Objectively intelligent.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Every word of this:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...rtment-952253/

Oh my is that well written.

I’ll reply on substance when not eating, which includes drinking.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. And as I said earlier, form a caveat emptor perspective, Stone deserves what Stone the Narcissist seemed to desire.

Sometimes, you gotta shut up and be happy with just the money. Who care about the rest anyway? There’s no point to life. (There isn’t, and you know it.)

Thanks. I’ll offer something constructive tomorrow. But I love the style of it.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Every word of this:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...rtment-952253/

I obviously love the style of the article. It's quite witty and approaches gonzo as well if not better in some regards than Taibbi.

While I'll send it to anyone I think will read it, I'll do so with a few caveats in my head:

1. The cheap shot at Stone for having been a swinger seems out of place. He who steals the voice of HST cannot also be a provincial scold on sexual matters. The better angle would have been to make fun of Stone's swinging -- perhaps a lurid description of him banging some retired cop's wife while an insurcance agent fucks his on the couch in a Ft Lauderdale Marriott, while everyone passes around the amyls and Viagra... Something along those lines.

2. Stone wants to be convicted. And the felony will not stain him. He wants desperately to be the next G. Gordon Liddy, which is apparent from his decision to testify despite not having to do so. And the conviction will not harm, but actually enhance, his earning potential. Liddy made a bundle on the speaking circuit and as a pitch man for gold backed securities. Stone was a has been and an object of skepticism before this indictment and conviction. Most people, myself included, assumed he was full of shit about his claims. I still think he's a two bit player who's largely full of shit about his claims. But the prospective audiences for his shtick don't know that. He'll be a hit at venues where people deify notions like, as Jimmy told Henry in Goodfellas, "always shut your mouth and don't rat on your friends."

And that seems to be what he desires. To go out as some sort of strange hero, the last Nixon sycophant observing omertà.

3. Rat fucking is not a crime, and it is not okay to maximize sentences against people who you think are odious.

I think Stone is a comic buffoon. You think he is a terrible, odious person. (I think those judgments more appropriately fit people who've actually done terrible things with real power, like Gingrich.) But mine or yours or this author's moral judgments (and he says Stone should do maximum time on moral bases as well as legal ones) are not the law. Handing out jail terms for rat-fuckery is, to borrow HST's phrase, "handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500."

Rat-fuckery is part of politics. And if we must create a list of lecherous rat-fucks, with Lee Atwater at the top, W's rat-fucking McCain with racist pamphlets about his adopted kids, Bubba's dog-whistles to racists in the South designed to kneecap Obama, and Hillary's/Wasserman-Schultze's efforts to game the system to ensure torpedoing of Bernie in 2016 (he'd have lost anyway, but those rat-fuckers weren't leaving anything to chance) are certainly far more significant than any of Stone's rat-fuckery.*

So no, we shouldn't, we can't, allow our moral judgment (and every man's morals are different, so what the hell is the baseline anyway?) to infect sentencing. That's making ones' self the law in the same manner Trump seeks to normalize the idea he is the law.

4. The author's belief that Barr bends to the will of his master is laughable. Barr isn't the one who answers. Barr is the One Who Knocks. He needn't read Trump's tweet to know what to do. He is naturally aligned with Trump. He'd already moved to undo the first sentencing memo before Trump's tweet hit the internet.

Gore Vidal said there are no conspiracies, just groups of people with similar interests whose actions compliment each other. What appears planned to the 90 IQ person seeking to understand the world thru conspiracy theory is actually aligned actors aligning in their actions. Barr knows what to do before Trump and has already set about doing it.

- - -

Other than that, thank you for a wildly entertaining article. The use of fluffer and spank bank and Barr's 54 inch waist are juvenile, some would say cheap. I'd say they're quite satisfying, and while I disagree with some of this cat's reasoning, I'm definitely going to put a google alert into the system to read his future pieces.

