Claims And Issues

THE FACTS RETURN TO REPORTING. "EAR BLOODIED IN THE ASSAULT."

In an article published today in the New York Times, four reporters took the byline while one of them wrote this:

Mr. Trump’s ear was bloodied in the assault and a rally attendee was fatally wounded. Two other attendees were injured. A Secret Service sniper shot and killed the gunman, later identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pa.

The person who wrote that sentence did good work of reporting the facts.  That "Mr. Trump's ear was bloodied in the assault" is exactly what we have seen ourselves; whether he was 'shot by a bullet' is not a known fact now, if ever.  His ear was "bloodied in the assault," and we can see that fact.  Thanks to the reporter who wrote that fact.

          At the end of this blog article, I will try to post ways in which you can contact each of these reporters and ask who among the four of them wrote that, if you would like to know who did a good job reporting the facts in that piece.

          In the meantime, there are some good questions that, speaking about the questions that members of congress asked the head of the Secret Service yesterday, should be asked but were not asked of her:

Did any of those Secret Service agents send or receive any of the text messages that the Secret Service deleted from January 5 through January 6, 2021, the Attack on the Capitol?

Which agents were on his detail during the period of time that he occupied the Oval Office, from the morning of January 20, 2017 through the morning of January 20, 2021?

          Just the facts, ma'am.  We have other questions and we hope that the media with its resources will ask them.

Here is a link to the article published in today's New York Times, which may be behind a paywall:  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/22/us/politics/kimberly-cheatle-secret-service-hearing.html.

And here are the EMail Addresses for the four reporters on this piece:   [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected].

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

"IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE?"

This is a good question.  It was asked so often at public meetings that it became a joke starting in Vaudeville days.  It's not a joke any more.

          There was at least one doctor in the house, at the rally that Saturday.  Reporting identifies him by name, a surgeon taking pictures with his cellphone.  Apparently the former president was taken away before the doctor could see him.

          When Gabby Gifford and President Reagan were shot, they were both taken to the hospital.  So was the former president on Saturday, according to reporting.  But the reports are confusing and incomplete.  One report has it that he was "taken to a local hospital from the rally site."  His spokesperson says that he was "being checked out at a local medical facility."  What an odd way to describe a hospital, by the way, "medical facility."

          All of these statements are incomplete because they do not tell us the name of the hospital where he was taken.  Seems like we should know.  When President Reagan was shot, he had been put into the presidential limousine where a Secret Service agent ordered the limo driver to proceed to the hospital.  We know the name of the hospital, of course.  It's not a state secret or a secret of any kind, and it should not be a secret. 

It's published right on the website of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library:  George Washington Hospital.

          So a good question is a simple one:     What is the name of the hospital where he was taken?

           Here's another:  Who treated him, whether at the hospital or at the rally?  Seems like we should know.  The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library has a long list of everyone who was around when the President was shot, including the names and workplaces of the doctors who treated him.

          As a rally, this was of course a gathering.  It was in Butler, Pennsylvania.  A permit is required to hold a public gathering.  The permit would require the presence and show the identity of Paramedics on scene.  The permit here would have been issued either by Butler Township or by Butler County.  Pull the permit and see what it tells you.

          Then there is the question that so far as I know has been raised by only one person, Ruth Ben-Ghiat.  She wondered about it in the course of taking a look at authoritarian playbooks including attempted assassinations, so she did not dwell on it but she is the only one I know who asked the question.   Why did the same Secret Service agents who had surrounded him, protecting him with their bodies as shields from any bullets that might still be fired, allow him to stop and stand  not once but twice on the way to the SUV, and the second time "expose his face, arm, and hand to the cameras and crowd, and deliver the fist pump and 'fight, fight, fight' message that created an iconic image."  Or as she herself framed it, "Why the Secret Service allowed him to do these things, in violation of any conceivable security protocols for such moments, is another story."

          Now would be a good time to get the answer:   Why did the Secret Service violate any conceivable security protocols for such moments?

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

BUZZ EVERY LIE! GONG THE CANDIDATES!

