Senin, 31 Oktober 2016

Pence To Limbaugh: 'Look, This Race Is On' - Western Journalism

Pence To Limbaugh: 'Look, This Race Is On' - Western Journalism

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On his nationally syndicated radio show Monday, Rush Limbaugh was joined by Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, the Republican vice presidential nominee.

Limbaugh asked the governor what he thought about the wide differences in polls, with some showing the race even between his running mate, Donald Trump, and Democrat Hillary Clinton, and others showing Clinton significantly ahead.

“Well, you know, I think Abraham Lincoln said believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see. So I do believe what I see,” Pence said, telling of the huge crowds that have come out to see Trump on the campaign trail.

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“I mean, people really want change in this country,” he said.

Pence continued, “And, you know, the polls, I think the Rasmussen polls got us up a couple of points. Nationally, I know in North Carolina where I just landed, I think we’re just down one at this point. Look, this race is on.”

He said he believes the mainstream media have been trying to give the impression that Trump can’t win.

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“It’s clear to me the national media is trying to build a narrative to support Hillary Clinton by suggesting this thing is all rolled up, and nothing could be further from the truth,” Pence said.

“I’ve never seen the kind of enthusiasm at the grassroots that I see campaigning with or for Donald Trump,” he said.

Pence said many Americans support the GOP ticket because they know things aren’t going well and they are tired of people telling them they are crazy for feeling that way.

“The American people, I think, are tired of being told … they’re tired of being told this is as good as it gets,” he said.

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The governor continued, “They’re tired of being told, like Ronald Reagan used to say, that little intellectual elite in a far distant capital can plan our lives better for us than we can plan them for ourselves. Donald Trump has made an incredible connection with everyday Americans.”

Pence added that he believes that connection will result in a victory on Election Day.

“And I really do believe that in the days that remain in this campaign, you’re going to continue to see the American people well up and make Donald Trump the 45th president of the United States,” he said.

As for those saying that Trump will get blown out and contribute to the loss of Republican seats in the House and Senate, Pence isn’t buying that, either.

“I honestly think it’s all just tactical by Hillary’s team and by her allies in the national media,” he said.

“You know, there’s two ways you can defeat your opponent. Number one is you can defeat them outright, or number two, you can just demoralize them. I think that’s what they’re trying to do here. But I don’t think the American people are buying it.”

Pence said that if he could deliver one message to supporters of the Trump campaign, it would be don’t believe the media hype and don’t lose faith.

“So, you know, anyone within the sound of my voice, I would just tell them, don’t buy the media spin, don’t buy the Hillary spin,” he said.

“This race is on, it’s a fight, and it’s to the finish, and we’re going keep fighting hard for the American people, not just to elect the Trump-Pence team, but to re-elect Republican majorities in the House and Senate so we can move that contract with the American voter and make America great again.”

What do you think? Scroll down to comment below.



Oprah Endorses Hillary Clinton on TD Jakes' Show: 'You Don't Have to Like Her' to Vote for Her - Christian Post

Oprah Endorses Hillary Clinton on TD Jakes' Show: 'You Don't Have to Like Her' to Vote for Her - Christian Post

October 24, 2016|4:04 pm

Oprah Winfrey(Photo: Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko)

Talk show host and businesswoman Oprah Winfrey talks to journalists before the opening of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in Meyerton, outside Johannesburg, South Africa, January 2, 2007. Winfrey started the private learning and residential institution for girls in grades 7-12 who show outstanding promise despite their social circumstances.

Media mogul Oprah Winfrey didn't bite her tongue when she was asked to comment on the 2016 presidential election on T.D. Jakes' show  on Thursday. Being a lifelong Democrat, Oprah affirmed her support for Hillary Clinton and encouraged other Americans to vote for the Democratic presidential nominee if they "like this country."

"The reason why I haven't been vocal other than saying, 'I'm with her,' is because I didn't know what to say that could actually pierce through all the noise and the chaos and the disgusting vitriol that's going on, and actually be heard."

The Oscar nominee told the audience that the decision between the two major candidates should be clear. "But there really is no choice, people. All the people sitting around talking about they can't decide, this is what I want to say. All the people, I hear this all the time, you get into conversations — and there's not a person in this room who hasn't been in the same conversation — where people say, 'I just don't know if I like her.'"

To these people, Oprah quipped, "she's not coming over your house!"

"You don't have to like her," Oprah insisted. "You don't have to like her. Do you like this country? Do you like this country?"

"You better get out there and vote. Do you like the country? Do you like freedom and liberty? Do you like this country? Do you like democracy or do you want a demagogue?"

 Jakes chimed in, adding, "It's scary at a time when leadership is so critical in our country."

Winfrey, who once owned a talk show and now owns the TV network OWN, has an estimated net worth of $3 billion. Her broad platform has tremendous influence, but some evangelicals have warned believers about Winfrey's Christian worldview.

As previously reported by The Christian Post, some leading evangelicals have cautioned Christians against Winfrey's beliefs. Christian apologists Josh McDowell and Dave Sterrett wrote the book "O" God: A Dialogue on Truth and Oprah's Spirituality.

In the book, they claim that Winfrey believes in pantheism — God is all and all is God — and that there are mutliple paths to reach God. They also say Winfrey advocates for pursuing one's inner desires rather than demonstrating restraint if the act is considered a sin in the Bible.

The apologists also note that Winfrey mixes beliefs to create "a hodgepodge of personalized faith."

Follow Kevin Porter on Facebook: kevin.porter
Follow him on Twitter: @kevindonporter


Poker player owns 'abusive' opponent by winning massive 27-million-chip hand - Karma was the real winner here. - For The Win

SNL's totally bizarre 'David S. Pumpkins' skit is the best thing that's happened this year - For The Win

Judge Richard Posner On SCOTUS: 'The Supreme Court Is Awful' - Above the Law

Judge Richard Posner On SCOTUS: 'The Supreme Court Is Awful' - Above the Law
Judge Richard Posner (Photo by Chensiyuan via Wikimedia Commons.)

Judge Richard Posner (Photo by Chensiyuan via Wikimedia Commons.)

UPDATE (10/28/2016, 11:00 a.m.): Please note the UPDATES at the end of this post, including corrections and clarifications from Judge Posner.

Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court Appeals for the Seventh Circuit isn’t afraid to speak his mind, even if his candid comments might offend the prestigious or powerful. The renowned jurist, one of the leading legal intellectuals of his (or any other) generation, famously mixed it up with the late Justice Antonin Scalia, and had harsh words for Chief Justice John Roberts as well.

This might be cold comfort to Chief Justice Roberts, but Judge Posner holds almost all of the Chief’s colleagues in low esteem. In a recent appearance at Chicago’s (wonderful) Seminary Co-op Bookstore, in connection with the launch of William Domnarski’s new biography, Richard Posner (affiliate link), “The Poze” had the following to say (you can watch the video via C-SPAN; these comments start around 17:00):

I’m actually writing a book now called Strengths and Weaknesses of the American Legal System. It’s almost entirely about the federal judiciary…. So I have about ten pages on the strengths and about 320 pages on the weaknesses. [Laughter.]

I’m very critical. I don’t think the judges are very good. I think the Supreme Court is awful. I think it’s reached a real nadir. Probably only a couple of the justices, Breyer and Ginsburg, are qualified. They’re okay, they’re not great.

That was way harsh, Your Honor — and also perhaps a bit of trolling?

Given the glittering credentials of the eight sitting justices, I must respectfully dissent from Judge Posner’s assessment of the Court. While it’s true that SCOTUS could use a bit more experiential diversity, the current justices collectively have extensive experience as judges, lawyers, and law professors; in government and in private practice; with civil and criminal law; and with trial and appellate work (admittedly more the latter than the former, but remember that Justice Sonia Sotomayor was an assistant district attorney and trial judge for many years). If they’re not qualified, it’s hard to imagine who is.

Judge Posner laid the blame for the supposed weakness of the federal judiciary at the feet of two groups, politicians and law clerks:

Of course, the politicians don’t care about the quality of judges. They’re politicians; they’re interested in politics. They’re not interested in having good judges.

In the case of the Supreme Court, what has been a tremendous boon to the politicians — it’s true of the lower courts also — is that all the federal judges have law clerks. And the Supreme Court justices, and many of the court of appeals judges, have really good law clerks, they’re really smart. So the politicians figure, well, we’re appointing this person because he or she is of a particular race, or comes from a special part of the country, or this or that, or is liberal or is conservative. And this person is not particularly bright and doesn’t have much experience — never been in a trial courtroom, for example — but, there are all these brilliant law clerks working, so their opinions will be all right, because the law clerks will write them…. That’s a very serious deficiency in our system, and there are zillions more.

