Daily Digest |  |
- The Geek in Pictures: Biden Excuses Edition
- U.S. v. Tou Thao (4) [updated]
- Liz Collin comments
- Liz Collin goes back to work
- The Hot Take Boils Over
| The Geek in Pictures: Biden Excuses Edition Posted: 23 Feb 2022 08:39 AM PST (Steven Hayward) The Biden Administration is citing the Ukraine crisis as an excuse for inflation, supply-chain issues, and everything else you can attach to it. So let’s do some reality checks. These first three from @TheRightWingM on Twitter:
Here’s one thing that has gone down:
Meanwhile, COVID rolls on . . . and down.
Let this sink in, from the NY Times:
The Scots should stick with whisky.
And finally. . .
   |
| U.S. v. Tou Thao (4) [updated] Posted: 23 Feb 2022 07:07 AM PST (Scott Johnson) I went down to the Warren E. Burger Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in downtown St. Paul to view the attorneys’ closing arguments in the federal trial of the three former Minneapolis police officers other than Derek Chauvin charged with violating the civil rights of George Floyd in the arrest that resulted in his death. The three officers are Tou Thao, Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane. I covered the scene and the opening statements last month here. The Associated Press covered the closing arguments in a story by Steve Karnowski, Tammy Webber and Amy Forliti here. I am not going to summarize the arguments in this post. Rather, I want to only add my own observations and impressions on the closing arguments in the form of bullet points. • The video feed for reporters is in the Jury Assembly Room on the court's first floor with windows overlooking Robert Street outside. The skyway into the courthouse is closed to the public and the building is ringed with special security fencing. Not a single protester has been in sight. I saw one St. Paul police officer stationed in a cruiser outside the First Bank Building kiddy corner and down the block from the courthouse on Robert Street. The situation was well in hand. • Our winter weather has proved inimical to the mob scene that surrounded the trial of Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis. One of the reporters told me that protesters were organizing themselves on Facebook in anticipation of the jury, but they have made themselves scarce so far. • The court declared a snow emergency and Judge Magnuson excused the jury at 4:00 p.m. without providing jury instructions. He is instructing the jury this morning. • This case has disrupted and delayed the orderly prosecution of the three officers in state court. I have yet to see an explanation for what the Department of Justice has done here. In his closing argument, defense attorney Earl Gray raised the question in slightly different form and offered his own explanation. Gray indignantly exclaimed: “It’s politics!” (Judge Magnuson overruled the government’s objection.) • Assistant United States Attorney Manda Sertich made the closing argument for the government. She emphasized the observations of the bystanders and the undisputed legal duties of the officers. Sertich read her opening statement from a notebook and drew on exhibits that illustrated her argument as she spoke. Her occasionally mocking tone grated on me. I thought Sertich’s argument was competent and effective but canned. Indeed, I thought she was most effective in thinking on her feet to modify her argument in response to the objections that Judge Magnuson sustained. KARE 11 reporter Lou Raguse thought more highly of her argument than I did (and I respect his judgment). • Defense counsel objected frequently to Sertich’s argument. Judge Magnuson sustained a surprising number of these objections. He was antipathetic to the repetitive elements of the government’s case. • Assistant United States Attorney LeeAnn Bell gave the rebuttal to the defense arguments and Judge Magnuson all but shut her down in response to defense objections. Bell was aggressive and skilled speaking from notes without a text. Her appearance and demeanor struck me as the essence of high-handed second-guessing from a perch in a comfortable office. • Defense counsel Robert Paule represented Tou Thao and spoke on his behalf. I thought he was a credible and compelling advocate. • Defense counsel Tom Plunkett represented Alexander Kueng. He was not good. He was the least persuasive of the three defense counsel — disorganized and somewhat incoherent. • Defense counsel Earl Gray represented Thomas Lane and spoke on his behalf. Lane is charged with only one of the two counts the other officers face (the deliberate indifference count). The government’s case against Lane is the weakest of the three. • Gray was intense in broad strokes that left openings on rebuttal. He was impassioned. He poured it on. Lane is a good man. He has lived a good life. Going beyond the presumption of innocence and the burden of proof, I thought Gray did especially well in arguing that the evidence introduced against Lane was evidence of innocence. • Each of the three officers testified at trial. All three defense counsel hammered on Floyd’s drug intoxication and the “excited delirium” that each of the officers believed Floyd labored with at the time of the arrest. It took three officers to subdue him and they were afraid that he would revive and continue his resistance. I would guess the jury will begin with Lane’s case in deliberations. He has a strong defense. If he is not acquitted, I should think the other officers will be convicted on both counts. • None of the three defense attorneys mentioned in their closing that the government would have the last word before Judge Magnuson instructed them in the law they are to apply and that they would not have the opportunity to respond. • All defense counsel emphasized the “willfulness” (“bad purpose” or “improper motive”) element of the two charges against Thao and Kueng. This is the challenge of the government’s case. Sertich and Bell asked jurors to use their common sense in analyzing this element. “Willfulness” is like a child doing what he knows is wrong. • This was a much fairer trial than Chauvin’s. Chauvin defense counsel Eric Nelson confronted a dream team more or less all by himself. The presence of three defense counsel contending with the government in this case came closer to leveling the field. UPDATE: Beyond the scope of anything I can contribute, Andrew McCarthy criticizes the Department of Justice’s theory of the case in his NRO column this morning (behind the NRO paywall):
It’s a shame that no one has pressed the Department of Justice on any point related to this prosecution, let alone the question of fundamental right that Andy raises.  |
