Chicago Alderman Edward Burke Convicted

I remember Burke’s run for the office of Cook County State’s attorney in 1980. His ads featured a Chicago Police Department badge—though not a police officer, Burke had somehow finagled a badge—does Chicago have a police reserve? There was some controversy about his entitlement to the badge at the time, much like that surrounding “Sheriff” Herschel Walker during his run for the Senate.

Burke didn’t break bad at the age of 79, his age when a federal jury convicted him on 13 of 14 counts, including racketeering. More likely than not, he’s been a criminal for decades. For 54 years, he has been an alderman. A few years ago, Burke engineered the placement of his own wife onto the Illinois Supreme Court. My guess is that her vote was for sale, like everything else Burke touched. It would be appropriate to investigate every single one-vote case where she was in the majority, to determine whether, in the interests of justice, the case should be reviewed or reheard.

Promises, Promises

\#PetroSaudi

PetroSaudi Series Picked Up by Netflix

Netflix picks up Jho Low, PetroSaudi, 1MDB story: deadline.com/2023/11/n…

PetroSaudi #jholow #1MDB

Lawyer’s Lament

Tarek Obaid, CEO of PetroSaudi

Because of the personal injury bar and public defenders, people believe that lawyers work for free. I’ve been trying to convince my doctor, travel agent, mobile phone company and Starbucks that they should similarly work on a complimentary basis, but unfortunately none of them are interested.

tarekobaid #petrosaudi

Form Book vs. AI

The ABA doesn’t require law schools to teach a class in “drafting legal documents,” assuming this skill will later be learned on the job. The problem with ChapGPT is its hallucinations. This is an AI term of art, colloquially defined as “making stuff up.”

Twenty years ago, would you have forbidden access to form books? West published several such encyclopedias. AI is just a tool like them. The problem with AI as a substitute for lawyers is that AI can’t tell when someone is lying and can’t tell when someone is spinning. If facts can be stipulated, results follow. The problem is determining those facts. And even when there is a known end result, a corpse, the wrong type of plumbing installed, the facts leading to that result are disputed

Falling Down

The economic system is a secret game of musical chairs. One day the music stops and you’re left standing.

Story of an Unsuccessful Kidnapping

My client, Tamid, had a joint venture with the notorious ⁜ of Indonesia. His partner was Prince Quetzalcoatl, the son of King Khomeini of Bessarabia. Tamid had a diplomatic passport and performed various high-level missions for the King. Then, King Khomeini died, Prince Quetzalcoatl took over and Tamid was on the outs. The ⁜ venture, which was at least unofficially backed by the King, went to shit. As far as the Bessarabians are concerned, Tamid didn’t steal any money—but the US thinks he did.

A few years ago, Tamid attended the G20 meeting in Shanghai. Prince Charles told the Chinese that Tamid was a “terrorist financier” and should be arrested pending extradition to the Kingdom. The Chinese arrested him, held him for a while, became convinced that Tamid was no financier of terrorism and so let him go. The experience was unsettling— pulled off the street, a black hood put over his head, an extra-judicial Chinese detention. That sort of intervention could shake anyone.

As a result, Tamid has full-time, armed security at his home in Paris. The 5th, of course, a neighborhood known for ghosts. An ex-(French?) commando, with an M-16 always in arms’ reach.

Let’s throw a few more details into the pot. While Tamid was not an intelligence officer when he was working for the Bessarabians, let’s just say there’s a lot of blurring at that level. So throw in a Bessarabian intelligence network operating in Türkiye and maybe Iran as well. And Lebanon. Tamid is in the middle of this.

Tamid’s company performed an offshore drilling contract for Bolivia in Bolivian waters, the hojas de coca project. For some reason, Bolivia declined to pay. The company demanded an arbitration and though it took several years, won the arbitration. Bolivia was forced to pay $32,900. Because of interest, the sum has grown to $34,000. Bolivia wants it back.

Back to Paris.

Tamid’s bodyguard asks for the weekend off. Tamid agrees. While his bodyguard is away, Tamid goes to a bar in Geneva. There he meets a Venezuelan woman. They chat. Tamid is drinking. She is too. One thing leads to another.

Next, Tamid is in an apartment. His mind is fogged. Scopolamine? He “frees himself, and escapes.” Unfortunately, I don’t have more precise details. There were men around. In his befogged state, Tamid couldn’t identify what language they were speaking. Tamid speaks fluent English, French and Arabic. He does not speak Spanish or Farsi. He leaves the apartment. Outside on the street, his phone rings. It’s the Venezuelan woman, begging him to come back. He hangs up. She calls back. Threatens him that they will try again. Tamid goes home.