Posner reiterated his previously expressed belief that judges should write their own opinions, instead of leaving drafting to their law clerks. He and moderator Tom Ginsburg had this cute exchange (19:30):

GINSBURG: If we were to demand that judges write their own opinions, would that be a good thing?

POSNER: Oh, it’d be great! Half of them would resign immediately.

During the question-and-answer session at the end, Judge Posner expanded on his critique of SCOTUS (45:50):

[I]f you look at the Supreme Court, for example, of the nine justices — I’m bringing Scalia back from the dead to have the standard number of justices — of those nine, one had been in a trial courtroom. It’s ridiculous to have an appellate judge who doesn’t have trial experience.

He urged appellate judges to follow his example of occasionally sitting by designation as trial judges, which he started doing as a newly appointed judge more than 30 years ago and continues to do today.

But their lack of extensive trial experience isn’t the only problem Judge Posner has with the members of SCOTUS. He’s not even impressed by their writing (51:40):

The only two justices who are qualified are Ginsburg and Breyer. Their opinions are readable, and sometimes quite eloquent. The others, I wouldn’t waste my time reading their opinions.

Ouch. And then Posner doubled down, singling out Justice Samuel A. Alito for penning “the most tedious opinion I’ve ever read,” in the case of Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt (aka the Texas abortion case):

Justice Alito’s hyperconservative. He wrote a very long dissent, 40 pages. The only thing he said in his dissent was that the case should have been dismissed on the basis of res judicata because some of the plaintiffs attacking the Texas law had filed a previous similar case, which had been dismissed, and you’re not supposed to relitigate the identical case. And Breyer, in his majority opinion, discussed this and pointed out there was some overlap in some of the plaintiffs, but there were loads of other plaintiffs who had had nothing to do with the earlier case.

And what he should also have said, which he did not say, is that res judicata is this common-law rule about trying to create finality in litigation, which is fine, but it’s not part of the Constitution or anything, and this is an important issue we’re trying to get settled — so why should you fuss with res judicata, especially for 40 pages?

This is par for the Posner course — a call for pragmatism over formalism in judging. See generally Reflections on Judging (affiliate link).

Consistent with this approach is the “low opinion” Posner has for precedent (56:00), which he views as mainly judicial mysticism, possibly motivated by worry about Congress (59:00):

The Supreme Court justices feel under pressure. For one thing, Congress doesn’t like the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has a way of invalidating congressional legislation. So the justices worry about Congress — maybe they won’t get raises if Congress doesn’t love them — so they want to create some sense of infallibility. So the notion that they decided a case 100 years ago and they’re still following it makes it seem like the Supreme Court’s really great, they can decide a case and a hundred years later it’s still the law.

The somewhat curmudgeonly Judge Posner expressed all sorts of critical opinions during the panel. This jumped out at me as his Andy Rooney impersonation (24:20):

I hate these old terms. ‘Chambers.’ …. We have office suites, and they’re called chambers. Why are they called chambers? I think it’s from the French chambre, and it goes back to the fourteenth century or something, when there was a big French influence in England. So the term has stuck. I don’t like that old stuff, I don’t like looking backwards.

Later on in the event, after letting loose on some other topic, he quipped, “So you can see I’m a sourpuss, right?”

During the Q&A, some law students tried to get advice out of Judge Posner. They didn’t succeed.

One Ph.D. student marveled at Posner’s output over the years — dozens of books, hundreds of articles, thousands of judicial opinions — and asked the prolific Posner for advice on time management and avoiding procrastination (36:00). After giving a shout-out to his research assistants, Posner made a “just do it” comment that struck me as both wise advice and a perfect encapsulation of his life and career.

“I work most of the time…. I got my first typewriter at age 13, and I’ve been typing furiously ever since.”

UPDATE (10/25/2016, 11:50 p.m.): Additional coverage of Judge Posner’s remarks appears in the ABA Journal, the WSJ Law Blog, and Bench Memos. I agree with these aspects of Ed Whelan’s analysis:

Who knows what Posner means by “qualified”? If he means to incorporate a justice’s jurisprudence into the assessment, it’s strange that he would select Justice Breyer and Justice Ginsburg as the two best of a motley lot. Justice Kagan, for example, would seem closer to Ginsburg than Breyer is….

I also find it strange that Posner regards only Ginsburg and Breyer opinions as “readable” and “sometimes quite eloquent.” Limiting myself to the liberal side of the Court (lest I be thought to be indulging my ideological preferences), I think that Kagan’s opinions fare quite well compared to Ginsburg’s and Breyer’s.

I agree that Justice Kagan is an excellent writer. Going beyond the liberal wing, most objective observers would recognize Chief Justice John Roberts as an excellent prose stylist. When I asked legal writing guru Bryan Garner to name his favorite writers on the Court (in addition to his co-author Justice Scalia), he cited Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Ginsburg, and Justice Kagan.

UPDATE (10/28/2016, 11:00 a.m.): Please see these corrections and clarifications from Judge Posner.

Richard Posner [Book TV / C-SPAN2]
Richard Posner [Amazon (affiliate link)]

Earlier: Judge Richard Posner: An Interview With His Biographer, William Domnarski
Should Judges Write Their Own Opinions Or Leave Drafting To Their Law Clerks?
Reverse Benchslap Of The Day: Judge Posner Smacks Chief Justice Roberts


David Lat is the founder and managing editor of Above the Law and the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@abovethelaw.com.



