To determine whether or not an accused individual is guilty there are two primary options in the USA. A trial before a judge who makes the decision, or a trial by a “jury of your peers” where the whole jury must agree that the individual is guilty. A jury of one’s peers means that the people selected to hear the case are selected from the general populace and have no substantial connection to the accused. For example, you wouldn’t put the person’s mother on the jury. The jurors are not required to be lawyers or experts in any field. Just average people.

If you just wanted some people to take the facts of the case and the facts of the law and determine whether or not the accused was guilty, then you would want experts and lawyers on the jury. That’s how trials used to be hundreds of years ago. A judge, often appointed by a king, would pass sentence over the peons brought before him. Since our legal system has average everyday people as jurors, clearly they are supposed to do more than that.

This is where jury nullification comes in. The jurors not only judge based on the facts of the case, but also on whether or not the law in question is just. If an individual is accused of a crime, and is clearly in violation of the law, the juror can still find them not guilty if the law in question is unjust. In essence, the jurors nullify the law by refusing to convict. For example, during the prohibition era, it was not unheard of for juries to return not guilty verdicts for people accused of selling or transporting alcohol. The jurors thought the laws was were wrong so they refused to convict. A much more tragic example was in the deep south where jurors would sometime refuse to convict people of lynching black people.

Barbashin says Russia’s leaders expect Trump to issue ultimatums to both Kyiv and Moscow: if Volodymyr Zelensky balks at peace terms, the US will sever all military aid; if Putin drags his feet, the US will up the military ante and carpet-bomb the Russian economy.

I do not believe for one second that Trump will issue any ultimatums to Putin. Even if he does, there’s zero chance he would follow through on any threats to Russia.

Mario? He must have heard that they arrested Luigi.

Are they trying to imply that they actually thought about it once? I mean they’re cops… how can we be expected to believe that they actually thought?

Maybe, but in this case, as in many high-profile cases, the cops are determined to catch a guy, not necessarily the guy. Not that they care about this particular victim. They don’t. But they sure as hell don’t like looking like fools. If they felt that the real shooter had slipped away (after all, most murders do go unsolved these days) then they might be very inclined to find a patsy and frame him up.

Oh dear gods, do not say that. It’s just the sort of thing that he would believe. Don’t give him any ideas!

Someone needs to start a gofund me to finance a slew of advertising in New York espousing the virtues of jury nullification.

He can’t blanket pardon people.

Where did you get that idea? It’s been done before. In 1977 for example, President Carter, issued a blanket pardon to everyone who dodged the draft during the Vietnam war.

There are, in fact, very few limitations on the power of the pardon.

This ProPublica article is good reading. It discusses a company used by many insurers, including UHC, to deny claims using AI. The name of the company is EviCore. I suppose the “Evi” is supposed to be short for “evidence” but I think it is pretty clear that it’s just short for “evil.”

Your quote is included in this Financial Times piece (archived version) but it’s immediately followed sorry, preceded by my favorite. And by favorite, I mean one of the most vile things I’ve ever heard.

One former Cigna executive recalled how the US health insurer used to frequently face threats when claims were denied. “We’d have times when you’d deny proton laser therapy for a kid with seizures and the parent would freak out,” said the former executive.

Proton Laser Therapy is used to precisely kill tumors. You know, like tumors in a brain that are causing seizures. How dare those parents “freak out” just because you are refusing to cover their child’s cancer treatment? These fuckers are completely out of touch. They honestly think they have the moral high-ground letting kids die in order to increase shareholder value. I now really understand why the guillotine was invented.

CBS is saying that they found the backpack buried in some rocks in Central Park.

NYPD officers were in Central Park near West Drive on Friday, searching for anything with ties back to the gunman. Eventually, they discovered a backpack they believe belongs to the suspect, a high-ranking NYPD source told CBS News New York.

Former NYPD detective Felipe Rodriguez says he thinks the suspect pre-planned his hiding spot.

“It seems to have been buried in rocks and everything else. This was something that just wasn’t done in five minutes, and I am pretty sure that he was able to do this even before he committed the homicide,” Rodriguez said. “We actually have to look at the magnitude, and how big Central Park is. It’s really big, 256 acres at this point.”

Saturday, police said the backpack contained a jacket, but not the murder weapon. The recovered items were sent to the crime lab for forensic tests, which could confirm if they are the suspect’s.

10k reward for info

Which is frankly hilarious. UnitedHealthCare group grossed $90 billion in the last 12 months and they are offering only a $10,000 reward for help finding the assassin. I bet their next CEO gets 10 to 100 times that much in just a signing bonus.

*We conclude that, as a matter of history and precedent, the Takings Clause does not require compensation for damaged or destroyed property when it was objectively necessary for officers to damage or destroy that property in an active emergency to prevent imminent harm to persons. *

Except that the hostage had already been released. There was no imminent harm to persons because the police had the guy cornered alone in a house. They could have called in negotiators and waited the guy out. Their actions were by no means necessary to prevent harm.

Fuck Moscow Mitch.

Do they believe it? No. Did they mean to use this absurd law as a way to criminalize talking to a minor about abortion? Yes.

Most Republicans don’t really believe half of what they say. It’s all just tools they try to use to accumulate power in general and, in this case, to control women and their reproductive organs.

They don’t hate the idea of concentration camps. In fact, they like them if they’re for the people they’ve been trained to hate.

Your family should not be under more scrutiny than anybody else and they should not be a target of your political enemies.

What’s your point? If you break the law, you should be treated like everybody else

That is exactly my point. Others who have committed the same crimes are treated with a slap on the wrist. Republicans, in Hunter’s case, were insisting on heavy handed prosecution and were pushing very hard for a jail sentence. He deserved a pardon exactly because he was not being treated like everybody else.

Should Joe have pardoned Hunter? No it undermines the entire message of nobody is above the law

I disagree. Hunter’s prosecution was political in nature. Anyone else accused of the same crimes would not have faced even close to what he did. If it were anyone else I would still want Biden to pardon him.

If you haven’t read it already, read Q-in-Law by Peter David. LINK CONTAINS SPOILERS (Actually even the URL CONTAINS SPOILERS). Suffice it to say that Lwaxana ends up with the power of Q for a while and it’s a blast.