Extrajudicial murder is a popular way of settling differences these days. The practice has a long history. In the 70s, Pinochet and Letelier. Then Somoza in Paraguay. The Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov assassinated with an umbrella weapon in the heart of London in 1978. More recently, Putin killing Litvinenko in the UK by poisoning his soup with radioactive Polonium. Putin’s next effort on UK soil failed. Ramzan Kadryov, the leader of Chechnya, is believed responsible for recent political murders in Austria, Germany and France. And of course, there’s Khashoggi.

So, what happened? Was it the Syrians? The Saudis? The Iranians? Sikh separatists? Paris is the seat of the International Commercial Court, so anyone can go there, anyone has an excuse for being there. Or was it merely a non-political criminal gang?

I believe it was the latter: a South American gang–a gang as small as two or three women and their pimp. Prudent kidnappers follow a set of rules. What are the rules for a successful kidnapping?

The first rule is to take away the victim’s phone. That prevents calls for help. Tamid has more than one phone, but would he carry more than one phone while visiting a bar?

The second rule is to secure the target. This was done poorly, so I have to assume amateurs were tying the knots. Zip ties are easily managed; supplies of duct tape can be purchased locally without raising suspicion. If Seal Team Six was constraining a target, that target would not be able to wriggle free absent extraordinary circumstances, none of which apply here.

The third rule is to monitor the target. Tamid couldn’t have freed himself from his bonds if he was monitored.

Finally, once the target has escaped, you don’t call him on the phone, begging him to come back. How do you know he won’t come back with the police and a SWAT team?

The threat to try again is a problem. Or is it? Won’t Tamid now be on his guard when meeting strange women in bars? The plan might have worked once, but it won’t work again.

I don’t doubt that Tamid is a target. After all, he’s linked to both ⁜ and ⁜. The Bolivians have a motive.  That gives all of them a reason to use extreme methods of persuasion.

Who else? Anyone else who unsuccessfully invested in his company—but are there any real victims? The Bessarabians might be afraid of the tea Tamid might spill, but would they mount an operation using Venezuelan women? Unlikely. Our guys? That is, the USG? No—he’s happy to walk in the front door. So I don’t think it’s any of these.

Venezuela has been at the forefront of new kidnapping techniques: one of these is the rapi-secuestro: you pull someone off the street, find out who he is, and then demand a few thousand from the family. There are many targets.

My guess was that this operation was not an operation at all but a crime of opportunity where the woman in the bar planned on just lifting his wallet, so there was no need for elaborate securing of the victim or following the other rules of kidnapping. She figured she could milk him for more money and that’s why she asked him to come back.

She could pass off the scopolamine as, “you had too much to drink.” I don’t think there was even a locked door—a befogged Tamid was in no shape to pick a lock. Assuming he was locked in a bedroom, knocked on the door and someone opened it, the excuse for the locked door could be she was worried he might fall and hurt himself. “Come back and I’ll take care of you, I’ll get you home tomorrow.” Any men around are the boyfriends of her roommates or her pimp, not Bessarabian or Singaporean operatives.

And of  course, there’s the possibility that much of this story is simply invented to avoid embarrassment. “Yeah, honey, the reason I didn’t come home last night is because I was kidnapped by Venezuelans.” Sure.

Certain details were obfuscated in this retelling; the names of the countries involved were changed or made up, Tamid does not exist. 

I am not here. I did not say these things.

Run Like a Demon

Q. We need our special teams receiver to run like the wind after catching 4th down punts. Can we invoke the aid of Pazuzzu, the Sumerian Lord of the East Wind Demons?

A. While not specifically a deity, Pazuzzu is otherworldly enough to qualify under the Court’s rule in Bremerton. His aid may be invoked on 4th down, kick-offs or wherever else appropriate. Caution should be exercised however, since many believe that Sumerian demons tend to linger in the area after the expiration of regulation time.

Thoughts On The Grift

Given the interest in the subject, it is strange that there is not a more fully-developed literature of the con, the uniquely American–or is it?–storytelling with a purpose, that is, to divest the unwary of their cash.

There is, of course, Jim Thompson’s The Grifters and the Paul Newman/Robert Redford film, The Sting. Wasn’t the fence painting in Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer a tale of grift? But given the prevalence of the subject in real life, one would think that stories about grifting, whether high or low, would be afforded their own literary genre.

There is a rich vein of such stories to be mined–they are never-ending. In modern times, one might be tempted to begin with Charles Ponzi, but there is so much more. There’s Zzzz Best Carpet Cleaning, the salad oil scandal. Anna Delvey a/k/a Anna Sorokin (Netflix’s Inventing Anna). There’s even a Vietnamese Anna, Tina Duong, who hired extras to portray wealthy relatives she did not have and an aging soap opera actor to give her away at a trigamous wedding to a young man who had failed to do due diligence.