The Empty Violence of The Walking Dead - Vulture

The Empty Violence of The Walking Dead - Vulture
If nothing else, the seventh season premiere of The Walking Dead gave audiences a metaphor for the show’s methods: a bat to the head. Whunk! Whunk! Whunk! Splat! Goooosh!After nearly seven months of waiting, fans finally got to see which beloved cast members would get their brains bashed in by the post-apocalyptic warlord Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), the preening thug leader of the Saviors. The unrelenting sadism of this episode was calculated to test audiences’ stamina, somewhat like the “Red Wedding” episode of Game of Thrones.But the stark difference in quality between the two shows can be seen in their treatment of scenes where powerful people torment the powerless. Where Game of Thrones’s Red Wedding episode focused exclusively on the shock and pain of the victims of a massacre and its ramifications for the surviving characters (and packed the entire incident into less than ten minutes of screen time), The Walking Dead made Negan the star of the premiere and turned the whole thing into a prolonged power-trip fantasy, of a type that some viewers (young dudes, mainly) love, especially if they’ve never experienced violence outside of the “cool” context of video games and movies.The brutality was nearly eroticized, with loving inserts of the villain’s bloody weapon, lingering images of hostages’ tearful, terrified faces and low-angled shots that made Negan loom like a conquering badass hero. Casting the matinee-idol handsome Morgan further glamorizes the character: In the comics he’s drawn more like the meathead ex-teacher and ping-pong coach that he was before the apocalypse, with the sort of bullet head and wrestler’s body that would’ve fattened up on beer and barbecue had the world not gone to hell.Negan is a crushing bore already  —a bullying chief henchman from an R-rated action flick inexplicably promoted to Big Bad status. Unfortunately, this is a storytelling move typical of The Walking Dead — a fourth-rate zombie movie stretched out over 83 hours that has produced just one halfway interesting antagonist for the heroes during its seven seasons, David Morrissey’s the Governor (Jon Bernthal’s Shane Walsh, an honest-to-goodness character whose complexity is still missed, was ultimately more of an antihero). That most of the characters and situations are drawn from the pages of Robert Kirkman’s comic doesn’t blunt charges of bad faith; like Game of Thrones, a vastly superior (though still problematic) adaptation of existing genre fiction, the show’s producers are free to embellish and change things, but in this particular case they chose not to.Kudos, I guess, to the series for making us think that a minor, latecomer character, Michael Cudlitz’s Abraham, would be the only character to get pulped, then hewing to the source after all and killing Glenn (Steven Yeun), who miraculously (ridiculously) survived death just recently and is the soon-to-be father of a child with Maggie (Lauren Cohan). But let’s not kid ourselves. This show has always seen its characters as targets in a shooting gallery. The only compelling question is which of them will live or die during any given season, and how gruesome and protracted their death will be, and whether there will be any redeeming nobility to it.I’ve been writing about this medium for 20 years and watching it for more than 40, and I can’t recall a major TV series marketing cruelty and trauma as cynically, even gleefully, as this AMC saga. The rampage was hyped by a lengthy, thorough ad campaign spotlighting not any regular cast member, but Negan and his weapon. If you lived in a major city during the past seven months, it was impossible to spend a day outdoors without seeing a bus ad or subway poster featuring the grinning Negan and his bat, christened Lucille, after his late wife.This is revealing: AMC’s marketing department generated suspense by asking who would live and who would die after Negan’s bat-fest, yet the emphasis was not on the potential victim(s), but Morgan’s George Clooney smile and Negan’s substitute phallus. The only restraint the series demonstrated was in declining to write Negan’s sexual taunts from the source into his show dialogue. In the comics, Negan claims to be anti-rape but coerces women into becoming his “brides,” constantly compares his bat to a penis, and fills his threats with talk of rape and sexual terror — he taunts the broken and humiliated Rick Grimes with “I just slid my dick down the back of your throat and you thanked me for it,” and reassures the swordswoman Michonne that he won’t kill her because of the “race card,” but tells her, “There are a lot of things I’d like to do to you, and killing you is at the absolute fucking bottom of that list.” (Who knows, though: Maybe they’re saving the rapist-who-thinks-he’s-not-a-rapist side of Negan for next week or the week after. I wouldn’t put it past them.)Why do I watch this series, you may rightly ask? These days, I don’t. The Walking Dead is the reigning example of what I call a Bad Relationship Show, taking its audience for granted or treating it like garbage for weeks, then doing or saying something that momentarily makes you think the series is delivering on its promise, only to backslide quickly and become ostentatiously mediocre again. I stuck with it through season four with occasional dips into season five because many colleagues I respect kept insisting, “No, you should watch it, it’s good now,” or “It’s good again” or “They finally figured things out.” Fool me four or five times, shame on me.Still, I checked back in with Walking Dead again last night because, as a TV critic, I’m expected to have an opinion on the most popular program on cable. Every time I’ve revisited it — for a couple of episodes at a time, to test the pulse, or aortal spray, of the series because my friends and colleagues were excitedly talking about it — I’ve only been reminded of why I stopped watching.It’s not a matter of the level of violence; that in itself doesn’t bother me. It’s almost never the kind of violence or relative explicitness that turns me against a movie or a television series. It’s always about the worldview of the people presenting it. That’s what’s offensive to me — not the gore, but the sensibility behind it.Hannibal — one of the bloodiest shows in TV history, and a series I love — enshrouded the entire story in a dreamlike sensibility and created moments of great beauty, terror, and tenderness, so that the show never felt like a litany of viciousness; in fact, most of the time it felt unreal, like a series of paintings come to life. On the opposite end of the spectrum, shows like The Sopranos and The Shield took a blunter approach without losing track of their moral compass, creating an attraction-repulsion effect that made the audience sympathize with casually cruel individuals and then feel horrified for having done so. I don’t see much of that on The Walking Dead, only platitudes about dehumanization and moral choice wrapped around endless, pornographically explicit sequences of zombies getting eviscerated, shot, burned, etc., often in close-up (which is “okay” because they’re zombies), plus scenes of human-on-human cruelty that are drawn out for maximum oomph, so that we can all savor the electric excitement of watching people commit emotional and physical violence while telling ourselves it’s a moral fable about the collapse of decency in the aftermath of civilization’s collapse. There’s none of the philosophical inquiry that the new Westworld or even the vampire series The Strain (FX’s answer to The Walking Dead) bring to stories in which violence is visited against and by nonhuman characters. The best bloody genre fiction really does pose questions like, “What makes us human?” and “Is humanity a biological condition or a moral one?” and “At what point does the obligation to survive, and to help loved ones and the species survive, become pointless in the face of all the horrible things you have to do to get there?”I don’t see any of that when I watch The Walking Dead, only opportunistic genuflection in that direction by a show that’s always been more interested in all the different ways it can rend flesh, living or undead, then giving us a few minutes of characters (whose psychological depth wouldn’t cut it on an old-fashioned daytime soap opera) talking about their issues, pausing occasionally to spell out the show’s main themes. The longer this series goes on, the more obvious it becomes that the violence is the point, and everything else is an intellectual fig leaf. The show is not really about the slow process of desensitization to violence that occurs after disasters, during wars and so on; it’s (inadvertently, I think) about our own desensitization as audience members in a country that is, despite pockets of deprivation and violence, basically a soft place day to day, compared to the hellholes we see on the news and read about online. You get to come into your job Monday morning and talk about that awesome kill last night, or that sad but awesome kill of some character you liked.All of which makes Negan a horribly perfect (and literal) poster boy for The Walking Dead as drama, and the parting image of a walker bending down to lick up the brains spilled by Negan a metaphor for audiences’ addiction to this series. There’s something deep in the collective American unconscious that wants to kill and maim and destroy the Other without guilt, while telling ourselves it’s a necessary part of life, that it’s about survival, that it’s for our own good, and hey, now let’s talk about how sad we are that we had no other choice, to show that we’re not just getting off on it. We get to do that week after week and year after year while watching AMC, and now there’s a spinoff.I will never forget the time a couple of years ago when my washing machine broke on a Sunday afternoon. I took my kids to the local laundromat. There were four TVs, and they were all playing The Walking Dead. The place was filled with individuals, couples and families, including young children. They washed and dried and folded while Rick and company blasted and fried and ripped apart walkers, spreading their guts on the ground, splattering the foliage and each other with their blood. RRRRrrrraaagghhh! Blam! HhhhnnUUHHHHHGGG! Blam! Blam! Splat! Gush! Blam! This went on for an hour, with periodic pauses for heart-to-heart talks. This is our background now, the fabric of American life. We’re the real zombies.

Mario Murillo: Gullible Christians Are Helping to Kill America - Charisma News

The Seven Most Hilarious Tweets From Trump's Biggest Fan Online - GOOD Magazine

The Seven Most Hilarious Tweets From Trump's Biggest Fan Online - GOOD Magazine

Have you ever heard of Bill Mitchell? If this were 2015, the answer would almost certainly be no. But in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential election, the 56-year-old businessman has become a household name amongst the political elite as Donald Trump’s biggest fan.

According to a new profile in BuzzFeed, Mitchell says he was an obscure, self-employed guy living in North Carolina with about 100 Twitter followers when Trump first announced his presidential campaign.

Now? “I have 90,000 followers and a blue check,” he boasts, though that number has already ballooned to more than 108,000 since the article was published.

He tweets with reckless abandon about how awesome he thinks Trump is, an estimated 270 times daily, to be exact.  And MIT’s Media Lab ranked him most influential non-journalist or politician in this year’s election. In other words, he’s literally the most-influential ordinary citizen in arguably the craziest election in American history.

And while he has already made a lot of enemies in the established media, BuzzFeed notes that Mitchell actually seems like a perfectly nice guy, unlike the Alt-Right social media trolls that have become infamous for “supporting” Trump’s rise.

But he also relishes in conspiracy theories, telling the site that he refuses to do in-person interviews because, “There are those on Team Hillary who do not wish me well,” and insisting that he’s 100 percent Trump will win the election unless the Clinton campaign engages in massive voter fraud.

He refuses to read any mainstream news sites, insists all polls are bogus and has even compared Trump to Jesus Christ.

Republican strategist Rick Wilson says Mitchells wins, “The prize for the dumbest motherfucker on the internet,” and he’s been the source of mocking posts from sites like Vox on the progressive left and The Weekly Standard on the right.

Sure, he doesn’t appear to believe in math, basic logic or even many of the words coming out of his own chosen candidate’s mouth.

But despite it all, his influence is rapidly growing with a popular radio show and speaking engagements, leaving Buzzfeed to call him, “The only person alive who will come out of the 2016 presidential campaign better than he started it.”



Explaining Proposition 64: How California Would Legalize Marijuana - KPBS

Explaining Proposition 64: How California Would Legalize Marijuana - KPBS

There are so many questions about California’s November ballot measure that would legalize recreational marijuana that it’s easy to overlook the most basic question of all: What would the initiative actually do?

Well, we’re here to help.

So get your sample or mail-in ballots out and follow along as we go through that little Proposition 64 summary together. It’s right next to where you vote “yes” or “no.”

RELATED: Election 2016 FAQ: Proposition 64, Marijuana Legalization

And just like in the voter guide, we'll throw in a few “pro” and “con” arguments too.

Okay, let's get started...

Proposition 64 legalizes marijuana under state law, for use by adults 21 or older.

Starting immediately, it would no longer be a crime in California to buy, possess or transport limited amounts of marijuana for personal use. You could cultivate up to six plants in the privacy of your own home — either indoors or outdoors, as long as it’s not visible to the public.

“They can’t sell it, but they can grow it for their own personal use,” explained Richard Miadich, the lawyer who wrote the initiative and works for the Yes on 64 campaign.

Miadich said you can only smoke or consume marijuana products — including edibles — at a private home, or at a business that gets a license to allow on-site consumption.

“You cannot use marijuana, ingest marijuana in any way, in public,” he said. “You can’t use it or ingest it anywhere where smoking is prohibited.”

Proposition 64 imposes state taxes on sales and cultivation.

