WHAT GOD CREATED

 On the first day, God created the dog and said, "Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. For this, I will give you a life span of twenty years."

The dog said, "That's a long time to be barking. How about only ten years and I'll give you back the other ten?"

And God saw it was good.

On the second day, God created the monkey and said, "Entertain people, do tricks, and make them laugh. For this, I'll give you a twenty-year life span."

The monkey said, "Monkey tricks for twenty years? That's a pretty long time to perform. How about I give you back ten like the dog did?"

And God, again saw it was good.

On the third day, God created the cow and said, "You must go into the field with the farmer all day long and suffer under the sun, have calves and give milk to support the farmer's family. For this, I will give you a life span of sixty years."

The cow said, "That's kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years. How about twenty and I'll give back the other forty?"

And God agreed it was good.

On the fourth day, God created humans and said, "Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. For this, I'll give you twenty years."

But the human said, "Only twenty years? Could you possibly give me my twenty, the forty the cow gave back,

the ten the monkey gave back,

and the ten the dog gave back; that makes eighty, okay?"

"Okay," said God, "You asked for it."

So that is why for our first twenty years, we eat, sleep, play and enjoy ourselves.

For the next forty years, we slave in the sun to support our family.

For the next ten years, we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren.

And for the last ten years, we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone.

Life has now been explained to you.

There is no need to thank me for this valuable information.

I'm doing it as a public service.

If you are looking for me I will be on the front porch...

Supreme Court Dismisses Lawsuits Against the Ex-President, Endorsing Blatant Large-Scale Corruption

Cases 20-330 and 20-331 - dismissed as moot

The ex-president is off the hook

On Jan. 22, the justices met and decided what to do about various cases. Two cases, 20-330 and 20-331 were lawsuits against the former president for violating the emoluments clause. The cases had been pending for several years. In both cases, the ex-president lost his attempt to dismiss the cases at the federal appeals court level. In the Jan. 22 meeting, the justices voted to accept the cases for consideration than then dismissed both as moot. The justices ordered to lower court cases to be dismissed, leaving no federal appellate court opinion left on the record.

In essence, the court delayed long enough to allow the ex-president to illegally profit for all the time he was in office with no adverse legal impact. Going forward, the next corrupt president will have a roadmap of how to be corrupt and profit from being in office. All the president has to do is get out of office before the court finally gets around to dealing with lawsuits. The US supreme court has endorsed blatant, large-scale corruption by providing a roadmap of how to profit from being the president.

Some of the attorneys who argued cases against the ex-president claimed that one lower court decision would serve as a deterrent, but that is just speculation. An AP article commented: 

The cases never reached the point where any records had to be turned over. But Karl Racine and Brian Frosh, the attorneys general of Washington, D.C., and Maryland, respectively, said in a joint statement that a ruling by a federal judge in Maryland that went against Trump “will serve as precedent that will help stop anyone else from using the presidency or other federal office for personal financial gain the way that President Trump has over the past four years.”

What about the rule of law?

No justice dissented from the vote to dismiss these two lawsuits. Because of that, people who actually value and respect the rule of law can conclude that all nine justices should be impeached for gross incompetence, corruption and/or unreasonable political bias. Is that an unreasonable reaction? Maybe. 

It is the case that in February of 2021 the ex-president will be tried in the US Senate for insurrection even though he is and will be out of office. If he can be held responsible after leaving office for impeachable offenses, why can't he be held responsible for blatant corruption after leaving office? What great legal principle does this inexplicable incoherence rest on? None that I'm aware of, but I'm not a legal scholar. Or, will the impeachment case go up to the court and then dismissed as moot, once again protecting a corrupt and treasonous ex-president? Maybe that is how the 2nd impeachment case will crash and burn.

Maybe the ex-president was right to say that a US president is above the law. That is how it has played out so far.

Once again, the depressing weakness of the rule of law is on display. Powerful and wealthy people and politicians operate under a far more lenient set of laws than the rest of us unwashed masses. As discussed here before, laws don't really exist for the most part for the rich and powerful. This is another mark of the profound sickness that has descended on and engulfed American government and the courts. Wealth and power have been turned against the people. That is done in service to the wealthy and powerful, not the public interest.

Can you do it?