Game shows on TV sound a buzzer when a contestant gives a wrong answer.

          Presidential debates in the 21st Century are game shows at heart.  They should sound a buzzer every time a candidate lies.  ANNNNH!  Like that. 

          Then at least one candidate would be heard for what he is.  If used right, a buzzer would sound practically every sentence the guy speaks.

          The other candidate would probably continue as before as far as the media is concerned, but we can all agree that we would hear the "Gonged" candidate for who he truly is, regardless of what the media says or what else it does about him or about the other guy.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

"BUT HIS DEBATE PERFORMANCE IN JUNE ...."

(Image of Watching 2016 Presidential Debate, Wikipedia)

When Hillary Clinton lost the presidential election in 2016, the media concentrated on her EMails.  "But her EMails," we read and heard, over and over again.  As if the EMails mattered greatly to anyone, especially considering how the presidential election turned out in 2016.  But some of us could see it coming when our own press was publishing stories about Hillary's EMails rather than what the election was about.

(American Prospect Magazine, June 28, 2024)

Now we are in the presidential election of 2024.  I keep hearing that the media have learned their lesson, that they will not be distracted again like they were in 2016.

To say again, now we are in the presidential election of 2024.  I have heard over and over again since President Biden's bad debate on Thursday night, June 27th, "But his performance ...."

It says something about the media that they just learned last week that Biden is an old guy.

It also puts the lie to the mantra that the media has learned its lesson after their own disastrous performance in 2016.

It's a new month and the election is still in November.  Between now and then, at least, let's ignore all the people who get it wrong about things that matter:  the election, the danger, the life.

As usual, Rebecca Solnit said it well:

Much has been said about the age of the candidates, but maybe it's the corporate media whose senility is most dangerous to us.

Amen to that.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

SOME UNANSWERED QUESTIONS, UCLA.

A continent's width away, from Florida I have been following accounts of a riot on the UCLA campus Tuesday night, largely in The Los Angeles Times.  From my admittedly distant vantage point, I have some lingering questions.

There was a 1 1/2 hour delay between the time that "police" arrived on the UCLA campus on Tuesday night – early Wednesday morning, and the time that they went to work apparently to keep protestors apart from counter-protestors.

The counter-protestors apparently came ready to rumble.  They were also armed with fireworks.  They beat people up, and the reporting is not disputed that the people that the counter-protestors beat up included UCLA student journalists.   There are questions to follow up on, including:

Why did the police stand by while these people attacked the protestors and their camp on the UCLA campus?

Were the police concerned for their own safety from these counter-protestors?

Were the police delaying their response to see if the counter-protestors were successful in their goal of destroying the camp – it was not disputed that they tried to tear it down -- so that the police eventually would not have to?

Or were the police that arrived about 1:30 AM waiting for reinforcements, until at 3 AM (by which time it is not disputed that the so-called "counter-protestors" had mostly left the scene),  the police acted?

There were reports of injured protestors from the camp.  The reports vary between 15 and 25 injured protestors so far.  But there are no reports about how many so-called counter-protestors were injured – or arrested, for that matter – if any.

How many counter-protestors were injured and how many were taken to the hospital?

How many counter-protestors were arrested and if they were, were they armed when they were arrested and if so, how?

There was at least one report that L.A. Fire Department EMT's treated protestors.

Did the EMT's also treat any counter-protestors and if so, do they know where these people came from before they arrived at the camp on the UCLA campus?

Finally, the California Highway Patrol was on the UCLA campus.  Reports reflect that L.A. Mayor Karen Bass urged UCLA Chancellor Gene Block to call in the Los Angeles Police Department, a probably more professional organization and one certainly more used to dealing with protests and crowd control than anyone at CHP.  However, Mary Osako, identified in the reporting as a UCLA Vice Chancellor for UCLA Strategic Communications, issued a statement which said that UCLA "called law enforcement for mutual aid support."

How did the Highway Patrol end up on a college campus that night?