A lot of taxes, in fact. There would be a state excise tax on cultivation of $9.25 per ounce of marijuana flowers and $2.75 per ounce of marijuana leaves; and a state excise tax on sales: 15 percent of the retail price.

That’s on top of the regular sales tax that we pay on everything from cars to couches, though medical marijuana patients would be exempt from sales tax. And local governments can throw their own excise tax on top, too.

Consumers wouldn’t pay the cultivation tax directly. But if you live in a city with a particularly high sales tax rate that chooses to also add a local excise tax, your total taxes might reach 30 percent.

“That, to me, is ridiculously high,” said Jamie Kerr, the founder of a storefront medical marijuana dispensary in the city of Shasta Lake and an opponent of Proposition 64. She wants to see California legalize marijuana but says this is the wrong way to do it.

“That (combined tax rate) exceeds the threshold at which we start to promote the illicit market,” Kerr said, “and that’s a concern.”

“You want to strike the right balance,” countered initiative author Richard Miadich, “of not having a tax that's so high that you perpetuate the illegal market, which is what of course we want to eliminate by enacting this initiative, but not have a tax rate that's so low that it encourages overuse by adults, for example.”

Miadich said the tax rates set by Proposition 64 are just starting points. The Legislature can adjust any rates it decides need to be tweaked.

Proposition 64 provides for industry licensing

Although California voters legalized medical marijuana in 1996, it wasn’t until last year that the governor and Legislature finally created a regulatory framework. The regulations themselves are still being written.

“The state will be in charge of licensing cultivators, manufacturers, distributors and retailers of non-medical marijuana,” Miadich said, “just like it is for medical marijuana.”

Proposition 64 generally piggybacks on the system created by California’s medical marijuana laws — but not entirely.

Kerr, the dispensary founder, said the initiative eliminates existing protections that prevent large companies from controlling too many links in the supply chain.

Those protections exist, she said, to allow the current medical marijuana industry “fair and equitable market access, without having to immediately right out of the gate compete with some well-capitalized corporate interests that are wanting to get into this space.”

Miadich said state regulators would have the ability to deny license requests if they would lead to anti-competitive behavior.

Proposition 64 establishes standards for marijuana products.

The initiative sets at least one very specific standard.

“For example, there's a limit on the level of THC that can be in a serving size of edible marijuana products,” said Drew Soderborg with the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office.

But it leaves some other limits up to state regulators. Such as, how big is a serving size? What are the testing requirements? And, the hot-button question of what exactly constitutes drugged driving?

Miadich said there's not enough research to set a legal standard for marijuana intoxication, so Proposition 64 gives the state money to do its own research.

“People are using marijuana today and they are driving today,” he said. “So this initiative accepts that that problem exists today and offers solutions for it.”

Kerr calls that irresponsible.

“To roll out the adult use market, which literally banks on increased usage to generate the revenue that is expected and that is projected, I think that it’s putting the cart in front of the horse,” she said.

Proposition 64 allows local regulation and taxation.

If Proposition 64 passes, local governments would have some powers — but not others.

“You cannot ban indoor cultivation for personal use,” said Tim Cromartie with the League of California Cities, “although you can regulate it.”

For example, Cromartie said, cities and counties could require residents to obtain permits, pay fees, and let their homes be inspected to prevent fire risk, excess water use, or mold.

And local governments can choose to ban recreational marijuana businesses entirely — just like they can choose to ban medical marijuana businesses.

“If you decide to allow them,” Cromartie said, “you can decide under what circumstances — what’s the local licensing fee gonna be, what kind of inspections or audits are they gonna have to comply with.”

If a local government chooses not to set regulations, the state can unilaterally issue a license.

Fiscal impact: Additional tax revenues ranging from high hundreds of millions of dollars to over a billion dollars annually, mostly dedicated to specific purposes.

Remember all those taxes we talked about earlier? That money would be split several ways, including:

• reimbursing state agencies for their regulatory costs

• drugged driving research

• after-school programs

• environmental restoration

There’s more, but it’s a long list. The official Voter Information Guide analysis, written by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, has the details.

Fiscal impact: Reduced criminal justice costs of tens of millions of dollars annually.

This gets to the other major result of legalizing recreational marijuana.

Proposition 64 would reduce penalties for many marijuana-related crimes. And it would allow people with crimes on their records to ask a court to reduce their sentences or expunge their records — with one caveat:

“The court would have to decide whether or not the individual represents a public safety threat,” said Drew Soderborg at the Legislative Analyst's Office.

Oh, one last thing:

If Proposition 64 passes, the state and local governments would need to set their standards and regulations by Jan. 1, 2018 — because that's when they'll need to start issuing licenses. The rest of the initiative would take effect the day after the election — as long as it's not too close to call.

California Counts is a collaboration of KPBS, KPCC, KQED and Capital Public Radio to report on the 2016 election. The coverage focuses on major issues and solicits diverse voices on what's important to the future of California.

To view PDF documents, Download Acrobat Reader.



Poker player owns 'abusive' opponent by winning massive 27-million-chip hand - Karma was the real winner here. - For The Win

DAPL Crackdown Continues With Rubber Bullets and Mace As Water Protectors Form New Front Line - Indian Country Today Media Network

DAPL Crackdown Continues With Rubber Bullets and Mace As Water Protectors Form New Front Line - Indian Country Today Media Network

The water protectors taking a stand against the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) invoked 1851 Treaty rights on Sunday October 23 over unceded territory as authorities intensified their militarized crackdown and arrested 127 people.

“Today, the Oceti Sakowin has enacted eminent domain on DAPL lands, claiming 1851 treaty rights,” said Mekasi Camp-Horinek, an Oceti Sakowin camp coordinator, in a statement. “This is unceded land. Highway 1806 as of this point is blockaded. We will be occupying this land and staying here until this pipeline is permanently stopped. We need bodies, and we need people who are trained in nonviolent direct action. We are still staying nonviolent, and we are still staying peaceful.”

According to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department, protectors have blocked the road at the intersection of Highways 1806 and 134. The North Dakota Department of Transportation has closed highway 1806.

Morton County sheriffs, along with other law enforcement in North Dakota as well as Energy Transfer Partners, DAPL’s builders, are having a tough time making the case that those opposing the project are violent lawbreakers.

In what would appear to be a textbook example of what not to do in response to citizens’ expressions of free speech, the Morton County Sheriff’s Department backed by North Dakota Governor Jack Dalyrmple continued to ratchet up displays of military-style police force. Despite claims in press statements and conferences insisting they are responding appropriately to violent protestors, social media postings continue to tell a very different story.

Morton County sheriffs claimed on Sunday October 23 to have shot down an unmanned aircraft (drone) because it flew at a helicopter that was assisting police in surveillance in a threatening manner, and claimed that a drone was flying directly above officers, according to a media release. Video from Facebook, however, showed police aiming guns at and shooting down a drone as it appeared to be quite a distance away from them.

The day before, on October 22, 126 people were arrested and charged with rioting and other offenses, according to the Morton County Sheriffs Department, and an additional person was arrested on Sunday. Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier said during a press conference that arrests reflected the latest show of unlawful tactics that he attributed to those he called protesters. Some of the water protectors had attached themselves to property at a Dakota Access Pipeline construction site using bicycle locks and makeshift handcuffs.

Kirchmeier also claimed that protestors were only hit with pepper spray after attacking an officer. However, video of the alleged riot shows a police officer spraying protectors with pepper spray after screaming at them, “You’re all under arrest!” There didn’t appear to be any indication that the officer had been touched by water protectors, although they did shout at him. Kirchmeier claimed that protectors placed their hands on the officer.

Kellie Berns, who was present at the action, told the Bismarck Tribune of seeing people being pepper-sprayed and thrown to the ground and described law enforcement as being more aggressive than usual.

So many people have now been arrested that Morton County is sending defendants to jails in other counties. Cooper Brinson, staff attorney at the Civil Liberties Defense Center, described police actions at Standing Rock as “out of control,” according to MintPress News.

Water protectors, including Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II, have been routinely strip-searched in police custody even though they have been charged with trespassing, a misdemeanor.

Although there have been police reports of stolen and slaughtered cattle in the area, police have failed to prove any connection to the water protectors in these crimes.

Bizarrely, however, Kirchmeier seems to be encouraging local farmers and ranchers to carry firearms. He said that carrying guns in the area is “warranted” for citizens to protect themselves.

U.S. Senator John Hoeven met with members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last week asking them to approve the final easement for the pipeline. He also told members of the Corps that the people of North Dakota need the issue to come to an end and that it is causing too much stress for locals who live in the area, according to KFYR-TV.

On October 23, water protectors declared that they were enacting eminent domain on Dakota Lands, claiming rights from the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie, and set up three blockades on Highway 1806.