______
* The ultimate rat-fucks of all time are LBJ for continuing Vietnam for political reasons (to avoid being the President on whose watch a futile war was aborted), Nixon for attempting the same, HW for countenancing the Willie Horton ad, JFK and Daley for stealing an election, Reagan for opening his campaign with racist dog whistles in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and Bubba for executing a mentally handicapped man in an election year to look tough on crime. (I like Bubba. But if there is a hell, I will be there for things I've done as a lawyer, as will most of us here who've worked in litigation... But we're going to be in the low-torture rings, at the far edges, where the heat only reaches summer-in-Dubai. Bubba's going to be in the center, perhaps even shackled at the seat of the Big Man, like Carrie Fisher was tethered to Jabba the Hut. (Hillary will not go to Hell. She's been there in this life, married to Bill and losing to his Orangeness. I think she might even get sainthood and a sweet set of wings, St. Peter imploring God, "Fuck, Yahweh... throw the poor lady a bone.")

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Gore Vidal said there are no conspiracies, just groups of people with similar interests whose actions compliment each other.

Allow me to offer a professional opinion: there are conspiracies. I know some nice old foreign men who can't leave their country for having participated in them.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

4. The author's belief that Barr bends to the will of his master is laughable. Barr isn't the one who answers. Barr is the One Who Knocks. He needn't read Trump's tweet to know what to do. He is naturally aligned with Trump. He'd already moved to undo the first sentencing memo before Trump's tweet hit the internet.

Gore Vidal said there are no conspiracies, just groups of people with similar interests whose actions compliment each other. What appears planned to the 90 IQ person seeking to understand the world thru conspiracy theory is actually aligned actors aligning in their actions. Barr knows what to do before Trump and has already set about doing it.

I'm not sure why you seem to think this is a defense of Barr and Trump. Two ballet dancers performing together -- if they execute the moves in sync, does it matter whether or not they whisper to each other as they go?

The problem is the politicization of DOJ and the corruption of justice, the use of the criminal law to serve Donald J. Trump instead of the country and the subversion of the rule of law.

But good news! The President is going to create a further push to reform the rule of law!

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Putting aside for the second that I don't really care, this piece (written by a friend of mine, full disclosure) defends what the prosecutors did vis-a-vis Stone. Sebby, if you think the facts in here are wrong, you should question your sources, because Roy knows his shit.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Putting aside for the second that I don't really care, this piece (written by a friend of mine, full disclosure) defends what the prosecutors did vis-a-vis Stone. Sebby, if you think the facts in here are wrong, you should question your sources, because Roy knows his shit.

Do you link to my moth stories to friends on other chatting boards and say nice things about me?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Do you link to my moth stories to friends on other chatting boards and say nice things about me?

So much so that they tell me to stop talking that Moth dude.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Putting aside for the second that I don't really care, this piece (written by a friend of mine, full disclosure) defends what the prosecutors did vis-a-vis Stone. Sebby, if you think the facts in here are wrong, you should question your sources, because Roy knows his shit.

That Sessions memo focuses on charging primarily, assuming the harshest charges deliver the harshest sentences. It grants prosecutors discretion adequate to refrain from the Credico threat enhancement. One wonders whether there was any discussion with supervisors about removing that overreaching argument. What I’ve read seems to indicate the prosecutor who signed it was actually browbeaten into keeping maximum enhancements by subordinates who worked for Mueller.

The memo is a perfect alibi here.

But your friend makes a great point, and he undoes my suspicion that the first memo was all the fault of overzealous prosecutors. It’s actually zealous prosecutors enabled by a political hack racist Atty General who is thankfully Gone.

Sessions is Satan’s ass plug in those schematics of Hell I’ve offered in past posts. And Satan eats nothing but bean burritos, ghost pepper frittatas, and black coffee.

That memo is disgusting. I seriously wish the worst of terminal illnesses on Sessions. As I always have.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

That Sessions memo focuses on charging primarily, assuming the harshest charges deliver the harshest sentences. It grants prosecutors discretion adequate to refrain from the Credico threat enhancement. One wonders whether there was any discussion with supervisors about removing that overreaching argument. What I’ve read seems to indicate the prosecutor who signed it was actually browbeaten into keeping maximum enhancements by subordinates who worked for Mueller.

The memo is a perfect alibi here.

