Energize The Base!

The Ahmaud Arbery shooting I noted in April is now going national. CNN aired a video of the fatal confrontation, the case is going to a grand jury and Joe Biden is demanding justice. Now both sides (all sides?) get to grab their scripts and we can fight over whether Ahmaud Arbery is Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, or someone else entirely. Any chance he's Ahmaud Arbery and this case doesn't fit a template? Naah.

As is so often the case, the vdeo shows what people want it to show. This is CNN:

Brunswick, Georgia (CNN)The fatal shooting of a black man -- apparently recorded on video in February and posted online Tuesday by a local radio station host -- will go to a grand jury in coastal Georgia, according to a district attorney.

Elements of the disturbing video are consistent with a description of the shooting given to police by one of those involved in the incident.

 

Well, yes. Here is the Times version from last April:

 

In a separate document, [local prosecutor] Mr. Barnhill stated that video exists of Mr. Arbery “burglarizing a home immediately preceding the chase and confrontation.” In the letter to the police, he cites a separate video of the shooting filmed by a third pursuer.

 

Mr. Barnhill said this video, which has not been made public, shows Mr. Arbery attacking Travis McMichael after he and his father pulled up to him in their truck.

 

The video shows Mr. Arbery trying to grab the shotgun from Travis McMichael’s hands, Mr. Barnhill wrote. And that, he argued, amounts to self-defense under Georgia law. Travis McMichael, Mr. Barnhill concluded, “was allowed to use deadly force to protect himself.”

 

Where did that take the local prosecutor?

Mr. Barnhill also wrote that he did not believe there was evidence of a crime, noting that Gregory McMichael and his son had been legally carrying their weapons under Georgia law. And because Mr. Arbery was a “burglary suspect,” the pursuers, who had “solid firsthand probable cause,” were justified in chasing him under the state’s citizen’s arrest law.

It's all good!

I'm just a tired old Yankee who is losing patience with this bullshit. Arbery was not jogging down the street carrying a television. And if he was, you're going to shoot him because of it? Why? No one was being kidnapped, no one was being raped, no one was being assaulted - what about this suggested it was a deadly force situation?

 

Or if these vigilantes were gunned up out of fear that the jogger might be armed, well, if the situation is that dangerous just take a deep breath and let it go. I don't care how legal this shooting was, it was stupid and quite likely the law is stupid as well.

 

Now yes, Arbery should not have attacked, as the video suggests he did. Legally that may be exculpatory but I'm not even sure why that is a defense. What, the  vigilante plan was to show up with a shotgun to arrest a guy who, they hoped, would be calm and act responsibly? Just how did they picture this unfolding if the jogger was terrified, hopped up on drugs, had anger management issues, had mental health issues, or whatever? The plan was what - if he's a sensible citizen they'll arrest him, otherwise they'll shoot him? Come on, man.

 

These vigilantes faced a situation where no one was at risk of physical harm and turned it into a situation that had a high potential for disaster. And that's what they got. There ought to be consequences for cranial-anal impaction.

 

 

Comments

[MissMarple2]

Nothing better than Ace's FLAMING SKULL!! Does my heart good to see it! Thanks, Captain!

[Dave (in MA)]

the entire executive branch weaponized to help Trump's friends, punish his enemies,

and hear the lamentations of their women.

[Pinandpuller]

Black man sentenced to 43+ years for Jogging in the country and the armed home invasion of Joe Jurevicius while on probation but mostly for Jogging in the country:

https://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/2019/03/chaotic-end-to-sentencing-for-man-who-robbed-former-browns-receiver-joe-jurevicius.html

[Captain Hate]

Miss Marple, it went from one skull, to 32 mini skulls (4 rows of 8), to one HUGE skull and back to a normal one. A brand new Pixy treat!

mostly I just get crap calls on it that I do not want to get.

After living almost half a century with a person who slavishly answers every fucking call on the worthless landline and refuses to just hang up on deadbeats, I get a large amount of pleasure out of terminating, with malice, every number I don't recognize.

[Jack Lillywhite]

Clarice,

iPad phone is great for face time call.. I talk to family in England, Ireland, France and Belgium using it.

[clarice]

James Comey
@Comey
·
21m
The DOJ has lost its way. But, career people: please stay because America needs you. The country is hungry for honest, competent leadership.
3.5K
1.8K
8.1K

[lyle]

Comey the fucking weasel shows up like a dog returning to its vomit. And that’s insulting to dogs.

[Rocco]

Very funny Capt'n but I noticed he doesn't interrupt Levin when he's on. Levin must have laid in to him.

[Neo]

DOJ did ask for dismissal with prejudice

[Captain Hate]

Rocco,

He reminds me of how deferential Dick Vitale was to Bob Knight, surely for the same reason.