Cheyenne River Sioux Chairman Harold Frazier joined the protectors and told them he would ask the tribe’s lawyers to file for eminent domain on the intended route of the Dakota Access Pipeline that crosses through sacred and culturally significant land, including burial grounds. Frazier also promised to send people from Cheyenne River to support the water protectors’ actions and said he would urge leaders of other tribes to do the same.

Archambault said he supports filing for eminent domain, and the Tribal Council is deliberating over the decision. As of Sunday evening, however, water protectors had removed one of the blockades after negotiations with law enforcement, the Bismarck Tribune reported. Kichmeier told the Tribune he was “pleased that "common sense prevailed" when protesters took down the block on Highway 1806 but criticized the day's events, calling them "outright unlawful."

“We have never ceded this land,” said Joye Braun, an organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network, in a statement. “If DAPL can go through and claim eminent domain on landowners and Native peoples on their own land, then we as sovereign nations can then declare eminent domain on our own aboriginal homeland. We are here to protect the burial sites here. Highway 1806 has become the no-surrender line.”

On Sunday evening she told ICTMN that protectors would remain at the blockade throughout the night.

Archambault called the police tactics an assault on First Amendment rights.

“The militarization of local law enforcement and enlistment of multiple law enforcements agencies from neighboring states is needlessly escalating violence and unlawful arrests against peaceful protestors at Standing Rock,” he said in a statement on Sunday. “We do not condone reports of illegal actions, but believe the majority of peaceful protestors are reacting to strong-arm tactics and abuses by law enforcement.”

He also expressed disappointment that higher-up officials had not stepped up to assert those rights.

“We are disappointed to see that our state and congressional delegations and Gov. Jack Dalrymple have failed to ensure the safety and rights of the citizens engaged in peaceful protests who were arrested on Saturday,” he said. “Their lack of leadership and commitment to creating a dialogue towards a peaceful solution reflects not only the unjust historical narrative against Native Americans, but a dangerous trend in law enforcement tactics across America.”

Archambault called on the U.S. Department of Justice to “investigate the overwhelming reports and videos demonstrating clear strong-arm tactics, abuses and unlawful arrests by law enforcement” and called for “an injunction to all developments at the pipeline site to keep ALL citizens—law enforcement and protestors—safe.”



Minggu, 30 Oktober 2016

The Real Housewives of Orange County Recap: Give Me Strength - Vulture

The Real Housewives of Orange County Recap: Give Me Strength - Vulture
Never having been to a bikini-fitness competition before, I did not know what to expect tonight — and I am happy to admit I was gleefully disappointed. It looks like a community-theater production of a Victoria's Secret fashion show held in a high-school auditorium. A host of preternaturally good-looking and fit women parade around in ridiculous costumes that are not only impractical for use outside of a performance milieu, but also unquestionably tacky. Look at that tiny thing that Tamra Judge (née Barney) wears while she poses her way to a win in the competition: It is blue and green and sparkly with more sequins than Hillary Clinton has deleted emails. If you ever wondered what it would look like if Lisa Frank did an athleisure line, you now have your answer. It would look like Tamra Barney's dress-up drawer.I will say this for Tamra: She looks amazing. I try to judge these women on their behavior more than their looks, but I just have to compliment her on all the hard work and dedication it must have taken to get that tight little ass of hers to defy gravity like it's Sandra Bullock in an award-winning sci-fi adventure. There is keeping it right and tight, and then there is whatever the hell it is Tamra is doing with that body. I love a carbohydrate way more than I would love looking like that, but at least Tamra is here to set goals for all of us, and make every last one of us feel badly about ourselves.Speaking of feeling badly for myself, I also felt something while watching this episode that I never wanted to feel in my life: sympathy for Kelly Dodd. Kelly Dodd, a call that comes from inside the house, is not a good person. She is not someone I want to have drinks with or sit next to on a plane (she would probably make cheesy jokes like, "Have a nice trip, see you next fall," the entire flight), and I certainly don't want to watch her on television. However, what the other women did to her is totally inexcusable. Vicki says that Shannon tried to get Kelly drunk so she would have another reason not to like her. No, that is not what Shannon did. Shannon doesn't need another reason not to like her. Shannon tried to get her drunk so that she would make an ass of herself on camera and then all the viewers would hate her. That is some despicable nonsense.But even worse than Shannon is Heather Dubrow. Alright, I'm going to go out on a limb and say something: Heather Dubrow needs to be cut from the show. She's not really up to anything exciting and she doesn't really fight. She just stands around and scolds everyone like she's Nanny McPhee with a better glam squad. What the hell was that "sit down and shut up" nonsense with Kelly in the bus? These are adult humans who don't need to be ordered around, so Heather needs to shut up. The worst thing that Heather does in this episode is when she asks Meghan if she's okay and then she tells Meghan that Kelly is a bad person with problems so we should feel sorry for her. Oh, that wasn't the bad part. The bad part is when she starts touching Meghan's face like she is a 6-year-old who just had to have her boo-boo kissed before she would go back out into her soccer game. It was the grossest thing I've ever seen on television, and I watched every single episode of Jersey Shore, so I should know.The worst, though, the absolute 100-million-times the worst, is Vicki Gunvalson. The whole reason that Bus Ride of Doom even happens is because Vicki Gunvalson is a human being made out of rotted grapefruit rinds and already-popped bubble wrap. When Vicki refuses to come to the defense of her new friend Kelly, the only women who would talk to her after her years-long deception with Brooks, Kelly decides to spill the secrets that Vicki told her about the other women when she was mad at them, the ones that were alluded to just a few episodes ago.What were those secrets? Well, first the big dirt that she has on Shannon is that she supposedly confessed to Vicki that David "beat the crap out of her" during their marriage. As soon as Shannon hears this, she freaks the hell out. Why? Well, like a toddler guarding her sandcastle as the tide comes in, she's worried about the very fragile state of her relationship. Also, because, well, I find it hard to believe it's true. If you told me this about Tamra's ex, Simon Barney, I would have totally believed it (the same with Russell Armstrong on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, who allegedly beat Taylor before he committed suicide). But David? Please.Next, she tells Kelly that Eddie cheated on Tamra and that also he might be gay. Does that mean he cheated on Tamra with dudes? We didn't hear what Kelly said because not only was the video really bad during this bus trip, but so was the audio. Seriously, Bravo: If the entire production crew isn't fired after this disastrous trip, I don't know what they would have to mess up to get themselves booted. Of course, Tamra freaks about this as well because, well, it's obviously not true. Even if it is true, Tamra and Eddie don't seem to care, so who are we to judge?The best part is when Tamra tells Vicki, "You told Kelly that Eddie cheated, that he's gay, that his haircut looks stupid, that it seems anatomically impossible that his skull can fit so many teeth in it, that no one goes to Cut Fitness, and that he has a small weiner." And Vicki responds, "Well, I didn't say he was gay."To recap, this is what happens on the bus: The women attack Kelly for being awful to Tamra, Vicki refuses to defend Kelly, Kelly retaliates by airing all of the lies that Vicki told her, Shannon and Tamra freak out, Vicki denies it, and now everyone is mad at Vicki again. Man, that sounds like some seriously good Housewivery. If only the crew were there to capture it.What pissed me off the most about Vicki, however, is her conversation with Brianna and Tamra when they get home. Vicki makes herself the victim in every circumstance, including the bus ride, where she claims she's as hurt as everyone else. Um, no one else made up lies about Vicki and spread them around. The only bad thing that happens to Vicki is that she treats people like crap, yet again. Brianna tells her that she can't just move on and forget her wrongdoing. Wise beyond her years and certainly beyond her breeding, Brianna says, "You can't sweep things under the carpet when people's feelings are hurt." Vicki responds, "I'm always apologizing." Yeah, she is, because she's always treating people like they're her personal sanitary napkins to get all messy and then throw out when she wants to forget that awful time of the month. God, Vicki is totally the worst.I also couldn't stand her defense of saying that Eddie was gay: "I don't know if it's true, but there are a lot of people saying it." Um, who uses the exact same rationale when talking about another opponent? Let me give you a guess: It's another fake-blonde, fake-tanned, screeching-rage-monkey reality star just like Vicki, except this one happens to be running for president. Yes, people let's get #VickiIsTrump trending on Twitter, shall we? Speaking of which, when Tamra says that she and Shannon were hurt by what happened in the bus, Vicki says, "We're all hurt." I don't know about you, but doesn't that sound a little bit like "all lives matter" to you?I can just see them now, all of her acolytes gathering in rallies across the country because reality television isn't giving them what they want. It's a rigged system and it is sending all of our jobs overseas. I mean, how many HGTV shows can possibly be set in Canada? Do we not have houses here in need of renovation? And what about dual reality-show host Heidi Klum? She is clearly an illegal immigrant taking jobs from Americans like Nicole Scherzinger and Katie Lee Joel. Speaking of Top Chef, where is that Padma Lakshmi even from? Probably someplace horrible that is weak on ISIS. If Vicki were in charge of reality TV, she would be tough on Isis — not the paramilitary organization, the trans contestant from America's Next Top Model. Vicki would be so tough on Isis that she would probably destroy every former Top Model with a nuclear missile. All of her fans would gather at the rally and bitch about not having enough places to shop for off-the-shoulder blouses and hashtag hats and mid-priced bottles of pinot grigio. "Build that mall!" they would shout in an abandoned parking lot in Southern California. "Build that mall! Build that mall!" Vicki, standing confidently at the podium, a little sniffle in her throat would respond, "And we're going to get Alene Too to pay for it, too!"

