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Bernardo de La Paz

Bernardo de La Paz's Journal
Bernardo de La Paz's Journal
June 15, 2023

Any person's death diminishes me, though it is difficult sometimes to muster any care


... for some people; they have done all the diminishing in their lifetime, before they die. They have hit rock bottom and will lie there.

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.
-- John Dunne, 1572-1631

June 15, 2023

Also failure of childhood education. Kids are natural scientists until it is beaten out of them


Observe two year old toddlers testing everything: prodding, poking, dropping, bashing, pushing, pulling, stretching. Tasting everything.

Kids get logic if you tell them that it is a super-power that they can acquire.

As to ego, your point is spot on. Real scientists (not used ironically) try to disprove their own theories. "Hey Jane, look over this please. I've tried angle A and perspective B and attack C and I haven't found a flaw yet. See if you can find one."

But the poorly educated and the less intelligent (lower 50% by whatever reasonable measure) tend to look for evidence that supports their position and they think that is what scientists do.

They tend to otherize themselves and reject attempts to reach out to them. Sealing off contradictory information is part of the psychology of over-confidence in knowledge. Part of this is the cumulative effect of having been found wrong more times than their smarter peers; so a kind of coping mechanism: childhood peers can be brutal.


All the same, there is a large portion of the "poorly educated and less intelligent" who rank in the top quartile of wisdom. The ones who work hard all their lives, raise their children to have better lives than their own, and who die having left the world better for their existence. They may not as often know "why" things are the way they are but they often understand better the "what" and the "how" of the way things are.

June 15, 2023

(3) is the EASIEST to prove. Either they gave it back when asked or not


(3) is the easy out, the dodge. But then you don't get to keep the documents.


For what ever reason, and it is one we must search for, it was extremely important to tRump to keep the documents. So important he was willing to go through a lot for them. He may have narcissistically believed he was invulnerable, but surely after multiple inquiries and lawyers getting involved, even tRump is intelligent enough to have known it was going to lead to a huge amount of bother even if he thought he would ultimately escape in multiple ways.

Why was it so important to him to hold onto nuclear secrets? It did not touch any of his politics or his grievances.

The only answer I can think of is extremely disturbing and leads to another question: did he succeed in his goal.

June 14, 2023

Grooming for crime. Managers of crime farm teams


By enabling the criminal tRump and defending him, RepubliCons are grooming kids for white collar crime.

When laws are enforced, order is upheld. Why have the April NY indictments and the Miami indictments not created riots like the Jan 6 insurrection riot? Because the laws have been enforced over J6. Over a thousand arrested and more than half a thousand convicted.

Politicians and leaders of any kind who excuse or minimize or deny tRump's crimes are groomers for crime. Instead of being true leaders and truly against crime they grow it and propagate it. When kids say things like Senator Cruz says there is no crime, they are also thinking, hey if I get in cool with powerful people, I can get away with a lot of shit.

Managers of white collar crime farm teams. The Texas team of Paxton and Abbott. Florida. Enron. Fake charities. Fake "universities".

June 14, 2023

They should be answered by laws and where needed by Constitutional Amendment


1. No President, current or former, shall receive a pardon nor issue a pardon to a President current or former. Presidents and former Presidents are not eligible to receive any pardon.

2. No pardon in the US of A shall pardon any crime committed after the moment of issuance or ongoing at the moment of issuance, even if initiated before the moment of issuance.

3. { no opinion }

4. No pardon in the US of A can be sold or exchanged for valuable considerations or material or virtual goods. The penalty for doing so shall be one year in medium or higher security prison for each year served as President (or in other elected office) with no parole, only removal to a level lower security for certifiable chronic poor health.

5. { no opinion }

---

Adding

6. Presidents can't be indicted during their first or only term, but all statutes of limitations are paused while the President is serving. Presidents may be indicted at any time following their first or only term. Evidence may be collected and recorded during their first or only term, even if an indictment is delayed or later declined.

June 11, 2023

She could torpedo the case, but ...


Slate is very worried. There is much that Cannon can do, but Smith has a lot of tools. It would not surprise me if Smith moves to reassign a judge. I thought there was no appeal if a case is "dismissed with prejudice", but Slate seems to think even that can be appealed. If Cannon makes a false move, she can be countered, but it might have to wait for the trial to finish, according to Slate.

And all of that is dependent on her being the judge. She is just in for the preliminaries, it seems, and the court itself could reassign her.

{emphasis added}
Smith, for his part, has the option of requesting a different judge; 11th Circuit precedent allows reassignment when the presiding judge appears unable to put “previous views and findings aside.” (This is a nice way of saying that they’re in the tank for the defendant.) Trump would surely fight such a request, and it’s impossible to say where the 11th Circuit would come down.

Imagine, though, that Cannon does preside over this case. She has infinite tools at her disposal to thwart the prosecution at nearly every turn. Big swings, like tossing out the whole case—a very real possibility in her courtroom of chaos—can be appealed and overturned. But at every step, there are opportunities for sabotage. Cannon can try to rig voir dire to help the defense stack the jury with Trump supporters. She can exclude evidence and testimony that’s especially damning to Trump. [...]


Click on this link for the scary article, but then remember that:

1) She might be automatically assigned out of the case after the preliminaries or the court administration might take it on themselves to reassign her. I don't know the machinations of that courthouse.

2) Smith could request reassignment and have a good case for reassignment.

3) She is constrained if she wants a career. She is now on record for an egregious set of decisions for the defendant in the other case, and would torpedo herself if she over-reaches again like that.

4) Smith could perhaps if needed relaunch the whole case in D.C. as a classified documents case and fight the whole "I declassified it in my mind" nonsense.

5) Smith has other cases. Nauta is under pressure and may turn to save his own skin because his indictment is apparently even more open-shut than tRump's. Bedminster is heating up and Ivanka's ashes feel a breeze though buried in a giant heavy coffin. And the big case about insurrection / overthrow of election is advancing in the background.

June 9, 2023

I think most likely they assess case as clearly guilty, like open-and-shut guilty even


I don't know but it seems Smith's team has vaporized defenses to certain crimes by going after these particular 7. From analysis leading up to this in the media, I think the rump has effectively admitted to one of them on tape and was given multiple chances to avoid others. Instead of doing the honorable, obvious thing to do like Pence and Biden, to simply given them back, he directed subterfuges to obstruct their retrieval and investigations.

What lawyer wants to be on such a lop-sided losing end? Well, I suppose, the kind of lawyer that now has all of the rump's major cases consolidated under him.



June 5, 2023

The future (and it is positive) is already here, it is just unevenly distributed.


In 1992 the journalist Scott Rosenberg writing in the San Francisco Examiner credited William Gibson with the maxim as mentioned previously in this article. This is the earliest citation known to QI [WGSF]:

As William Gibson put it: “The future has arrived — it’s just not evenly distributed yet.”

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/01/24/future-has-arrived/

This includes and is despite the white hatefests and moral panics whipped up by the RepubliQonners.

I say "despite", because they are on the losing side of history.

When you look at what is achieved with diversity and how happy people are, and you realize how close we are to a world like that, perhaps you will join me in believing it will be net positive for humans.

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About Bernardo de La Paz

Canadian who lived for many years in Northern California and left a bit of my heart there. (note to self: https: //images.dailykos.com/images/1043361/original/2016.09.19_sunflowers_header.jpg . https://i.imgur.com/1VKgdmc.jpeg)
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