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Derek Chauvin and the Benefits of Public Trials

  I talked with a young soon-to-be law school student this week. He wants to be a trial lawyer, but he is worried there are so few trials. When I started to practice 11% of the Federal cases were resolved by trial. Now, that number is a little over 1%. The same trends are found in state courts all over the country. There are a great many causes I will mention only a few.      In the criminal area, prosecutors have been given enormous power to negotiate plea dispositions. The judges role has been minimalized by the use of sentencing guidelines that seek uniformity. In the civil area, billion dollar verdicts have made public trials too risky. There are also provisions which are under critical attack at the moment which allow settlements to be secret which have occasionally protected manufacturers producing dangerous products.      When public trials are followed by the press, reforms become the subject of public discussion, like the Chauvin trial. Co...

Senator McConnell Has Inverted the Process of Democratic Discussion by Telling His Base of American Business to Stay Out of Politics

  Senator McConnell’s lecturing of American business to stay out of politics was hastily followed by his statement he was not talking about contributions . That lecture represented a reversal of normal political dialogue. In a democracy it is the voters who tell the office holders what they need and what they want. It is not the office holders who instruct the voters as to what they’re allowed to do. Under the First Amendment as declared by the US Supreme Court on several occasions, corporations have a right to express political opinions. Efforts to reduce the vote is among the most important subjects for public discussion. There’s something more important about what McConnell did. He took an axe to the republican base. For a number of years the republican hierarchy has been trying to manage a joining of American business with right-wing groups, some of them with extreme positions. It has been effective at times. But the recent praise by Senator Johnson of Wisconsin, lavished o...

The American Establishment Wants to Stop Voter Theft

       The business community and the legal community have had enough of the public vote theft. There is a full-page advertisement in the  New York Times  today listing approximately 100 major American corporations and almost all of the large law firms (including Morrison Foerster LLP) in the United States, in opposition to the public voter theft being enacted in several states.      Senator McConnell has overplayed his hand and is now in political trouble. It is often the American establishment that has to step forward and save our democratic form of government. Forty-seven states have pending or enacted statutes with the aim of reducing the vote. Those statutes eviscerate our democratic form of government. The immediate and widespread reaction of citizens was to stop doing business with any company that tolerated voter reduction or theft, and so it should be.      A bill pending in the congress now would establish a bipartisa...

What Was President Trump Told?

 WHAT WAS HE TOLD? 1. The government monitors radical communication. 2. Including all types of public and private communications. 3. They can get wiretap warrants based on probable cause, (showing a crime is being planned). 4. Governmental intelligence gatherers knew who the leaders of the Capitol invasion were. 5. They had an obligation to advise the White House of the danger of a violent takeover. 6. Did intelligence people advise the White House of dangerous plans? 7. Was the president told?  8. Was the warning in writing? The warnings to the white house should be matched with the time of each presidential statement. 9. What words were used to warn the president?   10. His knowledge of what was possible is a crucial part of deciding whether he incited the takeover.    11. A possible example = The President knows the crowd plans to take over the Capitol, then he gives a speech repeatedly yelling the word, “Fight, fight, fight!” Th...

Nativist Politicians in the 1840s and 50s Did a Lot of Damage to America. Their Own Violence Ultimately Defeated Them.

• Between the late 1840s and 1856, the Know Nothing/American political party elected mayors, governors, members of the House, and United States Senators. • They were nativist, virulently anti-Catholic, and opposed to Irish and German immigrants. • They accused Catholics of stuffing ballot boxes and stealing elections by having non-citizens vote. • In San Francisco they opposed Chinese immigration. • They passed anti-immigration laws making it harder to become a citizen. • They were white supremacist Protestants. Public schools were required to use the Protestant bible. • In August 1855, twenty-two people were killed in a Know Nothing Riot against Catholics.  • There were similar anti-Catholic riots in Baltimore. • In Maine, they tarred and feathered a Catholic priest, and burned down a Catholic Church. • Their last year of real power was 1856. • Those politicians who supported them left office or joined other parties. • That we will suffer more violence at t...

What May Happen in the Next Six Weeks

  TRUMP MUST PARDON HIMSELF o Trump has serious criminal exposure for sedition and related crimes for inciting rioting. o The victim witnesses are the 535 members of congress. o The evidence includes the television videos of Trump calling the mob together, forecasting trouble, and praising the mob, before, during, and after the deadly assault on our nation’s capital. o His motive is to replace Joseph Biden as the next President of the United States. o That verbal praise and support by the president is incitement, not protected by the First Amendment. o In any other trial, insanity would be a defense. Trump, the client, will not allow the defense of insanity. o Visualize the sedition trial with 12 citizens sitting in the jury box watching the president praising the invaders in the Capital Building. o Conclusion: Trump must pardon himself for all crimes related to the riot. o The pardon power is absolute. There is some question whether Trump can pardon himself. o ...

Five Reasons Those in Authority Must Take Action to Get Our Country Passed the Rioting in the Nation's Capitol

 PROSECUTIONS 1. The riot that happened yesterday requires immediate prosecutions by the United States Attorney for the District of Colombia. 2. Robert R. Sherwin is the acting United States Attorney in Washington where the riot happened. 3. Sherwin is an experienced career prosecutor. CENSURE THE SEVEN SENATORS 1. Seven senators breached Article II section I of the Constitution by delaying the count of state certified electoral votes by the vice president.  2. The Constitution gave that certification responsibility to the states. 3. The vice president only has the job of counting the states certified votes. 4. Senators invoked a false belief of invalid voting that would, if successful, install Trump instead of Biden. 5. If successful, that would disenfranchise 81 million voters. 6. They did all that knowing that the president had called a mob to the Capitol. 7. They gave “aid and comfort” to that mob. 8. The Senate has censured members before. IMPEACHMEN...