret from Congress, including the names and actions of key political players. (The Office of Special Counsel closed its investigation in May.)

    In his letter this week, Mr. Johnson demanded that Mr. Wray authorize the release of the full transcripts and other documents. Even the redacted ones have revealed important information, for instance that Mr. Comey was drafting his Hillary Clinton exoneration statement well before she was interviewed. Congressional investigators believe the unredacted versions contain pertinent information about the actions of former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and key investigators such as Mr. Strzok.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/secrets-the-fbi-shouldnt-keep-1513293951?shareToken=st1b44b1e8d8b34f04803fff24b6df42d0&reflink=article_email_share

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  101. Trannies. Having Jews doesn’t cut it anymore. Hasn’t since Kissinger. Not blacks, either. Having Powell did not help 43 much. If Trump wants slack from the MFM, he has to bring some trannies into the White House.

    nk (9651fb)

  102. What would Hoagie do?

    A Hmong, a Filipino and a Puerto Rican walk into Hoagies Bar and Grill..

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  103. GOP is in a “lose-lose situation.” While donors are “not going to answer their calls anymore if they don’t pass the bill,” she told reporters, “they’ll lose in the court of public opinion” if it does pass.

    https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/16/tax-reform-democrats-obamacare-298958

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  104. Remember that elusive 1.5% of white jumpers.

    Hoagie: Are you in cauliflowerornia?

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  105. LOL!

    Melania, Jared and Ivana tried to fill out absentee ballots in order to vote in the NYC mayoral race, but they messed up the forms, so their votes did not count.

    Donald Trump also screwed up. He got his own birth date wrong.

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  106. Paul Cook retired Marine col. With Bronze Star and two purples is gonna be hard to challenge in the 8th Dist. Now that I’ve declared my intent, I can’t explore running without FEC crawling up me bum.

    Gofundme to start?

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  107. What would Hoagie do?

    A Hmong, a Filipino and a Puerto Rican walk into Hoagies Bar and Grill..
    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner

    Being neither a racist nor a communist Hoagie sees customers so he serves them. Comrade Ben! sees four guys walk into his business wearing MAGA hats and “Abortion is Murder” tee shirts. What would comrade Ben! do?

    Rev.Hoagie (6bbda7)

  108. Hoagie: Are you in cauliflowerornia?

    I don’t know what that means it’s not a real word.

    Rev.Hoagie (6bbda7)

  109. Well that’s how Ahnold pronounced it.

    I was gonna buy you a near-beer.

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  110. The Dnc files were full of politoco links, traded Asia they are artifacts of value, its pyrite and cubic zirconia.

    They are only useful in finding repeat offenders, take a certain blonde gopestaffer, who passed a long a certain rumor against the huntress after the election, she ended up random Paul’s chief of staff, and subsequently scalises, in whose capacityshe admitted to an event the congressman actually wasnt a party to.

    narciso (d1f714)

  111. Maggie bray is her name, and it is almost invariably true, that these gals and gents like Scott Newton and ah delgado, the latina coultter wannabe who is being entirely too nsfw in her duatribes

    narciso (d1f714)

  112. “Comrade Ben! sees four guys walk into his business wearing MAGA hats and “Abortion is Murder” tee shirts. What would comrade Ben! do?“

    He’d bendover and turn teh other cheek?

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  113. What do I win?

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  114. famous attorney Mr. John Hinderaker weighs in with his customary civility and wisdom

    The Democrats are trying to embarrass President Trump with a video of one of his nominees answering questions in a confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The video was tweeted by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and has now been viewed millions of times.

    […]

    Most lawyers who are appointed to the bench in both federal and state courts have backgrounds in litigation. No doubt that is appropriate. However, it is by no means rare for non-litigator lawyers to be appointed, or win election, to the bench. In my opinion, that is a good thing. I don’t see why a minority of lawyers–litigators–should have a monopoly on the bench.

    I don’t know whether Matthew Petersen will make a good judge or not. But in my view, he doesn’t deserve to be ridiculed because his highly-successful law career has been conducted outside of the courtroom.

    thank you Mr. Hinderaker for this unfortunately necessary corrective to the revolting displays of incivility and snobbery what have attended this discussion to say nothing of the gross breaches of basic collegiality we’ve been treated to, and also please to have a merry christmas

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  115. Rear Admiral done shuffled off to Buffalo?

    Buffaloed in Buffalo
    An’ he entertained in Houston
    New York Yew Nork
    He gotta choose one
    Cuz he’s a tripeface pooper
    Gonna poopie his life away

    https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/mystery-pooper-running-amok-buffalo-suburb/

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  116. I think kernel is anally fixated

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  117. Question, why do we grant the yeargh of providence, any credibility, yes he wee fatty general, where he squared off against don Raymond’s counse luskin, who subsequently kept rove from a perjury trap, so he can spur these bone mot https://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/12/06/the-warlock-hunt/q

    narciso (d1f714)

  118. This can’t be said enough.

    The coordinated effort by President Trump and his surrogates to discredit the Mueller investigation raises serious alarms. Rather than making themselves complicit in this assault on the rule of law, Members of Congress should send a clear message to the President that firing Mueller is a red line he must not cross.

    https://www.thenation.com/article/if-trump-fires-mueller-we-must-impeach/

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  119. If Rule of Law breached, he must be impeached

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  120. Want there a nation factotum, Hamilton fish 111, who had been publisher of the observer and lately with the new republic who was a designated warlock?

    narciso (d1f714)

  121. So the only host reporting over there , has been Adam carter, who actually examined the code and found discrepancies in the narrative

    narciso (d1f714)

  122. I think I’m closer to John Hinderaker here that I am to Patterico or Beldar — though I do understand their points of view.

    Hinderaker (Powerline) makes the point that while Mr. Petereson’s performance was definitely cringe-inducing, the takeaway from the hearing that most are accepting is that non-litigator attorneys are somehow unqualified to be judges — even federal district court judges.

    Mr. Peterson is certainly an accomplished attorney, although he specializes in an area of the law that is not one that has landed him in the courtroom — or even in litigation-related duties such as depositions.

    But “litigators” is a small subset of all attorneys within the legal field. The idea that only someone with courtroom experience can properly ascend to the federal bench is a bit much for me. Take for example the “gotcha” question about whether he knew what a “motion in limine” was.

    Maybe he was unfamiliar with the term, but the concept is pretty simple, and it would take about 60 seconds of explanation for him to be able to answer that question for the rest of his life like he had 40 years of litigation experience.

    And, I have practiced law almost exclusively in federal court as a litigator for nearly 30 years, and I have no idea what the “Younger Abstention” doctrine is, so lets not use that as a measuring stick.

    The one aspect of the job that can only be gained with experience is the requirement to make snap judgments on evidentiary questions under the Rules of Evidence while a witness is under examination on the stand and a jury is sitting in the box.

    But that is why they have “Judge’s School”, where understanding the application of the Rules of Evidence inside the courtroom is a central component. I’m certain the lawyers on this board who have practiced in federal court can tell stories about rulings by federal judges on evidence issues that left them wondering if the judge had missed school the day they taught evidence. Evidentiary rulings in the middle of trial is probably the most error-ridden aspect of trials, yet they produce very few appellate wins for the party on the wrong end of the ruling. And that’s true because appeals court judges know its hard to get them all correct in the time frame in which they come, and if the outcome of trials was reversed based on mistaken evidentiary rulings by trial court judges, the system would grind to a halt with retrials.

    So, I view the videotape as a lot of “gotcha” questions — many of which probably came from Senators who are themselves lawyers who would have trouble answering the questions being handed to them by their eager young staffers — probably young lawyers just out of law school who know very little about the subject as well.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  123. No, Rear Admiral… an engineer is a bit anal retentive.

    You, however, are anal receptive.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  124. Now for something way different… https://youtu.be/Jrg0X9H6FGU

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  125. Yes have we not been American bridged enough, I personally would look askance at one who was a top official in the Obama administration, discounting other considerations.

    narciso (d1f714)

  126. 119, standard issue at the nail salons?

    urbanleftbehind (9240ed)

  127. What Adam Schiff fears is that he’s going to lose his source of materials that he has used for a year to feed leaks to the anti-Trump media. Once the House Intel Committee says “We have what we need” and starts writing their reports, Schiff won’t have any new material to feed to reporters.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  128. Shutting it down should panic the douchebags as 2018 approaches.

    The investigation has taken a life of its own.

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  129. one year in and precious little in the way of a real scandal for to fuel masturbatory nevertrump fantasies

    this silly russia thing’s all they got so they gotta keep churning it out like disney does with those boring gay-assed star wars movies

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  130. They are more of the lawn mower man varietyhttps://libertyunyielding.com/2017/12/08/russian-organized-crime-mysteries-mueller-democrats-russia-trump-thing/

    narciso (d1f714)

  131. Sigh, I really found looper, inventive run seems to have been too clever by half

    narciso (d1f714)

  132. Every leak about Don Jr.had to come from Schiff as every time he left the hearings fresh fake news was appearing on Gov. T.V.

    mg (60b0f7)

  133. Rain, they seem intent on ruining every franchise,

    narciso (d1f714)

  134. I am so glad you said that, happyfeet. I thought I was the only guy in the world who thought Star Wars was gay, stupid and totally over-praised. A bunch of pre pubescent fantasy for gay nerds.

    Rev.Hoagie (6bbda7)

  135. swc (#130): Did you watch the video of the questioning from Sen. Kennedy? Is there another video that you’re thinking of? You refer to “Senators who are themselves lawyers who would have trouble answering the questions being handed to them by their eager young staffers.” But Sen. Kennedy certainly wasn’t reading questions from an eager young staffer. He wasn’t reading. He’s a trial lawyer who actually is familiar with what federal district judges do for a living, which is apply the Federal Rules of Civil & Criminal Procedure & Evidence. The only questions that could conceivably be called “trick questions” were about abstention, which — as a prosecutor or criminal defense lawyer — you’d never encounter. But as I explained above (and you mentioned my comment above, so I assume you read it),

    So by mentioning these doctrines, Sen. Kennedy wasn’t trying to trick or trap Peterson; to the contrary, he was trying to throw Peterson a lifeline, looking for something that Peterson might reasonably be expected to have bumped into as an FEC commissioner.

    Sen. Kennedy wasn’t going for a scalp here. His reaction wasn’t relish, it was genuine dismay — which I very much shared.

