Posts Made By: Rod Kaufman

Originally Posted by David Cotterell

Rod, I concur that there was plenty of inflammatory rhetoric in this one speech.  But ITrump has nowhere near the intellectual ability to plan a ruse where he says 'bloodbath' about the cars thing when he really wants his followers to think it will be a  'bloodbath' of and/or caused by the nasty brown immigrants.   The vast majority of his core followers might construe it that way but Trump ain't got the brains to influence them like that.  
Dave

Originally Posted by David Cotterell

Yeah but he didn't do it in Ohio.  Yesterday.    

He DID incite tons of race-hating anti-immigrant stuff though.

BTW, thanks for derailing my otherwise rather friendly thread on the eclipse.

Dave

Originally Posted by Jim Moscheck

So, you think this will do anything to make gun owners a little bit more cautious about how they store their guns?

At least Michigan is trying to do something about the access of guns by children. 

After all is said and done these parents were awful and deserved what they got.

Originally Posted by James Brown

Seriously Rod, this fetish with Thomas is weird.   You should read your link again, the story has been updated.

Originally Posted by James Brown

Rod, the Navarro case is a nit.   The two First Amendment Cases heard yesterday are a big deal.  I think in the more important  Murthy v. Missouri matter the Court will merely confirm that existing First Amendment law applies to social media.   In other words the government can exert pressure on the platform owners to censor only when there is a compelling state interest.  Then I think that the Court will conclude that the government overreached way too much in the Covid years.  I think the vote(s) in both cases will be 7-2 or 6-3 with Brown-Jackson and maybe Sotomayor in the minority.  Kagan has shown real free speech chops in the past IIRC, and will side with the conservative justices.

Any opinion on this?

Originally Posted by James Brown

Here is the actual order, it is short:   https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.648652/gov.uscourts.flsd.648652.407.0.pdf

I can sorta see why the Anti-Trump journalists are apoplectic.  The hypotheticals are very pro-Trump.  The apoplectic sort might be freaking out a bit prematurely though.  As best I can tell, Cannon is not saying that these will be jury instructions, she seems to be asking Smith and Trump's lawyers to argue for or against the use of the obviously pro-Trump hypotheticals.

My first impression is that these are the issues she should resolve by granting or denying Trump's pending motions to dismiss.  According to the Washington Post she is hostile to Trump's arguments:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/03/18/trump-judge-cannon-jury-instructions-pra/  (I recommend this article, it seems analytical and free from hysteria).

I can not figure out why she wants more arguments on these issues in the jury instruction context.   Maybe she is just being cautious.   Maybe she is totally incompetent.   Either way this is not the end of the world order that MSNBC paints it as.   She hasn't actually made any order on the instructions to be presented to a jury yet.  (Also, if she dismisses the case there will be no jury instructions, so this is sorta a signal that she is not going to dismiss)  What matters a lot is what she orders on instructions after the lawyers weigh in and when she ultimately does decide Trump's motions to dismiss.

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

It appears we're all trying to understand what she is doing or intending to do with this jury instruction business but when you listen to the MSNBC contributors and then read the following, it certainly seems that she's not approaching this in any sort of conventional manner:

"Some commentators have described Cannon’s order as 'unusual.' I would use words like wacko, crazy, loony, nutty, ridiculous, and outlandish, and my terms are probably understatements," Bennett Gershman, a Pace University law professor and former New York prosecutor, told Salon."

https://www.salon.com/2024/03/19/bizarre-legal-expert-says-cannons-outlandish-order-is-sign-of-her-extreme-partisanship/

Originally Posted by James Brown

Not really!  The documents case is complex and presents novel legal issues.  Due process requires that Trump be given the right to make any arguments and motions in his defense that are at least sort of supported by law.   No one would care that this takes time but for the election in November.   Also, no one else (at least no one who could afford a proper defense e.g. Clinton, Biden, Pence or others who might have been charged in a documents case) would be convicted by now!

Cannon may be biased for Trump, I don't know.   (Of course the judges in GA, DC, and NY are almost certainly biased against Trump, and those cases have not rushed to judgement.)   So, it is not supportable in my opinion to argue that the bias of the judge is responsible for slow walking this case.   Complex criminal prosecutions with defendants who can afford decent counsel always take time.   No one would care but for the election in November and again, that is not a valid reason to discard due process.

It is ridiculous to think that Trump would nominate an extremely new district court judge to the Supreme Court.  The part I have bolded above is ridiculous and unsupported slander.   MSNBC is not even going this far, and they are way into the weeds of partisan speculation.  J