Short but accurate, if indirectly

 Best argument why Republicans are shit poor excuses for humans.

Is the Work Done? | Glenn Loury & Mark Sussman | The Glenn Show

I miss the old Loury, straight from the 'Go Loury

Chop up the soul Loury, set on his goals Loury

I hate the new Loury, the bad mood Loury

The always rude Loury, spaz in the news Loury

I miss the sweet Loury chop up the beats Loury

I gotta to say at that time I'd like to meet Loury.

I am not that impressed with that other son of Chicago, Kanye. But a mere minute or two into this, I was thinking about the Kanye song.

If there was ever a post here that I wish the professor ever saw, it would be this one. Because I would bet he knows the song I use here as well as I do. Brother used to know what time it is. And then he started buying into the establishment. Even if he is still like most of us, a mere servant . But in his case, he is a well paid servant. Better paid than most of us the servant class.

Two things have obsessed me, as a matter of the culture, this past week. One was the Netflix series about the grifter: "Inventing Anna." She got off kinda easy. And at least according to the show she insisted on her belief that she was a good business person, despite not having a fucking clue how due diligence works. That shit is very kinda, sort of totally important. Says me, the guy who set up the in house due diligence highly sensitive, secure document room for the underwriting team from Goldman, working on the Prudential demutualization/going public. One of the themes for me in watching the series was how I knew the difference between old money and nouveau riche. And girlfriend acted like the nouveau riche.

And the other part of the culture I am all interested in now is the current season of "Billions." My favorite line out of the last episode. The boss tells the gifted trader/investor:

"I am independently wealthy. You are just a little rich."

The gifted trader/investor: was getting close to her target figure of having $10,000.000.00. Next to her, Loury might be a little rich I have to imagine. I can not imagine must more than that.

Anyway, my point is, I have a lot of criticisms for Loury. More than any other, top of the top is, if he bought into the establishment for the tiny amount of money he got from buying in? He sold out very cheap.

I often say, I am a broke assed lawyer, who works often for millionaire lawyers, who work for billionaires. And unless you are really that high up the food chain? Independently wealthy? You still ain't shit, even if you got a couple, few million in the bank.

And some blue lives matter more than others.

 And some protestors deserve love and sympathy.

Fucking hypocrites.

Eminem Responds To Rudy Giuliani

I am so fucking tired of Republicans. I am so fucking tired of Cult 45.  But I love a good parody.  I really need all the humorous distractions  I can find.  

Like James Taylor sang . . .this old world is breaking me down. And it will take more than going up on a roof to improve my mood.

Anyway.  Pretty good spoof here.  Enjoy.

Despite The Correct Verdict in the Palin v. NYT Case. There Was Media Malpractice.

 

In the reporting about the case.   Various media outlets have been ignoring the important fact that yesterday, when the judge announced he would dismiss the case no matter what the jury said, he was granting the NYT's motion to dismiss, which was filed before the case went to the jury.  And now there is this conspiracy theory floating around out there that the judge went rogue.  Shit.  Even in the NYT's own story yesterday, they buried the fact the judge granted their motion, further down the article.

And  as is often the case, people don't fucking read the whole fucking story, or do not post the critical detail.  I am looking at you ex law professor Ann.  You got a bunch of your deplorables on your blog spewing all sorts of idiotic bullshit.  Even if one of the denizens there took the time to explain Fed.R.Civ.Pro. 50. And even if today we found out the jury, who were left alone to finished deliberating, as the judge thought their verdict would be of use to the 2nd Cir.  expected to have to handle the expected appeal? They unanimously found against the whiny assed, violent rhetoric spewing, poses with guns, snowbilly.  

So there.

I do not know how good this case is going to be for the desired goal of her financers, to overturn the landmark case that established the high burden for proving defamation if one is a public figure.  I would guess the fact the jury did not at all buy her weak assed, bullshit, whiny baby, baseless  claims?   That will make it harder for SCOTUS to even go there. So we are going to have to see.  The current rogue SCOTUS is hard to predict.  But I  have no reason to believe that there are enough votes on SCOTUS to grant review, never mind change the law in a way that is all but guaranteed to bankrupt Fox News, it's imitators, and basically all known conservative/right wing media.

Speaking of ex law professor Ann.  Here is the smartest comment on her blog by her denizens, at least before I started my post here:  

"The chance of a New York jury finding for Sarah Palin is about the same as Stalin's advisors telling him that Trotsky would have made a better leader."

So they are not all fucking morons, over there.