    So I have no idea who you’re talking about; if there’s some other video where Peterson was further quizzed in this kind of detail on his qualifications, please point me to it.

    “Judge’s school” is intended to be a refresher course, not a replacement for substantive knowledge and experience.

    I repeat, trial courts are different from appellate courts, and they require a set of skills that appellate judges don’t need with the same degree of urgency from day one. I couldn’t be persuaded to vote for this guy to be a trial judge on the Justice of the Peace court bench of Harris County. Do you really want to see how many reversible errors he makes in his first year? And will you agree, at a minimum, that there’s no shortage of lawyers who are qualified in these areas — more than enough to fill every open judicial bench with someone the Trump Administration could take pride in nominating?

    Beldar (fa637a)

  136. it took me four days to watch rogue one (free on netflix)

    what a snooze

    i got your sassy droid right here

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  137. so looking forward to annihilation (fingers crossed they don’t go Full Solaris)

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  138. There is something very wrong with Schiff, you could always see it in his eyes.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  139. Hoagie is a man a Hmong men.

    Unrelated:
    A Man Among Giants is a documentary film directed by Rod Webber which documents the misadventures of Doug ‘Tiny The Terrible’ Tunstall, a black, republican little-person who ran for Mayor of Pawtucket, Rhode Island in 2006.As a former WWF pro-wrestler, and toy store elf, Tiny, a self-described “ghetto republican” has a difficult time being taken seriously. The fact that he is accused of having called in a threat to a local radio station doesn’t help either. And yet, with the undying tenacity of the man, there is something bizarrely endearing about Tunstall. In the words of The Boston Globe, “He is afraid of no one and, in more lucid moments, he advocates for America’s have-nots in the heartfelt words of a guy who knows whereof he speaks.”

    After spending years on the amateur wrestling circuit, and appearing on shows like WWF Monday Night Raw and The Jerry Springer Show, Tiny leaps into a political system where he is in over his head. Living on a fixed income, Tiny can’t do much more than get out and shake hands with the voters. But when Dave Lewis, a wealthy backer comes to manage his campaign, things begin to take on a new life and a new struggle, this time within the campaign. In the words of Todd Cioffi of Fest21.com, “Somehow, this odd little man, with his half-formed policy ideas and his misshapen sense of politics, connects with people… Ultimately, warts and all, he is strangely compelling… In the end, Tunstall shows the truth to the cliché that life is about the journey, not the destination and that, sometimes, even a loser can be a winner.”

    Pinandpuller (057ce4)

  140. Confidence is not good, pikachu, zombie stanislaw lem was almost summoned.

    narciso (d1f714)

  141. Sen. Kennedy wasn’t going for a scalp here.

    the butthurt lil man what’s been asking EVERY nominee he questions about Satan, trannies, and the KKK?

    yeah he’s a sweetie-pie with no agenda whatsoever

    Kennedy has made it a point at nomination hearings to ask potential judges about their blogging and social media habits, as well as if they have ever defended the KKK or called transgender children part of “Satan’s plan,” clear references to the Mateer and Talley nominations.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  142. Sorry to disagree, shipwreckedcrew. Like I said earlier, we know that federal district court judges are by and large political hacks not fit to carry the briefcases of the lawyers who practice before them. But they shouldn’t be so obvious about it. It hurts people’s faith in the system. It may even prompt a President – a President! – to call it a joke and a laughingstock.

    nk (9651fb)

  143. We have many credntioalled idiots, that prove the point, like the honorable sarc James Robert and that fellow in Hawaii, I’m sure they knew what the dauberr standard, or at least could fake it.

    narciso (d1f714)

  144. What was that Eastwood movie with all the Hmong-El Camino?

    I think I heard that Detroit is only 10% white now. It’s amazing how few white people it takes to mess a place up.

    Pinandpuller (057ce4)

  145. I agree w/Beldar

    Republicans are rubber stamping Trumps judiciary fiat.

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  146. Detroit’s building a building

    there will be an observation deck at the top open to the public

    so they can

    gaze down upon the beauty of Detroit

    yeah clearly this was well thought through

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  147. They should go now.

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  148. The way of the Dodo bird..

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  149. El torino, yes they ended up there after allying with us, like Albanians meskito Indians Ukrainians it al (although the last were more numerous in Canada.

    narciso (d1f714)

  150. Just like with this exercise from mcturtle rive and law:
    https://pjmedia.com/trending/senate-leadership-funds-bannon-criticism-lacks-sense-reality/

    narciso (d1f714)

  151. Can Republican senators find qualified candidates within Trumps limited sphere of influence?

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  152. Oh wait, my bad. Detroit is almost exclusively run by black, democrat former WWE stars. And current federal inmates.

    Walt Kowalski comes back from Korea and settles in to his hometown of San Antonio, only to watch it go to hell. Robert Rodriguez Presents: El Camino.

    Pinandpuller (057ce4)

  153. May I point out that Petersen was nominated on September 7, and undoubtedly knew before then he was going to be nominated. That’s more than three months ago. One would think he would have gotten himself to a law library at least a few times to review at least the basics of procedure and evidence he’d be required to apply as a trial judge, no matter how busy he was with his other responsibilities. But it seems he didn’t.

    kishnevi (c91988)

  154. Oh well. The important thing is get those slots empty for 8 years…filled with confetti and pap.

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  155. If thy white nose offends thee, Gentle Ben, strike it off. Or get patched over by the Nez Perce.

    Pinandpuller (057ce4)

  156. Extrapolating further or wee likely in contact with a fellow who was born to the deep state, Sam nitze:
    https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/nine-fifa-officials-and-five-corporate-executives-indicted-racketeering-conspiracy-and

    narciso (d1f714)

  157. It seems to me you all are overlooking the good news alluded to by this video.

    The Senate is batch processing federal judges. Government doing things fast. That’s a red letter day whenever it happens.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  158. 144 Beldar — give me a couple hours to respond. Got lots of Christmas related duties today, and I want to respond substatively.

    But I’ll admit I didn’t watch the entire video, just highlights I saw on talking head programs. Wrong of me to characterize “MIL” question as “gotcha” since I didn’t see it and don’t know the context it was put to him.

    I did read you comment — but in a skimming fashion, same way I read Patrick’s OP. Like I said, I understand your view, and I don’t necessarily disagree with how you have come to it.

    But in reading Hinderaker’s piece, and thinking through what a district court judge really needs to know before getting on the bench, and what he can learn after already being on the bench, I’m not persuaded that non-litigators can’t be fine judges.

    From my previous positions, I have 5 relatively good friends/past colleagues who are all District Court judges. One of my first mentors went on to be a District Court judge in my original district. They all consistently have the view that 95% of their time in chambers is on civil matters, and 95% of their time in court is on criminal matters. Just the nature of the job.

    The only part of the job where a litigator has a key advantage is while on the bench in court. Almost all of that time is going to be in criminal matters, and most of the evidentiary questions in criminal matters repeat themselves from case to case. It doesn’t take too many times before even an non-litigator will understand memory how to formulate a response to a Daubert challenge, or a Batson challenge.

    Most of the bigger issues requiring analysis happens in chambers, where judges without litigation backgrounds have time to study the case law and make analytical judgments about the respective positions of the opposing parties.

    This comment is already 10x longer than I planned, and I have more to add, but it will need to wait until later.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  159. I would say that the context was one of startled bemusement on the part of Sen. Kennedy. Here’s my paraphrase: He started by asking for a show of hands from any of the five nominees to see whether they’d all tried at least one case. Peterson’s hand went up. Then Kennedy started looking — trying to be helpful — for some sort of past experience which might qualify Peterson to know how to run a trial in a federal district court. Hence, have you studied the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure? [No.] The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure? [No, not since law school.] The Federal Rules of Evidence? [No.] Seen or participated in any pretrial proceedings, maybe a motion in limine. [I don’t know what that is.] Okay, you supervised FEC lawyers, did you ever bump into Younger v. Harris or Pullman abstention (which an agency lawyer indeed might)? [Bambi’s mother in headlights, please don’t shoot me, whimper!]

    I really do urge you to watch the whole video — it’s less than five minutes. I think by the end Sen. Kennedy wanted to ask, “Have you ever seen a trial in real life, or is your entire concept of the American judicial system based on TV re-runs?” Because the answer clearly would have been, “TV re-runs.”

    Beldar (fa637a)

  160. This guy isn’t qualified to be a trial court judge in a serious law school mock trial competition. I mean that entirely seriously. The students would ridicule him, justifiably.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  161. “While on the bench in court,” yes. That is when this knowledge and experience is indispensable — and for a trial court judge, that’s the most important part of his job!

    So why not nominate someone who knows what to do while on the bench in court, instead of this guy who clearly doesn’t yet, and who hasn’t even started the process of preparing himself in that direction by the time of his confirmation hearing?

    Beldar (fa637a)

  162. Senator Kennedy’s a butthurt buffoon what’s upset that he’s not been consulted on judicial appointments to his satisfaction and as a consequence went out of his way to humiliate an accomplished attorney by peppering him with questions far afield from the law he practices

    he has no class or manners (typical trial lawyer)

    Louisiana deserves better than to be represented by this puerile princox

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  163. Hinderaker is getting savaged in his own comments, btw — mostly from people who are pointing out the difference between trial and appellate benches, which Hinderaker’s post completely ignores.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  164. brutally savaged lol

    Charles Dorfman

    Thank you John for adding some non partisan light to this non issue. The Democrats can’t seem to get beyond high school. They bully and shame just for kicks… for their own petty amusement. This man has been humiliated over nothing much it seems. And yet, according to his resume, many of these childish inquisitors might possibly have known him and been fully aware of the extent of his capabilities. Could it be this silly matter is about embarrassing Trump?

    Like · Reply · 6 · 2 hrs · Edited

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  165. it’s mean girls all teh way down over there – poor Mr. Petersen can’t catch a break

    Lance Orloff · Partner at Grant, Genovese & Baratta

    Elena Kagan was the president of Harvard Law School when she was appointed, and previously served in political positions in government. How many trials has she tried? How many depositions? She wasn’t asked. Same with “intelligent Latina” Sonia Sotomayor. She was appointed because of her hispanic heritage, not because of her trial record. Double standards abound.