I have saved my biggest lingering question for last.  The reporting is clear that the "pro-Palestinian encampment set up on UCLA's campus" was largely peaceful and non-violent.  That was not clear to me until I re-read, and re-read again, all the Los Angeles Times reporting in particular.  This is not a "he said, she said" or "both sidesism" kind of story.  The so-called counter-protestors came to do harm, and they did.  The campers fought back to defend themselves.

Why have journalists and the UCLA administration not made it clear that this unprovoked attack came from outside agitators and that the police were not called in on Tuesday night – Wednesday morning of this week because of anything the campers had done – other than to exercise their First Amendment rights?  (After all, it was not until the following night, Wednesday night into Thursday morning, that the police arrived to dismantle the camp at UCLA.) 

Or is that the point.

 

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

OUTSIDE AGITATORS.

"Outside agitators."  That's who George Corley Wallace blamed for all the civil rights troubles in the 1960's.

          It wasn't true then.  (Not unless you count the students from Northern universities who travelled to Mississippi for Freedom Summer in 1964 to help register Black people to vote.)

          I was never accustomed to taking guidance from George Corley Wallace, and I am not accustomed to taking guidance from his ghost now.

          I was surprised that university presidents do, until I realized they are not really university presidents, not in the academic sense.  For the most part, they are  not academics.  Today, university presidents are fund raisers.  That is how they get to become university presidents:  They can raise money.

          University fund raisers are afraid of their billionaire funding donors.  That makes the billionaires the real outside agitators today.  It is they who are responsible for the police riots that are reportedly taking place on university campuses with hundreds of students arrested across the nation from New York to California, tear gas and rubber bullets at Emory in Atlanta, and everywhere tents and personal property being destroyed or confiscated by men and women wearing uniforms.

          However many "outside agitators" successfully elude detection at the entrances to universities today, the real violence-causing outside agitators are the ones who write the checks and the ones who cash them.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

"FOOL ME ONCE ...."

In 1967, Israeli jets and P.T. boats attacked the United States Navy Ship Liberty.  The Liberty was a spy ship, loaded with electronics to monitor the 1967 War which was then in progress between Israel and its neighbors.

          The Liberty was defenseless.  It was carrying no weapons.

          Israel claimed that its attack was a mistake.  They killed 34 people including one who was an employee of the U.S. National Security Agency.

          In 2024, Israeli jets attacked the World Central Kitchen mission in Gaza.  Volunteers at the mission were bringing food to cook.  They cooked for Israelis, for Palestinians, and for anyone else who showed up needing a meal.

          They were defenseless.  They were not carrying any weapons.

          Israel claimed that its attack was a mistake.  Jose Andres, who founded World Central Kitchen, responded with this information:  "It was a direct attack on clearly marked vehicles whose movements were known by the Israel Defense Forces."

         The aid workers clocked in with the IDF; they told the IDF where they were, what they were doing, where they were going, and when they would be there.

          Then the Israeli jets attacked.

Your mother probably told you what mine told me:  "Fool me once, shame on me; fool me twice, shame on you."  Somehow shame is not enough this time.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

JUDGES OF THE AMERICAN APOCALYPSE.

     It may be true that we live in a world filled with interesting questions.  One of the more interesting questions is an unanswered question, one which may not have even been asked yet.  So far as I know, this question has not generally been asked yet:

How is it that so many federal judges who were appointed during the American Apocalypse, got assignments to one-judge divisions? 

Perhaps journalists and the news media in general can ask that question, and perhaps they can get answers.  I will list some below that can perhaps get answers.

            For more on the American Apocalypse and how its effects are still with us every day, see, for example, the articles  UNELECTED TEXAS JUDGES, THE AMERICAN APOCALYPSE, AND MINORITY RULE, published here on March 9, 2024., and JUDGES ASSIGNED TO ONE-JUDGE COURTS DURING THE AMERICAN APOCALYPSE, published here on March 26, 2024.

          I am now going to mention the names of people and outlets who have the capacity to get answers to these questions if they want to.  If I left a tweet on X-which-used-to-be-Twitter, I guess they might find a tweet but so would the trolls most likely and I do not want that.  I do not know whether these people will pay attention to blogs like this one, but I am going to try.  Maybe they will seek out their names since they are in a business where their name recognition is so important to them.