Since I mentioned Gibson's v. Oberlin

 I am truly of the mind that merely being called a racist is not suitable grounds for a defamation action.  I might have said that before, when the case was hot.  These days it is considered a long, overdue ruling, by the appeals court.  Even if one of the judges on the original panel lost an election and the newbie needed time to  catch up on not only that case, but all she was assigned to, after winning the seat.  

Way I was arguing it to myself, and none of this is at all original.  Let's be honest.  It there ever really was any sting to the charge, that is no longer the case.  Not for grown ups, at least.  It's basically one of the random, go-to, easily used insults of the age.  It's on the level of being called  an asshole, actually.  It's name calling.  Pure and simple.  At its most common and base usage.  If the charge is in context with real specific wrong doing like accusing some elected or appointed official, judge, hospital administrator, teacher, whatever of engaging in a racially discriminatory pattern or racist  misuse of office?  That's different.  Context matters.  But, and to use an even better point of comparison. Merely  calling some rando a racist is like calling them a motherfucker.  There could be belief in the literal insult, but the charge more often than not is meant mostly if not exclusively as an insult. 

Now the problem in the Gibson's v. Oberlin matter is that Ohio is behind the times in knowing what time it is.  To employ a colloquial phrase.  Across the borderline, in Illinois, their courts recognize the plain and obvious truth that:

"Accusations of “racism” no longer are “obviously and naturally harmful.” The word has been watered down by overuse, becoming common coin in political discourse. Tillman called Stevens a racist; Stevens issued a press release calling Tillman a “racist” and her supporters “bigots.” … When Stevens called Tillman a “racist,” Stevens was accusing Tillman of playing racial politics … rather than of believing in segregation or racial superiority. That may be an unfortunate brand of politics, but it also drains the term of its former, decidedly opprobrious, meaning. … The term has acquired intermediate meanings too. The speaker may use “she is a racist” to mean “she is condescending to me, which must be because of my race because there is no other reason to condescend.” … Meanings of this sort fit comfortably within the immunity for name-calling. … In daily life “racist” is hurled about so indiscriminately that it is no more than a verbal slap in the face; the target can slap back (as Stevens did). It is not actionable unless it implies the existence of undisclosed, defamatory facts, and Stevens has not relied on any such implication."

And:

Similarly, in Grutzmacher v. Chicago Sun-Times Inc.,[3] Judge Kathy Flanagan, citing Stevens, found that statements referring to the plaintiff as a “neo-Nazi” were nonactionable opinions.

Stevens and Gruzmacher are based upon a fundamental concept in defamation law: To prove actionable, a statement must consist of objectively verifiable fact. Amorphous opinions, even when obviously negative, which lack clearly ascertainable meaning are not actionable.

Other Illinois reported cases have found that the following terms and phrases, in the absence of objectively verifiable facts, were nonactionable opinions: “fired because of incompetence,” “cocky con-artist,” “useless piece of shit,” “very poor lawyer,” “unethical,” “lazy,” “burnt out,” and “unstable.”

(Source)

I found that quote looking for the actual metrics about how many states do recognize this reality in their defamation law. I really think this needs to be the case, nationwide.  

Notable of the errors in the Gibson's v. Oberlin case is that the court not only did not require the plaintiff to carry the burden of proof and persuasion with evidence they were not in fact racists.  The judge actually kept evidence of racist animus on the part of the person who's action triggered the case, away from the jury.  Fucked up  and bullshit!   

Someone called you a racist?  Grow the fuck up! No payday for you! 

Re that violence loving, gun toting, helicopter hunting approving sno billy grifter's (my opinion) law suit,

 And calls for the "actual malice" standard to be revised in defamation actions?   Talk about people setting themselves up for being hoisted on their own petards?  And I mean the right wing lunatics who want that?

I do not want that, let me say up front.  But can you imagine any well known conservative media provider lasting in business for more than five years if the standard gets lowered for proving defamation of a public official or figure?   FNC  will get buried.  The even more lunatic copycats will be wiped off the map.  No insurance company will cover that exposure.  And if the law gets changed, following a Supreme Court rewrite and ruling?  Even given the one year statute of limitations  in many states, I have to predict a crippling onset of cases.   One of the reasons FNC gets away with so much over the top, flat out hateful shit is the  "actual malice" standard.  Granted, that Dominion lawsuit against them is a fairly dangerous threat to FNC.  And then there is Col. Vindman's.  So FNC has a good deal of exposure already.