    Like · Reply · 9 · 2 hrs

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  166. it would be quite easy to ask ALL nominees questions off-topic from their area of specialization…

    Kevin Vogts

    The law is such a broad topic with so many areas of specialization that it would be quite easy to ask ALL nominees questions off-topic from their area of specialization and unfairly make them look ignorant. Watch for this to be a consistent strategy trying to thwart Trump’s wave of judicial nominees. Those specializing in criminal law will be asked detailed questions about real estate law; those specializing in antitrust litigation will be quizzed about civil rights cases; etc. Democrats are experts at widely coordinating and being absolutely consistent and relentless with such strategies. All the inquisitors are actually looking for is the “money quote”—a little sound bite like this video, that when broadcast out of context via social media makes the nominee look like an unqualified fool. That is the media narrative they’re attempting to build, to call into question all Trump’s judicial nominees.

    In the area of medicine, which also has such infinite specialization that no one person can possibly be fully informed about it all, I always appreciate a doctor who will admit he needs to study a topic, or send me on to another physician specializing in that area. Always having a glib answer ready to every question in law or medicine isn’t necessarily a sign of knowledge or competence—and can actually be quite dangerous.
    Like · Reply · 2 · 2 hrs

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  167. “You might be John Kennedy, but you are not nor ever will be Jack Kennedy”

    urbanleftbehind (9240ed)

  168. Ken White nails it (read the whole thing, the title is a bit misleading): I Have Almost Nothing Bad To Say About Matthew Spencer Petersen. Key sentence: “Mr. Peterson is like a career psychiatrist sent to do a trauma surgeon’s job.”

    Beldar (fa637a)

  169. the trial lawyers guild is adamant these jobs should be reserved for trial lawyers

    but even the ABA disagrees

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  170. @153– I think Gran Torino is what you are looking for.

    There. I finally found a chance to contribute to this thread, although it is interesting and informative to read.

    Gramps (a079bc)

  171. Peterson has to be better than Kagan, who argues that government should be regulating freedom of speech as long as that regulating keep liberals from having hurt feelings.

    I’d rather have a judge that needs coaching from clerks on the syntax, but gets the part where “congress shall make no law abridging the right of”, any day of the week.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  172. Am I to take it then, that only litigators are qualified to serve as district court judges? That seems to be the question swc is asking and Beldar is not answering.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  173. @181

    If you read the link to popehat provided by Beldar @177, you’ll see that the answer is “yes”.

    Davethulhu (99cc74)

  174. sleazy Senator John Kennedy began his career as a member of the trial lawyer’s guild (which explains why when he began his political career he did so as a Democrat)

    but he’s still lookin’ out for his boys

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  175. Cthulhu

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  176. @154. Republicans are rubber stamping Trumps judiciary fiat.

    It’s the Alamo Strategy; losing the battle of ideas, try to rig the game, cower behind the barricades, remain defiant, take parting shots… wait for the end then label it ‘victory.’

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  177. Losing the battle of ideas… as evidenced by… “So why did the Democrats lose the 2016 presidential election? Why, even as Obama spoke, was there a newly expanded Republican majority in Washington working overtime to gut his hallmark healthcare law? In his eight years in office, Obama oversaw the rapid erosion of the Democratic Party’s political power in state legislatures, congressional districts and governor’s mansions. At the beginning of Obama’s term, Democrats controlled 59 percent of state legislatures, while now they control only 31 percent, the lowest percentage for the party since the turn of the 20th century. They held 29 governor’s offices and now have only 16, the party’s lowest number since 1920.”

    Democrats… WINNING!

    https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/barack-obama-won-the-white-house-but-democrats-lost-the-country/amp/

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  178. That’s how delusional you are, ASPCA.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  179. Who will take care of you, in your dotage?

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  180. What would Hoagie do?

    A Hmong, a Filipino and a Puerto Rican walk into Hoagies Bar and Grill..

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c) — 12/16/2017 @ 6:55 am

    I don’t know what Hoagie would do. I can’t speak for Hoagie.

    But I’d invite her play a game of Jenga. After getting disgusted with the girls of the Chang Rai hill tribes getting exploited in Bangkok I largely kept to my own counsel. The girls at the King’s X were prostitutes, yes. But damn, they were nice. And the left you alone after you gave them the Bird’s Egg soda.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  181. Who will take care of you, in your dotage?
    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/16/2017 @ 2:20 pm

    \

    If I am lucky enough.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  182. It’s the Alamo Strategy; losing the battle of ideas, try to rig the game, cower behind the barricades, remain defiant, take parting shots… wait for the end then label it ‘victory.’


    You amuse me, DCSCA. The “Alamo Strategy” was to inflict enough damage to the enemy so as to win the war. It succeeded. As will Trumps.

    Rev.Hoagie (6bbda7)

  183. Unbridled executive privilege for the Tin Weasel Tyrant.

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/16/trump-lawyer-mueller-improperly-obtained-transition-documents-in-russia-probe.html

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  184. @187. =Haiku! Gesundheit!

    So was Travis. Smiley.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  185. Bold words from a side show from an inverted penis. Has he ever looked over his paunch

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  186. The transition emails are said to include sensitive exchanges on matters that include potential appointments, gossip about the views of particular senators involved in the confirmation process, speculation about vulnerabilities of Trump nominees, strategizing about press statements, and policy planning on everything from war to taxes.

    https://www.axios.com/scoop-mueller-obtains-tens-of-thousands-of-trump-transition-emails-2517994590.html

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  187. 193… teh name is Tavis, suckah, get it right.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  188. Even a reference to the Alamo isn’t enough to prompt me to read Disco’s natterings directly, but the part you quoted, Hoagie, is complete nonsense. The Alamo was always seen as a defeat. When every defender is slaughtered, it’s pretty hard to call it a victory. It was the slaughter, the refusal to give quarter, the murder of unarmed men who’d surrendered, that made the Alamo a rallying cry (along with a similar slaughter of captured prisoners at Goliad). Tactically the battle was irrelevant, unneeded by the other Texian forces who were avoiding a pitched battle while splitting and exhausting a much larger invading army from Mexico. Indeed, Bowie was defying Sam Houston’s orders by staying to fight there.

    Responding to Kevin M, who asked (#181):

    Am I to take it then, that only litigators are qualified to serve as district court judges? That seems to be the question swc is asking and Beldar is not answering.

    My answer to that question here, as it was on John Hinderaker’s post at Powerline, is:

    Yes, because it’s a trial court bench, you need to know how trials work, and people with no litigation experience can’t know how trials work. Likewise, if you want to do brain surgery, you should be a brain surgeon. If you want to do heart surgery, you should be a heart surgeon.

    I don’t insist that federal district judge nominees have done exclusively litigation to the exclusion of every other type of law practice. But I believe they must have done some significant amount of litigation, even if they did so from a general or mixed practice.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  189. Bah. Meant “Travis,” not “Bowie.” Mea culpa Texana.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  190. 196 — If Trump wanted a reasonable basis upon which to justify firing Mueller for misconduct, Mueller might have just handed it to him.

    A Reuters story on the same subject says that on Aug. 23, Mueller sent a letter to GSA asking for all emails and other communications over electronic devices by nine members of the Trump transition’s national security team. Since they sent a letter, that pretty much confirms that they did not have a warrant for that material.

    Those materials would have been “stored electronic communications” since GSA has its own email servers. The Stored Communications Act doesn’t apply to the GSA — it applies to internet service providers who offer email services — but that’s going to be a legal nicety that doesn’t serve Mueller well, because it doesn’t address the question of whether the Trump transition members enjoyed an expectation of privacy in those stored messages, nor does it get around the fact that Mueller’s team has apparently made use of communications that were likely the subject of privilege claims.

    If these allegations turn out to be true, Mueller’s team is now by action — as well as stated disposition — overtly anti-Trump and out of control.

    My first question would be for Rosenstein — did he know that Mueller had taken this step? Too bad its a question that Rosenstein can’t answer in any way that helps him.

    If he was unaware, he’s fired for not maintaining effective oversight of Mueller’s activities as he’s obligated to do by regulation.

    If he was aware, he’s fired for having sanctioned a likely violation of the Fourth Amendment rights of the Trump transition team members whose accounts were turned over by GSA in response to nothing more than a letter asking for them.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  191. 198 I don’t insist that federal district judge nominees have done exclusively litigation to the exclusion of every other type of law practice. But I believe they must have done some significant amount of litigation, even if they did so from a general or mixed practice.

    Evidently the ABA disagrees or they wouldn’t have rated this guy qualified. What fraction of the current district court judges met this standard when they were nominated?

    James B. Shearer (951d11)

  192. The ABA recommendations are worse than meaningless, Mr. Shearer, and in this case they’re simply wrong.

    In 37 years of law practice in the federal and state courts, I’ve never seen a trial court judge who is this unqualified. I believe that’s why this is newsworthy. I’m happy to accept correction from any of Mr. Peterson’s defenders if they can point to another federal district judge nominee who had to admit that he’d never tried a case, never argued a motion, and hadn’t consulted the Federal Rules of Civil or Criminal Procedure or Evidence since law school. Until then, I’m going to say the “fraction” is 100%.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  193. Santa ana, was the saddam of the southwest, everytime he engaged in a conflictbeith the us, they lost more territory, yrs the alamo was a cold blooded attack, but ground was recovered at San jacinto.

    narciso (d1f714)

  194. Any bets on whether Mr. Peterson would react with anything but confusion to the word “Twiqbal”?

    Beldar (fa637a)

  195. Did these brave scrutinizers

    narciso (d1f714)

  196. Every show anything close to a rubber stamp for any of obamas versions of caligulas horses, one this Robert person who had all the right credential certainly didn’t have a clue, Dr. Evil must have vetted him.

    narciso (d1f714)

  197. @197. =Haiku!= Gesundheit!

    Creative lisc., as in yuuuuge crowds no collusion and middle tax cuts.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  198. @198. “The Coneheads started out as the Pinhead Lawyers of France.” – Dan Aykroyd, ‘Live From New York- An Uncensored History of SNL’ by Tom Shales & J.M. Miller, 2002.

    Bonsoir, Beldar.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  199. Paul Cook retired Marine col. With Bronze Star and two purples is gonna be hard to challenge in the 8th Dist. Now that I’ve declared my intent, I can’t explore running without FEC crawling up me bum.

    Gofundme to start?
    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c) — 12/16/2017 @ 7:19 am

    If you are serious about this I have two pledges for you:

    1. Any stories about your sexual misconduct or high jinks will not be countenanced unless I accidentally drink antifreeze.

