Posted On: Saturday - February 3rd 2024 6:43PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Humor
There's a lot of humor to be found by actually using the true meanings of words. I had 3 other different Babylon Bee headlines to put up, but these 2 fit together nicely.
Yeah, and while you're at it:
That's all I've got to say, besides the usual thanks, goodbye for the blog-week, and preview.
This has been a hellacious Immigration Stupidity week here. I've felt like covering every story, but I've touched on only a little. We'll have some necessary follow-ups next week, along with a financial stupidity update straight outta the IRS, 1 or 2 more China posts to meet our New Year's resolution, more music, and MUCH MUCH more stupidity!
Have a restful Sunday, Peakers!
Comments:
The Alarmist
Monday - February 5th 2024 1:15PM MST
PS
It won’t be long before the resurrect the Spanis Inquisition to go after the Bad Orange Man.
https://youtu.be/Ixgc_FGam3s
Seriously, it is getting that comical.
It won’t be long before the resurrect the Spanis Inquisition to go after the Bad Orange Man.
https://youtu.be/Ixgc_FGam3s
Seriously, it is getting that comical.
Adam Smith
Monday - February 5th 2024 9:20AM MST
PS: Good morning, everyone,
And good morning, Mr. Hail!
I agree with your assessment, Mr. Hail. I don't think Mr. Blompf can get a fair trial anywhere, especially a place like new york city.
As you already know, I've lost all faith in democracy. I don't believe American style democracy will result in good outcomes given our current situation. My lack of faith (dare I call it contempt?) extends to the courts and the juries.
While I have many reasons for my lack of faith it mainly boils down to my lack of belief in the competency and integrity of the American jury system and the American people in general.
Aside from the Milgram/Asch/Zimbardo effect (which I think is a very real problem) and the social troubles caused by Altemeyer's authoritarians there is also what I'll call the rigged jury effect.
Here's a quick anecdote about the local jury system as told in my first ever unz comment...
http://tinyurl.com/274268xz
I told that story almost five years ago. The nice lady in the story still remains on the do not call for jury duty list. And for whatever reason (I think it is my belief in jury nullification) I have been forever struck from the potential juror pool.
I think the system depends on uninformed and partisan jurors who will blindly follow the judges instructions. How else can one explain the William "Roddie" Bryan verdict and sentence?
Anyway... Here's that secret link...
https://archive.is/yI7Gq
______________
CAN TRUMP EVER GET A FAIR TRIAL?
Feb. 1, 2024
by Lionel Shriver // The Spectator
I’m an unlikely defender of Donald Trump. Politically, he’s not my boy. Most of the former president’s hyperbolic rants make me cringe. Yet last week, I had to agree with DT that a jury’s award of $83.3 million of his assets to E. Jean Carroll for defamation was ‘absolutely ridiculous’.
Keeping track of all the cases against Trump can be challenging, so let’s review. In 2019, while Trump was still president, Carroll went public with the accusation that back in 1995 – or was it 1996 – he raped her in the lingerie dressing room of Manhattan’s upscale clothing retailer Bergdorf Goodman. Trump denied the encounter had ever occurred and claimed he’d never met the woman; she was ‘totally lying’ and besides, she was not his type. Previously an advice columnist for Elle magazine, Carroll sued Trump for defamation, the case soon getting bogged down by appeals.
In 2022, Carroll sued Trump in civil court for rape. The jury didn’t buy the rape charge, but did find Trump liable for the lesser ‘sexual abuse’ – awarding her $5 million. When she continued to publicly allude to the ‘rape’, Trump filed a defamation countersuit. The same hardly neutral judge threw the countersuit out on the grounds that to ordinary people ‘rape’ and ‘sexual abuse’ were the same thing. I beg to differ.
Trump kept denying his culpability in rallies and on social media, calling Carroll a ‘whack job’. Carroll resumed her defamation suit and won. Her lawyers were asking for minimum damages of $10 million. After conferring for under three hours, the jury awarded her $83.3 million instead.
That’s serious money even to Trump, who may scramble to rustle up the cash to put in escrow as he appeals the verdict. Carroll’s lawyers deployed videos of Trump boasting about his wealth against him, suggesting that only a whopping award would make him feel the pinch. But it’s worth asking whether the jury would have levied such a staggering financial penalty had the same case been brought against any defendant other than Donald Trump.