I mean sure. I want them crushed.  But I think we are better off with the "actual malice" standard still in play.  Historically  judges disfavor defamation cases.  I should know.  I got my ass kicked pursuing a very good one.  Anyway

Last thoughts.  Palin is so associated with violent rhetoric that her case should have been dismissed, as it was, had been.  And her targeting map was so inflammatory that it is a reasonable interpretation that she was solicitating violence against her political party's opponents.  Far as I know, the reason for the overturning of the dismissal on appeal was even if technically within law.  It could have called harmless error, as on it's face  the pleading did not meet the necessary level for a prima facie case where "actual malice" cold have been proven, particularly how quickly the NYT  corrected the story.  And her claim of damages is fatuous.  She is the harpy who is famous for calling the "mainstream"  media  the "lamestream" media.  People who read and identify with the views of as she calls them the "lamestream" media tend to despise her already.

No real harm.  No provable damages.

Nota Bene:  I am still anticipating the result of the appeal of the Oberlin College case.  It is weird but not surprising that in some US states being called a racist is not considered actionable as defamation, but not all, as it should be.  But as we are now living in the anti anti racist times, and as I really don't know shit about the appellate courts in Ohio?  I can't really say there is hope for them to adopt that as the standard, going forward.  It is so hard to predict shit.  But at minimum, the damages were bullshit.  And in my understating of shit. The judge fucked up multiple times pre and during the trial. Most notably, fucked up in not dismissing  this shit.  That case was mostly some town vs gown treasure hunt. It might not be a rule of jurisprudence, but call shit as it looks!

Astroturffed and or Idiotic Bullshit.

 Ok.  Let me get this straight.  A fraction of the minority of unvaccinated Canadian truckers are upset about their livelihoods being put on hold, by being given a choice?  They have the choice to remain unvaccinated and not to do cross US Border runs, or do them and face quarantine.  Or alternatively, they can take the fucking shot and get on with their lives and trade.

So in order to promote and protect their claim of a freedom right to be free from having to make a  choice,  and of being free to being an international self propelled bio weapon, they are forcing other people to suffer losses in their trades?  With out having a choice?  Just make other people suffer?

More than 90% of Canadian truckers are vaccinated! Most Canadians are vaccinated!  This protest is the most insane shit since the 1/6 Capital riot/Putsch.

I do agree with some of Trudeau's critics.  He is failing as a leader.  I would have sent in some combat engineers and military transportation specialists  along with RCMP.  The mounties say to the driver, move your truck or be arrested and we will seize your truck.  And those who don't comply are arrested, and then you send in the combat engineers and military transportation specialists to do their thing.

I think they won't actually have to do it that many times for the mob to get the message that they  are out gunned and out manned, and combat engineers and military transportation specialists are very very good at moving shit.

Sometimes shit is that easy.

 

The Devil's Brigade - The Canadians Arrive

For the record.  I am entirely unsympathetic or supportive of the alleged Canadian trucker's occupation of Ottawa.  I say alleged because I believe there is American trailer trash behind this shit.  Or too deeply involved, for it to really be an organic, Canadian movement.  Anyway.

I find it to be witless, infantile, baseless, and so removed from legitimate grievance that their complaints rank as not even worthy of making some one single person one minute late to a meeting they are 15 minutes early for.

And the hell they have been causing to innocents merits sending in the Canadian Army.  Send them fine men and women in,  and let them kick some asshole ass!

(JMO) And under this definition, Amy Wax is a racist.

 

That being said, on to deconstructing McWhorter's and Loury's latest apologia re this lady who keeps getting called out for saying flat out racist bullshit.  I won't link the chat, but it is over of bloggingheads.  And it is on Loury's Youtube channel as well.  Anyway . . .

Wax is one of those bigots who thinks she is fooling people by spewing prejudiced shit about people of certain ethnic groups, because of their "culture."

Follow me.

If you accept you can no longer get away with spewing prejudiced bullshit about people of specified ethnic groups because of them looking differently, and having a different ethnicity?  That being off limits, is the prevailing rule in the USA  now.  And if you know better than to go there?   All you got left to crank about is 'culture.'   And a human need not be a Black professor at an Ivy League school to know if someone is cranking about an ethnicity's culture, one obviously is spewing racist bullshit.

Ya  hear me McWhorter and Loury? Any number of non degree holding people in America get that!

And while I am at, you Ivy League professors. You both fucking know that there ain't nobody getting accepted to Ivy League schools without high numbers.   For Penn that needs to be no less than a 3.9 GPA and fucking below 75%tile on the SATs, relatively.  (I checked.  I do that!) And that the law schools are even fucking more exclusive.  So the proper response to the U.  Penn. law professor spewing racist anti black student bullshit should be in the following vein:

"Do you teach at the No. 6 ranked law school in America, or do you teach at at toilet level school operating as unethically as a sleazy, for profit school run by Donald Trump?"