    2. At some point I will start a rumor that you once killed a guy in a bar fight. You’re welcome.

    Pinandpuller (057ce4)

  200. @153– I think Gran Torino is what you are looking for.

    There. I finally found a chance to contribute to this thread, although it is interesting and informative to read.
    Gramps (a079bc) — 12/16/2017 @ 1:09 pm

    Don’t be shy. It’s like Double-Dutch: jump right in.

    Pinandpuller (057ce4)

  201. El Camino = Chevy pickup-truck wanna-be, a cut-down sedan.

    Gran Torino = Ford muscle-car wanna-be, sexy but overweight and underpowered.

    I’ve driven both in my day. My mom had a Gran Torino exactly the same model, year, and color as Clint Eastwood’s when I was in high school, and I got to take it on dates.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  202. he’d never tried a case, never argued a motion, and hadn’t consulted the Federal Rules of Civil or Criminal Procedure or Evidence since law school. Until then, I’m going to say the “fraction” is 100%.
    Beldar (fa637a) — 12/16/2017 @ 5:23 pm

    Him and me both. I don’t even have a suit or a jacket. But it would be an honor just to be nominated.

    What if they had six nominees lined up like at the Oscars? The guy the Senate chooses gets to come down and thank his agent, wife and God. Make a night of it.

    Pinandpuller (057ce4)

  203. I’ve driven both in my day. My mom had a Gran Torino exactly the same model, year, and color as Clint Eastwood’s when I was in high school, and I got to take it on dates.
    Beldar (fa637a) — 12/16/2017 @ 8:09 pm

    Which model did you put up on two wheels? If you ever put Astroturf in the back of the EC I don’t want to know.

    So they had the El Camino, The Ranchero and does anyone remember when the Subaru Brats had the seats in the truck bed with those flimsy handles to hold onto?

    Pinandpuller (057ce4)

  204. 202 …I’m happy to accept correction from any of Mr. Peterson’s defenders if they can point to another federal district judge nominee …

    So how does he compare to Brett Talley who the ABA did rate “Not Qualified”?

    James B. Shearer (951d11)

  205. Anybody have the 71 to 73 buick Riviera with the boat tail back window, or does that also under the Pontiac spelled-out category?

    urbanleftbehind (9240ed)

  206. Trump is conservative. You people were saying he was a secret Democrat during the campaign. Although it’s true I predicted he’d triangulate more, which is fruitless for a conservative president so good that he’s not making concessions to the ‘rats and never-cons.

    jcurtis (5d5c6b)

  207. For his complaint, the Plaintiff states as follows:
    1. On October 31, 2017, in the City of Chicago, Illinois, Defendant Iqbal turned Plaintiff into a newt.

    nk (dbc370)

  208. A New Jersey imam will reportedly be sent for “retraining” after expressing hope in a sermon last week that all Jews would be killed and previously blaming a deadly Sinai terror attack on Jews.

    Last week, Sheikh Aymen Elkasaby gave sermons at the Islamic Center of Jersey City in which he called for “Allah to wreak vengeance” on the “Jewish oppressors” of the Temple Mount and to “kill them down to the very last one,” according to translations provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

    “This is like sending someone to rehab,” he told the Algemeiner Jewish newspaper. “The scholars will help him to learn to deal with these issues.”

    For his part, Shedeed has been recognized nationally for his interfaith work. He was New Jersey Senator Cory Booker’s honored guest at former US president Barack Obama’s 2016 State of the Union address.

    Lone Wolf

    Pinandpuller (057ce4)

  209. I love it when the U.S. Supreme Court reinvents the wheel.

    But what I loved more was the Trumpism in this thread: “How dare you? Mr. President, Donald The Trump, appointed Petersen and Mr. Trump the Donald can do no wrong! And what about Obama, eh? Cucks!”

    nk (dbc370)

  210. Which is worse as a trial judge? A guy whose heart and inclinations are in the right place, but will learn, or someone like, oh, Kamala Harris, who has all the experience in the world, but will never learn.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  211. * but will learn but needs to learn

    Kevin M (752a26)

  212. Just once I want to see some BLM/SJW type sent off to sensitivity class.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  213. It can be hard on the people you’re learning on until you learn. shipwreckedcrew mentioned that trial judges are seldom reversed on evidentiary rulings. Appellate courts give them broad discretion. I’ll allude to a recent post here: If an inept judge lets in a very prejudicial piece of evidence, or keeps out a very probative piece of evidence, that most competent judges would not, “You’re F’ked”.

    nk (dbc370)

  214. BTW, that’s what motions in limine are about.

    nk (dbc370)

  215. 1. Any stories about your sexual misconduct or high jinks will not be countenanced unless I accidentally drink antifreeze.

    2. At some point I will start a rumor that you once killed a guy in a bar fight. You’re welcome.

    The second one is great, thanks. I prefer you go medieval with the first.

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  216. Anybody still concerned with the sexual allegations against Roy Moore? Didn’t think so. Apparently being a no-good pedophile , child molester and mass murderer only matters until the leftists procure the senate seat, then meh….

    Rev.Hoagie (6bbda7)

  217. Hoagie:

    I don’t know if you’re still East Coast or West, but I was serious about having a beer.

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  218. Well, if he’s that bad then I’m glad the Senate hearings caught it. Sounds like the system is working as it should. I’ll hope Team Trump finds the mistakes that led to his nomination as well. ^_~

    Towering Barbarian (21f677)

  219. Last fall, Jen Hatmaker, a popular evangelical author and speaker, started getting death threats. Readers mailed back her books to her home address, but not before some burned the pages or tore them into shreds. LifeWay Christian Stores, the behemoth retailer of the Southern Baptist Convention, pulled her titles off the shelves. Hatmaker was devastated. Up until that point, she had been a wildly influential and welcome presence in the evangelical world, a Christian author whose writings made the New York Times best-seller list and whose home renovation got its own HGTV series. But then 2016 happened, and, well, of course everything changed.

    During the campaign, as other white evangelicals coalesced around the Republican nominee, Hatmaker effectively joined the coterie of “Never Trump” evangelicals, telling her more than half a million Facebook followers that Donald Trump made her “sad and horrified and despondent.” After the “Access Hollywood” tape leaked and prominent evangelical men came to Trump’s defense, she tweeted: “We will not forget. Nor will we forget the Christian leaders that betrayed their sisters in Christ for power.” Then, in an interview with Religion News Service columnist Jonathan Merritt, she made what was a stunning admission for her evangelical community: She said she supported same-sex relationships.

    https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/17/is-jen-hatmaker-the-conscious-of-evangelical-christianity-216068

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  220. Cornwhine prevaricating with more Trumpublican Tux Bill propagand a on This Week. A party if LIARS!

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  221. How dare you? Mr. President, Donald The Trump, appointed Petersen and Mr. Trump the Donald can do no wrong! And what about Obama, eh? Cucks!

    This.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  222. Your teary-eyed, little sausage-fingered typed screeds grow more tedious by teh day, Rear Admiral.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  223. May all your client’s ejection ports be free from engraving Mr nk. The less you leave in a judge’s hands, the better.

    Some kid in LA just got life for killing his gf’s molestor. The DA says the justice system can’t encourage people to take the law into their own hands. The molestor plead NC and got five years probation.

    Pinandpuller (ed0958)

  224. No Astroturf in the back of the El Camino, Pin — it was a work vehicle used for light deliveries from my dad’s furniture & appliance stores.

    @ nk: Have you been waiting, as I have, for someone to resurrect that Roman Hruska quote about mediocre judges?

    Mr. Shearer: Talley was also a bad nominee, well below the quality of Trump’s others, and I’m glad that the Administration has withdrawn his nomination. I don’t care what the ABA says about any of these nominees. But especially for a district court bench, Talley was underqualified as a practicing lawyer; his best qualification, that he’d spent four years in judicial clerkships, is actually somewhat troubling, suggesting a “Peter Pan Syndrome”; and he had other problems, like not mentioning on his disclosure forms that his wife works for Trump’s White House counsel, which compounded an already existing vulnerability to being portrayed as a Trump crony rather than someone independently worthy of nomination. I’m glad the Administration has withdrawn his nomination, and they should do likewise with Peterson.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  225. Read Ashcroft v. Iqbal. Kennedy’s majority and Souter’s dissent. You don’t need to be a lawyer to see how these so-called judges and justices are nothing more than political lackeys, who’ll twist something as well-established and straightforward as stating your case to a court, into a pretzel, for the benefit of their patrons and their political agenda.

    nk (dbc370)

  226. judges are trash yes yes yes they diddle their staff and expect huge piggy pensions after their lifetime sinecures

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  227. 237 was for Pinandpuller. I’m sure Beldar has read Iqbal.

    nk (dbc370)

  228. @ Kevin M: I’m very weary of “least-worse” analysis. Swing a dead cat in the streets of Washington and you’ll hit eight lawyers, six of whom would like to be on the district court bench. The choice before the Senate is whether to give consent to Peterson, not Kamala Harris. If forced into a binary choice, would I prefer Peterson to her. Sure, but that’s a stupid, irrelevant, juvenile exercise, so why waste time on it?

    Beldar (fa637a)

  229. perhaps we draw from too shallow a well

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  230. @ swc: In my practice, I routinely instruct clients who’ve contacted me via their work email accounts to stop that and, if necessary, to set up a gmail or other email account in which they and I can enjoy a reasonable expectation of privacy. If the Trump transition team’s lawyers let its people use a GSA-controlled email server, they screwed up and disserved their clients very badly.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  231. @ nk: Twiqbal and Daubert are both examples of judicially created doctrines with the express purpose and effect of taking power out of the hands of jurors by weakening the traditional limits on a trial judge’s discretion. I can’t speak for other states, but in Texas, they’ve had a modest but perceptible effect on state-court trial and appellate judges, nudging them in that same direction. When I started the practice of law, state-court trial judges were notoriously eager to find a disputed issue of material fact so they could duck ruling on summary judgment motions. Now, like their federal court counterparts, lots more of them are using their own judgments — couched in language like “no reasonable jury could possibly accept this evidence,” traditionally used in directed verdict and jnov motions, to “gate-keep” at earlier and earlier stages of litigation.

