Tag: The Law

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Well, I watched the Biden Speech

I really don’t like The President.

However, I found that I leaned toward several of the points that he made.

I’m still processing on the points, Here’s a list of what I mostly agree with.

Shootings

The shootings must stop.

An animal that walks into a school or a store and just opens fire, is to my mind rabid. As such, they deserve nothing but to be put down as you would a rabid animal. No mercy, no negotiation.

Something that I have noticed is that these animals always seem to go for “soft” targets. Whether that is a school, a church, a bar, or a shopping center. One thing these venues have in common is that they are almost always a Gun Free Zone.

A notable exception was the church in TX where one of the parishioners dropped a shooter on a sunny Sunday morning.

More Gun Control Laws

I’m not sure that more gun control laws will prevent these kinds of shootings. The so-called “Expanded” background checks I think are toothless.

I can say from experience that the “Gun Show” loopholes are largely red herrings. I’ve never been to a gun show that was “Cash & Carry”. If you purchase a gun at a gun show, you still have to pass the background checks and the gun must be shipped to a licensed federal firearms dealer. The purchaser can pick it up after providing appropriate documentation, and paying a handling fee. The same is true of Online Sales.

Mental Health

Mental Health Care must be expanded. I honestly don’t care how that is done, but I believe it must be done.

Red Flag Laws

I’m ambivalent about red flag laws. I can see the point and their usefulness. Alternatively, I’ve read horror stories where an aggrieved party abused the law to settle a score.

There’s one story that pops to mind where in a bitter divorce, the wife activated the Red Flag law. Her husband’s collection of rare and antique guns was taken, then the guns “disappeared” from police custody. The collection was worth north of 100,000 dollars. The wife demanded her half of the cash even though the guns were gone and therefore couldn’t be sold for profit. Depending on the Red Flag law, it’s possible to misuse it in a way similar to “Swatting”.

Age Limits

I’m not sure about the age limits on gun purchases. I do applaud The President’s speechwriter for addressing the military versus non-military aspects of 18 year olds purchasing guns. Yes, we send 18 year olds to fight in wars and kill people. Then those young people come home and can’t buy a beer. I’ve always found that to be wrong. On the other hand if the drinking age is 21, then I can see the gun purchase age being 21 as well. It is for handguns in most places.

And yet, we still have the weekly Chicago teenage shooting fest. This tends to imply, that criminals will be criminals regardless of the law or their age.

I completely disagree with laws similar to the California law that proposed making it illegal to hand a weapon registered to you, to another person, or member of your family. That disrupts a father being able to take his sons hunting, or to a shooting range. It also creates a complication if, for example, you’re at a range with a buddy and would like to try out his new Glock to see if you’d like it. (I don’t know if that idiotic law passed or not in California. I’ll have to look it up.)

Gun Safety

The President mentioned trigger locks, and safe storage of weapons. I can see that. (Although trigger locks can be defeated fairly easily.) The problem I have with so called “safe storage” is that a gun locked in a safe is no damn good if someone kicks your door down in the middle of the night.

Now you know why I sleep with a baseball bat at hand and some kind of knife nearby as well. Just as with a gun, I hope I’ll never have to use either of them. (Then again, caving someone’s skull in or gutting them wouldn’t disturb the neighbors like a gunshot would.)

High Capacity Magazines

The President referenced High Capacity Magazines again. This time he defined what he meant by high capacity. I lean toward agreeing, that 30 or 40 round magazines are high capacity. I’m not sure why someone would want that kind of capacity. I don’t know enough about that particular subject to intelligently comment.

I’ve been looking a Henry Lever action rifles for hunting. Most of them, top out at 10 round capacities. Several of them top out at seven rounds. These seem like reasonable maximums if you’re hunting.

I remember being told once, (discussing the model 1911 pistol,) that if you couldn’t hit what you were aiming at with seven rounds, you probably couldn’t hit it with 70. In my family, we were taught it was a very bad thing to waste ammunition. So I might be biased about the number of rounds necessary.