 

In regards to the impeachment trial of ex-President Donald J. Trump, all 100 U.S. Senators will today take an oath to do “impartial justice”:

"I solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of (the president’s name), President of the United States, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: so help me God.”

There will be cases made on both sides as to whether Trump is guilty or not guilty as to the incitement of insurrection against the U.S. Government.

Your task here is to advocate for Trump’s innocence.  Playing the part of his lead lawyer, make your case(s) for your client’s innocence*.  How would you go about this task?

_______

*Does not imply you personally believe this argument. 

 

Thanks for taking the challenge.

Twitter launches 'Birdwatch,' a forum to combat misinformation

Twitter said it hopes to build a community of "Birdwatchers" that can eventually help moderate and label tweets in its main product.

Twitter unveiled a feature Monday meant to bolster its efforts to combat misinformation and disinformation by tapping users in a fashion similar to Wikipedia to flag potentially misleading tweets.

The new system allows users to discuss and provide context to tweets they believe are misleading or false. The project, titled Birdwatch, is a standalone section of Twitter that will at first only be available to a small set of users, largely on a first-come, first-served basis. Priority will not be provided to high-profile people or traditional fact-checkers, but users will have to use an account tied to a real phone number and email address.

“Birdwatch allows people to identify information in Tweets they believe is misleading or false, and write notes that provide informative context," Twitter Vice President of Product Keith Coleman wrote in a press release. "We believe this approach has the potential to respond quickly when misleading information spreads, adding context that people trust and find valuable."

While Birdwatch will initially be cordoned off to a separate section of Twitter, the company said “eventually we aim to make notes visible directly on Tweets for the global Twitter audience, when there is consensus from a broad and diverse set of contributors.”

Demos of the product viewed by NBC News showed a separate area in which tweets are discussed and rated in a format that combines elements of both Reddit’s and Wikipedia’s moderation tools.

Birdwatch users are able to flag tweets from a dropdown menu directly within Twitter’s main interface, but discussion about a tweet’s veracity will remain exclusively in the Birdwatch section. Twitter says it does anticipate some users linking directly to Birdwatch discussions underneath high-profile and controversial tweets, just as some users would link out to fact-checking sites.

Participants in Birdwatch are able to rate others’ notes, as a mechanism to prevent bad-faith users from gaming the system and falsely labeling true tweets as false. Those ratings are then assembled into a Birdwatch profile separate of a Twitter profile, not unlike Reddit’s user-rating system.

Twitter said it hopes to build a community of "Birdwatchers" that can eventually help moderate and label tweets in its main product, but will not be immediately labeling tweets with Birdwatch suggestions.

Twitter has faced increased pressure over the last year to address rampant misinformation on the platform. Aside from removal, it has relied on labeling, or adding context below tweets that spread misinformation. In March, facing a deluge of misinformation about the pandemic, it began removing “misleading and potentially harmful content” about Covid-19. By May, it had introduced labels to respond to tweets containing conspiracy theories about the origins of the disease and fake cures.

In February, Twitter rolled out a new “manipulated media” label, affixing it first to a tweet from then-President Donald Trump. In the months ahead, it would label many more for misinformation around the Covid-19 pandemic and the election. In just the final two weeks before the election, Twitter said it labeled some 300,000 tweets for “disputed and potentially misleading” content.

Twitter told NBC News it was encouraged by early trials of the program, which have been ongoing in the last year. NBC News first reported on a leaked demo of the program, which was then titled “Community Notes,” in last February.

Twitter heavily focused on the threat of “manipulation” by what it calls “swarms” of bad actors, who may seek to use the platform as another weapon in online information wars.

“We know there are a number of challenges toward building a community-driven system like this — from making it resistant to manipulation attempts to ensuring it isn’t dominated by a simple majority or biased based on its distribution of contributors. We’ll be focused on these things throughout the pilot,” Coleman wrote.

Researchers will also be able to download bulk data about Birdwatch entries, which he hopes will “enable experts, researchers, and the public to analyze or audit Birdwatch” and deter manipulation.

“We know this might be messy and have problems at times, but we believe this is a model worth trying,” Coleman wrote.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/twitter-launches-birdwatch-forum-combat-misinformation-n1255552