A hearing is underway now in the case of Richard Barnett, one of the Capitol insurrection defs (photographed at Pelosi's desk) — the govt is challenging an Arkansas magistrate judge's release order. Chief Judge Beryl Howell in DC halted his release until she rules on the matter

Prosecutor Mary Dohrmann begins by arguing Barnett flouted laws "in the most brazen and flagrant manner possible" when he breached the Capitol: "He knew exactly what he was doing."

Prosecutor says the note that Barnett left for Pelosi in her office — "Nancy, Bigo was here you bitch" — was "disturbing" and says the photographs of him sitting at Pelosi's desk show that he appears to "relish" the notoriety

Govt says Barnett doesn't have a criminal record, but notes police reports where a caller lodged a complaint that he'd pointed a rifle at a car with a "Black Lives Matter" sticker and, in a separate incident, was carrying around guns in public

Look, I get the reasoning behind not calling witnesses. But what gets lost is that yet another rich white elected criminal got away with it. We've had decades of this (GWB lying re WMDs) & Ds have never stopped it. Never. They just sigh & ask for our votes. We want accountability

They've never rid of of the EC, no Healthcare 4all & any gains we've gotten (NRA going bust, BLM showing us inequality) has been citizen advocacy. And citizens SHOULD do that. But we want our Dem reps to accomplish big things, too. We've given them all three branches twice.

So it's a bit difficult to ask us to swallow this "as a win" when a criminal isn't held accountable by the very means he's supposed to be held accountable.

I understand the challenges, I do. But these same naysayers also wrote off Stacy Adams in GA, and look what she did.

Political calculation is important, sure. But it's not the ONLY important thing, either. Sometimes one has to fight to the bitter end over a thing that matters, even if you lose the fight. I don't see that happened here. And it's part of a pattern. If Ds didn't have this pattern-

Maybe I'd be more forgiving, but I'm not. People got away with torture, they got away with illegally selling arms, working with a hostile foreign nation, killing our citizens via negligence, and thus far NO accountability for any of that, and little hope some will come.

So Dominion sued Rudy for defamation. How are they ever going to allege actual malice?

1/

The SNP versus the Law

The SNP is in trouble. They know it and we know it. It’s almost certain that Nicola Sturgeon will need to resign for lying to Holyrood

This explains the frantic calls for another referendum

Brexit is done and the sky didn’t fall in

2/

This removes their number one Bête Noire. A Disastrous hard Brexit

They were banking on that happening. There will be, and are, difficulties with the new trading arrangements but these will play out over years and will be sorted one way or another

3/

The Law

As it stands, the SNP cannot call another referendum without the permission of the UK Parliament

Some people dispute this, including many in the SNP

So. What’s the alternative?

The could call a non binding non legal referendum but what’s the point

Unionist will

4/

boycott it and non SNP councils will refuse to participate

Although that’s their latest plan, it’s a non starter

In the absence of a S30 order their only recourse is to test the competence to hold another referendum in the Supreme Court

This is fraught with dangers

5/

They have to balance the possibility of getting a positive SC judgement against getting a negative judgement

I’ll start with the negative judgement first

Were the Scot Gov to go to the SC they would risk not one but two massively disastrous and fatal outcomes

It would be a perversion of justice of the highest order if we prosecuted hundreds of people for participating in violent insurrection, but let the mastermind & ring leader skate to a life of luxury & golf every day.

No ONE in America has been better at evading justice & no

one in America has been more deserving of punishment than Trump.

Nuremberg was not about holding low level foot soldiers accountable. They paid a price, for sure, but it was the leaders who were publicly shamed

and made to face the world for their crimes.

Imagine if Hitler had survived the allied liberation. Do you think ANYONE IN THE WORLD would have intimated he be let him go & allowed to retire in peace to promote global «healing» & «unity?»

Trump has the blood of 400,000 dead

Americans on his hands. He broke more laws while in office than we can shake a stick at!

Even the people who are suggesting that he be given a pass aren’t doing so because he isn’t deserving of punishment. They are doing so because they have a stake in preserving the world

order in which wealthy, powerful white men get away with WHATEVER THE HELL they do.

The desperate, almost pathological need to preserve the mystique of powerful white men blocks out rational thinking about accountability & justice. The EXACT SAME mindset that justified giving

The High Court gave us 'permission' to bring some of our judicial review arguments in relation to the Government's odd PPE contracts. We are today asking again for permission to bring the others. You can read our (remarkable) Skeleton and Statement here.