Other things said

One thing I noticed in comments that popped up after The President’s speech was that a lot of people were just badmouthing The President based on some of his comments earlier in the week. He said things like he wanted to ban 9mm.

Because of his earlier statements, people heard what they wanted to hear in his address Thursday.

In this post, I’m trying to maintain focus on what he said in his speech.

If in fact some of the legislation his party is proposing contains bans on 9mm, or AR-15 rifle mechanisms then I’ll have to re-evaluate.

9mm is one of the most common calibers on the market today. Most law enforcement use them and honestly if The President did actually ban that caliber, it would create chaos.

Law enforcement goes through a lot of testing before they approve a particular gun and / or caliber for their use. Having to resupply every police force in the country would impose a large financial burden on police budgets nationwide. Including The President’s own security forces. I tend to think The President misspoke earlier in the week referencing 9mm.

Size wise, a 9mm slug isn’t terribly different from a .38 so I’m really not sure why The President spoke about 9mm at all.

Then again, time will tell.

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Democrats, Shut up about the FL Parental Rights Bill

To everyone who’s got their panties in a twist…

I’d tell you to read the bill. Unfortunately you seem to have a difficult time understanding English. I’ll chalk that up to your teachers spending too much time with silly fluff passing as education and not actually grading your work, thereby neglecting the more basic aspects of your fundamental education.

After all, it’s unfair to be mean to the village idiot or call them out for being an idiot.

I’ve read the bill. It’s here if you’d like to, or can, read it for yourselves.

I’d remind you Democrats, that you’re the same people who look at a man, a stranger, with suspicion ready to call a cop, if that man happens to see your child about to fall and catches the child out of instinct.

You’re the people who in years gone by attempted to destroy at least one California man because he happened to be naked… IN HIS OWN KITCHEN one sunny morning. He’d forgotten that a set of curtains was open. This allowed a nosey busybody to see his nudity from a sidewalk through a hedge.

You’re the people that call child protective services on parents if their child happens to mention they’ve seen Daddy or even Mommy in the shower.

You’re the people that have made changing clothes for PE and taking showers after PE something sexual and sick instead of what it is, simple functionality.

All of these things, you’ve created and nurtured with the mantra, “It’s for the Children.”

You’re the people that have so confused things, that multi-urinal men’s rooms are going the way of the Dodo. I can only attribute this to penis envy on the part of some very angry harridans who felt it unfair that men could go into a men’s room and relieve themselves in a couple of minutes. As opposed to the harridans waiting in line while their sisters occupied the ladies room for 15 or 20 minutes.

Now, you village idiots are screaming bloody murder because parents and real people who have nieces and nephews are pushing back against discussing sexuality, any sexuality, with Elementary School children aged 4 to 9 in a classroom environment.

There was a time when that would have gotten you on a perverts list.

So you’re saying it’s bad if a child sees Daddy or Mommy’s privates at home, but it’s perfectly okay for that same child to be taught and shown the ins & outs of all kinds of sexual behavior well before they’ve got any clue about what their parts are for.

Until I was 10 the only thing I knew my penis could do was pass urine. Fortunately, somewhere between 10 and 12, one or both of my parents realized that I’d discovered an alternate function. They provided a very helpful gender specific, age appropriate book, that explained the changes that were happening. The book just appeared on my bed one day.

Inside the book in my father’s bold handwriting was a note. The note said, “You’re normal, If you have any questions now ask myself or your mother. You and I can talk whenever you’re ready.”

As I recall, there were very helpful line drawings that showed me the internals and externals of my plumbing. They were relatable and informative, as was the text of the book.

This was 1970. I remember feeling safe and not threatened. They knew, I knew, they knew I knew they knew, and in all we were a knowledgable family. (To paraphrase Hepburn from The Lion in Winter.)

What my parents didn’t know, and I didn’t admit to myself until I was between 18 and 21 was that I had rather broad sexual tastes. I tried both genders, choosing whichever one was at the time, more interesting.