That is if you are too dishonest to ask her, "So how long have you been a fucking flaming racist?"

Disturbingly, Loury (I have to wonder if he has been having strokes, as this argument is goat fucking insane,) tried to make this racist bullshit spewing professor  some defense out of thin air  on the grounds she . . .   could have maybe been some attention whore  (my words) trying to be an agent provocateur.

Negro Ivy professor please!  Her day job is to objectively instruct and grade law students.  Not be a juggling seal at a circus. (Yes that circus part was part of his stroke brain level argument.) If she is spewing racist shit, the question isn't how the students will take that? (Calling you out, McWhorter.)  The actual question for the dean and the faculty (I'm a lawyer, I know  the body of the law school faculty is a super jury) is how can they trust this racism spewing disaster to be fair in the classroom and in grading?  

McWhorter at least got half of that part right.  But merely  being ok with her being barred from mandatory courses is not fucking enough. You should not trust the racism spewing disaster to be on campus anymore.

But ya know.  Let's blame not only her, but the Dean and the faculty for not doing that the last time.  They only took mandatory courses away from her.  She should have been kicked off campus a couple years ago.

And last thought.  I have heard Loury make many dishonest statements over the years. But conflating disciplining someone for spewing racist shit, is not not  not the same as disciplining them for merely being a republican.  If she were not repeatedly spewing racist shit, there would be nothing to say about her.

Ok. It might not be the most stupid thing people are saying on Althouse's blog about Whoopi's whoopsie,

 as I call it.  And I don't mean most racist and hateful.  Don't these white supremacists know that people can read what they post and judge them based on the plain meaning and seeming intent of those posts?

But among the top five moronic, idiotic, this proves these people are no smarter than a bucket of vomit.

Taking issue with the fact that "The View" is part of the News Division?  Yeah.  Fucking  moronic!  But let me confess. My first career was in entertainment, and I have a degree in Theatre. and concentrations in Communications/Media.  And I have two relatives who have won Emmys.  And for a year of my life I had a low level job at CBS corporate HQ.  So I know a tad more than most people about the broadcast industry. But still?

I ask out loud.  How fucking stupid does a human have to be to not get that a daytime chat show falls into the category of "Current Affairs" programming.  And shit like that has been produced by news divisions since the first "Current Affairs" show was broadcast?

And just take a look at the shit Fox New Channel runs.   They broadcast almost as little real news as MTV does music videos.  I can't say the word infotainment was first coined for FNC programming.  But if the shoe fits, wear it.

Anyway.  I still don't get why Ann Althouse is not embarrassed beyond continuing tolerance, to host so many racists, and morons, if not both on her blog.  But hey. I grade people very hard.  I expect them to behave like adults with at least an eight grader's maturity and understanding of the world.

Fuck Them Part Deux. The Whoppi Goldberg Fauxtraversey.

 Of fucking course racism enabler and platform publishing ally to the same,  Ann Althouse got her racist hive all stirred up by posting about the Whoppi Goldberg fauxtraversey.  For those of you who don't know, Whoppi made some technically correct yet juicy for the trolls, remark that Jewish isn't a race.

I am not saying all the peeps taking offense are faking it, like I assume all the racists on Althouse's comment section to her post about this, who are calling a Whoppi a racist, clearly are. Let's recap.  Ever since I took that class in International law, over 30 years ago, I take the UN definition of racial discrimination as my core definition for what is and what is not racist.

The Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination defines "racial discrimination" as:

... any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.^[22]

But ironically, hypocritically, Republicans usually try to limit the definition of what should be considered racist.  So they are rewriting their working def., in this case, just as an excuse to call a black liberal woman a racist.  That is what is going on here.  And by that, I mean Althouse's comment section, racist goons, and any other Republican calling Whoppi a racist for saying Jews are not a separate race.  Which is technically true but not under International Law, actually.  And Republicans hate the UN and International Law, as their usual default.  PS.   That Convention was written as such to specifically include antisemitism in the definition.  But what number of Republicans knew that before going after Whoppi?

I speed read the comments.  There were a handful of posts thoughtfully either defending her, or at least the idea she inelegantly expressed.  But alas.  No one took the trolls on for being their usual, racist, trollish selves.

When it is all said and done, my favorite line over there is as follows:

"Much ado about nothing."