Who is sui generis. Unless he or she has been in a coma since 2015, is there an American who’s not already formed an opinion of the man? Can Trump ever confront jurors and judges who are not predisposed to convict or exonerate before a word is said?
All these E. Jean Carroll trials have been held in New York. I’m registered to vote in New York. The state is so drastically Democratic that in November I will enjoy the rare luxury option of voting for a third-party candidate as an ineffectual protest against a Biden-Trump rematch with no fear of increasing the likelihood that NY’s electoral votes go to Trump. New York judgeships and juries must be chocka with Democrats. The scale of this award reeks of politics.
The rape case would also have been contaminated by the minor matter that a year and some beforehand the defendant was a highly divisive president of the United States. The charge could not be pursued in criminal court, with strict ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ standards, because the alleged incident occurred a quarter-century earlier, and the statute of limitations had run out. Requiring only a better than 50 per cent chance of guilt, even Carroll’s civil case was only possible thanks to a new law in New York allowing adult sexual assault victims a one-time chance to litigate for damages, despite the statute of limitations having run out – a law passed in the wake of #MeToo, and a good demonstration of why legislation that plays to the social hysteria of the moment is usually a bad idea. Statutes of limitation exist for a reason. Decades later, recollections warp and fade, while material evidence is often non-existent. Aside from producing two witnesses to whom she confided after the assault, Carroll presented no corroborating evidence. All she had was her story.
As for that story, it’s never gelled for me – though I’m nervous about questioning the particulars, lest I end up in court. In her 2019 account in New York magazine, Carroll claims to have met Trump at the door of the department store. He stopped and said, ‘Hey, you’re that advice lady!’ Really? Trump reads advice columns in women’s magazines? So loyally that he recognises her face? Carroll couldn’t pinpoint the year this happened, and in court had to rejig her timeline when it was pointed out that the designer coat-dress she described herself as wearing hadn’t yet been manufactured. Yet in the text, her memory of their flirtatious banter is surely too vivid – too long, too detailed and entirely couched in direct quotes. She can’t recall to what degree she was physically violated, and her description of the attack in the dressing room is anatomically dubious.
The sole proof Carroll’s lawyers produced that Trump had indeed met Carroll before is one photo from a crowded 1987 party. Having met many thousands of people over his lifetime, he wouldn’t necessarily recall a brief encounter with one blonde woman. I forget most of the new people I’ve met at a party by the time I get home.
In January’s defamation trial, Trump was forbidden from ‘disputing or attempting to undermine’ the original sexual abuse conviction. While outside the courtroom he may continue to deny that the assault happened, he may not disparage Carroll’s character. As the New York Times summarised, ‘defending yourself against an accusation is not the same as debasing the person who is making it’. But that’s splitting hairs. To deny the assault happened is implicitly to call Carroll a liar, thus implicitly to defame her character.
With such over-the-top damages, this case looks to the ‘wrong’ half of the electorate like one more attempt to hamper Trump’s presidential bid. Judges and juries in any of these court cases can’t weigh the particulars without also being keenly aware that the verdict could affect who’s the next president. It’s doubtful that Donald J. Trump can get a genuinely fair trial anywhere in the country.
Cheers to a wonderful day! ☮️
And good morning, Mr. Hail!
I agree with your assessment, Mr. Hail. I don't think Mr. Blompf can get a fair trial anywhere, especially a place like new york city.
As you already know, I've lost all faith in democracy. I don't believe American style democracy will result in good outcomes given our current situation. My lack of faith (dare I call it contempt?) extends to the courts and the juries.
While I have many reasons for my lack of faith it mainly boils down to my lack of belief in the competency and integrity of the American jury system and the American people in general.
Aside from the Milgram/Asch/Zimbardo effect (which I think is a very real problem) and the social troubles caused by Altemeyer's authoritarians there is also what I'll call the rigged jury effect.
Here's a quick anecdote about the local jury system as told in my first ever unz comment...
http://tinyurl.com/274268xz
I told that story almost five years ago. The nice lady in the story still remains on the do not call for jury duty list. And for whatever reason (I think it is my belief in jury nullification) I have been forever struck from the potential juror pool.
I think the system depends on uninformed and partisan jurors who will blindly follow the judges instructions. How else can one explain the William "Roddie" Bryan verdict and sentence?