We chose these three contracts (Clandeboye/Ayanda/Pestfix) in June/July when we had much less understanding than we do now about what was going on. Once you appreciate that fact, what we have already uncovered (before disclosure) about those three is all the more remarkable.

Let me just focus on one aspect of those contracts: the quality of the product supplied by those companies (respectively, a confectionery wholesaler, a 'family office', and a pest control specialist).

And, rather than me editorialising, let me quote the words of those companies themselves, or Government, or Government agencies.

This is what Government says about what we bought from Clandeboye (we spent a total of £108m on gowns).

But how can they not be cleared for use as gowns? And yet be "authorised for distribution... as part of the PPE ensemble"? It doesn't sound like what we got was gowns.

#AdamSmith, #WealthOfNations, and #CornLaws!
What more could you possibly want on a Saturday morning? (IV.v.b) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

Yes, it’s the Digression Concerning the Corn Trade and Corn Laws! We can barely contain ourselves long enough to remind you that “corn” doesn’t mean 🌽 It means the principal cereal crop of a nation. (We keep saying so because we keep forgetting.) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

#TLDR on #AdamSmith’s thoughts on the Corn Laws:

They’re bad. (IV.v.b.1) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

Corn merchants can be broken down into four groups. Smith loves to break things down into groups.
1) Inland traders
2) Importers
3) Exporters
4) Transporters (IV.v.b.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

If inland traders raise their prices higher than supply and demand will allow, they’ll discourage consumption beyond “thrift and good management.” People will go hungry and crops will rot.

That's bad. (IV.v.b.3) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

Ok so first of all - Twitter/GDPR/what to do! So firstly, the court needs to make the order for Twitter to disclose the data, which they may not do as it’s a) disproportionate b) a waste of time c) complex involving international law d) ridiculous….

In addition, AH has already been told she cannot pursue this in the VA trial, so it’s a pointless exercise! I feel this approach re twitter is v much an “AH” idea; not advice from a lawyer… as it’s not going to accomplish anything and is a waste of time.

In any event; re GDPR - while the laws around GDPR are v strict, where it comes to information being disclosed in the course of legal proceedings, it is more tricky. The issue has been argued in other cases - esp re disclosure of UK/EU citizens’s info in US legal proceedings.

And in simple terms, the bottom line is, if the court orders it, it can be disclosed. The question then is, what to do about it. Well, you could kick up a stink, file a motion to quash it etc.. etc… but I’m not here to give any individuals legal advice.

However, while it might be tempting to create almighty hell over it, here’s a thought… you all know you are real people right? So you could all give AH what she wants & simply let her look utterly ridiculous! So she gets the info - then what?

Today is our judicial review hearing over the Government contract awarded to friends of Dominic Cummings at Public First without competition.

We'll be tweeting live from 10.30am.

Supreme Court resumes hearing in the Tata Sons v Cyrus Mistry case.

Day 4 of the arguments.

Mistry's counsel C A Sundaram, Senior Advocate, making submissions.

CJI tells : I discovered during the weekend that my son, who is practicing in Bombay, has been appearing for 2 years for a subsidiary of Shapoorji Pallonji Group in a matter related to slum rehabilitation.

I must disclose this to you all.

#TataSons

Salve : I think I also have appeared in that matter. I have no objection.

CJI : So can we record no objection.

Salve : Yes.

#TataSons #CyrusMistry

CJI records in the order that parties have no objection to this bench hearing the matter.
#TataSons #CyrusMistry

CJI : This might otherwise create problems later on.

C A Sundaram : Most young lawyers appear for companies of Tata group or SPG.
In England, there have been instances where sons have appeared before their fathers.

CJI : Justice P N Bhagwati has done that.

Five years ago this week in a 6-3 decision, the United States Supreme Court declared that its prior 2012 ruling in Miller v. Alabama applied retroactively, thereby requiring that hundreds of former life-sentenced children like myself be resentenced.

I recall that day being one of subdued jubilation tempered by cautious optimism, having absolutely no confidence in how the sentencing judge or the parole board would respond to this High Court mandate. Would I be given an opportunity to live a meaningful life…

...or would I be condemned to prison for the rest of my life? Terrifying questions that had no immediate answers.

On June 27, 2017, I was resentenced to a term of 30-to-life. Following a successful parole hearing in August, on October 10, 2017, after being disappeared from society for over three decades, I walked out of prison on parole for life.

Sadly, in the four-year interim between the Miller and Montgomery decisions, my mother lost her battle with cancer. She was my last surviving (immediate) family member. For me, the Montgomery decision serves as a painfully cruel reminder that “justice delayed, is justice denied.”

