Saviolo
Saviolo's JournalUnderstanding Obstruction of Justice:
There's a really excellent twitter thread about it here:
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/872532952055513088
Some important points from the thread:
Obstruction of Justice IS a legal term and federal criminal statute. It has a strict legal definition. It is NOT open to interpretation.
Obstruction of Justice is NOT a political term. Politicians may NOT define it in whatever way pleases them or may advantage their party.
The federal Obstruction of Justice statute does NOT take into account—or care about whatsoever—how a defendant's actions made you FEEL.
The Obstruction of Justice statute ALSO does NOT take into account—or care about at all—whether an investigation was in FACT obstructed.
Questions tomorrow about how Trump's actions made Jim Comey FEEL—or about whether those actions IMPEDED an investigation—are IRRELEVANT.
Therefore any Obstruction of Justice case against President Trump IS about—almost exclusively—the nature of the words he said to Comey.
If the words Comey CONTEMPORANEOUSLY RECORDED as having been said by Trump were indeed said, Trump IS guilty of Obstruction of Justice.
Another lie you'll hear tomorrow is Obstruction of Justice is hard to prove. It isn't—at all. Because it's NOT a specific intent crime.
If you're looking for a shorthand for tomorrow: in Obstruction of Justice, WORDS and their CONTEXT matter; FEELINGS and EFFECTS do not.
Please check out the whole thread, it's extremely in-depth and informative.
Canadian foreign minister Chrystia Freeland on recent events:
As reported by Daniel Dale. Links to tweets below the copy and paste from Dale's Twitter:
In a major address right now, Canada's foreign minister Chrystia Freeland is explaining why a "Canada first" approach would be wrong.
Freeland: "I would like to profoundly thank our American friends" for their "indispensable" contributions to the global order.
Canada's foreign minister: ...but many Americans cast their 2016 votes in an attempt to "shrug off the burden of world leadership."
This is an extremely rare criticism of American voters from a top Canadian minister, who says Canada now needs to chart a sovereign course.
Freeland's message: Canada is committed to the "rules-based" global order no matter what the US does, and will find like-minded allies.
Key section of Canada foreign minister's speech: we'll work with the US wherever possible, but the US might not lead the world anymore, so.
Another interesting Freeland remark: Canada understands the need for a rules-based global order because it has to live next to the US.
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/872099991631925248
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/872103457272066048
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/872103673287110656
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/872104620344184837
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/872105095462215680
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/872106923293908992
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/872109178386616321
Chrystia Freeland is my MP. I can't say that I voted for her (I voted for Jennifer Hollett of the NDP in the last federal election), but I think she's been effective and good so far, from what I've seen. This is the Canadian Foreign Minister calling out Trump's USA. Our closest neighbour and world's longest undefended border. Basically, "We're gonna go hang out with those European folks until you get your shit straightened out."
Daniel Dale reporting on foreign minister Chrystia Freeland's speech:
Links to tweets below the copy and paste:
In a major address right now, Canada's foreign minister Chrystia Freeland is explaining why a "Canada first" approach would be wrong.
Freeland: "I would like to profoundly thank our American friends" for their "indispensable" contributions to the global order.
Canada's foreign minister: ...but many Americans cast their 2016 votes in an attempt to "shrug off the burden of world leadership."
This is an extremely rare criticism of American voters from a top Canadian minister, who says Canada now needs to chart a sovereign course.
Freeland's message: Canada is committed to the "rules-based" global order no matter what the US does, and will find like-minded allies.
Key section of Canada foreign minister's speech: we'll work with the US wherever possible, but the US might not lead the world anymore, so.
Another interesting Freeland remark: Canada understands the need for a rules-based global order because it has to live next to the US.
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/872099991631925248
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/872103457272066048
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/872103673287110656
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/872104620344184837
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/872105095462215680
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/872106923293908992
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/872109178386616321
Chrystia Freeland is my MP. I can't say that I voted for her (I voted for Jennifer Hollett of the NDP in the last federal election), but I think she's been effective and good so far, from what I've seen.
