Bill Cosby's criminal conviction for sexual assault justly met its demise in the PA Supreme Court yesterday, not on a technicality, but because the decision to charge and try him was a bait and switch that violated one of the most basic tenets on which our criminal justice system is founded: due process of law. The Court found the violation was so egregious that only a remedy of dismissal with no chance of retrial was appropriate. Cosby was freed from prison immediately.

The 79-page opinion is here. There is some really good language on the awesome (as in huge, not terrific) power of prosecutors and why, when prosecutors make a promise to a defendant that induces him to give up a constitutional right, that promise must be enforced.

There's also a word I rarely see, and the opinion uses it three separate times: Undergird. (It means brace or support (an underpinning) and apparently was first used in the 1500's). [More...]

Original Post Friday: Derek Chauvin will be sentenced today for the murder of George Floyd.

He could get life plus cancer and the public would say it's not enough.

Attorney Ben Crump will be on hand afterwards to give a press conference. He's beome as ubiquitous as Gloria Allred was a decade ago. Not my cup of tea.

Update: He got 22.5 years. His motion for a new trial was denied just before sentencing. The Judge issued a 20 plus page opinion explaining his sentence. You can read it here. Basically, it seems his guideline sentence was 11-12 years, and the judge said he had discretion to impose an upward variance, and because of the aggravating factors in the case, including Chauvin's extreme cruelty to George Floyd, he decided to do that. From the Washington Post: [More...]

Our last open thread is full. Here's a new one, all topics welcome.

New York State has taken away Rudy Giuliani's ticket to practice law. The reason: His “false and misleading statements” about Trump's election loss. His conduct "immediately threatens the public interest." He calls the action "ridiculous".

His bizarre son Andrew "railed" against the license loss in a parking lot this afternoon.

Is he still running for Governor of New York? Apparently so. What a joke.

The government wants you to believe only the unvaccinated need fear the Delta variant. It says that the vaccines are 90% effective against COVID-19 and almost as effective against the Delta variant. So even though the variants are more transmissible and may make people sicker, only the unvaccinated need fear them. The vaccinated can toss their masks, cram into elevators, cheer and sing in each others faces at sports events and concerts, and go back to their regular lives.

But there are at least 10,000 "break-through" cases of people who have gotten infected with COVID-19 or a variant after being fully vaccinated. Yes, that's a tiny percentage of all people. But that's not how people make decisions. For example, you only have a miniscule chance of winning the lottery but millions of people still buy lottery tickets. Why? Because they know someone is likely to win, and they figure it might as well be them -- they have just as much chance as anybody else.

By the same token, someone is going to be in that group of 10,000 who get the virus or the Delta variant after being fully vaccinated. Why take a chance it might be you? [More....]

600,000 people with COVID-19 have died in this this country. That is such an appalling number.

The World Health Organization says even people who have had COVID-19 should get vaccinated.

The virus has not gone away. The Delta variant is growing in the U.S. and elsewhere. We don't know if it's more dangerous, just that it's more transmissible. Meaning it's a fast spreader. The CDC has now declared it a "Variant of Concern". It thinks the current vaccines will be mostly effective against the variants, but that sounds more like hope than science. [More...]

Donald Trump is on a downward legal spiral. But oh, the irony, if he goes down on emails after all the years he spent maligning Hillary and urging she be "locked up" over her emails.

The report in the New York Times today about how he tried to pressure Assistant AG Jeffrey Rosen (who later became Acting Attorney General) to support his baseless claim of election fraud is very damaging.

Are the emails the final nail? (They are available here). The Times says the emails show:

Mr. Trump pressured Mr. Rosen to put the power of the Justice Department behind lawsuits that had already failed to try to prove his false claims that extensive voter fraud had affected the election results.

[More...]

I have been adjusting to life outside of my bubbled apartment. After more than a year indoors, I can't help but avoid the computer. I will be back though!

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Time for a new open thread, all topics welcome.

I'm almost as tired of writing about COVID-19 as I used to get writing about Trump. The CDC seems to me to have jumped the shark. Now they are recommending less testing for people who have been vaccinated?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week that most people who have received the full course of shots and have no COVID-19 symptoms don’t need to be screened for the virus, even if exposed to someone who is infected.

When will these experts figure out that we need to prevent the virus, not just treat it after it infects and kills. To do that you need to test. This year-old interview with Virologist Shao Yiming, chief AIDS expert at China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention,published in Science Insider Magazine makes a lot of good points.

[More...]

Wow. Just wow. Bob Dylan is 80 years old.

Happy birthday Bob Dylan. I know all the readers here will join me in wishing him many, many more.

His work is too extensive for me to pick a favorite. But I'll go with the one that has been the tagline for Talkleft's front page (bottom middle right column)for 19 years: Subterranean Homesick Blues.

The pump don't work cause the vandals took the handles

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The New York Attorney General announced it has joined the New York DA's criminal investigation of the Trump Organization. Previously, the AG's investigation was civil rather than criminal.

A spokesman for the state's top prosecutor, Letitia James, said the inquiry into Mr Trump's property company was "no longer purely civil"....We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA."

The AG spokesman said it has notified the Trump Organization of the change in status. According to the New York Times, it's about Trump Org. Chief Financial Officer Alan Weisselberg and his family. [More...]