Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Ghengis Jon]

Shaping up to be busy news day.


The lapdog of has ordered the Justice Dept to drop the charges against Michael Flynn who has pled guilty and is awaiting sentencing.

has rejected the CDC re-opening guidelines as "too restrictive" and ordered the CDC to revise. If you don't like them, too fucking bad. Why not declare the virus "too deadly" super medical genius?

Current antibody testing accuracy has been declared less than reliable by multiple state health organizations. Upside is vaccine research is in turbo mode.

Happy VE Day!!

The malaria treatment championed by

[CGVT]

In other news, the assholes that murdered the jogger in Brunswick GA have been arrested. I hope they rot in jail. The news had a statement from the guy that leaked the video. I think he actually thought that it would exonerate those fuckers. It pretty much showed the only self defense in the entire incident was a guy fighting for his life and losing.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/...cbOqv7ebCWkOSw

[Dr. Strangelove]

To kind of follow up/repeat what I said last night there's multiple ways to look at how the stock market is reacting to horrible economic news

One is that the market is optimistic about the economy reopening and is looking down the road to the economy taking off very quickly again. You might criticize or think that's a very wildly unrealistic view but it is what it is.

Another is that the market has gotten very complacent and believes the Fed and/or Congress will bail them out in the end no matter what happens.

But another way to look at it is that the DJIA, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 are indexes, yes, but they're all composed of the country's biggest, most stable corporations. Huge amounts of money could be transferring from mid and small sized stocks to the giants right now because investors are optimistic that, yes, Microsoft will survive. Amazon will survive. They are safe refuge. We assume that indexes offer us a picture into the greater economy but they really could just offer a picture that safe, stable stocks are in demand right now. If this is the REAL view on Wall Street, then investors are actually closer to being conservative/pessimistic.

[iam416]

Current antibody testing accuracy has been declared less than reliable by multiple state health organizations.

Depends on the test and depends on what sort of accuracy you're looking for. But, there's no doubt the narrative is that you can't possibly trust antibody testing because, well, those results suggest reopening.

However, the reality remains -- things aren't going to REALLY reopen until the people feel safe.

In other news, the assholes that murdered the jogger in Brunswick GA have been arrested. I hope they rot in jail. The news had a statement from the guy that leaked the video. I think he actually thought that it would exonerate those fuckers. It pretty much showed the only self defense in the entire incident was a guy fighting for his life and losing.

Yeah, that is very good news. It's a preposterous defense. Otherwise, however, it's just another murder and the murders deserve the needle. I assume Georiga, being southern and all, executes people.

[iam416]

Whatever the view on Wall Street, it's absolutely fucking critical that the market stabilize at something where it is. Fucking critical. We already have state pension funds in gads of trouble (kudos to Illinois for trying to Covid their way to a pension bailout!). The 20-25% loss hurts, but it wasn't too far beyond the unexpected -- I know Ohio's pension funds anticipated a market correction in the relatively near future (1-3 years). Not 20%, but still.

That's what I don't get about people who hate "Wall Street" -- do they not understand how much of America's retirement is tied to Wall Street? Do they not understand that when things go way south the hated "rich" will survive but the "not rich" are in a world of hurt? Do they not understand that pension funds around the country are cutting different benefts (healthcare, primarily) to stay solvent with the occuring and impending boomer retirement crunch?

I know a strong stock market is bad for people who hate PDJT. And I know Wall Street is evil. But goddamn, people, do you not understand it's importance to so many? But way too many would much rather cut off their nose to spiderface.

The market's stability in the 23-24K range has been about the only not awful news so far (well, that and the potential reevaluation of "science" modeling). When it was at 19 we were in a fuckton of trouble. Fuckton. 23-24 is bad, but it's something we can manage.

[Hannibal]

The video doesn't show shit either way. It shows a physical altercation with no indication of how it started My guess is that the two guys charged with murder decided to confront this guy for crimes that they suspected him of, he didn't take well to it, and the confrontation got out of control. If that's the case, then I think that it calls into question whether you should be able to use "self defense" in an instance where you have clearly instigated a confrontation.

[iam416]

In other news, the Tara Reade story just keeps on giving and giving and giving. Diane Feinstein. Oh boy. Yes, Diane Feinstein. Champion of the Blasey-Ford. Diane Feinstein. She thinks Reade is a goddamn liar because, amongst other reasons, she waited so long to come forward. You literally can't make this shit up. I mean -- YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS UP.

I wonder what all the Blasey-Ford fanboys on this thread think. They seem remarkably silent. Which is, of course, consistent with the way the Ds/Progs are approaching Reade.

SO. FUCKING. GOOD.

[Hannibal]

The NASDAQ has actually gone positive for the year. The S&P is down a very manageable 10%. All markets are still wayyy up over a 10 year period.