Anyway... Here's that secret link...
https://archive.is/yI7Gq
______________
CAN TRUMP EVER GET A FAIR TRIAL?
Feb. 1, 2024
by Lionel Shriver // The Spectator
I’m an unlikely defender of Donald Trump. Politically, he’s not my boy. Most of the former president’s hyperbolic rants make me cringe. Yet last week, I had to agree with DT that a jury’s award of $83.3 million of his assets to E. Jean Carroll for defamation was ‘absolutely ridiculous’.
Keeping track of all the cases against Trump can be challenging, so let’s review. In 2019, while Trump was still president, Carroll went public with the accusation that back in 1995 – or was it 1996 – he raped her in the lingerie dressing room of Manhattan’s upscale clothing retailer Bergdorf Goodman. Trump denied the encounter had ever occurred and claimed he’d never met the woman; she was ‘totally lying’ and besides, she was not his type. Previously an advice columnist for Elle magazine, Carroll sued Trump for defamation, the case soon getting bogged down by appeals.
In 2022, Carroll sued Trump in civil court for rape. The jury didn’t buy the rape charge, but did find Trump liable for the lesser ‘sexual abuse’ – awarding her $5 million. When she continued to publicly allude to the ‘rape’, Trump filed a defamation countersuit. The same hardly neutral judge threw the countersuit out on the grounds that to ordinary people ‘rape’ and ‘sexual abuse’ were the same thing. I beg to differ.
Trump kept denying his culpability in rallies and on social media, calling Carroll a ‘whack job’. Carroll resumed her defamation suit and won. Her lawyers were asking for minimum damages of $10 million. After conferring for under three hours, the jury awarded her $83.3 million instead.
That’s serious money even to Trump, who may scramble to rustle up the cash to put in escrow as he appeals the verdict. Carroll’s lawyers deployed videos of Trump boasting about his wealth against him, suggesting that only a whopping award would make him feel the pinch. But it’s worth asking whether the jury would have levied such a staggering financial penalty had the same case been brought against any defendant other than Donald Trump.
Who is sui generis. Unless he or she has been in a coma since 2015, is there an American who’s not already formed an opinion of the man? Can Trump ever confront jurors and judges who are not predisposed to convict or exonerate before a word is said?
All these E. Jean Carroll trials have been held in New York. I’m registered to vote in New York. The state is so drastically Democratic that in November I will enjoy the rare luxury option of voting for a third-party candidate as an ineffectual protest against a Biden-Trump rematch with no fear of increasing the likelihood that NY’s electoral votes go to Trump. New York judgeships and juries must be chocka with Democrats. The scale of this award reeks of politics.
The rape case would also have been contaminated by the minor matter that a year and some beforehand the defendant was a highly divisive president of the United States. The charge could not be pursued in criminal court, with strict ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ standards, because the alleged incident occurred a quarter-century earlier, and the statute of limitations had run out. Requiring only a better than 50 per cent chance of guilt, even Carroll’s civil case was only possible thanks to a new law in New York allowing adult sexual assault victims a one-time chance to litigate for damages, despite the statute of limitations having run out – a law passed in the wake of #MeToo, and a good demonstration of why legislation that plays to the social hysteria of the moment is usually a bad idea. Statutes of limitation exist for a reason. Decades later, recollections warp and fade, while material evidence is often non-existent. Aside from producing two witnesses to whom she confided after the assault, Carroll presented no corroborating evidence. All she had was her story.
As for that story, it’s never gelled for me – though I’m nervous about questioning the particulars, lest I end up in court. In her 2019 account in New York magazine, Carroll claims to have met Trump at the door of the department store. He stopped and said, ‘Hey, you’re that advice lady!’ Really? Trump reads advice columns in women’s magazines? So loyally that he recognises her face? Carroll couldn’t pinpoint the year this happened, and in court had to rejig her timeline when it was pointed out that the designer coat-dress she described herself as wearing hadn’t yet been manufactured. Yet in the text, her memory of their flirtatious banter is surely too vivid – too long, too detailed and entirely couched in direct quotes. She can’t recall to what degree she was physically violated, and her description of the attack in the dressing room is anatomically dubious.