But your friend makes a great point, and he undoes my suspicion that the first memo was all the fault of overzealous prosecutors. It’s actually zealous prosecutors enabled by a political hack racist Atty General who is thankfully Gone.

Sessions is Satan’s ass plug in those schematics of Hell I’ve offered in past posts. And Satan eats nothing but bean burritos, ghost pepper frittatas, and black coffee.

That memo is disgusting. I seriously wish the worst of terminal illnesses on Sessions. As I always have.

Hard to square what Roy writes with what you seem to believe:

[F]ollowing what was required of them, Stone’s prosecutors’ memo walks through his numerous crimes; explains what the most substantial guidelines sentence for each would be; notes how comparable defendants have been sentenced (none higher than 35 months) and accurately notes that Stone’s conduct was worse than all of those. But then the memo does an extraordinary thing — it explains to Judge Berman Jackson why seven to nine years is nonetheless likely too high. The memo specifically notes that the enhancement for Stone’s threats to a witness is extreme and the Judge would be acting within her authority not to fully use that enhancement.

In addition, the memo notes that two of the other applicable enhancements could be seen as overlapping and the Judge could decide not to apply both. The career prosecutors clearly indicate to the Judge that going below seven years would be “in accord with the advisory Guidelines.”

These career prosecutors simply did what DOJ’s current rules require them to do....

[Tyrone Slothrop]

For Hank:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...-theory-108944

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

For Hank:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...-theory-108944

Off my corner, ho.

[Pretty Little Flower]

From this day forward, whenever I hear the phrase "draining the swamp," I will have a mental image of Trump, on his knees, fellating Blagojevich.

[Hank Chinaski]

Fell today while running in DC. Hurt shoulder and knee and likely broke bones in my palm and cracked a rib. Tomorrow I will run again, as the pain is in my brain only, fuck pain.

The thing I couldn’t ignore is I cracked my iPhone glass, and it was unworkable. Without it I’m fucked as my firm has a dual authentication app for me to access email on my computer.

Went to a mobile phone repair where I got THE LAST replacement glass they had. The industry is running short due to the virus. I’m familiar with an industry that is defense critical. Its manufacturing is in the states. I’ve always wondered how we could let all electronics manufacturing be in China. I was thinking about a war or other crisis, but a little old bug from people eating bats or something might mean I can’t read my email if I fall again?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Hard to square what Roy writes with what you seem to believe:

Your acquaintance is cherry picking a few sentences at the end of the first Stone memo and emphasizing their importance over the pages and pages of arguments for a maximum sentence preceding them. He’s also stretching to find evenhandedness, mercy even, in his characterization of words which offer neither of those things.

I could never prove it, but the memo reads like someone other than the authors demanded those potentially helpful (to Stone) sentences be included.

But otherwise, the article highlights the real culprits here: Sessions, and the Tough on Crime Crowd.

I’d suggest this be a Constitutional amendment: No one may be sentenced to more that ten years for non-violent crime.

These 30 year sentences are obscene.

But it certainly speaks volumes to our perverted values. Bernie Ebbers gets life effectively for fucking with investors. Meanwhile thousands of violent criminals, pedophiles even, get a fraction of that.

Basing fed sentences on dollar value of white collar crime is openly admitting we are a seriously fucked up country.

The cherry on top is of course our retention of the death penalty. Fucking troglodyte politicians, offering human sacrifice for the walking and breathing trash among us who crave that sort of thing.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Fell today while running in DC. Hurt shoulder and knee and likely broke bones in my palm and cracked a rib. Tomorrow I will run again, as the pain is in my brain only, fuck pain.

The thing I couldn’t ignore is I cracked my iPhone glass, and it was unworkable. Without it I’m fucked as my firm has a dual authentication app for me to access email on my computer.

Went to a mobile phone repair where I got THE LAST replacement glass they had. The industry is running short due to the virus. I’m familiar with an industry that is defense critical. Its manufacturing is in the states. I’ve always wondered how we could let all electronics manufacturing be in China. I was thinking about a war or other crisis, but a little old bug from people eating bats or something might mean I can’t read my email if I fall again?

The flutter of bat wings causing a hurricane on the other side of the world.