The Joy of David S. Pumpkins - The Atlantic

Judge Richard Posner On SCOTUS: 'The Supreme Court Is Awful' - Above the Law

Judge Richard Posner On SCOTUS: 'The Supreme Court Is Awful' - Above the Law
Judge Richard Posner (Photo by Chensiyuan via Wikimedia Commons.)

Judge Richard Posner (Photo by Chensiyuan via Wikimedia Commons.)

UPDATE (10/28/2016, 11:00 a.m.): Please note the UPDATES at the end of this post, including corrections and clarifications from Judge Posner.

Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court Appeals for the Seventh Circuit isn’t afraid to speak his mind, even if his candid comments might offend the prestigious or powerful. The renowned jurist, one of the leading legal intellectuals of his (or any other) generation, famously mixed it up with the late Justice Antonin Scalia, and had harsh words for Chief Justice John Roberts as well.

This might be cold comfort to Chief Justice Roberts, but Judge Posner holds almost all of the Chief’s colleagues in low esteem. In a recent appearance at Chicago’s (wonderful) Seminary Co-op Bookstore, in connection with the launch of William Domnarski’s new biography, Richard Posner (affiliate link), “The Poze” had the following to say (you can watch the video via C-SPAN; these comments start around 17:00):

I’m actually writing a book now called Strengths and Weaknesses of the American Legal System. It’s almost entirely about the federal judiciary…. So I have about ten pages on the strengths and about 320 pages on the weaknesses. [Laughter.]

I’m very critical. I don’t think the judges are very good. I think the Supreme Court is awful. I think it’s reached a real nadir. Probably only a couple of the justices, Breyer and Ginsburg, are qualified. They’re okay, they’re not great.

That was way harsh, Your Honor — and also perhaps a bit of trolling?

Given the glittering credentials of the eight sitting justices, I must respectfully dissent from Judge Posner’s assessment of the Court. While it’s true that SCOTUS could use a bit more experiential diversity, the current justices collectively have extensive experience as judges, lawyers, and law professors; in government and in private practice; with civil and criminal law; and with trial and appellate work (admittedly more the latter than the former, but remember that Justice Sonia Sotomayor was an assistant district attorney and trial judge for many years). If they’re not qualified, it’s hard to imagine who is.

Judge Posner laid the blame for the supposed weakness of the federal judiciary at the feet of two groups, politicians and law clerks:

Of course, the politicians don’t care about the quality of judges. They’re politicians; they’re interested in politics. They’re not interested in having good judges.

In the case of the Supreme Court, what has been a tremendous boon to the politicians — it’s true of the lower courts also — is that all the federal judges have law clerks. And the Supreme Court justices, and many of the court of appeals judges, have really good law clerks, they’re really smart. So the politicians figure, well, we’re appointing this person because he or she is of a particular race, or comes from a special part of the country, or this or that, or is liberal or is conservative. And this person is not particularly bright and doesn’t have much experience — never been in a trial courtroom, for example — but, there are all these brilliant law clerks working, so their opinions will be all right, because the law clerks will write them…. That’s a very serious deficiency in our system, and there are zillions more.

Posner reiterated his previously expressed belief that judges should write their own opinions, instead of leaving drafting to their law clerks. He and moderator Tom Ginsburg had this cute exchange (19:30):

GINSBURG: If we were to demand that judges write their own opinions, would that be a good thing?

POSNER: Oh, it’d be great! Half of them would resign immediately.

During the question-and-answer session at the end, Judge Posner expanded on his critique of SCOTUS (45:50):

[I]f you look at the Supreme Court, for example, of the nine justices — I’m bringing Scalia back from the dead to have the standard number of justices — of those nine, one had been in a trial courtroom. It’s ridiculous to have an appellate judge who doesn’t have trial experience.

He urged appellate judges to follow his example of occasionally sitting by designation as trial judges, which he started doing as a newly appointed judge more than 30 years ago and continues to do today.

But their lack of extensive trial experience isn’t the only problem Judge Posner has with the members of SCOTUS. He’s not even impressed by their writing (51:40):

The only two justices who are qualified are Ginsburg and Breyer. Their opinions are readable, and sometimes quite eloquent. The others, I wouldn’t waste my time reading their opinions.

Ouch. And then Posner doubled down, singling out Justice Samuel A. Alito for penning “the most tedious opinion I’ve ever read,” in the case of Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt (aka the Texas abortion case):

Justice Alito’s hyperconservative. He wrote a very long dissent, 40 pages. The only thing he said in his dissent was that the case should have been dismissed on the basis of res judicata because some of the plaintiffs attacking the Texas law had filed a previous similar case, which had been dismissed, and you’re not supposed to relitigate the identical case. And Breyer, in his majority opinion, discussed this and pointed out there was some overlap in some of the plaintiffs, but there were loads of other plaintiffs who had had nothing to do with the earlier case.

And what he should also have said, which he did not say, is that res judicata is this common-law rule about trying to create finality in litigation, which is fine, but it’s not part of the Constitution or anything, and this is an important issue we’re trying to get settled — so why should you fuss with res judicata, especially for 40 pages?

This is par for the Posner course — a call for pragmatism over formalism in judging. See generally Reflections on Judging (affiliate link).

Consistent with this approach is the “low opinion” Posner has for precedent (56:00), which he views as mainly judicial mysticism, possibly motivated by worry about Congress (59:00):

The Supreme Court justices feel under pressure. For one thing, Congress doesn’t like the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has a way of invalidating congressional legislation. So the justices worry about Congress — maybe they won’t get raises if Congress doesn’t love them — so they want to create some sense of infallibility. So the notion that they decided a case 100 years ago and they’re still following it makes it seem like the Supreme Court’s really great, they can decide a case and a hundred years later it’s still the law.

The somewhat curmudgeonly Judge Posner expressed all sorts of critical opinions during the panel. This jumped out at me as his Andy Rooney impersonation (24:20):

I hate these old terms. ‘Chambers.’ …. We have office suites, and they’re called chambers. Why are they called chambers? I think it’s from the French chambre, and it goes back to the fourteenth century or something, when there was a big French influence in England. So the term has stuck. I don’t like that old stuff, I don’t like looking backwards.

Later on in the event, after letting loose on some other topic, he quipped, “So you can see I’m a sourpuss, right?”

During the Q&A, some law students tried to get advice out of Judge Posner. They didn’t succeed.

One Ph.D. student marveled at Posner’s output over the years — dozens of books, hundreds of articles, thousands of judicial opinions — and asked the prolific Posner for advice on time management and avoiding procrastination (36:00). After giving a shout-out to his research assistants, Posner made a “just do it” comment that struck me as both wise advice and a perfect encapsulation of his life and career.

“I work most of the time…. I got my first typewriter at age 13, and I’ve been typing furiously ever since.”

UPDATE (10/25/2016, 11:50 p.m.): Additional coverage of Judge Posner’s remarks appears in the ABA Journal, the WSJ Law Blog, and Bench Memos. I agree with these aspects of Ed Whelan’s analysis:

Who knows what Posner means by “qualified”? If he means to incorporate a justice’s jurisprudence into the assessment, it’s strange that he would select Justice Breyer and Justice Ginsburg as the two best of a motley lot. Justice Kagan, for example, would seem closer to Ginsburg than Breyer is….

I also find it strange that Posner regards only Ginsburg and Breyer opinions as “readable” and “sometimes quite eloquent.” Limiting myself to the liberal side of the Court (lest I be thought to be indulging my ideological preferences), I think that Kagan’s opinions fare quite well compared to Ginsburg’s and Breyer’s.

I agree that Justice Kagan is an excellent writer. Going beyond the liberal wing, most objective observers would recognize Chief Justice John Roberts as an excellent prose stylist. When I asked legal writing guru Bryan Garner to name his favorite writers on the Court (in addition to his co-author Justice Scalia), he cited Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Ginsburg, and Justice Kagan.

UPDATE (10/28/2016, 11:00 a.m.): Please see these corrections and clarifications from Judge Posner.