    If they all got it right — if they all actually adhered to even the high-falutin’ language of Twombly and Iqbal, for example — that would be one thing. But increasingly what I’m seeing is that these early-stage motions generate a couple of linear feet of briefs, which the judges then ignore on grounds that it’s too voluminous for them to sort through, and they just impose their own judgments — poorly informed by the record, or even completely uninformed by it — based on factors that no one can ever know or examine. And appellate courts are routinely affirming those miscarriages of justice without written opinion, so no one knows whether anyone there — even a single law clerk — has looked at all the briefing and the evidentiary record either. The very worst of this is observable in certain classes of cases — for instance, cases alleging that financial institutions have misbehaved, forged and lost documents, taken mutually inconsistent foreclosure actions, and otherwise abused home mortgage holders whose efforts at restructuring their mortgages put them at risk. Federal judges just won’t even consider those claims anymore, at least in the Southern District of Texas and a number of nearby federal districts. While it’s true that in 95%+ of those cases, you just have a deadbeat trying to hang onto possession or defend against a deficiency — meaning the cases should eventually lose after getting due process — the single-digit percentage of remaining cases of those sorts are swept along with the flood.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  232. 243 – -Beldar, read the letter from the Transition’s lawyer to the House and Senate committees.

    The transition is statutorily mandated to use GSA facilities for its activities.

    But there are longstanding views that the Transition is not a government agency — by statute it is organized as a 501(c)(4) non-profit so it can receive private donations on a tax exempt basis.

    The MOU between the Obama Admin. and the Transition said all stored data would be deleted once the transition was complete, and all Trump Admin. functions were clearly government activity.

    The material in question was turned over in response to a letter in August, 2017 — 8 months after the Transition ceased to operate.

    From a response issued this morning by the spokesman for the Mueller investigation, they are taking the position that they obtained the documents from the “owner” of the accounts, and they are going to claim that was GSA.

    I think that is a highly problematic point of view under the circumstances, especially given the fact that there was extensive privileged communications among the data turned over.

    IMO this is exactly the kine of “envelope-pushing” that Weissman is known for. But doing it against Enron, and doing it against the sitting Presidential Administration, are two completely different animals.

    The legal niceties are beside the point. In today’s world, every person on the street can understand the issue of having the government sweep up all your emails without getting any kind of court approval to do so. The anti-Trump forces will overlook the problem because of the overriding good of maybe getting rid of Trump.

    The pro-Trump forces will see an evil attempt to overthrow an election, just like with everything else.

    But its that squishy 30% in the middle, who aren’t necessarily enamored with Trump, but might have a strong negative reaction that what Mueller has done here, who might give political cover to the growing number of GOP Reps and Sens who are seeing this more and more as a scalp-hunting venture by a bunch of Dem partisans on Mueller’s staff.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  233. scientists-say-japanese-monkeys-are-having-sexual-interactions-with-deer

    The next “right to marry” case to be decided by Anthony Kennedy?

    nk (dbc370)

  234. When did the privatizing of SCOTUS commence for our current cycle of regression?

    Scalia? Definitely.

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  235. It’s the Theocrats you should worry about.

    Freemasons me arse!

    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1700497/posts

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  236. nk @242 That was in favor of G. Harrold Carswell, President Nixon’s second nominee for the Abe Fortas seat on the Supreme Court. His first nominee, Clement Haynesworth, had been rejected, although some people later said they were sorry. I don’t remember right now why he as rejected. At this time the Senate starting looking for conflicts of interest, and they found something. The real reason was that he’d made some anti-civil rights rulings – also anti-labor.

    President Johnson had nominated Homer Thornberry when he was trying to promote Fortas to Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, so this was actually the third nominee. That went by the boards when Fortas withdrew in October 1968. (Fortas stayed on the court but resigned the next year, 1969 because of something to do with taking money from someone named Wolfson, and there may have been more involved.)

    wikipedia.org/wiki/Abe_Fortas

    Fortas had accepted a US$20,000 (US$130,617 in 2016 dollars[20]) retainer from the family foundation of Wall Street financier Louis Wolfson, a friend and former client, in January 1966.[21] Fortas had signed a contract with Wolfson’s foundation. In return for unspecified advice, it was to pay Fortas $20,000 a year for the rest of Fortas’s life (and then pay his widow for the rest of her life). Wolfson was under investigation for securities violations at the time, and it was alleged that he expected that his arrangement with Fortas would help him stave off criminal charges or help him secure a presidential pardon. He asked Fortas to help him secure a pardon from Johnson, which Fortas claimed that he did not do. Fortas recused himself from Wolfson’s case when it came before the Court and had earlier returned the retainer but not until Wolfson had been indicted twice.[5]

    Fortas’s judicial reputation was also affected by the previous Johnson consultation s.[11] The new Richard Nixon administration became aware of the Wolfson deal when a Life magazine reporter began investigating the story. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover also mentioned a “tax dodge” Fortas had entered into with other judges, and Nixon concluded Fortas should be “off of there.”[5] When Chief Justice Earl Warren was informed of the incident by the new Attorney General John N. Mitchell, he persuaded Fortas to resign to protect the reputation of the Court and avoid lengthy impeachment proceedings, which were in their preliminary stages.[5] Justice Hugo Black also urged Fortas to resign, but when Fortas said it would “kill” his wife, Black changed his mind and urged Fortas not to resign. Fortas eventually decided resignation would be best for him and for his wife’s legal career, he reportedly told his colleagues. William J. Brennan later said, “We were just stunned.” Fortas later said he “resigned to save Douglas,” another justice who was being investigated for a similar scandal at the same time.[5]

    Fortas resigned from the Court on May 14, 1969.

    So I guess that the full capsule version of the story. Being Wolfson’s lawyer, he might have known of some problems with Wolfson before they came to light.

    Eventually, declaring he couldn’t get anyone from the south confirmed, Nixon named Harry Blackmun, who was supposed to be a strict constructionist known to and friendly with Warren Earl Burger, but he got corrupted by his desire to legalize abortion (rather than just being unprincipled in one case, he gradually adopted new principles.)

    Blackmun had dealt with the consequences of illegal abortions in Minnesota when he was a lawyer for the Mayo clinic. Many doctors there favored legalized abortion.

    Sammy Finkelman (20d02d)

  237. So if they had used a private email, they would have run afoul of what happened when assuage hacked the huntresses accounts. Which contained her private info.

    narciso (d1f714)

  238. Wolfson was the benefactor of the local community college sammeh,

    narciso (d1f714)

  239. 218. Pinandpuller (057ce4) — 12/16/2017 @ 10:33 pm

    “This is like sending someone to rehab,” he told the Algemeiner Jewish newspaper. “The scholars will help him to learn to deal with these issues.”

    Of course it will too limited.

    We don’t need an Islamic version of Jesuitical reasoning.

    The problem is not the specific example of advocacy of murder. The problem is unwarranted self-righteousness, to the point where it can overcome even the most basic prohibitions of murder.

    It won’t be any good if he says he no longer endorses murdering all Jews but just Jewish settlers on the West Bank, or some other forms of terrorism. Or that he opposes punishing the perpetrators and supports rewarding them or their families.

    Sammy Finkelman (20d02d)

  240. @ swc, who wrote (#247):

    The transition is statutorily mandated to use GSA facilities for its activities.

    But there are longstanding views that the Transition is not a government agency — by statute it is organized as a 501(c)(4) non-profit so it can receive private donations on a tax exempt basis.

    Yes, I assumed as much. And since the “Transition” is a legally distinct entity from the rest of the federal government (or even the executive branch of it), its lawyers had an affirmative duty to ensure that agents used to assist it — including those who have access to and control over the GSA servers — had specifically committed themselves, in binding legal fashion, to protect the expectation of privacy that the PTT would have had through a contract with a regular internet service provider.

    I don’t claim to have seen or even to have looked for all of that. But are you saying that the PTT’s lawyers got a specific written commitment to that effect from the United States Government, specifically from the GSA, before they allowed their clients to entrust their privileged communications to the GSA as an intermediary? You say the memorandum of understanding:

    The MOU between the Obama Admin. and the Transition said all stored data would be deleted once the transition was complete, and all Trump Admin. functions were clearly government activity.

    That’s well and good. It’s not an assurance, contractual or otherwise, that no other intra-governmental sub-entity — like a special counsel or an inspector general — would be denied access to PTT communications while they were still on the GSA’s servers, thus generating that reasonable expectation of privacy. And if the PTT’s emails are indeed subject to preservation requirements as government records, why would there have been a provision about them ever being deleted by the GSA, even after the inauguration (which marked the end of the transition)?

    My point is that if there’s any question at all about the security and privacy of the communication channel, prudent counsel would flag that issue and resolve it in advance, before entrusting the intermediary with even temporary possession of the communications. It’s the transition team’s lawyers’ duty to protect their clients’ privileges, not anyone else’s.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  241. (Maybe our host will weigh in, or at least start a new post on this question, which I agree is topical and interesting.)

    Beldar (fa637a)

  242. The problem relies in any cooperation, that any official has done with any congressionalncommittee, specially after the predicate of the last eight months:https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/the-dictator-pope-90-of-it-is-simply-incontrovertible

    narciso (d1f714)

  243. shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 12/17/2017 @ 10:07 am:

    There are other options for how people feel about things than your partisan political positions.

    DRJ (15874d)

  244. The PTT’s letter asserts:

    The agreement between the Obama White House and TFA expressly stated that the parties intended to “protect the confidentiality of transition information made available to the Government.”

    That is not a reasonable basis for the transition team’s lawyers to have believed that the GSA was committed to protecting the confidentiality of information “made available to the Government” from that same government. Reasonably construed in its natural sense, it’s a commitment to protect confidentiality by preventing disclosure to persons or entities outside the government.

    I’m persuaded by the PTT’s lawyer’s letter that there’s a decent argument that the PTT’s documents aren’t “official records,” and hence that they could indeed be deleted by GSA on instruction from the PTT.

    But again, whether the records could have properly been deleted, or should have been deleted, doesn’t answer or even affect the question of whether, in the interim, the GSA had to shield that information from other intra-governmental agencies or entities like a special prosecutor, inspector general, or other law enforcement authorities within the government.