Nuclear Winter? Many Trump Fans Are Loving It (Satire)
From Medium:
The world recoiled in horror when President Trump launched a nuclear strike on Namibia eight days ago, reportedly provoked when he misheard President Hage Geinbob’s remark “we look forward to working with you” as “you lost the popular vote by three million people” during a 47-second phone call. North Korea took advantage of the ensuing chaos to launch its own surprise hydrogen-bomb attacks on Las Vegas and Cincinnati, leaving hundreds of thousands dead and millions wounded. The United States has sustained trillions of dollars in damage to its infrastructure, including the power grid and food supply. The globe is reeling from its worst crisis since World War II, and the fabric of society appears to be unspooling rapidly.
But to Donald Trump’s most fervent supporters, that’s precisely the point.
“Honestly, this is exactly what I expected from him,” said Steve Meissner, a 67-year-old former machinist who perched on a pile of smoldering rubble that once served as the back booth of Joey’s Classic Diner. Meissner has been a regular here for 32 years, stopping by every Friday afternoon for Joey’s signature steak and eggs (temporarily replaced by “Joey’s signature gruel,” the owner explained quietly, until cows and chickens can be deemed non-radioactive by the USDA, which hasn’t been heard from since the attacks).
“The liberals are still upset about losing the election,” chimed in Andrew Dunn, an administrative assistant whose badly mutilated nose oozed with tiny droplets of blood and pus as he spoke. “They just won’t quit complaining.”
Trump’s first communication after the attack, a tweet reading “South Korea will pay!!!” — misidentifying the country responsible — was his most popular ever. His defiance rallied the GOP base: a Gallup poll conducted by horseback last week showed 62% of Republicans now favor sending ground troops to South Korea, with only 7% of Democrats on board. Perhaps more surprisingly, after Trump suggested that being attacked by nuclear weapons might actually help America “toughen up,” a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken via carrier pigeon showed 93% of Republicans agreeing that exposure to a colossal mushroom-cloud explosion would “move the country forward.”
Many here agree with the sentiment. “This whole nuclear winter thing has been great for America,” said Bill McClarey, a cook at Joey’s. “It feels like we all finally have a common enemy in South Korea.”
Full article here: Link to the article
Funny satire, 'cause you gotta laugh to keep from crying, right?
Bahrain cuts ties with Qatar for meddling in internal affairs (UPDATE)
Source: Reuters
Bahrain said on Monday it cut diplomatic relations with Qatar, accusing its fellow Gulf Arab state of backing terrorism and interfering in Bahrain's internal affairs.
A brief statement on the official Bahrain news agency said Bahrain, a close ally of Saudi Arabia, was also cutting air and sea contact with Qatar and was giving its citizens in Qatar 14 days to leave.
Update: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Bahrain break diplomatic ties with Qatar over 'terrorism'
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain have broken off diplomatic relations and all land sea and air contacts with fellow Gulf Arab state Qatar, in the region’s most serious diplomatic crisis in years.
Saudi Arabia on Monday said the move was necessary to protect the kingdom from what it described as terrorism and extremism. The kingdom also pulled all Qatari troops from the coalition fighting the ongoing war in Yemen.
Qatar is home to the sprawling al-Udeid Air Base, which is home to the US military’s Central Command and some 10,000 American troops. It wasn’t clear if the decision would affect American military operations. Central Command officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
From The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/05/saudi-arabia-and-bahrain-break-diplomatic-ties-with-qatar-over-terrorism
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gulf-qatar-bahrain-idUSKBN18W075
Summed up by two tweets on my timeline:
https://twitter.com/W7VOA/status/871562914842509312
and
https://twitter.com/wrightr/status/871559072679686145
Same-sex vulture dads hatch chick at Amsterdam zoo
Happy Pride Month!
Artis zoo said in a statement Wednesday that keepers who found an egg found on the floor of the vulture aviary initially put it in an incubator but later placed in a nest that the two male birds built together in the enclosure.
The zoo said the vultures, which have been a couple for years, took turns sitting on the egg until it hatched. Now, the new dads are taking care of the chick by feeding it regurgitated food.
Toronto Star article here: https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2017/05/31/same-sex-vulture-dads-hatch-chick-at-amsterdam-zoo.html
The #covfefe thing was funny, but (yes, there's something serious)
So, Trump deleted the tweet from last night and made a playful joking one this morning.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/869858333477523458
He thinks we're laughing WITH him, everyone.