The end around case has been put together by TX AG Ken Paxton suing GA, MI, WI, and PA at SCOTUS. Bringing this case across multiple jurisdictions gives it a straight lane to the SCOTUS.

This happened just before midnight tonight, will post documents soon

As a lifelong student of law, I am trained to check everything thrice and still leave myself wiggle room.

I am, therefore, surprised by people’s chutzpah in holding forth about (even specialised) matters about which they have zero knowledge or experience –or qualifications: +

I have been 'found short and marked up' by several assorted engineers ,chartered accountants & businessmen (in each case with 0 legal qualifications)* on the standard ‘England and Wales’ governing law clause-which has been boldly 'corrected' to 'UK law' , +

and in one case, believe it or not, the ‘kings’ law’(the Apostrophe too as placed!)

*Incidentally, besides professional legal qualifications and many years of International Project Finance legal experience, I have a distinction in Private International Law (that deals with+

governing law clauses) from one of England's top universities.

My English language skills have been found 'wanting' by the European CEO of a leading EPC Contractor who informed me : ‘The English no goood’ .+

This gentleman’s standard letter ‘in English’ consists of throwing in a few words and relying on the reader’s goodwill - to supply all connecting grammar. +

Let’s talk about this story. It discusses a NJ bill that is designed to make sentencing less harsh. The bill is being held up because a lawmaker introduced an amendment that would eliminate the mandatory minimum for one type of corruption.

First, let's talk about the framing of the story. The lede is about how the lawmaker who introduced the amendment has a girlfriend whose son is facing corruption charges. The story minces no words: It says the amendment was added specifically to help that man.

The idea of powerful people helping each other escape punishment is a powerful one. It is the stuff of headlines and outrage, and so I'm not surprised that this is how the story is being framed.

But there is also another way to frame this story--that most people only appreciate the harshness and injustice of the criminal justice system once they or someone they love have been swept up in it.
We've seen the story before, and it sends us a different message.

The "powerful people get off" framing tells us to be suspicious of leniency & not to trust criminal justice reform.

The "I only realized when" framing tells us that we aren't paying enough attention to harshness & more reform is probably needed.

Short thread on communication, teaching and selling ideas:

When I finished school I went to study in Israel in a "Yeshiva" - these are like HE academies where you just study Jew stuff: philosophy, bible, history, law. And, lots of talmud. 1/

The Talmud is really hard at the best of times. It's very confusing, varies in style from page to page, the content itself is very demanding and it's in a weird Aramaic-Hebrew hybrid. 2/

Everyone in the Yeshiva studied the same tractate (like a book of the talmud) but there were lots of different classes, with each rabbi having a very different style and approach. 3/

One rabbi took a highly abstract and conceptual approach. He used very complicated ideas and words and did a lot of monologuing. Everybody used to rave about how amazing his classes were. So, one day, I decided to go. 4/

I confess that I didn't understand a damn thing. It all just felt very...like...nothingness. Like things were being overcomplicated and overdramatised and ideas and lenses were being added that didn't really add much at all. It was just confusing. 5/

A Kangaroo Court is a bogus legal proceeding which disregards due process, the law and fairness in pursuit of expediency and desired outcomes, it is usually convened after orders from another similar Kangaroo proceeding

[Thread]

A Kangaroo Court has one purpose: to punish a particular individual regardless of whether he actually broke the law or not. It is conducted in such a way as to make it clear who's in charge (She State), but at the same time impossible to prove that they're abusing their powers

Even before a Kangaroo Court delivers its inevitable guilty verdict, the proceedings are designed to deliver maximum humiliation & misery to its victim. The KC only follows common legal principles when it suits it, but will not hesitate to disregard such if and when necessary

A Kangaroo Court fully operates on the concept of expediency. It's own laws and procedures are sufficiently vague and open-ended to allow it to change them as it goes using its "discretion". If things start going off-course, just change a rule and we're cooking again

Any normal legal proceeding has an unknown outcome, every defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Not so in a Kangaroo Court. The outcome of this particular proceeding is a foregone conclusion. The sitting is merely a formality to give a semblance of thoroughness

Listening in to the Peter Harding arraignment. (THREAD)

Magistrate Judge Jeremiah McCarthy is presiding.

Criminal complaint against Harding is from DC District Court dated 1/11/21.

Harding is charged in a 2 count complaint from DC District - violating 18 usc 1752 (a)(1) and (a)(2) unlawfully being on federal grounds.

Second count is Title 40 USC 5104(e)(2)(c) violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. Max for both is 1.5 years and a fine.