        I am still not completely sure of how to bring this article to their attention, so I am going to mention their names here in the body of this article as well as in the metadata accompanying it.  Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you, Susanne Craig, David Barstow, Russ Buettner, Andrew Weissmann, Will Bunch, Scott Maxwell, Jackie Calmes, LZ Granderson, Karen Tumulty, Julie K. Brown, David Dayen, New York Times, Washington Post, American Prospect, Guardian, Philadelphia Inquirer, Jamie Raskin, Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Talking Points Memo, ProPublica, Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel, Dahlia Lithwick, Mark Joseph Stern, Slate, Linda Greenhouse, Lisa Rubin, and American Prospect.

          Thank you in advance, one and all.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved. 

"ALL OF THE INTERESTING PEOPLE HAVE LEFT."

Many journalists who were good at their jobs retired or were let go.

          It was not for nothing that the money they were paid was well-deserved, but expensive for the investors who took over journalism to make a profit for themselves.

          The people who left took their experience and their street-smarts with them.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

STAND UP TO THEM, "FOR GOD'S SAKE."

"For God's sake."  One of President Joe Biden's favorite phrases.

Enough already with these meshugana lawsuits they file mostly in Texas and Louisiana, so that federal judges in a few jurisdictions in those places can make decisions for the whole nation, while the rest of us are supposed to accept this behavior in silence.   Time to turn around this ridiculous continuing American Apocalypse.  See, e.g, the articles published here on March 23, 2024 and on March 9, 2024.

           File lawsuits proactively in venues of your choice.

          There is a rule of law that is pretty universal among judges.  The case that is filed first is the case that has jurisdiction.  Those are the cases of record, you might say; cases that are filed in the same court on the same issues even get put together with the case that is filed first.

          The other cases filed afterward have to stand in line, wherever they may be; basically, they stop if they are not the case first filed.

          File first.  File actions for declaratory relief.  These are actions when you ask a court to "declare" what your rights or duties are, in other words, to "declare" your "relief."

          For your subject choose what your "intelligence" tells you they are going to challenge. 

          You think you don't have "intelligence?"  Then read the papers, listen to Cable, and watch social media.  You'll find out what they are going to challenge.

          Beat them to the punch once you find out.  File first, and in a court of your own choosing.  Stop playing catch-up.  Get ahead of the game.

          Some good words of advice, Merrick.  Listen good, DOJ.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

TRY CONNECTICUT SOLUTION TO PUBLIC RECORDS DENIALS, BEFORE INVOLVING COURTS.

Reportedly, Connecticut has a procedure for people who request public records to appeal denials, redactions, and estimated exorbitant costs for production of the records.  The appeal goes to a special commission that has the authority to make rulings on the requests and to enforce its rulings.  People who can appeal include journalists as well as regular people.

          In other States and jurisdictions, there apparently is no such commission.   Records requests meet with delays and denials and the like, because all U.S. jurisdictions have one thing in common in this regard:  They are underfunded.

          Outside of Connecticut, it seems, the only place to "appeal" such denials, redactions, and abusively high cost estimates, is the local Court.  The dockets of judges are often clogged with lawsuits that would otherwise not be necessary if there were an appeals procedure in place..

          On the other hand, the experience of records requesters who are forced to go to Court is that once Courts are involved, they report "first-class service" in getting the records they requested.

          At the end of this Sunshine Week, it is worth the while of people who do not have access to the Connecticut solution, to work to make it the law in their own States and localities as well.  Our local judges will thank you for no longer having to add these lawsuits to their dockets.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

JOURNALISTS: DON'T YOU GET TIRED OF BEING USED?

The Hur report said that President Biden lost his memory.  It said that he couldn't even remember what day his son died.  Now we have the transcript.  Mr. Hur actually congratulated the President on having a photographic memory.    As for the date that the President's son died, the President not only remembered, he prefaced saying the date with, "Oh, God ...."  That lends credibility with a jury, which any honest trial lawyer knows.