And that may sound like a joke, but honestly, he's the kind of guy who thinks, "Hey, everyone's looking at me, that can only be good. Look at all the attention this Tweet got me!" The more attention he gets for crazy things, the more crazy his things will get, folks. His handlers at the high levels of the GOP know this. A little flattery, toss his name in there, stroke the ego, and *BAM* GOP policy pops out. He's easily manipulated by feeding his overwhelming need for approval while at the same time overloading his incredibly short attention span.
I giggled a lot over the whole thing last night ('cause don't we all need a laugh about now?) but it's a symptom of other things happening.
As Trump's Problems Mount, Breitbart's Numbers are Cratering
Full article at Vanity Fair here.
From the article:
Early on, Solov’s prediction seemed to be coming true. “Breitbart News is the #45th most trafficked website in the United States, according to rankings from Amazon’s analytics company, Alexa.com,” they wrote on January 9, 2017. “With over two billion pageviews generated in 2016 and 45 million unique monthly visitors, Breitbart News has now surpassed Fox News (#47), Huffington Post (#50), Washington Post (#53), and Buzzfeed (#64) in traffic.” A month later, the site had even greater cause to celebrate. “Breitbart News is now the 29th most trafficked site in the United States, surpassing PornHub and ESPN,” they crowed. In the article, its staffers bragged that their bonkers traffic reflected the site’s cementing a permanent place in American politics. “The numbers speak for themselves,” said Solov. (Many outlets, including The Hive, experienced traffic peaks around Trump’s inauguration.)
Just a few months later, the numbers have a different story to tell. As of May 26, 2017, according to Alexa.com—the same web-ranking analytics company that Breitbart drew its numbers from in January—Fox News is the 64th most-trafficked site in the country. Huffington Post is at 60. Buzzfeed is at 50. The Washington Post, on the strength of a series of eye-popping scoops, is at 41.
Breitbart is in 281st place.
Other conservative media sites have also experienced declines in traffic in recent months, but none as pronounced as Breitbart’s. According to Alexa data, National Review Online, Infowars.com, The Daily Caller, and Drudge Report all saw slumps in their rankings. Over the last week, as Trump was engulfed in the Comey scandal, Fox News’s viewership dropped to third place behind CNN and MSNBC for the first time in 17 years.
But for now, the simplest explanation may be that Breitbart’s traffic struggles reflect the struggles of the man they backed during the election, now mired in the difficulties of governance and scandal. “When you tie yourself to a candidate you shouldn’t be surprised,” said the former staffer. “If the candidate has trouble, you’re going to have trouble. And if your goal is to provide cover for that candidate and the news is about that candidate, it’s going to be difficult to cover the news in a way that’s interesting.”
Looks like there are some troubles on the right wing-o-sphere. People are either smartening up a bit about the insane right-wing coverage, or they're going EVEN FURTHER off the deep end, past Breitbart and straight into InfoWars territory.
Sad. Weak.
Spray a touch-pad onto any surface (New Scientist)
From New Scientist: Full article here.
“We can do this with a whole bunch of things,” says Chris Harrison at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Most touch-sensitive surfaces we encounter are built into flat and rigid structures like the screen on a smartphone, says Sriram Subramanian at the University of Sussex in the UK, who wasn’t involved in the work. He is excited by the idea of interacting with large or awkwardly shaped objects by touch.
Armed with a can of conductive spray paint, Harrison says it is possible to give almost any surface a touch-sensitive upgrade. For example, by covering a wall with the paint and attaching copper electrodes to a computer, Harrison’s team turned the entire surface into a touch-sensitive light switch. Tapping the wall turned on a light while sliding a finger along the wall dimmed or brightened the bulb.
It's a fascinating development, though the article does indicate that the young technology does have some problems that they're working on. The video has some amazing moments:
I can see uses for teaching and learning, as well as making huge control surfaces in houses so that they are more easily accessible/controllable for people with disabilities, palsies, or Parkinson's. Some of the things they show in the video, like registering two hands on a steering wheel, may be able to be connected to safety features in cars. I can imagine all sorts of useful things this could do.
Profile Information
Gender: MaleHometown: Ottawa, Ontario
Home country: Canada
Current location: Toronto, Ontario
Member since: Wed Oct 29, 2008, 04:34 PM
Number of posts: 3,282