    So I’m unpersuaded on the reasonable expectation of privacy point, and I repeat, it’s the PTT’s job to establish both that there was such an expectation and, more importantly, that it was a reasonable one — not based on a man-in-the-street standard, but on the “legal niceties” that you say are “beside the point.” They aren’t beside the point, they are exactly the point, at least in a court of law (as opposed to the mis- or ill-informed courts of public opinion). I’m still willing to listen and be persuaded otherwise, but this strikes me as finger-pointing by the PTT’s current counsel to distract from a serious screw-up by whomever negotiated the MOU for the Trump transition team.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  245. @ narciso (#252): The Trump transition team’s lawyer insists that the transition team’s documents aren’t “public records,” hence there would have been no prohibition against the team choosing to use a private email server through a commercial or other nongovernmental internet services provider’s servers. The statute requires the government to make computer services available to the transition team, but it doesn’t require the transition team to use those services exclusively, and without an a specific assurance that the GSA would protect the data against inquiries from other intra-governmental entities or agencies, the transition team’s lawyers should have done exactly that.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  246. In light of the fact that weiisman was a party to the tenet/translogistics investigationnwherevthe late ceos computer was destroyed!!!so likely William Campbell could not providevfurther evidence on higher ups. Its not as egregious as the cyndi archer treatment against manafort derived from the speciously sourced visa warrant from contreras but then not everything can be that bad.

    narciso (d1f714)

  247. If they weebt public records , then Mueller want entitled to them anyways, except perhaps those mattes that directly concerned ‘collusion’ what that term implies today.

    narciso (d1f714)

  248. Let’s say a client approaches me about a new matter — he’s got a dispute with his apartment landlord. Let’s further say that my client works for ExxonMobil and he’s emailed me on his work email account — john.doe@exxon.com. Let’s further say that he’s asked his supervisor, who assures him that corporate policies notwithstanding, the supervisor isn’t going to get bent out of shape at anyone who sends a private email or two from his work account regarding purely personal business.

    And then let’s say that for some reason — maybe my prospective client is a secret drug-dealer who’s been manufacturing crystal meth in his apartment — the DEA goes to Exxon and says, “We’re asking you to give us access to all of John Doe’s emails sent or received through the exxon.com domain, specifically including everything in the john.doe user account.”

    They’re going to get a copy of the email from the client consulting me about his lease. That might otherwise have been a privileged communication between me and my client, made for the purpose and in the course of the giving and receiving of legal advice.

    But my client has no reasonable expectation of privacy in that business account, even if his boss doesn’t care about him using it for personal as well as professional communications. It belongs to Exxon, and therefore, Exxon can do with it what it wants, without regard to my client’s expectations or wishes. If my client expected Exxon to go to bat for him against the DEA, his expectation was unreasonable, not based on what the man on the street might think, but upon the legal niceties.

    So, too, without some very specific additional agreement from the GSA — an agreement specifically addressed to keeping things confidential even from other intra-governmental entities and agencies — I don’t believe the PTT had any reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to those governmental expectations. The PTT did have a reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to the rest of the world — in that sense, they’re better off than my hypothetical client who worked at Exxon, who doesn’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy at all.

    The bulk of this letter is actually an argument by the Trump transition team that new statutory provisions are needed. I think that’s not at all established; the problem could and should have been anticipated and resolved, one way or another, if the PTT’s lawyers had been doing their jobs properly, either by securing more promises from the GSA through the MOU than the Trump transition team actually got or by the transition team relying on someone other than GSA (that is, someone like a commercial ISP) to protect the data’s confidentiality against not only the rest of the world, but against the government (of which the PTT insists, probably correctly, that it wasn’t a part).

    Beldar (fa637a)

  249. @ narciso (#263): If they weren’t public records, then the Trump transition team had no obligation to give them to any part of the government and no obligation to preserve them. But once the Trump transition team had already decided to give them to one part of the government — voluntarily, despite other options — then the Trump transition team forfeited any expectation that “the government,” including Mueller, wouldn’t just look at those records and use them.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  250. The second one is great, thanks. I prefer you go medieval with the first.

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c) — 12/17/2017 @ 5:03 am

    I suppose I could call some pipe-hittin’ n***** but what I actually had in mind is in a time of dire need, when emetics and activated charcoal were not at hand, I could consider your iniquities.

    Like this Lacey Chabert movie where she used her dead friend’s saline implants as Capri Suns.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  251. Apparently, the gas head was out sick, so his deputy handed over the records

    narciso (d1f714)

  252. Hoagie:

    I don’t know if you’re still East Coast or West, but I was serious about having a beer.

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c) — 12/17/2017 @ 5:54 am

    He’s Biggie. You’re Tupac. Don’t meet up in Vegas.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  253. There’s no point whining about the barn door being left open after the horse is gone. If this were a court case, where my opponent had legally gotten his hands on confidential documents, I’d move for a protective order to keep them from being leaked to anyone outside the parties’ attorneys and the court. I think Rosenstein can do this with a letter to Mueller. If he has not already done it.

    nk (dbc370)

  254. We don’t trust the hall monitor, as he has given Mueller too much latitude

    https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4331911-Letter-to-Congressional-Committees.html

    narciso (d1f714)

  255. 259 — well that’s enlightening.

    I have no idea what you are referring to.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  256. “We will not forget. Nor will we forget the Christian leaders that betrayed their sisters in Christ for power.” Then, in an interview with Religion News Service columnist Jonathan Merritt, she made what was a stunning admission for her evangelical community: She said she supported same-sex relationships.

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c) — 12/17/2017 @ 6:19 am

    My old company used to deliver to the Lifeway Mothership in downtown Nashville. I somehow avoided it. It sounded like a real pain anyway.

    So she’s ok with F4F p*ssy-grabbing? From which apocrypha did that come?

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  257. 237 was for Pinandpuller. I’m sure Beldar has read Iqbal.

    nk (dbc370) — 12/17/2017 @ 9:33 am

    I shall, thank you. It sounds like Sammmy’s Nexus/Lexus spelling conspiracy theory right off the bat.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  258. Well that ascryptural, like the schlock any Sullivan peddles

    narciso (d1f714)

  259. David bricks Mr. Bigglewsorth dudagress

    narciso (d1f714)

  260. What about Trump and attorney-client privilege?
    What about the 4th amendment?
    What does it say about Loeventritt when he gives Mueller all the records without a subpoena or a warrant?
    What does it say about Loeventritt not alerting Trump and his attorney that the records were requested?
    No fu##ing courtesy for the President or his lawyer.
    There is a presidential records act with regulations.
    As a deplorable gun loving American the attempted sting on the President is pathetic.

    mg (60b0f7)

  261. I think that is dynamite foreign diplomacy, Col.

    mg (60b0f7)

  262. I think ABBB was the drummer for Penological Interest.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  263. He got co-writer credit for The Peno-logical Song.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  264. If you are lucky enough to do time with ABBB please enjoy his Peno Grigio. It’s tangy but not too dry.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  265. Let me be clear, that was from a Napa County SD Yelp review. They call him “The Curator”.

    Pinandpuller (1452dd)

  266. So I was curious if any of you lawyers are/were subject to taking call. Do you have answering services? Do you have to take a holiday rotation? I’m guessing prosecutors might.

    Apropos of attending a nice Christmas dinner party with doctors and medical people. I’ve been call-free for 18 months and I’ve never felt better. I might start a chip system like AA.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  267. BTW, has Al Franken resigned yet? Didn’t think so.

    Rev.Hoagie (6bbda7)

  268. His expect Ted too, in January, Shirley I’m serious

    narciso (d1f714)

  269. Has a president ever been hated so much for being pro American?

    mg (60b0f7)

  270. If he was aware, he’s fired for having sanctioned a likely violation of the Fourth Amendment rights of the Trump transition team members whose accounts were turned over by GSA in response to nothing more than a letter asking for them.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 12/16/2017 @ 5:07 pm

    If you’re investigating Russian contacts with Team Trump, reviewing those emails is a natural thing to do. So Mueller asking the GSA for them shows nothing negative about Team Mueller, and nothing to call for an intervention by Rosenstein. And it’s not the fault of either Rosenstein or Mueller if the GSA does not notify Team Trump, raise privilege claims, or otherwise respond by saying “Subpoena, please”.

    kishnevi (f594bb)

  271. They were not entitled to them, and unknowing past practices, they will leak partial tidbits from said stop pile and leave out key facts.

    narciso (d1f714)

  272. Narciso, it’s the custodian’s job to assert claims on behalf of Team Trump, not Mueller’s. The GSA may have screwed up, but Meuller was just doing what he’s supposed to be doing:. investigating.

    kishnevi (f594bb)

  273. Yes, this is all in good faith… just the entrenched bureaucracy of the Deep State dotting the “i”s and crossing the “t”s…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  274. Well, I’m sure that if Trump did nothing wrong, he has nothing to fear.

    Davethulhu (99cc74)

  275. But as pointed out, the head of the agency was incapacitated, just this week we discover an accusation against sessions that was designed to secure his refusal was false. The week before it was the Deutsche bank documents, which would be highly irregular since Mueller’s farm had been in partnership with deutsche

    narciso (d1f714)

  276. Raise your hand if you think that wearing a bacon jacket to a college basketball game is anti-Semitic. http://www.syracuse.com/sports/index.ssf/2017/12/hilary_rosen_bacon_anti-semitic_georgetown_syracuse_basketball_cnn_twitter.html

    Too dam’ many people in this country just looking to find offense. What’s worse is that the yenta (or is chaleria better?) put the poor nerd on the defensive. I would have invited her to taste my kishka.

    nk (dbc370)

  277. Hilary Rosen is a well-known PITA.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  278. They never go away, do they coronello.

    narciso (d1f714)

  279. 292… I’m looking forward to the results of IG Horowitz’s investigation, Cthulhu.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  280. No, they always land somewhere, narciso. Funny, that.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  281. I heard an interesting tidbit at the Christmas party. Some girl’s (I can’t remember the relation) is an electrician and is going to Puerto Rico to work on the grid. She said he was going to be making $7,000 A DAY! I watched an orthopedic doctor rethink his whole career path in real time.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  282. I hope he doesn’t end up in an Albanian sex-slave brothel.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  283. The original whitefish contract was for that amount, but it wee shut down, plus you would have to work non stop:
    dailycaller.com/2017/12/17/linda-sarsour-accused-of-enabling-sexual-assault-against-woman-who-worked-for-her

    narciso (d1f714)

  284. Did Mueller at least say spasebo?

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  285. Can you say cronyism? It’s been all over the news that the Puerto Rico no-bid contract went to a Trump crony at an outrageous price.