          It turns out that the report was false and the transcript was true.  The news media says that it is shocked!  Shocked!

          Just a few years ago the same people, or at least the same kind of people, said that the Mueller report exonerated the Occupant of the Oval Office at the time.  Then we got the report.  Mr. Mueller actually wrote that the Occupant had participated in criminal activity but that Mueller would not charge a sitting president, following Department of Justice policy.

          It turns out that the press conference was false and the report was true.  The news media said that it was shocked!  Shocked!

          Journalists, don't you get tired of being used?

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

"IT'S THE DICTA, STUPID."*

*With apologies again to Mr. James Carville, who famously said during one of the successful Clinton campaigns, "It's the economy, stupid."

Dicta is a word that lawyers use to describe the opinions of judges that go beyond what they need to say to decide the case that confronts them.  To paraphrase Black's Law Dictionary, a standard text for many lawyers, dicta are opinions of judges concerning matters which are not necessarily involved in nor essential to determine the case presently before the court.

          In the course of enticing all justices to agree that a candidate of a certain persuasion should remain on all ballots, 5 judges went beyond that case to declare how and why candidates in future cases should not remain on the ballot (which most legal scholars say is self-evident from the Fourteenth Amendment and which did not need to be rewritten).

          When the U.S. Supreme Court took this case, they limited their review to whether they should affirm or reverse the Supreme Court of Colorado.  The Colorado Supreme Court, you will recall, had held that the Fourteenth Amendment barred this particular candidate in this particular case from the Republican primary ballot in Colorado.

          That is what the U.S. Supreme Court said that they would review.  That narrow question.  Of course, as lawyers know, the question of affirmance or reversal on the facts of the particular case is everything that a reviewing court can ever determine without issuing an advisory opinion.

          Here is what the 9 said they ruled on together.  You may or may not agree with it, but you can certainly read it for yourself.  They don't want you to read it for yourself, you know.  Every good trial lawyer, and any lawyer or person for that matter, knows that when they don't want you to look at something, you should look at it.  Read this for yourself:

          A group of Colorado voters contends that Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits former President Donald J. Trump, who seeks the Presidential nomination of the Republican Party in this year's election, from becoming President again. The Colorado Supreme Court agreed with that contention. It ordered the Colorado secretary of state to exclude the former President from the Republican primary ballot in the State and to disregard any write-in votes that Colorado voters might cast for him.

* * *

Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse.

Trump v. Anderson, ___ U.S. ___, ___ S. Ct. ___, 2024 WL 899207, at *1 (U.S. March 4, 2024).

          The U.S. Supreme Court was previously pretty consistent in stating the view that it is or was limited under Article III of the Constitution to the existence of a controversy, and that, unlike State Supreme Courts, the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts lacked the power to issue advisory opinions.

          Based on preexisting precedent, the U.S. Supreme Court is accordingly prohibited by the Constitution from issuing an advisory opinion on what action Congress should take to enforce Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates.  So there were very strong grounds before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in this case that it would be limited to deciding whether the Supreme Court of Colorado was right or wrong in this particular case.  Period.  End of report.

          Instead, the joint opinion of the 5 rewrote the Fourteenth Amendment to the satisfaction of the 5.  But this is not how all 9 think about the issue they decided, and it is certainly not the view of the other 4 who decided the narrow question of whether this particular candidate in this particular case would remain on the ballot.

          So the command of the 5 to Congress on how to implement Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates is dicta.

          That is what it is.  Meaning no offense but stating it clearly:  "It's the dicta, stupid."

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

THEY FAILED.

With every new revelation the enormity of their failure increases.

          But this is not the story we hear reported.

          First we heard about one draft Executive Order, for example.  Then another.

          Now we hear about Memos, Memos, Memos suggesting to agencies and departments of the federal government to take over.

          All we get are laments about how close we came to losing democracy, outrage over admittedly despicable behavior.

          But as important as those things may be, they are not the real story.  The real story is that they failed.

          Completely.

          Totally.

          With every new revelation the enormity of their failure increases:  That is the story.  Hiding in plain sight, as they say.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.