[lyle]

Insty:

AP is still trying to cover for DOJ, but this is a debacle of the first order for them. The length and nature of this story also suggests that AP had some warning, no doubt from within the DOJ, that this was coming, hence the spin.

They were spinning from the first paragraph.

[Captain Hate]

If Comey was born as part of a litter to a reputable dog breeder, he'd be immediately drowned as a genetic abomination.

[Extraneus]

20 ppp well worth reading

Thanks, Clarice. I second that.

So the filing implicated the entire "7th floor" of the FBI, but seems to have exonerated Yates, Clapper and Brennan in the Flynn frame-up.

Then Comey used Trump's request to go easy on Flynn to implicate Trump in obstruction of justice, which led to two years of the Mueller witch hunt.

What a disgrace.

[lyle]

Drowning is too kind for that miserable cur.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Heh;

-- And so the reckoning begins.

Posted by: guy who always thinks that reckonings are beginning at May 07, 2020 02:52 PM--

[lyle]

LOL, Ig.

A quick look at Twitchy reveals that the progtards aren’t taking the Flynn news too well.

Good.

[Jack Lillywhite]

Odd for a very tall man like Comey to have a small man’s complex.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

--Comey the fucking weasel shows up like a dog returning to its vomit.--

I question that it's vomit Comey comes back to eat.

[lyle]

What the hell?

[jimmyk]

Hah, the NYT spins it thusly:

In a possible sign of disagreement with the Justice Department decision, Brandon L. Van Grack, an assistant United States attorney who led the prosecution of Mr. Flynn, abruptly withdrew from the case on Thursday. Mr. Flynn’s lawyers have repeatedly attacked Mr. Van Grack by name in court filings, citing his “incredible malfeasance.

"Disagreement"? Yeah, that's one way to describe it. I suppose Mike Nifong "disagreed" with the outcome of the Duke lacrosse case too.

[lyle]

Typhuspad sux.

[Extraneus]

In short, Mr. Flynn’s calls with the Russian ambassador—the only new information to arise since the FBI’s decision to close out his investigation—did not constitute an articulable factual basis to open any counterintelligence investigation or criminal investigation.

Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page apparently celebrated the “serendipitous[]” and “amazing” fact of the FBI’s delay
in formally closing out the original counterintelligence investigation. Ex. 7 at 1. Having the
ability to bootstrap the calls with Mr. Kislyak onto the existing authorization obviated the need
for the “7th Floor” of the FBI to predicate further investigative efforts. In doing so, the FBI
sidestepped a modest but critical protection that constrains the investigative reach of law
enforcement: the predication threshold for investigating American citizens.

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.191592/gov.uscourts.dcd.191592.198.0.pdf

[Captain Hate]

Ahh Pope Asshat...yeah, there is your No. 1 nincompoop lawyer who, like Ben Wittes was all about how Tumpkins had better get used to how guilty traitorous Flynn was going to have a merry Christmas in jail, go home they're waiting for you!, and blah blah blah - yeah? sucks to be you Mr. Expert Prosecutor!

Posted by: Boswell at May 07, 2020 04:28 PM (32YRo)

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

I hate to interrupt the Flynn celebration but this is too funny from Steven Hayward at PL;
Academic Absurdity of All Time?

I’ve pretty much retired the occasional series on “the academic absurdity of the week” because it was just too easy. Ridiculous academic articles are not even a dime a dozen; they produce them for free, but not even a toilet paper shortage will increase consumer interest or demand.

But now and then there is an effort so superlative that it deserves wider notice. Such as the Fall 2019 issue of Middle East Critique, which is an online journal in the increasingly laughable Taylor & Francis stable of online journals. The Fall issue of MEC was a “special issue” devoted to the subject—and I’m not making this up—of “Queering the Middle East.”

And this is the standout article of the issue by far, from Walaa Alqaisiya of the London School of Economics:

Palestine and the Will to Theorise Decolonial Queering

The abstract is not actually the most incomprehensible mass of progtalk I've ever read but the premise is off the charts.

What I struggle with is, is "queer" like "wop" or "beaner" where only one of that persuasion may say it, or is queer pretty much permissible for anyone who has not yet been arrested by the thought police?