    Just remember. Paying your taxes is not only a legal obligation but also a moral one. Estate taxes, especially.

    nk (dbc370)

  286. narciso beat me to it.

    nk (dbc370)

  287. Mueller went to the GSA and pushed a bunch of buttons. When somebody answered he said,”UPS,” and they buzzed him in.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  288. Actually it was a fellow named Brandon Von grack (hail hydra’) who also presided over the flan. Plea deal, before the judge on the fisa court, who may have actually heard the warrant from same atty

    narciso (d1f714)

  289. To quote OJ, lemme ax you something. Isn’t all this stuff, stuff that the Obama outgoing transition team saw during the transition? Or was the Trump team so stupid as to archive its own internal, privileged and confidential, communications in the GSA server too?

    nk (dbc370)

  290. On the plus side a bunch of electricians got thrown into the top tax bracket.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  291. I guess GWB’s crew didn’t operate like this when Obama floated down from Heaven into the Oval Office. Just another revealing demonstration of how Democrats are down with the orderly transfer of power.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  292. So what’s up with Susan Rice’s “login” as it were being used to unmask Trump people and when they ask her about it she claims she didn’t do it?

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  293. No one cares about, that’s just carpal tunnel or something.

    Now sally fan daNcer misrepresents an attempt not have Israel get shoved with a hannukah candle as something involving the gris
    Henko gang.

    narciso (d1f714)

  294. I’d like the FCC to look and see if BO and SR have HAM licenses.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  295. If you bake a potato and let it cool it becomes a resistant starch. Hmmm.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  296. If you eat it, it becomes glycogen.

    nk (dbc370)

  297. What is a Fasting Mimicking Diet?
    Fast mimicking is a type of modified fasting. Instead of abstaining from food completely like a traditional fast, you still consume small amounts of food in a way that produces the therapeutic benefits of fasting.

    A fast mimicking diet typically lasts about five days and follows a healthy protocol low in carbs, protein, and calories and high in fat. Calories are kept at around 40% of normal intake. This allows the body to stay nourished with nutrients and electrolytes will less stress than normal fasting—but still receiving the same benefits.

    Long-term calorie restriction and long-term fasting can harmful, but fast mimicking is safer and more effective. Let’s look at how much it differs from traditional fasting:

    Fasting Mimicking Diet

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  298. Resistant starch is good for your gut micro-biom.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  299. If I have this Chris Kressler guy right he’s saying when you heat cool cycle the potatoes several times to make most of the starch resistant and you eat it plain it doesn’t spike your blood sugar. Resistant starch is not absorbed. I may have to listen again Joe Rogan Experience #1037.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  300. Dr. Price was a Cleveland dentist, who has been called the Charles Darwin of Nutrition. Searching for the causes of dental decay and physical degeneration he observed daily in his dental practice, he turned from test tubes and microscopes to study people with fine teeth the isolated primitives.

    Dr. Price studied many populations throughout the world on a search for the root cause of good health. He found it. The Weston A Price Foundation (WAPF) was founded upon his principles of eating for health; not for convenience, not for the cheapest meal a person could find, but for something that truly matters – one’s own health.

    Amazon

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  301. Guess he’s just a spudboy, lookin’ for his real potato…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  302. What do Chicago and college basketball have in common?

    There’s at least one shot every 30 seconds.

    Pinandpuller (1452dd)

  303. Is joke from Latvia. I tell now.

    — One day, hear knock on door.
    Man ask “Who is?”
    “Is potato man, I come around to give free potato”
    Man is very excite and opens door.
    Is not potato man, is secret police.

    — Two Latvian look at clouds.
    One see potato. Other see impossible dream.
    Is same cloud.

    — What are one potato say to other potato?
    Premise is ridiculous. Who have two potato?

    nk (dbc370)

  304. 302, but to even let that famous movie get green lighted, they had to use one of the “lighter skinned and inobservant” subsets of Muslims as villains.

    urbanleftbehind (9240ed)

  305. potatoes are very controversial and you need to remember that cause of today we start the new twitter rules

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  306. I think I get Twitter so I can tell Mr. President potato joke.
    Maybe better not. He send secret police. Take all potato.

    nk (dbc370)

  307. Bow they are reconsidering Stuart smalleys resignation ‘you didn’t see that coming’ this is why dueling came into fashion.

    narciso (d1f714)

  308. Is no can tell difference between Albanian and gypsy. Is very little Albanian in France. Is many gypsy.

    nk (dbc370)

  309. Well the founder of the Ali dynasty in Egypt, toppled by passer wee albanuan

    narciso (d1f714)

  310. Mehmet Ali (Mohammed Ali). Illustrated Machiavelli’s caveat about mercenaries. He was Greek by place of birth, having being born in Kavala, Macedonia, from Albanian-descended parents. (So was Kemal Attaturk for that matter.) The Mameluke Beys he slaughtered were themselves former slaves — mameluk means “slave” — who had attained wealth and political power.

    nk (dbc370)

  311. I have Albanian ancestry myself, through my paternal great-grandmother. Venetian, too, from my grandmother’s side.

    nk (dbc370)

  312. Imagine a child never held accountable until 70 years of age. Imagine the monster Billy Mumy: a ten year old with massive power even in a TeeVee show called Twilight Zone.
    http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/18/politics/trump-russia-investigation/

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  313. Kory Langhofer is insinuating — without quite risking the claim — that after GSA shared certain emails with Robert Mueller’s office, “unknown persons” leaked them to the press. The insinuation is that Mueller’s team leaked them.

    I can think of just one set of emails that fit this description: emails from KT McFarland that provided proof that Mike Flynn lied to the FBI about his conversations with Sergei Kislyak on December 29, 2016. The NYT quoted extensively from them in a December 2 story.

    Among other things, McFarland stated in the emails that Russia “has just thrown the U.S.A. election to” Trump.

    On Dec. 29, a transition adviser to Mr. Trump, K. T. McFarland, wrote in an email to a colleague that sanctions announced hours before by the Obama administration in retaliation for Russian election meddling were aimed at discrediting Mr. Trump’s victory. The sanctions could also make it much harder for Mr. Trump to ease tensions with Russia, “which has just thrown the U.S.A. election to him,” she wrote in the emails obtained by The Times.

    [snip]

    Mr. Obama, she wrote, was trying to “box Trump in diplomatically with Russia,” which could limit his options with other countries, including Iran and Syria. “Russia is key that unlocks door,” she wrote.

    She also wrote that the sanctions over Russian election meddling were intended to “lure Trump in trap of saying something” in defense of Russia, and were aimed at “discrediting Trump’s victory by saying it was due to Russian interference.”

    “If there is a tit-for-tat escalation Trump will have difficulty improving relations with Russia, which has just thrown U.S.A. election to him,” she wrote.

    https://www.emptywheel.net/2017/12/16/trump-appears-to-have-withheld-the-kt-mcfarland-email-about-the-thrown-election/

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  314. ugh the filthy Palin family’s doing domestic violence all up in it 🙁

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  315. Piketty says the American and French economic elite have taken almost all the benefit of income growth in the past few decades, and don’t need any more. Both countries’ new tax laws would—

    Leave working people feeling even more alienated from their governments than before.
    Leave the public feeling even more unwilling to make sacrifices need to curb global warming. If rich people can live even more lavishly than before, why should the rest of us accept the burden of a carbon tax?
    Leave governments even fewer resources to reduce poverty, either on a national or a global scale.
    https://philebersole.wordpress.com

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  316. Name a kid Track, it’s gotta scar him for life.

    nk (dbc370)

  317. Yes he did a tour against what would later be called the jv team and reupped for helmand, who knows what hell he faced.

    narciso (d1f714)

  318. in 1980, the bottom 50 percent of wage-earners in the United States earned about 21 percent of all income in the country – nearly twice as much as the share of income (11 percent) earned by the top 1 percent of Americans.

    But today, according to a massive new study on global inequality, those numbers have nearly reversed: the bottom 50 percent only take in 13 percent of the income pie, while the top 1 percent grab over 20 percent of the country’s income.

    https://www.google.com/amp/www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-world-inequality-report-20171215-story,amp.html

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  319. The father seems to be the only normal one in that family, in terms of both holding down a job, holding on to a spouse, and not giving ammunition to the yellow press.

    nk (dbc370)

  320. Was that why they attacked him at his own home five years Carlos slims to the daily caller lied about it.

    narciso (d1f714)

  321. So Roy Moore slogged in the muck, in danang risking the niedermeyer fate , goes home and forty years later he is slimmed by Carlos slims and failing conde nast. Allen west stopped a terrorist attack, went home ran for congress was subsequently beaten by a club going whelp like Murphy, isslimed out the door by Michelle fields. Pantano shoots a tango in a baghdAD mosque the press goes wild correction in on page c23

    narciso (d1f714)

  322. Ask and it shall be given to you; seek and you shall find.
    http://www.wyff4.com/article/ninth-circuit-court-judge-retiring-immediately-amid-sexual-misconduct-allegations/14454084

    I confess to a great deal of schadenfreude, if not vindication. I told you: No man is safe!

    nk (dbc370)

  323. Countless cases of harassment will go unnoticed. Men don’t confess to being sexually coerced, and women in power behave much like men.

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  324. Vrimethink, must be punished, so People do not contemplate it again.

    narciso (d1f714)

  325. Michael Savage knew the deal on that family, and somehow doesnt get the credit for being one of the original Trump concept purveyors.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  326. But the solons two coked up kids, one who washed out of the navy and was bribed with a Ukrainian oil company directorship we don’t speak of.

    narciso (b01a4d)

  327. STUXNET unintended consequence? Atlanta hub at Christmas?

    Definitely Putin probe..
    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/12/17/power-outage-suspends-flights-atlanta-airport/959446001/

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  328. Probably just bribes from duke power, and sky dragon sacrifices.

    narciso (b01a4d)

  329. Iranian centrifuges unconnected to internet, hacked by Sworm infected contractor laptop ordering high rpm destruction.

    It’s out there as Shareware now.

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  330. …but in a way modern Atlanta is not modern Atlanta without one particular judgement against Duke Power.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  331. I try to be cynical but I can’t keep up:

    https://t.co/Nu9TUQdZAt?amp=1

    No one informed governor target

    narciso (b01a4d)

  332. The American code guys who discovered STUX are convinced it’s a US/Israel product because in the millions of characters there wasn’t a single Bug in the code.

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  333. Our electrical grid has been breached numerous times since it’s discovery.