Looking back, knowing there was the freedom to be who I was, would have been helpful. That being said, in the 70’s and 80’s men who “did” with men were still subject to arrest and imprisonment. For that matter, in some states, any sexual activity other than putting tab A in slot B was illegal. Yep, oral sex was illegal even between married consenting adults.

Talk about government overreach!

I’m pro sex education for teenagers. I think that it is something that could be very good especially if it dispelled fear, and shame, and made it clear that sexual expression is natural and healthy.

I’d also say that letting appropriately aged children know that whoever they want to be with is okay. Perhaps it would be helpful to explain what responsibilities come with sex. Tell the students that their bodies are theirs, and they don’t have to do anything they don’t want to or are not ready for. There’s no shame in saying “No.”

When I was 10, I was developing a bit early. None of my friends in that age group were close to the “discovery” I made. By the time I was 12 things had changed. That book my parents gave me was read cover to cover by all my close friends. They also read my Father’s note to me. The note itself was the perfect size to be a great bookmark.

They were ready and knew I had resources.

I will not discuss the projector incident(s)… 8mm was a very popular format. That’s a funny story, because 25 years later I found out that the projector and associated films were not owned by my Father or Mother. They belonged to a close family friend who hung around after my parents were divorced. A bunch of 13 year old boys watching silent dirty movies projected on a nicely painted flat white closet door must have been a sight. Ahh, the good old days!

I am absolutely opposed to talking about sex with children in elementary school. I believe that the innocence of children is to be protected and cherished. Let children be children and let their bodies tell them when it’s time to start growing up.

I started that process young, and I had parents that understood. I realize that not all children are as fortunate but I can tell you without question, at 10 my body showed me a neat trick. I wouldn’t have been ready for all the permutations and combinations of human sexuality. It was all I could do to just understand what was going on with me.

I didn’t care then, that in the future my tab A was supposed to fit inside someone. At the time my personal tab A was making me very happy all on its own. The very concept of putting a part of me inside someone was, in the vernacular of my 10 year old self, “Icky”. I didn’t want or need to know about the wild world of sexual sports.

There’s stuff I’ve seen and done, that I wish I hadn’t. Once you see or experience something you don’t forget, even if you want to. I think that is probably more true of children because they don’t have filters. It’s the adults in the room that are supposed to provide the filtering.

So Democrats, quit mislabeling the FL bill as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Call it what it is, “The Protect the Innocence of Children Bill”

After all Protect the Children is your favorite chorus isn’t it?

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Its Baaaack…

Hunter Biden’s laptop is back in the news.

Apparently, The New York Times walked back its claims that Hunter’s laptop was a Russian hoax. The Times is now saying the laptop and the information it contained is authentic.

Politico also ran a similar story that the laptop in question was part of a disinformation campaign. I don’t think they have retracted their stories yet.

NewsGuard claimed that there was no way the information could be verified. They, however were talking about the New York Times original article.

I’ll admit, there are intelligence organizations that could have spent the time to put together something as intricate as the email chains contained on that laptop. They could have put together a bunch of the videos and pictures too. They could have forged the text messages easily.

The question I always asked about it was why? Why would Russia expend such significant resources to paint a known drug addict, even if he was the son of a presidential candidate, in a negative light?

If the Russians were behind Trump then it would make sense that they’d try to keep Trump in office. That being said, the general thought pre-election was that Trump was going to win.

Unless the Russians knew something that the general public didn’t. Was it that the Russians were worried Biden was going to win?

That makes no sense. If the Russians were interfering in our election process, and they were backing Trump then it would have been pretty much a “Lock” Trump would win.

On the other hand, If the Russians were not significantly involved with Trump but instead wanted to return to the Obama/Biden era where they could engage in their expansionistic goals, then again it makes no sense for them to have expended the resources. Had the laptop been taken seriously pre-election it could have derailed the Biden campaign and undermined the Russian expansionism.