The sole proof Carroll’s lawyers produced that Trump had indeed met Carroll before is one photo from a crowded 1987 party. Having met many thousands of people over his lifetime, he wouldn’t necessarily recall a brief encounter with one blonde woman. I forget most of the new people I’ve met at a party by the time I get home.
In January’s defamation trial, Trump was forbidden from ‘disputing or attempting to undermine’ the original sexual abuse conviction. While outside the courtroom he may continue to deny that the assault happened, he may not disparage Carroll’s character. As the New York Times summarised, ‘defending yourself against an accusation is not the same as debasing the person who is making it’. But that’s splitting hairs. To deny the assault happened is implicitly to call Carroll a liar, thus implicitly to defame her character.
With such over-the-top damages, this case looks to the ‘wrong’ half of the electorate like one more attempt to hamper Trump’s presidential bid. Judges and juries in any of these court cases can’t weigh the particulars without also being keenly aware that the verdict could affect who’s the next president. It’s doubtful that Donald J. Trump can get a genuinely fair trial anywhere in the country.
Cheers to a wonderful day! ☮️
Hail
Monday - February 5th 2024 4:14AM MST
PS
The Peak Stupidity-approved commentatoress Lionel Shriver, who is and remains outside the "pro-Trump" camp, has an article out this week:
______________
CAN TRUMP EVER GET A FAIR TRIAL?
Feb. 1, 2024
by Lionel Shriver // The Spectator
I'm an unlikely defender of Donald Trump. Politically, he’s not my boy. Most of the former president’s hyperbolic rants make me cringe. Yet last week, I had to agree with DT that a jury’s award of $83.3 million of his assets to E. Jean Carroll for defamation was ‘absolutely ridiculous’.
Keeping track of all the cases against Trump can be challenging, so let’s review. In 2019, while Trump was still president, Carroll went public with the accusation that back in 1995 – or was it 1996 – he raped her in the lingerie dressing room of Manhattan’s upscale clothing retailer Bergdorf Goodman. Trump denied the encounter had ever occurred and claimed he’d never met the woman; she was ‘totally lying’ and besides, she was not his type. Previously an advice columnist for Elle magazine, Carroll sued Trump for defamation, the case soon getting bogged down by appeals.
In 2022, Carroll sued Trump in civil court for rape. The jury didn’t buy the rape charge, but did find Trump liable for the lesser ‘sexual abuse’ – awarding her $5 million. When she continued to publicly allude to the ‘rape’, Trump filed a defamation countersuit. The same hardly neutral judge threw the countersuit out on the grounds that to ordinary people ‘rape’ and ‘sexual abuse’ were the same thing. I beg to differ.
Trump kept denying his culpability in rallies and on social media, calling Carroll a ‘whack job’. Carroll resumed her defamation suit and won. Her lawyers were asking for minimum damages of $10 million. After conferring for under three hours, the jury awarded her $83.3 million instead.
That’s serious money even to Trump, who may scramble to rustle up the cash to put in escrow as he appeals the verdict. (....)
_____________
The rest is PAYWALL BLOCKED:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/can-trump-ever-get-a-fair-trial/
but from what I hear, the gist is that there is not (just) that it's "unfair" against Blompf, but that the institution of the "jury trial" is now outdated, certainly in cases like this. The people are not neutral spectators. Not a New York City jury about someone like Trump.
People are too propagandized in the media-saturated world, or the Third Worldization process has given us lots more tribalism than was present before (the phenomenon of Blacks voting to acquit Blacks instinctually is well known; See also the jury for Derek Chauvin and others). Even a "venue change" for high-profile trials or highly-prominent people would often not quite work, because everyone is exposed to the same media.
But maybe Adam Smith can someone do his magic-wand work and come up with a secret link to the full article.
The Peak Stupidity-approved commentatoress Lionel Shriver, who is and remains outside the "pro-Trump" camp, has an article out this week:
______________
CAN TRUMP EVER GET A FAIR TRIAL?
Feb. 1, 2024
by Lionel Shriver // The Spectator
I'm an unlikely defender of Donald Trump. Politically, he’s not my boy. Most of the former president’s hyperbolic rants make me cringe. Yet last week, I had to agree with DT that a jury’s award of $83.3 million of his assets to E. Jean Carroll for defamation was ‘absolutely ridiculous’.