Richard Posner [Book TV / C-SPAN2]
Richard Posner [Amazon (affiliate link)]

Earlier: Judge Richard Posner: An Interview With His Biographer, William Domnarski
Should Judges Write Their Own Opinions Or Leave Drafting To Their Law Clerks?
Reverse Benchslap Of The Day: Judge Posner Smacks Chief Justice Roberts


David Lat is the founder and managing editor of Above the Law and the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@abovethelaw.com.



The Empty Violence of The Walking Dead - Vulture

The Empty Violence of The Walking Dead - Vulture
If nothing else, the seventh season premiere of The Walking Dead gave audiences a metaphor for the show’s methods: a bat to the head. Whunk! Whunk! Whunk! Splat! Goooosh!After nearly seven months of waiting, fans finally got to see which beloved cast members would get their brains bashed in by the post-apocalyptic warlord Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), the preening thug leader of the Saviors. The unrelenting sadism of this episode was calculated to test audiences’ stamina, somewhat like the “Red Wedding” episode of Game of Thrones.But the stark difference in quality between the two shows can be seen in their treatment of scenes where powerful people torment the powerless. Where Game of Thrones’s Red Wedding episode focused exclusively on the shock and pain of the victims of a massacre and its ramifications for the surviving characters (and packed the entire incident into less than ten minutes of screen time), The Walking Dead made Negan the star of the premiere and turned the whole thing into a prolonged power-trip fantasy, of a type that some viewers (young dudes, mainly) love, especially if they’ve never experienced violence outside of the “cool” context of video games and movies.The brutality was nearly eroticized, with loving inserts of the villain’s bloody weapon, lingering images of hostages’ tearful, terrified faces and low-angled shots that made Negan loom like a conquering badass hero. Casting the matinee-idol handsome Morgan further glamorizes the character: In the comics he’s drawn more like the meathead ex-teacher and ping-pong coach that he was before the apocalypse, with the sort of bullet head and wrestler’s body that would’ve fattened up on beer and barbecue had the world not gone to hell.Negan is a crushing bore already  —a bullying chief henchman from an R-rated action flick inexplicably promoted to Big Bad status. Unfortunately, this is a storytelling move typical of The Walking Dead — a fourth-rate zombie movie stretched out over 83 hours that has produced just one halfway interesting antagonist for the heroes during its seven seasons, David Morrissey’s the Governor (Jon Bernthal’s Shane Walsh, an honest-to-goodness character whose complexity is still missed, was ultimately more of an antihero). That most of the characters and situations are drawn from the pages of Robert Kirkman’s comic doesn’t blunt charges of bad faith; like Game of Thrones, a vastly superior (though still problematic) adaptation of existing genre fiction, the show’s producers are free to embellish and change things, but in this particular case they chose not to.Kudos, I guess, to the series for making us think that a minor, latecomer character, Michael Cudlitz’s Abraham, would be the only character to get pulped, then hewing to the source after all and killing Glenn (Steven Yeun), who miraculously (ridiculously) survived death just recently and is the soon-to-be father of a child with Maggie (Lauren Cohan). But let’s not kid ourselves. This show has always seen its characters as targets in a shooting gallery. The only compelling question is which of them will live or die during any given season, and how gruesome and protracted their death will be, and whether there will be any redeeming nobility to it.I’ve been writing about this medium for 20 years and watching it for more than 40, and I can’t recall a major TV series marketing cruelty and trauma as cynically, even gleefully, as this AMC saga. The rampage was hyped by a lengthy, thorough ad campaign spotlighting not any regular cast member, but Negan and his weapon. If you lived in a major city during the past seven months, it was impossible to spend a day outdoors without seeing a bus ad or subway poster featuring the grinning Negan and his bat, christened Lucille, after his late wife.This is revealing: AMC’s marketing department generated suspense by asking who would live and who would die after Negan’s bat-fest, yet the emphasis was not on the potential victim(s), but Morgan’s George Clooney smile and Negan’s substitute phallus. The only restraint the series demonstrated was in declining to write Negan’s sexual taunts from the source into his show dialogue. In the comics, Negan claims to be anti-rape but coerces women into becoming his “brides,” constantly compares his bat to a penis, and fills his threats with talk of rape and sexual terror — he taunts the broken and humiliated Rick Grimes with “I just slid my dick down the back of your throat and you thanked me for it,” and reassures the swordswoman Michonne that he won’t kill her because of the “race card,” but tells her, “There are a lot of things I’d like to do to you, and killing you is at the absolute fucking bottom of that list.” (Who knows, though: Maybe they’re saving the rapist-who-thinks-he’s-not-a-rapist side of Negan for next week or the week after. I wouldn’t put it past them.)Why do I watch this series, you may rightly ask? These days, I don’t. The Walking Dead is the reigning example of what I call a Bad Relationship Show, taking its audience for granted or treating it like garbage for weeks, then doing or saying something that momentarily makes you think the series is delivering on its promise, only to backslide quickly and become ostentatiously mediocre again. I stuck with it through season four with occasional dips into season five because many colleagues I respect kept insisting, “No, you should watch it, it’s good now,” or “It’s good again” or “They finally figured things out.” Fool me four or five times, shame on me.Still, I checked back in with Walking Dead again last night because, as a TV critic, I’m expected to have an opinion on the most popular program on cable. Every time I’ve revisited it — for a couple of episodes at a time, to test the pulse, or aortal spray, of the series because my friends and colleagues were excitedly talking about it — I’ve only been reminded of why I stopped watching.It’s not a matter of the level of violence; that in itself doesn’t bother me. It’s almost never the kind of violence or relative explicitness that turns me against a movie or a television series. It’s always about the worldview of the people presenting it. That’s what’s offensive to me — not the gore, but the sensibility behind it.Hannibal — one of the bloodiest shows in TV history, and a series I love — enshrouded the entire story in a dreamlike sensibility and created moments of great beauty, terror, and tenderness, so that the show never felt like a litany of viciousness; in fact, most of the time it felt unreal, like a series of paintings come to life. On the opposite end of the spectrum, shows like The Sopranos and The Shield took a blunter approach without losing track of their moral compass, creating an attraction-repulsion effect that made the audience sympathize with casually cruel individuals and then feel horrified for having done so. I don’t see much of that on The Walking Dead, only platitudes about dehumanization and moral choice wrapped around endless, pornographically explicit sequences of zombies getting eviscerated, shot, burned, etc., often in close-up (which is “okay” because they’re zombies), plus scenes of human-on-human cruelty that are drawn out for maximum oomph, so that we can all savor the electric excitement of watching people commit emotional and physical violence while telling ourselves it’s a moral fable about the collapse of decency in the aftermath of civilization’s collapse. There’s none of the philosophical inquiry that the new Westworld or even the vampire series The Strain (FX’s answer to The Walking Dead) bring to stories in which violence is visited against and by nonhuman characters. The best bloody genre fiction really does pose questions like, “What makes us human?” and “Is humanity a biological condition or a moral one?” and “At what point does the obligation to survive, and to help loved ones and the species survive, become pointless in the face of all the horrible things you have to do to get there?”I don’t see any of that when I watch The Walking Dead, only opportunistic genuflection in that direction by a show that’s always been more interested in all the different ways it can rend flesh, living or undead, then giving us a few minutes of characters (whose psychological depth wouldn’t cut it on an old-fashioned daytime soap opera) talking about their issues, pausing occasionally to spell out the show’s main themes. The longer this series goes on, the more obvious it becomes that the violence is the point, and everything else is an intellectual fig leaf. The show is not really about the slow process of desensitization to violence that occurs after disasters, during wars and so on; it’s (inadvertently, I think) about our own desensitization as audience members in a country that is, despite pockets of deprivation and violence, basically a soft place day to day, compared to the hellholes we see on the news and read about online. You get to come into your job Monday morning and talk about that awesome kill last night, or that sad but awesome kill of some character you liked.All of which makes Negan a horribly perfect (and literal) poster boy for The Walking Dead as drama, and the parting image of a walker bending down to lick up the brains spilled by Negan a metaphor for audiences’ addiction to this series. There’s something deep in the collective American unconscious that wants to kill and maim and destroy the Other without guilt, while telling ourselves it’s a necessary part of life, that it’s about survival, that it’s for our own good, and hey, now let’s talk about how sad we are that we had no other choice, to show that we’re not just getting off on it. We get to do that week after week and year after year while watching AMC, and now there’s a spinoff.I will never forget the time a couple of years ago when my washing machine broke on a Sunday afternoon. I took my kids to the local laundromat. There were four TVs, and they were all playing The Walking Dead. The place was filled with individuals, couples and families, including young children. They washed and dried and folded while Rick and company blasted and fried and ripped apart walkers, spreading their guts on the ground, splattering the foliage and each other with their blood. RRRRrrrraaagghhh! Blam! HhhhnnUUHHHHHGGG! Blam! Blam! Splat! Gush! Blam! This went on for an hour, with periodic pauses for heart-to-heart talks. This is our background now, the fabric of American life. We’re the real zombies.

