Posts Made By: James Brown

Originally Posted by James Brown

We really lucked out in south central Indiana on Monday.  Nearly blue sky through the whole eclipse with maybe the slightest wisps of high cloud some of the time.  Venus and Jupiter were clearly visible a few minutes before totality, and a couple of proms shined like rubies during totality.  Very cool.  The proms are in my photos, but washed out.  I needed a couple shorter exposures.  This is a composite of a 1/350 second and a 1/45 second image with a Canon SL2 and a tiny 70 mm William Optics refractor.  I hope the weather was OK wherever you were, if you tried to see the eclipse.  Texas looked pretty dicey. 

Originally Posted by Jim Moscheck

Hi Jim. We just drove about 90 miles south of Detroit and SE of Toledo, Ohio. Found a real nice park in the small town of Fostoria. We basically saw what you saw except we had high cloudiness so the Corona wasn't as brilliant as it was when we saw the 2017 eclipse. still, not bad at all being so close to home. Chances of non overcast skies in Ohio in April are pretty low so we lucked out, too.

There was a guy there playing the whole Dark Side of the Moon album over loudspeakers and it reached totality just as it ended. Pretty cool for just stumbling upon it looking for a spot to view. I chose to not take pics and just visually enjoyed the 3:45 of totality. I did have my solar scope to watch the partial phases. The prominences peeking out from the eclipse were awesome and we didn't see that in 2017.

Originally Posted by James Lacey

I set up the TEC 140 on my AP900 in the backyard so we could watch as the eclipse progressed. I roughly pointed the mount North, adjusted a tiny bit for magnetic declination, and did a daytime "polar alignment" using the park method. It was plenty good enough to then Goto the Sun, and the mount tracked it flawlessly in a 22 mm Nagler for a couple of hours after that.

We had about 30% coverage of low-level cumulus clouds and some high clouds, but overall, we had a great view. Also, as the eclipse progressed and the Sun became increasingly occluded, the clouds diminished, possibly because the Sun was pumping less energy into cloud formation. By the time totality hit, we had a great big blue sky, and shortly after it ended, the sky cleared completely.

It was epic, and all the friends and family we had over were awe-struck. Two thumbs way up! I feel sorry for anyone who missed it.

Originally Posted by James Lacey

Very nice, Dave! Thanks for sharing this with us!

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

An excellent read on the insanity of the cons at work:

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/4624601-supreme-court-donald-trump-presidenital-immunity-hypocrisy-oral-arguments/

I will say that at least Barrett, joining liberal jurists, and unlike the other cons, did consider at least consider some of the facts of the case in noting the fake electors scheme in her questioning of Trump's lawyer. Why is it that it's seemingly "ok" for her to do so while the other cons expressly stated they have no interest in the facts of the case, preferring, instead, to bury their heads in the sand and pull the veil of hear no evil, see no evil over their heads?

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

Hi Jim, I disagree with a number of your points.

First, the question that the court took in this case is clearly that of Trump's team and not that of Jack Smith and THAT is the question that is driving this decision. (It remains unclear who on the court accepted it as written or if one of the cons wrote it himself.) Smith's question clearly focused on absolute immunity for criminal acts and that was the decision reached and agreed upon unanimously by the appellate court. That some of Trump's actions were also personal in nature is not really in question and even his own lawyer essentially acknowledged that under scrutiny from Barrett who noted such acts would not likely be covered under immunity.

The above really is the crux of the matter. However, add to that the overt resistance of the cons (other than Barret) to hearing the facts of the case even before the case had been presented to them, and you begin to see a pattern emerging from the court. It boils down to what a particularly galling and disturbing statement from one of your knights at the round table who can do no wrong, chief justice Roberts himself said and I'm paraphrasing, " I read the appellate court decision and it's simple, circular reasoning that a president can be prosecuted because a president can be prosecuted"! That's NOT what the appellate decision says and to reduce it to such simplistic terms is a gross insult to the legal reasoning by the appellate judges noted in the pages from their painstakingly thorough review of the case.

What's really constitutes "circular reasoning" here is the high likelihood the the cons will decide to send it back to an appeals court for more deliberation in order to supposedly ferret the "personal" from the "official" acts which will then be, according to lawyers from both conservative and liberal media, appealed again to SCOTUS so they can rule on essentially the same issues they should be ruling on now. THAT'S circular reasoning for you and constitutes nothing but a thinly veiled acquiescence to the continuing delay tactics of Trump and his co-horts to evade justice...

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

SCOTUS didn't have any hesitation in its rush judgement to keep Trump on the ballot box. That couldn't come fast enough. 

We're clearing dealing with overt criminal acts by Trump to overturn the results of a free and fair election. He's calling for blanket immunity from prosecution for those acts. That's not complex but it's being made as such by the refusal of the cons to acknowledge the facts of the case.

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

SCOTUS didn't have any hesitation in its rush judgement to keep Trump on the ballot box. That couldn't come fast enough. 

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

SCOTUS is NOT concerned with the facts of a case! The CONS on the court have said so! And THAT is the only fact that matters!

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

I'll let a former conservative federal appeals court judge explain it to you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPiFiT3ADz0