| Posted: 23 Feb 2022 06:40 AM PST (Scott Johnson) In the adjacent post I quoted Star Tribune music reporter Chris Riemenschneider’s Star Tribune story on the announcement that Liz Collin has gone to work for Alpha News:
Riemenschneider implies that Liz was "involved in stories related to law enforcement" after "those chaotic months[.]" I asked Liz if that was the case. Liz responded, “No, I never was” — and added this:
Just to clear that up.  |
| Posted: 23 Feb 2022 03:37 AM PST (Scott Johnson) As I wrote on Monday evening, Liz Collin is the Emmy-winning former reporter and news anchor at the Minnesota affiliate of CBS News. When Liz announced that she was leaving the station a month ago, it was big news. The Star Tribune story reporting her departure was the most-read story that day. On Monday Alpha News announced that Liz was working for the site. The announcement was coincident with the release of Liz’s video report on the Twin Cities carjacking spree for Alpha News. On Monday I doubted that the Star Tribune would see Liz’s joining Alpha as a big a story as her leaving CBS Minnesota, but I was wrong. Music reporter [?] Chris Riemenschneider reported Liz’s joining Alpha in “Former WCCO-TV reporter Liz Collin joins conservative site Alpha News.” The Star Tribune doesn’t see itself or CBS as left-wing organs, but it must assure that outlets like Power Line and Alpha News are pegged on the political spectrum. As I write this morning, Riemenscheider’s story on Liz is the Star Tribune’s most-read. Liz explained to Riemenschneider: “There’s a lot happening in Minnesota right now. Reporters need to be covering that and bring more things to the surface, and I feel like I wasn’t allowed to do that in the last couple years. The last couple years I have been very limited in what I was allowed to cover, and I was suspended from my anchoring post that I held for a dozen years at WCCO. So I felt compelled to explore some other opportunities.” Liz has not publicized the reason for her exit from WCCO/CBS Minnesota. Riemenschndeider offers this analysis:
And let us not forget this:
Was Liz “involved in stories related to law enforcement” after “those chaotic months”? I will have to check with her and get back to you on that. [UPDATE: No, she was not. I followed up with Liz in the adjacent post here.] If Liz were a different kind of person — a Star Tribune kind of person, perhaps — I think she might be crying sexism and political persecution of an updated McCarthyite kind, but with far more justice than Star Tribune heroes decry their victimization. Liz’s story presents as a case study of the mainstream media at work. Liz appeared midway through the second hour on Justice & Drew yesterday morning. I have embedded the second hour below. Liz unburdens herself a little about her treatment by WCCO in the course of the interview. I recommend it for those interested in the story behind the story.  |
| Posted: 22 Feb 2022 05:09 PM PST (John Hinderaker) Earlier today I credited Alexander Vindman with the hottest take on Ukraine. Vindman blamed Russia’s aggression on conservative pundits in the United States. Because we have so much influence on the Biden administration, apparently. But yesterday my old law professor Larry Tribe went Vindman one better with this bizarre tweet. Which, by the way, was published at 4:09 a.m., not generally seen as a time for clear, sober thinking:
Tribe thinks that Tucker Carlson and other unnamed Republicans in the “Trump wing” of the party are guilty of treason, and therefore subject to criminal prosecution and five years’ imprisonment under 18 U.S.C. § 2381. This is sheer lunacy, as the question at hand is whether the U.S. should support one side or the other in a foreign controversy, and if so, at what level, given that actual ground warfare is not on the table. There is no conceivable basis on which taking any position on such a question constitutes treason; otherwise there would be a far more substantial case that many Democrats who opposed the Vietnam War or the first and second Gulf Wars should be in prison. I almost never watch television news, so I don’t know exactly what Tucker Carlson has been saying about Ukraine. I take it that he is a dove–as most Democrats have been in most foreign policy controversies–and thinks that the U.S. has little or no interest in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, that Russia’s case is not notably weaker than Ukraine’s, and that we should stay out of it. Whether you agree with that view or not, only a lunatic would say that it is treasonous. As for the rest of the “Trump wing” of the Republican Party, is there any validity to Tribe’s claim that it is “throwing its weight behind Putin”? Trump himself has denounced Joe Biden for imposing only “weak” sanctions on Russia:
Trump says–correctly, it seems–that “[Putin] would have never done during the Trump administration what he is doing now, no way!” It is hard to understand how this constitutes “throwing [Trump’s] weight behind Putin.” How about the rest of the “Trump wing” of the Republican Party? The place to start, presumably, is with Trump’s Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. Has Pompeo been “throwing [his] weight behind Putin”? It doesn’t seem so. Pompeo says that “we should be crushing the Russians on this.”
How about other relevant Republicans? Idaho Senator Jim Risch is the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He said:
Not exactly “throwing his weight behind Putin.” Senator Tom Cotton was often identified with President Trump’s foreign policies. Has he “thrown his weight behind Putin”? This is what he had to say:
How pro-Russia can you get? Obviously, apart from the idea that disagreeing with a Democratic President constitutes treason–which I think is perilously close to the view held by many Democrats, like Larry Tribe–this is, in a sane world, anti-Russian. Ted Cruz is a prominent Republican Senator who generally sided with President Trump on foreign affairs. What does he have to say?
Larry Tribe’s suggestion that the “Trump wing” of the Republican Party is somehow pro-Putin is literally demented. It makes me sad that Tribe, whom I considered a friend and a normal and reasonable person when I knew him decades ago, has fallen so far. For present purposes, though, what is sadder is that, as of the time of the screen shot embedded above, Tribe’s tweet had 4,998 retweets, 637 quote tweets, and 18,300 likes. There are a great many Democrats to whom even the most insane anti-Republican screed makes perfect sense. If they had their way, we would all be either unemployed or in prison.  |
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