[iam416]

The video doesn't show shit either way. It shows a physical altercation with no indication of how it started My guess is that the two guys charged with murder decided to confront this guy for crimes that they suspected him of, he didn't take well to it, and the confrontation got out of control. If that's the case, then I think that it calls into question whether you should be able to use "self defense" in an instance where you have clearly instigated a confrontation.

Under Georgia's "stand your ground" law, I believe the victim had a right to stand his ground when confronted by armed men pointing guns at him. He had a right to defend himself. His attackers were criminally wrong. And then they killed him. This is a preposterous case. You can't, arm yourself, chase someone down, point guns at him, kill him and scream self-defense.

[iam416]

The NASDAQ has actually gone positive for the year. The S&P is down a very manageable 10%. All markets are still wayyy up over a 10 year period.

Right. I was going off of the February crash point.

In any event, my point was the markets are pretty damn important to pretty damn regular people.

[CGVT]

The video doesn't show shit either way. It shows a physical altercation with no indication of how it started My guess is that the two guys charged with murder decided to confront this guy for crimes that they suspected him of, he didn't take well to it, and the confrontation got out of control. If that's the case, then I think that it calls into question whether you should be able to use "self defense" in an instance where you have clearly instigated a confrontation.

Un-fucking-believable. The guy was jogging down the street. The murderers "thought" that he was a guy that allegedly robbed houses in the neighborhood the day before. They grabbed their fucking guns and confronted him. They had no right to do that, even under Georgia's ridiculous citizens arrest laws. The stopped him and confronted him with guns. He fought to defend himself. The assholes that had no business doing what they were doing and were the instigators of the entire thing killed him "in self defense"

"I think that it calls into question whether you should be able to use "self defense" in an instance where you have clearly instigated a confrontation"

You are right. That is why they finally arrested the two murderers.



Jesus.

[Hannibal]

I thought that the "stand your ground" law refers to the right of the shooter to defend himself if he feels that his life is in danger? Eh, I don't know much about it but I remember that being invoked in the George Zimmerman trial. This seems an awful lot like that -- an armed vigilante (or in this case, vigilantes) confronts a man that he suspects, an altercation ensues, and he shoots the man while defending himself in an altercation that he essentially caused. At any rate, this has the same stink as a lot of other out-of-context, low information videos and news stories that have turned out to have a lot different story than what was everyone's first impression. Maybe this time is different.

[iam416]

I looked it up, Hannibal. Under Georgia law, the use of deadly force is NOT JUSTIFIED if you're the initial aggressor (sort of):

(b)?A person is not justified in using force under the circumstances specified in subsection (a) of this Code section if he:

(1)?Initially provokes the use of force against himself with the intent to use such force as an excuse to inflict bodily harm upon the assailant;

(3)?Was the aggressor or was engaged in a combat by agreement unless he withdraws from the encounter and effectively communicates to such other person his intent to do so and the other, notwithstanding, continues or threatens to continue the use of unlawful force.

So, the defendants will argue they had no intent to use deadly force. And that's probably a winning argument. They can probably establish, pretty easily, that they only had an intent to apprehend what they thought was a criminal. However, it's also clear they were the "aggressor" -- but I'm not sure what that means, exactly. I think that applies.

If neither apply then that gets us back to the crux of use of deadly force:

a person is justified in using force which is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm only if he or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent death or great bodily injury to himself

You can't just shoot someone because they might attack you. If you've got guns galore and the victim has no gun then it's not justified. It seems pretty clear that the victim did not have a gun -- I mean why wouldn't he have pulled it out much earlier? There's almost no way to believe he was armed.

[Hannibal]

Talent -- thanks for the explanation. The one thing that is very clear from the video is that the gunshots go off while the two men are in a physical altercation. The victim was not shot because he was suspected of having a gun. He was shot because an altercation was going on. The video does not show how that altercation started. If it started because one of the guys started beating him then that to me would be a much different view than if it started because the victim got offended by being accused of a crime and stupidly rushed at one of the guys carrying a deadly weapon. I also think that whether these guys had probable cause to think that this guy was legitimately guilty of the neighborhood burglaries is a factor that should be taken into consideration.

[iam416]

I'm not sure what the Georgia law says on that, and I'm not looking it up -- but my guess is that you need more than "probable cause" -- you need to see the crime being committed or something very close. I think there's probably significant differences between when a citizen can make an arrest and when, you know, the fucking police can.

I don't know what happened before the altercation -- we have the story from the accused murderers, though. And accepting their version, it's almost impossible for me to conclude that they "reasonably believed" the dude was armed and could cause serious bodily harm.

But, you're right in that you have to work through a lot of issues. This is a good law school exam question in that it requires analysis of probably 3 or 4 issues to reach your conclusion.