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  334. Narciso, one of your state’s exemplars is at it again. A man who would in California be just as eligible for greenlight as that one budding Bloods member people make a big deal about.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  335. Yes after Steadman sicced his posse on recommendation from resist we much and gov Luther threw him to the wolves thanks to Lauer and tingles show.

    narciso (b01a4d)

  336. Don’t do no favors for anyone.

    According to crowdstrike Chinese Intel has our infrastructure like the facehugger hive.

    narciso (b01a4d)

  337. Hoodathunk we need the military to protect us from white collar criminals like the Neocon.
    https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/contents/afp/2017/12/us-iran-saudi-missile-diplomacy-military-un.html

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  338. You know what’s funny though, Richard Clarke’s people ran internet security at the white house.

    narciso (69dd6f)

  339. Mattis/Tillerson:

    Rogue Diplomacy

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  340. She,was the head (redacted) at the woman’s March, you can’t make this up.

    narciso (69dd6f)

  341. Republicans are now looking like such big fools in the gyrations they’re doing trying to pass it that they’re pretty much writing the Democratic commercials for 2018 every time they get in front of a microphone. Monday’s carnival act was Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, who’s retiring after this term and who, apparently, would like us to believe that he’s already checked out

    http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a14454474/bob-corker-tax-bill-kickback/

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  342. 368. Corker was interested in the business tax cuts. He has said he wished they wouldn’t have touched the individual taxes AT ALL.

    He was worried about the deficit. He made some kind of a proposal that taxes go up automatially in case less revenue came in, but the Senate Parliamentarian ruled it out of order (I don’t know what he exact proposal was or why the Senate Parliamentarian ruled against it. Was it maybe that you couldn’t use other assumptions other than what the Congressional Budget Office had?)

    Corker had also wanted pass through income not to be taxed more than corporate income, figuting that difference unfairly benefitted the biggest businesses. They got closer to it in the final bill.

    Dissatisied with the bill, he voted against it.

    Now he decided that the opportunity for business tax cuts shouldn’t be lost.

    In the meantime, a new problem has developed. It seems like, very late in the process, some additional tax cuts benefitting real estate companies were added. Corker makes a lot of his money that way, so he would benefit personally. I am sure he had nothing to do with that, and it’s probably not Trump either, unless some people in the Congress don’t trust him to sign it, and don’t trust him to ignore his family’s business interests, and wanted to put in a sweetener for Trump. Or was it an unasked for sweetener for Corker? Or somebody else altogether?

    So now Corker asked for, and got, an agreement for Senator Hatch to produce some report to be made public as to how exactly that provision got added to the bill by the conferenece committee and who was responsible for that.

    Sammy Finkelman (70b0bc)

  343. Esquire! Hahahahahahahahahahaha… HA!!!!!!

    “PERSONNEL IS POLICY: Washington Bureaucrats Are Chipping Away at Trump’s Agenda.

    The professional bureaucracy has turned out to be more corrupt than the spoils system it was supposed to clean up.”

    https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/283670/

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  344. the bottom 50 percent only take in 13 percent of the income pie, while the top 1 percent grab over 20 percent of the country’s income.

    Pobably a sign of what they call economic rents (government privileges)

    What is your explanation for that?

    Sammy Finkelman (70b0bc)

  345. 305/ This wasn’ a Trump crony. It was even a crony of he Secretary of the Interior, Zinke. Maybe they thought it was.

    Sammy Finkelman (70b0bc)

  346. 325… Spudlatvia forevah!!! Funny stuff, nk.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  347. Sh1theel warning… http://ace.mu.nu/archives/CheapHolder.jpg

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  348. What is your explanation for that?

    Trickling asset transfer over 3 decades completely discrediting the conservative economic philosophy.

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  349. Scumbag alert. Vert De Ferk is it with the leftwing, treasonous morons?

    https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/obama-hezbollah-drug-trafficking-investigation/

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  350. Or maybe completely self- serving atavists punking the working-class..

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  351. Joe Walsh lol..

    Close the barn door after the horses ass..

    http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/365338-former-gop-rep-trump-deserves-to-be-impeached-if-he-fires-mueller

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  352. “In its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it was funneling cocaine into the United States, according to a POLITICO investigation.
    The campaign, dubbed Project Cassandra, was launched in 2008 after the Drug Enforcement Administration amassed evidence that Hezbollah had transformed itself from a Middle East-focused military and political organization into an international crime syndicate that some investigators believed was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities.

    Over the next eight years, agents working out of a top-secret DEA facility in Chantilly, Virginia, used wiretaps, undercover operations and informants to map Hezbollah’s illicit networks, with the help of 30 U.S. and foreign security agencies.

    They followed cocaine shipments, some from Latin America to West Africa and on to Europe and the Middle East, and others through Venezuela and Mexico to the United States. They tracked the river of dirty cash as it was laundered by, among other tactics, buying American used cars and shipping them to Africa. And with the help of some key cooperating witnesses, the agents traced the conspiracy, they believed, to the innermost circle of Hezbollah and its state sponsors in Iran.

    They followed cocaine shipments, tracked a river of dirty cash, and traced what they believed to be the innermost circle of Hezbollah and its state sponsors in Iran.

    But as Project Cassandra reached higher into the hierarchy of the conspiracy, Obama administration officials threw an increasingly insurmountable series of roadblocks in its way, according to interviews with dozens of participants who in many cases spoke for the first time about events shrouded in secrecy, and a review of government documents and court records. When Project Cassandra leaders sought approval for some significant investigations, prosecutions, arrests and financial sanctions, officials at the Justice and Treasury departments delayed, hindered or rejected their requests.

    … “This was a policy decision, it was a systematic decision,” said David Asher, who helped establish and oversee Project Cassandra as a Defense Department illicit finance analyst. “They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.”

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  353. In Cook County, the way real estate tax payments are set up, it is possible for some people to prepay their first installment now, before the end of the year, instead of in March, 2018, and take the deduction under the old tax law on their 2017 tax return.

    nk (dbc370)

  354. 370. They were really afraid anything could upend the Iran deal. They also gave Iran some billions of dollars – it wasn’t really ransom, it was so Iran would not repudiate the deal, except that they added an additional condition – that some prisoners shuld be released.

    That was certainly better than giving them the money (technically a settlement of Iranian claims dating from the time that Jimmy Carter froze their accounts) without getting any prisoners back, which would have been the alternaiive the Obama Administration would have chosen as the next best thing.

    The “ransom” was an improvement on what they were otherwise going to do!

    They got criticized by some conseravatives for that rather than praised.

    The criticism should have been reserved for giving the money in the first place – for a reason which amounted to buying the same rug twice. Now Obama is at fault for not making the situation very clear.

    Sammy Finkelman (f2d620)

  355. n380. k (dbc370) — 12/18/2017 @ 10:45 am

    In Cook County, the way real estate tax payments are set up, it is possible for some people to prepay their first installment now, before the end of the year, instead of in March, 2018, and take the deduction under the old tax law on their 2017 tax return.

    Be careful. Congress put somethinbg into the lw to prevent people from taking advantage of that. The New York Times did not go into detail as to what exactly that provisioopn was. Maybe they can still claim it on their 2017 tax return as long as they were billed, but they can’t prepay as much as they could in other years.

    People can still give charitiable donations that they had planned to do in 2018 and deduct them on their 2017 tax returns.

    Sammy Finkelman (f2d620)

  356. Sammeh, post 370 had nothing to do with 0bama and Iran. If you meant to refer to 379 and think 0bama deserved praise for those actions, all I can say is may God help ya!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  357. 383, what could he do, especially if he neglected the precedent of G. Harrold Carswell’s failed nomination to the USSC by Nixon and the unsuccessful defense (on the grounds of “mediocrity needs representation”) by Sen. Roman Hruska.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  358. @378 ABBB

    If you’ve been accused of cheating for six months you might as well go ahead and do it. It’s been pre-payed like they say in Cook county.

    Pinandpuller (f4d785)

  359. He made it clear that incidents have shown that Israel is not the cause for the disruption of peace in the Middle East. Instead, it has shown that threats from Iran along with jihadist terrorist groups have caused “the region’s problems.”

    Boink!

    https://legalinsurrection.com/2017/12/trumps-national-security-strategy-mentions-jihadist-terror-threat/

    Admiral Ben Bunsen Burner (4b3a7c)

  360. Joe Walsh might be having a Beckian breakdown, since he’s no longer a sole meat-head-in-blue territory in the Republican milieu, he now has to stand in line behind the Noo Yawk and South Florida versions.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  361. 384. Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/18/2017 @ 12:19 pm

    Sammeh, post 370 had nothing to do with 0bama and Iran. If you meant to refer to 379 and think 0bama deserved praise for those actions, all I can say is may God help ya!

    Yes, 379. Although 379 is 9 more than 370, the) and the 9 are right next to each other on the keyboard.

    I didn’t say that Obama deserves praise for stopping the drug investigations. This is almost close to what Argentina did – and who says it does not involve murder, too?

    What I said was it was basically the same thing that he did with the “ransom”, and that he deserved praise there for at least getting some prisoners out, because I think surely he was prepared to give Iran the money without getting any prisoners out. But he’d been criticized for something like that before.

    So since he improved on what he otherwise might have done, he deserved praise, and not criticism, for that element of what he did. That’s all they talked about. Not that he was oaying again for the rug. (nuclear deal)

    I said Obama did both things to try to get Iran to make and keep an agreement on its nuclear program.

    I don’t think he deserves raise for being that desperate – what he deserves praise for, and not criticism, is for at least remembering to get some prisoners out, too. BECAUSE THAT WASN’T WHAT THE HANDING OVER OF AN ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF CASH TO IRAN WAS ABOUT.

    Sammy Finkelman (a248bd)

  362. It wasn’t ransom for the hostages.

    It was ransom for the Iran deal – so that Iran would destroy heavy water (or some other material that cold help Iran build a nuclear bomb)

    Sammy Finkelman (a248bd)

  363. Its a variation on this sammeh:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/us/25arms.html?mtrref=www.google.com&gwh=145598CA501315B1AB5B196C7C8C9486&gwt=pay

    Now the awan bros car dealership seems to be the money launderers venue

    narciso (d1f714)

  364. Heard a guy on Levin’s Show talking about how Hezbolla was buying totaled cars at auction – primarily in Fredericksburg, VA – and using them to ship cash, guns (I think) and drugs to the Ivory Coast and one other country where they would be disbursed and routed on to various locations in Europe and the Middle East.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)


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