Tucker Carlson-American Nationalist

 

Hey Tucker. What a hatchet job the NY Times has done on you. Pouring over years of telecasts, interviewing scores of people, quoting your own words, laying out all those nasty facts. Talk about conspiracies, they're clearly out to destroy you and all because you speak up for the threatened white man and all other legacy Americans who just want to live in a country that looks like the one they grew up in. 

I hope you don't give the Times the satisfaction of knowing it nailed you by denying and attacking its reporting. Show what a man you are by admitting that the piece accurately describes what you stand for and what you are promoting. That would tick off your detractors and make your followers very happy.

Supreme Court Hears Case on Whether Miranda Warning Is a Right

 

The Supreme Court is considering whether the well-known case of Miranda v. Arizona created a constitutional right or something less. That case held that the police were required to give certain warnings to a suspect in custody before interrogation. In the absence of such warnings (the right to remain silent among them), any admission obtained from a suspect would be inadmissible at trial.

The conservative justices seem to be toying with the notion that Miranda established a constitutional rule, not a constitutional right. That is a distinction without a difference. It simply defies common sense and sound legal construction to suggest that a procedure required by the Constitution does not confer a constitutional right.

If the court adopts that reasoning, it will put in motion a steady erosion of the protection afforded an accused under the Constitution.

Governor's Proposal To Modify Bail Law

 The changes to the bail reform law, proposed by Governor Kathy Hochul, are sensible and needed and will preserve the benefits of bail reform while remedying the law's unintended downside.

As a retired Criminal Court judge, former prosecutor and charter participant in the Manhattan Bail Project (which promoted pretrial release without bail), I have long denounced the misuse of bail to incarcerate poor people, more often persons of color, and have advocated and successfully utilized pretrial release without bail in most cases.

However, New York is alone, and wrong, in limiting the factors a judge may consider in weighing bail decisions to a single criterion, the likelihood of a released defendant's return to court when required. By denying judges the discretion to hold persons whose release would pose a danger to the community by reason of propensity for violence, serious mental issues and repeated acts of violence, with or without weapons, the courts are stripped of an essential, judicial power and the public is exposed to unacceptable and unnecessary risk.

The governor's proposal not only addresses identified shortcomings in existing law; it makes welcome additions to funding for pretrial, mental health and employment services, so that persons held can be sooner released safely and keep those persons already released from reoffending.

Senate Hearing on Nomination of Judge Jackson

 Sen. Lindsey Graham's prosecutorial inquisition of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, disrespectful in tone, contemptuous in manner and unfair in blocking the judge's attempts to respond, was unwarranted, reckless, and unworthy of a senator and the process of judicial selection. After first professing offense at earlier attempts by Democrats to block the judicial nomination of Judge Janice Rogers Brown, a Black woman, and reenacting his out-of-control rant, last performed at the Kavanaugh hearing, Sen. Graham then disgraced himself and the process by using the occasion to make direct appeals to his rightwing base and by launching long, angry and accusatory tirades at Judge Jackson while refusing to allow her to complete her answers.

One can only hope that fair-minded viewers will see the parallels between the despicable treatment of this Black woman and the disparagement of Anita Hill by this same Senate committee more than 30 years ago.

Jackson's Record as Defender Likely Target of Senators

 

A host of Republican senators, many of them lawyers who should well understand the duty of an attorney, especially when appointed by the court, to effectively defend an accused, plan to attack Judge Ketanj Brown Jackson at the hearing on her Supreme Court nomination, for her brief tenure as a public defender.

The hypocrisy of these senators knows no bounds. Though they profess to be champions of constitutional rights and the rule of law, when it comes to the defense of indigent criminal defendants by women attorneys of color, they opt to punish the defenders of those rights for daring to accept their court-assigned clients and to represent them to the best of their ability.

It is troubling that these same senators raise no such objections to judicial nominees whose careers may have been spent soliciting the lucrative cases of corporations charged with serious criminal violations which affect the public at large.

New William Barr Book Hits Trump, Excuses Self

 

Based upon accounts of William Barr's new book, "One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General", one thing seems clear; Barr was more evil than the man, Donald Trump, whom he criticizes. According to Barr, Trump "was off the rails" after he lost the election and has neither the temperament nor persuasive powers to be a good leader. Barr, on the other hand, knowingly did Trump's bidding until nearly the very end of the president's term notwithstanding the illegal, immoral and undemocratic character of the demands made by the unhinged president.

Barr tries to brush aside his own violations of the rule of law and his undermining of the independence of the Department of Justice, which he treated as an arm of Trump's political machine. His distortion of the Mueller Report, unseemly intervention on behalf of Roger Stone and his inexplicable dismissal of the case against Michael Flynn, despite the latter's guilty plea, are all swept away without adequate explanation or legal justification. Only when it became apparent that Trump had totally lost it and made demands on Barr that threatened to involve him in patently criminal activity, did Barr resist and incur the wrath of his master. He slipped quietly away and now, with a book to sell, he re-emerges as a self-proclaimed guardian of good government. 

Please spare us the absurdity Mr. Barr. Your belated critique of Donald Trump, and self-serving defense of your own unethical behavior are too much to stomach. 

2 Manhattan Prosecutors Quit Over Trump Inquiry

 

After less than two months in office it is reported that New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg has overridden the judgment of his senior staff and decided not to pursue the pending criminal investigation against the Trump organization and Mr. Trump. Two Assistant DAs heading the investigation, each of whom have been involved for many months and have special expertise in such matters, reportedly have resigned in protest.

While one should not make judgments from afar and without knowing all of the facts, the decision by Mr. Bragg is startling and seems to fly in the face of mounting evidence that Trump and his company criminally gamed  the system to reduce taxes and obtain bank loans. 

The Manhattan DA’s office has long had a reputation for excellence and non-partisanship. If that reputation is to be preserved Mr. Bragg must speedily, and convincingly,  explain the basis for his decision.