Then there’s the data on the laptop itself. The email threads I was able to read before the data disappeared were boringly routine. Yes, the emails were talking about the business of making connections with the “Movers & Shakers” of various governments but once you get past the shock of that, it was boring routine scheduling and money transfers.

The videos were shocking, but the male in the videos (whether it was Hunter or not,) was very consistent in his voice patterns. His speech had the proper accent for someone from the northeast. Moreover, the sounds he made during sex were consistent.

Let’s be frank, we all know that during sex, we make sounds that are pretty unique to us. Ask your spouse, and you’ll find that there’s a certain pattern to your breathing, a slight guttural vocalization, a particular sound that you only make pre-orgasm. If your spouse is paying attention, they’ll use those cues to get you there, or back off so that the fun continues.

The male in the videos that I saw demonstrated the same patterns over and over again. This doesn’t prove it was Hunter, but it does suggest that it was the same guy. I can’t say too much about the women in the videos, there were many, and rarely did two videos have the same woman or girl.

If you want an example, watch some porn. Choose one particular performer, watch several movies they’re in, and listen. You’ll see what I mean. It’s more prominent with males in porn because “The Money Shot” is often repeated from different angles.

All of this led me to believe that the laptop was in fact authentic. It’s no one thing, it’s the intricacy and consistency.

On my laptop, I do things the same way. I have habits and patterns that are like a fingerprint. The way data is laid out is recognizable to me. I can grab an unlabeled data storage device and know it’s mine just by the way information is stored.

It’s my opinion the volume of information on the laptop, and its associated consistency couldn’t have been created by a hundred Russian agents. It looked more like one person over time.

I’m not saying that a disinformation campaign is impossible, I suggest that it is unlikely.

If we believe that the laptop is in fact Hunter’s. Then it opens a nasty can of worms. Was Hunter brokering access to his father, The Vice President, during the Obama years? If this is true then do we have a Sitting President who is compromised?

That was the fear during the Trump administration. Isn’t that possibility what triggered the first impeachment proceeding? Do we have a smoking gun so to speak that points to graft, corruption, pay for play, and all the things of which Trump was accused?

Is it possible that Congress had all the “right” crimes but the wrong man?

It’s unlikely that anything will be done about it at this point. Biden is one year into his term, Congress took almost three years to impeach Trump and. they were fast walking the process. Congress will no doubt drag their feet in any impeachment proceedings for Biden. I’d bet that we won’t know the full impact of Hunter’s laptop for at least 8 years.

By then the laptop will just be a minor footnote in history.

The question is this;

If this laptop had belonged to Eric Trump would it have been swept under the carpet?

The question is rhetorical. We all know that it would have been front page world wide.

The larger question is;

Why? Why do we allow this difference? A crime is a crime. That is supposed to be absolute, not money, leader, or party dependent. The FBI has had the laptop for almost 2 years, yet there have been no arrests and very few subpoenas.

Lady Justice is blindfolded for a reason. She’s supposed to represent the best of equal justice under the law. She’s not supposed to see race, or wealth, or power, or anything at all, except was the law broken.

Our Justice system is supposed to enforce the law absolutely. Exceptions may be made in extreme circumstances, (such as self defense), but exceptions should never become the rule.

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SCOTUS Ruling

It’s interesting to me that the SCOTUS ruled against the OSHA Vaccine Mandate but upheld the CMS version.

From what I’ve read thus far, members of the court had concerns about the vague language used in the OSHA version. In the CMS version, it appears they upheld it based on who was providing the money. CMS appears mostly Medicare related and therefore is using public funds.

There’s a lot more to read and I’m waiting for text of the actual ruling.

I suspect that the vague language issue leaves open the possibility for the Biden Administration to tighten up the language and the try to re-implement the OSHA rule.

I also find myself wondering if the SCOTUS ruling opens an entirely different can of worms.

What about those employees who did not want to get the vaccination but who felt the had no choice. Do they now have legal standing to sue their employers? Can they invoke the Nuremberg Code and demand compensation? Will they be able to sue the Biden Administration?