The Biggest Money Mistakes We Make—Decade by Decade - Wall Street Journal

Judge Richard Posner On SCOTUS: 'The Supreme Court Is Awful' - Above the Law

Judge Richard Posner On SCOTUS: 'The Supreme Court Is Awful' - Above the Law
Judge Richard Posner (Photo by Chensiyuan via Wikimedia Commons.)

Judge Richard Posner (Photo by Chensiyuan via Wikimedia Commons.)

UPDATE (10/28/2016, 11:00 a.m.): Please note the UPDATES at the end of this post, including corrections and clarifications from Judge Posner.

Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court Appeals for the Seventh Circuit isn’t afraid to speak his mind, even if his candid comments might offend the prestigious or powerful. The renowned jurist, one of the leading legal intellectuals of his (or any other) generation, famously mixed it up with the late Justice Antonin Scalia, and had harsh words for Chief Justice John Roberts as well.

This might be cold comfort to Chief Justice Roberts, but Judge Posner holds almost all of the Chief’s colleagues in low esteem. In a recent appearance at Chicago’s (wonderful) Seminary Co-op Bookstore, in connection with the launch of William Domnarski’s new biography, Richard Posner (affiliate link), “The Poze” had the following to say (you can watch the video via C-SPAN; these comments start around 17:00):

I’m actually writing a book now called Strengths and Weaknesses of the American Legal System. It’s almost entirely about the federal judiciary…. So I have about ten pages on the strengths and about 320 pages on the weaknesses. [Laughter.]

I’m very critical. I don’t think the judges are very good. I think the Supreme Court is awful. I think it’s reached a real nadir. Probably only a couple of the justices, Breyer and Ginsburg, are qualified. They’re okay, they’re not great.

That was way harsh, Your Honor — and also perhaps a bit of trolling?

Given the glittering credentials of the eight sitting justices, I must respectfully dissent from Judge Posner’s assessment of the Court. While it’s true that SCOTUS could use a bit more experiential diversity, the current justices collectively have extensive experience as judges, lawyers, and law professors; in government and in private practice; with civil and criminal law; and with trial and appellate work (admittedly more the latter than the former, but remember that Justice Sonia Sotomayor was an assistant district attorney and trial judge for many years). If they’re not qualified, it’s hard to imagine who is.

Judge Posner laid the blame for the supposed weakness of the federal judiciary at the feet of two groups, politicians and law clerks:

Of course, the politicians don’t care about the quality of judges. They’re politicians; they’re interested in politics. They’re not interested in having good judges.

In the case of the Supreme Court, what has been a tremendous boon to the politicians — it’s true of the lower courts also — is that all the federal judges have law clerks. And the Supreme Court justices, and many of the court of appeals judges, have really good law clerks, they’re really smart. So the politicians figure, well, we’re appointing this person because he or she is of a particular race, or comes from a special part of the country, or this or that, or is liberal or is conservative. And this person is not particularly bright and doesn’t have much experience — never been in a trial courtroom, for example — but, there are all these brilliant law clerks working, so their opinions will be all right, because the law clerks will write them…. That’s a very serious deficiency in our system, and there are zillions more.

Posner reiterated his previously expressed belief that judges should write their own opinions, instead of leaving drafting to their law clerks. He and moderator Tom Ginsburg had this cute exchange (19:30):

GINSBURG: If we were to demand that judges write their own opinions, would that be a good thing?

POSNER: Oh, it’d be great! Half of them would resign immediately.

During the question-and-answer session at the end, Judge Posner expanded on his critique of SCOTUS (45:50):

[I]f you look at the Supreme Court, for example, of the nine justices — I’m bringing Scalia back from the dead to have the standard number of justices — of those nine, one had been in a trial courtroom. It’s ridiculous to have an appellate judge who doesn’t have trial experience.

He urged appellate judges to follow his example of occasionally sitting by designation as trial judges, which he started doing as a newly appointed judge more than 30 years ago and continues to do today.

But their lack of extensive trial experience isn’t the only problem Judge Posner has with the members of SCOTUS. He’s not even impressed by their writing (51:40):

The only two justices who are qualified are Ginsburg and Breyer. Their opinions are readable, and sometimes quite eloquent. The others, I wouldn’t waste my time reading their opinions.

Ouch. And then Posner doubled down, singling out Justice Samuel A. Alito for penning “the most tedious opinion I’ve ever read,” in the case of Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt (aka the Texas abortion case):

Justice Alito’s hyperconservative. He wrote a very long dissent, 40 pages. The only thing he said in his dissent was that the case should have been dismissed on the basis of res judicata because some of the plaintiffs attacking the Texas law had filed a previous similar case, which had been dismissed, and you’re not supposed to relitigate the identical case. And Breyer, in his majority opinion, discussed this and pointed out there was some overlap in some of the plaintiffs, but there were loads of other plaintiffs who had had nothing to do with the earlier case.

And what he should also have said, which he did not say, is that res judicata is this common-law rule about trying to create finality in litigation, which is fine, but it’s not part of the Constitution or anything, and this is an important issue we’re trying to get settled — so why should you fuss with res judicata, especially for 40 pages?

This is par for the Posner course — a call for pragmatism over formalism in judging. See generally Reflections on Judging (affiliate link).

Consistent with this approach is the “low opinion” Posner has for precedent (56:00), which he views as mainly judicial mysticism, possibly motivated by worry about Congress (59:00):

The Supreme Court justices feel under pressure. For one thing, Congress doesn’t like the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has a way of invalidating congressional legislation. So the justices worry about Congress — maybe they won’t get raises if Congress doesn’t love them — so they want to create some sense of infallibility. So the notion that they decided a case 100 years ago and they’re still following it makes it seem like the Supreme Court’s really great, they can decide a case and a hundred years later it’s still the law.

The somewhat curmudgeonly Judge Posner expressed all sorts of critical opinions during the panel. This jumped out at me as his Andy Rooney impersonation (24:20):

I hate these old terms. ‘Chambers.’ …. We have office suites, and they’re called chambers. Why are they called chambers? I think it’s from the French chambre, and it goes back to the fourteenth century or something, when there was a big French influence in England. So the term has stuck. I don’t like that old stuff, I don’t like looking backwards.

Later on in the event, after letting loose on some other topic, he quipped, “So you can see I’m a sourpuss, right?”

During the Q&A, some law students tried to get advice out of Judge Posner. They didn’t succeed.

One Ph.D. student marveled at Posner’s output over the years — dozens of books, hundreds of articles, thousands of judicial opinions — and asked the prolific Posner for advice on time management and avoiding procrastination (36:00). After giving a shout-out to his research assistants, Posner made a “just do it” comment that struck me as both wise advice and a perfect encapsulation of his life and career.

“I work most of the time…. I got my first typewriter at age 13, and I’ve been typing furiously ever since.”

UPDATE (10/25/2016, 11:50 p.m.): Additional coverage of Judge Posner’s remarks appears in the ABA Journal, the WSJ Law Blog, and Bench Memos. I agree with these aspects of Ed Whelan’s analysis:

Who knows what Posner means by “qualified”? If he means to incorporate a justice’s jurisprudence into the assessment, it’s strange that he would select Justice Breyer and Justice Ginsburg as the two best of a motley lot. Justice Kagan, for example, would seem closer to Ginsburg than Breyer is….

I also find it strange that Posner regards only Ginsburg and Breyer opinions as “readable” and “sometimes quite eloquent.” Limiting myself to the liberal side of the Court (lest I be thought to be indulging my ideological preferences), I think that Kagan’s opinions fare quite well compared to Ginsburg’s and Breyer’s.

I agree that Justice Kagan is an excellent writer. Going beyond the liberal wing, most objective observers would recognize Chief Justice John Roberts as an excellent prose stylist. When I asked legal writing guru Bryan Garner to name his favorite writers on the Court (in addition to his co-author Justice Scalia), he cited Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Ginsburg, and Justice Kagan.

UPDATE (10/28/2016, 11:00 a.m.): Please see these corrections and clarifications from Judge Posner.

Richard Posner [Book TV / C-SPAN2]
Richard Posner [Amazon (affiliate link)]

Earlier: Judge Richard Posner: An Interview With His Biographer, William Domnarski
Should Judges Write Their Own Opinions Or Leave Drafting To Their Law Clerks?
Reverse Benchslap Of The Day: Judge Posner Smacks Chief Justice Roberts


David Lat is the founder and managing editor of Above the Law and the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@abovethelaw.com.