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

New thread

[Extraneus]

Around this time, FBI Director James Comey advised DOJ leadership of its investigation into Mr. Flynn, and senior officials at both the FBI and DOJ had concerns that the incumbent White House officials’ descriptions of Mr. Flynn’s calls with Kislyak were not accurate. Ex. 3 at 4; Ex. 4 at 2-3; Ex. 5 at 4-5. FBI Director Comey took the position that the FBI would not notify the incoming Trump administration of the Flynn-Kislyak communications. Ex. 3 at 4-5; Ex. 4 at 4. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and other senior DOJ officials took the contrary view and believed that the incoming administration should be notified. Ex. 3 at 4-5; Ex. 4 at 4. Deputy Attorney General Yates and another senior DOJ official became “frustrated” when Director Comey’s justifications for withholding the information from the Trump administration repeatedly “morphed,” vacillating from the potential compromise of a “counterintelligence” investigation to the protection of a purported “criminal” investigation. Ex. 3 at 5; compare Ex. 5 at 5 (“[W]e had an open counterintelligence investigation on Mr. Flynn”), with Ex. 4 at 4 (“Comey had said something to the effect of there being an ‘ongoing criminal investigation’”). The Deputy Attorney General, Director of National Intelligence, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency all agreed that the FBI should notify the incoming Trump administration of what had actually been said on the calls. Ex. 3 at 5. FBI Director Comey continued to refuse to brief the White House in a subsequent conversation with CIA Director John Brennan. Id.; Ex. 5 at 5-6. On January 23, 2017, then Acting Attorney General Yates met with senior DOJ officials, and they again discussed the need to press the FBI to notify the White House.

[Extraneus]

Matters came to a head on January 24, 2017. That morning, Yates contacted Director Comey to demand that the FBI notify the White House of the communications. Ex. 3 at 5; Ex. 4 at 4. Director Comey did not initially return her call. Ex. 4 at 4. When Director Comey called her back later that day, he advised her that the FBI agents were already on their way to the White House to interview Mr. Flynn. Ex. 3 at 5; Ex. 4 at 4. Acting Attorney General Yates was “flabbergasted” and “dumbfounded,” and other senior DOJ officials “hit the roof” upon hearing of this development, given that “an interview of Flynn should have been coordinated with DOJ.”

I wonder if Comey read the pleading before tweeting today.

[Extraneus]

Ooooops. NEw thread.

[Narciso]

Remingtons algerian aide camp would have dispatched him

[JimNorCal]

TK, 12:43 "It shouldn’t get you so twitapated"

(And, yes, you corrected the spelling shortly thereafter).
Do you really mean that he was losing control of his rational thought processes due to sexual ... hormonal ... let me rephrase ... ROMANTIC excitement?

[Tom Maguire]

Really, Tom?

So everyone is free to steal anything you own, and no one can stop them?

Pretty really. If some stranger is rolling down my driveway in my car with a television (or two!) dangling out the back, I'm certainly not going to shoot them. Call it in, maybe I'll get it back, maybe not.

But I won't be getting in a gunfight with anyone, or a fistfight (far too old for that now). Or a lawsuit, or a politicized arrest.

Threats to my family's safety get a more vigorous response. And I am able to afford to live in a safe neighborhood which has had zero homicides in the thirty years I've lived here.

And since you ask, there is a huge gap between your hypothetical of me letting anyone rob me freely and these two vigilantes chasing down strangers on suspicion that maybe they had committed a crime. If these two had stopped the guy as he exited their home with a television in his hands we (the nation) would be having a different conversation. Or more likely, ignored it altogether.

[Jack Lillywhite]

Tonight it is “Gestoomde Mossels “ or in francais “Moules Marniere” with a nice white wine, probably one one my SIL’s Chablis from Beaune! I got 6 lbs at Publix for this Ocassion. End of the R months in a way.

[JimNorCal]

Ooooo! TM, respond to mine, too!
Jim,Sunnyvale at 11:56 (page 6)

[JimNorCal]

new

[anonamom]

How much longer do I have to wait for Patterico to weigh in on Flynn’s exoneration?!???

Serious question:
What's with you guys' obsession with the guy, who you long ago convinced me was a moron, not worth my time.

I meant to ask the other day, when he was the topic of an entire evening's discussion.

[boris]

"these two vigilantes chasing down strangers on suspicion that maybe they had committed a crime"

If the one involved were in fact an off duty LEO would there have been probable cause to apprehend and detain? If the suspect tried to take the firearm away and got killed would this be on the LEO or the suspect?

I understand the notion that LEOs have "special authority", just not sure it's that special.

Would I do it, no. The fact that some people would does not surprise me. Seems to me it is being assumed here that any one who would is a menace to society and I am skeptical based on the "facts" being discussed.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

--Seems to me it is being assumed here that any one who would is a menace to society and I am skeptical based on the "facts" being discussed.--

It's a pretty common me-tric;
Would I do it? No, so no one else should, even though it's legal.
A corollary;
Should the rich be taxed more? Yes. Are you rich? No, the rich always make one dollar more than me, regardless of my income.

[JimNorCal]

new