They, by definition were being coerced/threatened into accepting a medical procedure against their will. That’s a pretty clear violation of Nuremberg.

There will be some slimy lawyer that says they don’t have a case because they could submit to weekly testing, wear a mask, maintain social distance, etc. That is more or less true although some companies were saying everyone had to be vaccinated because it was too much work to keep track of testing schedules and results.

It should be interesting to see how that plays out.

I’m waiting to see the rulings before rushing to judgement. However many of the initial news pieces don’t mention any constitutional infringement that the court was concerned about. That concerns me.

If the SCOTUS found nothing constitutionally wrong with the OSHA mandate, then we can be sure that a revised mandate will rear its ugly head once more. I worry that without a constitutional “Stake” to the heart this OSHA mandate will rise from the grave and introduce more chaos into the job market. Companies don’t want to hire if they’re unable to predict which way the wind is blowing.

Year One of Biden has been a study in unintended consequences.

It’s funny. I just realized I’ve seen this before.

I’ve worked for companies that while owned by the founder were profitable and produced good reliable products. Typically, the founder has a clear vision of what products are needed and sticks to that vision. A lot of the founders I’ve known were essentially good folks, but they tended to be plain spoken, to the point of being “mean”. They weren’t mean, they simply had little time or concern for hurt feelings.

I’ve observed what happens to a company when they go public and suddenly you’ve got a board of directors, a bunch of executives given their positions by the board regardless of qualifications, and a bunch of legal red tape designed to protect the investors.

What seems to happen is the company loses focus. You start having “design by committee,” instead of a clear vision of the products. There’s usually a substantial loss of quality and often the executives will take one successful product and modify it iteratively, bolting on a new button or changing the color. They’ll call it “new” and improved. But it’s the same machine or software just with different lipstick.

It’s not uncommon for the founder to quietly bail and then there’s a lot of churn in the executive wing. For employees that’ve been through this process once, they also start looking for the exits.

I’ve been in companies where the new management is so unfamiliar with product or the company that they start hemorrhaging money on things that don’t add value to the actual work being done on the product. (Custom woven carpets for premium office space in an Irvine high-rise come to mind.)

As the company goes further into the red more committees get formed to investigate why the company is showing a loss. The management starts flogging the employees and demanding longer hours, restricting vacations, and of course cheapening the medical plan for the employees. But the executive wing is still getting raises, going on vacations, and getting bonuses. They also have awesome medical coverage.

There’s a point where the brain drain from employees bailing to greener pastures reaches a tipping point. That’s when a high level “Cleaner” executive comes in. This person’s job is to ready the company for immediate sale. The company itself will be shut down and all the patents and intellectual property will be sold to competitors.

Think of it as organ harvesting in the corporate world. It happens all the time! If I was a betting man, Now that Jack Dorsey is out of Twitter, and Jeff Bezos is out of Amazon… We might see either or both cannibalized over the next 10 years. I’d bet that Twitter will go first.

The Biden Administration reminds me a lot of the corporate process. There’s a lack of focus. The administration is trying to address too many pet issues and not considering the consequences. Many of the issues are low level, but because they’re being treated with equal weight to every other issue, nothing is being done well.

Unfortunately, we’re all going to have to suffer through it. It is my sincere hope that America will learn the bitter lesson this time around and choose better candidates for the 2024 Presidential election.

I’m not holding my breath but I have a smidgen of hope nonetheless.

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I wouldn’t want to be Mark Meadows

In a predictable move. After all we all knew it was coming. The Jan 6th commission has referred Meadows to the DOJ for Contempt of congress.

It doesn’t matter where you come down on the whole Jan 6th inquiry, you have to admit this guy is between a rock and a hard place.

He had been cooperating with the commission but then apparently felt he had to stop because the information they were requesting was coming up against executive privilege issues that Trump retains.

Trump has filed a lawsuit to protect executive privilege. That puts Meadows in a bind. If he continues to cooperate with the Jan 6th commission providing all the requested information and then Trumps executive privilege is upheld. Meadows could find that he’s violated the law on that side.