Keeping track of all the cases against Trump can be challenging, so let’s review. In 2019, while Trump was still president, Carroll went public with the accusation that back in 1995 – or was it 1996 – he raped her in the lingerie dressing room of Manhattan’s upscale clothing retailer Bergdorf Goodman. Trump denied the encounter had ever occurred and claimed he’d never met the woman; she was ‘totally lying’ and besides, she was not his type. Previously an advice columnist for Elle magazine, Carroll sued Trump for defamation, the case soon getting bogged down by appeals.
In 2022, Carroll sued Trump in civil court for rape. The jury didn’t buy the rape charge, but did find Trump liable for the lesser ‘sexual abuse’ – awarding her $5 million. When she continued to publicly allude to the ‘rape’, Trump filed a defamation countersuit. The same hardly neutral judge threw the countersuit out on the grounds that to ordinary people ‘rape’ and ‘sexual abuse’ were the same thing. I beg to differ.
Trump kept denying his culpability in rallies and on social media, calling Carroll a ‘whack job’. Carroll resumed her defamation suit and won. Her lawyers were asking for minimum damages of $10 million. After conferring for under three hours, the jury awarded her $83.3 million instead.
That’s serious money even to Trump, who may scramble to rustle up the cash to put in escrow as he appeals the verdict. (....)
_____________
The rest is PAYWALL BLOCKED:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/can-trump-ever-get-a-fair-trial/
but from what I hear, the gist is that there is not (just) that it's "unfair" against Blompf, but that the institution of the "jury trial" is now outdated, certainly in cases like this. The people are not neutral spectators. Not a New York City jury about someone like Trump.
People are too propagandized in the media-saturated world, or the Third Worldization process has given us lots more tribalism than was present before (the phenomenon of Blacks voting to acquit Blacks instinctually is well known; See also the jury for Derek Chauvin and others). Even a "venue change" for high-profile trials or highly-prominent people would often not quite work, because everyone is exposed to the same media.
But maybe Adam Smith can someone do his magic-wand work and come up with a secret link to the full article.
Dieter Kief
Sunday - February 4th 2024 1:49AM MST
PS
I
Mod. i like these short posts with one - telling - aspect in them. Thx. - not least for writing this one!
II
Alarmist, what you say is that it makes sense to keep the genres seperated - and everyday life interactions call for the factual statement. Not for comedy. Also not for unintentional comedy.
In a "Sane Society", somebody who crosses the border of the genre of everyday factual conversation by getting - silly - gets a recall by the guardians of the public sphere and has to take the blame.
This is an important mechanism because societal reality is not something that is real in the sense of a tree or a bridge, but rather something that comes out of a rational communicative practice. The way we talk about society is what creates it in large portions. The downside of silly talk is that it creates - a silly society.
Silly = dysfunctional.
This is why it is so important to nurture reason when it comes to the public discourse that, as I said, in large portions creates what we call society.
I
Mod. i like these short posts with one - telling - aspect in them. Thx. - not least for writing this one!
II
Alarmist, what you say is that it makes sense to keep the genres seperated - and everyday life interactions call for the factual statement. Not for comedy. Also not for unintentional comedy.
In a "Sane Society", somebody who crosses the border of the genre of everyday factual conversation by getting - silly - gets a recall by the guardians of the public sphere and has to take the blame.
This is an important mechanism because societal reality is not something that is real in the sense of a tree or a bridge, but rather something that comes out of a rational communicative practice. The way we talk about society is what creates it in large portions. The downside of silly talk is that it creates - a silly society.
Silly = dysfunctional.
This is why it is so important to nurture reason when it comes to the public discourse that, as I said, in large portions creates what we call society.
The Alarmist
Sunday - February 4th 2024 1:14AM MST
PS
There’s a grain of truth in all comedy, but there is altogether too much comedy in American politics (European and Brt too)!
There’s a grain of truth in all comedy, but there is altogether too much comedy in American politics (European and Brt too)!
I knew Adam would come through with that archived version, as I even got the hang of it myself when I read through about a dozen of Mrs. Shriver's columns some months back. (Got the post in tabs still ready to comment on.)
I assume that's the Monty Python skit, Alarmist, without having pasted that one in yet.
I probably should get a little shorter on post on the average, Mr. Kief. I don't want to be the guy just presenting memes for comment all the time. That is, unless they are my own, as with the Claudine gay set. What can I say? I got on a roll with those with help from the iSteve commenters and the man himself.