On the other hand by defying the Subpoena he’s pissing off congress.

The NPR article makes reference to the text messages Meadows received, calling them “Explosive”. Meh, I’d call them circumstantial.

Yeah, if you wanted to infer that Trump was at the heart of the Jan 6th event at the capital you could read them as the smoking gun. But if, as Trump maintains, he wasn’t coordinating and directing the Jan 6th event at the capital, that he’d only told folks to go and protest…

Then the text messages are nothing more than people sending texts without thinking about parsing out the language so that it could pass future legal tests. In fact the messages could be read as simply, informational and requests that Trump speak to the crowds to calm them down.

With the exception of the one talking about needing “aggressive strategy” most of the other messages could be taken to say, “Hey, Trump needs to remind the crowd about the rule of law. Protests are fine as long as they do not result in violence, destruction, fires, or looting.”

In fact if Trump had said something to that effect from the steps of the capital surrounded by security and police establishing crowd control, he would have thoroughly embarrassed and humiliated Pelosi again.

That being said, Pelosi and her cronies would have pointed to Trump being a leader as proof that he was at the bottom of the event in the first place and congress would have gone all rabid about it too. Either way, we’d probably be in the same situation. That’s the problem when abject hatred taints your world view.

I’m not saying the Trump didn’t incite the crowd. To what extent, will be determined by the courts. I think it’s pretty clear that he had a hand in what happened. I think that it spiraled out of control, and once the monster of a mob is let loose it’s really tough to control what the monster does.

We as a nation knew what mobs looked like, we’d seen it in Portland and Seattle for months. Trump, and everyone else should have known better.

As an aside, I thought about going to DC.

I could have, and I certainly had the time to do it. My reason for not going was that I’d paid attention to the lessons of Portland and Seattle. My other reason was that it was all becoming too about Trump.

I was then, and still am angry, not about the election results, but about the dismissal of the various voting irregularities that were reported in states across the country.

There was, in my opinion, enough circumstantial evidence to warrant investigations and hearings about those irregularities. I wasn’t particularly interested in overturning the election, I am far more interested in making sure that such irregularities never happen again.

It’s my opinion, that “The Big Lie” could have been easily deflated if the Supreme Court had publicly and with due seriousness addressed the issues raised and then made recommendations based on their findings.

For four solid and interminable years our nation was subjected to investigation after investigation of what turned out to be largely circumstantial evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Trump. Yep, there were some things that weren’t circumstantial, they were fact. Trump is supposed to answer for those things and the cases are winding their way through the legal system now.

I had expectation that on issues of voter fraud or irregularities, the same level of investigatory diligence would be applied. Hopefully not four long years worth, but at least some public display of diligence.

It frankly appeared that since folks got what they wanted in Biden, they were willing to ignore, and allow the courts to ignore, circumstantial evidence. Why was it okay to pursue circumstantial evidence on the one hand and ignore the same kind of evidence on the other? What it seemed was happening was that since Trump said it, it was inconsequential. He was just being a sore loser.

Yeah, did you expect anything less? Regardless, you have to take these allegations seriously, isn’t that the lesson Congress taught us over the preceding four years?

For me personally, the quick and apparently casual dismissals of concerns, is what made me angry.

I accepted that Biden was President, I didn’t think it was a good idea, but it was expected. Trump had caused a severe polarization in the electorate. In virtually every similar historic situation the response has always been the same. The electorate chooses the opposite pole.

Had I gone to DC, I would have been standing on the steps of The Supreme Court exercising my Constitutionally guaranteed right to demand redress. I’d have been holding a sign that simply said, “Justices, I respectfully ask you to do your job.”

I wouldn’t have entered or forced my way into any building. I’d have complied with law enforcement to move or remain in a particular area. I would never have threatened anyone, that’s just not appropriate. I’m a law abiding citizen, and you cannot demand investigations or that the law be upheld if you’re going to turn around and violate the law.

After Jan 6th, I was very glad I wasn’t in Washington that day.

See I’m a moron, I could see myself being invited into a building or following a crowd that appeared to be invited in and in total innocence, I’d have found myself in all kinds of trouble.

I’ve been to Washington DC once in my life. Most of the buildings were closed for the holidays, (we were there over a Christmas trip). But I got to walk around the monuments. I stood in front of The White House and was in awe. I stood in the Lincoln Memorial and I took the time to read the inscriptions. I walked the length of the reflecting pool and everywhere else we were allowed to walk. It was a magical and great experience. My only regret was that The Smithsonian wasn’t open. I’d have loved being lost there for as long as they’d have me.

As I was considering making the trip to Washington DC prior to the Jan 6th event. I was also planning to revisit those sites, and see the Vietnam Memorial.

Here’s the thing some people apparently have problems with.

I could have gone there, expressed my opinion by protesting, and then duty discharged, taken pride in being an American wandering the monuments and reading the words written by our forefathers.

I would have been super excited to go read with my own eyes, the actual Constitution of the United States. And yes, The Smithsonian would have had to ask me to leave at closing time.

So you see, after the Jan 6th event… I shuddered to think how my patriotism and innocence could have gotten me into a lot of trouble.

Perhaps it’s my belief in the law and The Constitution that makes me feel sorry for Meadows. He’s in a tough spot. Just because he worked for Trump doesn’t mean he’s inherently a bad person, nor does it mean he’s a good person. It just means that he in fact, worked for Trump.

If Meadows broke the law then he should suffer the consequences. Right now, I don’t think he’s breaking the law by restricting access to material he believes to be protected under executive privilege. He’s trying to honor the requirements of two laws that are in conflict. That’s a tough position to be in.

Meadows Attorney says it well;

“He has fully cooperated as to documents in his possession that are not privileged and has sought various means to provide other information while continuing to honor the former president’s privilege claims,” Terwillger said in a statement.

Until Trumps suit is decided, (a lower court ruled Trumps claim invalid and Trump unsurprisingly, is taking it to The Supreme Court,) Meadows is at an impasse. One that cannot be resolved until The Supreme Court makes its decision.

I think it’s unfair that Congress is dropping the hammer on Meadows when essentially he’s bound by law. Yes, Biden has said that executive privilege doesn’t apply. But is that legal? I ask honestly because there’s supposed to be a separation between the Executive and Legislative branches of the government. Isn’t the Supreme Court the arbiter of these issues?

I also feel for all the people who may have been caught up in the events of Jan 6th.

I could so easily see myself in their shoes. No, I wouldn’t have been climbing over walls, crawling through windows, or forcing doors open. But I wouldn’t have thought for an instant walking through an open door to The Capital Rotunda with guards standing on either side.

Hell, I’d have stayed in the roped areas and as long as I didn’t see or hear yelling or breaking glass I’d have been blithely ignorant that I was breaking the law. I would have been overjoyed to be standing in the rotunda looking at the pictures and art and feeling so privileged to be there in that place. If I was asked to leave, my response would have been, “Yes officer, which exit should I take?”

That’s one of the reasons that I think the whole congressional committee is wrong and that they’re being very heavy handed. Sure, there were people who clearly broke the law and they should suffer the consequences. But the Jan 6th committee has cast a very wide net, and I’m sure that many of the people they’ve terrorized, were people just like me.

Make no mistake, having Federal Marshalls banging on your door when you believe you’ve done nothing wrong would be a terrifying thing. Especially if the media reports labeled you as a white supremacist who was involved in an insurrection, or treason. Those are really serious charges! One of them, I believe, still carries the death penalty.

The Marshalls drag you off to prison. You and by extension, your family are labeled white supremacists, or terrorists, and there’s nothing you can do to defend your reputation or your family from the vengeance of the mob…

That would absolutely break me. Especially, given that I’d have had no malice, no guilt, and I’d have been sharing pictures of those hallowed halls describing my presence there as a joy and privilege.

Heavy handed justice often is not justice.