There’s Samuel Bankman-Fried and Bernie Madoff; Jho Low and Elizabeth Holmes. Let’s not forget Ft. Lauderdale lawyer, political donor and University of Miami booster Scott Rothstein. His scam was discounting non-existent settlements to investors, promising a high rate of return. Until the scam was uncovered, he was regularly consulted by those who make our laws and granted sideline access to football games, perhaps an even greater honor in Florida. He flew to Morocco on a private jet after tasking the firm’s associates to come up with a list of countries that had no extradition treaty with the United States. Instead of flying to Israel, where he might have been safe, he returned to Florida and a long prison sentence.

Remembering other South Florida lawyers caught up in such matters, the bankruptcy of ESM Government securities caused a run on Ohio banks and led to the suicide of Stephen Arky, who claimed innocence. At least suicide removed the possibility of his indictment.

The point of all of this is that I am extremely cautious when it comes to deals which promise much but which are not conventional. There’s always an explanation. I am particularly sensitive to the possibility of the grift. I am not special when it comes to the con; people have tried to con me in the past. There have been times when I cursed my naïveté for almost falling for a scam.

One of the characteristics of a scam is that the terms of the deal are always changing. Experts and consultants are never fully paid. The bare minimum is rationed to keep them from resigning–and they are usually never the first firm brought on board.

To represent my clients effectively, I have to believe them. Once I know they are lying, I am no longer capable of convincing others that their story is true. Paradoxically, this means that to be effective I seek to have as little contact with my clients as possible. For me, “spin” does not make a story better or more palatable. When my client spun a detail, I always assumed it was to cover a lie.

For a while I had an office in an outbuilding at 1870 S. Bayshore Drive, a converted mansion in Miami. There was a staircase leading to the second floor; my office was on the first. The groundskeeper brought his teenage boys to help him and they would often relax, sitting on the stairs. One day I saw several spark plugs there and wondered what the boys were doing with them. I later found out that spark plugs are used by thugs to break windows of cars. If the thugs are stopped by the police, a spark plug is a dual use, and so an innocent item, that by itself is not probable cause for arrest. I felt the fool and never looked on his children in the same way again.

On another occasion I flew to Atlanta for a parole hearing. My client had promised to pay me, after he was released on parole. Surely he would be back on the street and be able to get funds owed to him so as to pay me. His parole was denied and I wasn’t paid. In another case, my client had shot a man after a drug delivery was botched. By the beginning of that death-penalty eligible first-degree murder case I still hadn’t been paid. “Did you bring the check?” I asked the family. There was no answer. I tried that case just to stay in shape, but it was my choice.

So I am particularly sensitive to clients that have not paid. I don’t even like wasting time talking about clients who will pay, who are going to pay, how payment is just a moment away especially when these discussions take place months after payment was due.

They talk about how Steve Jobs had a “reality distortion field,” but Jobs had–though he put it to legitimate use–what all grifters share: a storytelling expertise that would put Hemingway to shame, the ability to describe dreams with such detail that they seem real, so real that they become real until that inevitable moment when harsh reality shows the dream to be but an illusion.

Really, what is more American than the grift? George Santos “embellished” his resumé, not worrying about the fact that identity politics trumps even outright lies. Santos claims to be Jewish, biracial, and finding one box unchecked, gay. He is Latino enough and there are Holocaust survivors, albeit imaginary ones, in his family tree. A claimed 9/11 death in the family makes up for a lack of military service, and when the New York Times finally looked into his background and uncovered his failure to graduate from college only means the fact that he is a high-school dropout was lost in the noise. Shilling for sympathy, Santos had his mother die twice. He started a charity for animals and pocketed the cash, knowing that dogs and cats can’t file fraud complaints. He is an accomplished shameless liar, as any good grifter must be. None of this prevented his election to the 117th Congress. If anything, he is the perfect candidate.

On the Representation of Criminal Defendants

I remember when I saw WWH’s “lending bank” at a strip mall in Provo or some godforsaken place. I remember a transnational petroleum purchase deal that at the last minute saw the inclusion of two unknown names—a clear badge of fraud. A former billionaire who acts as if he still had money—the reality distortion field is very strong. There’s no reason not to believe him—until you realize that there was never any reason to believe him in the first place. All of these are examples of when reality comes crashing down. The solution is to require a paid retainer. For competitive reasons though, FOMO (fear of missing out) reigns and this principle, which should be tattooed on the forehead of every attorney, is forgotten.

I don’t recall any of my medical providers cutting me any slack. Quite the contrary: they demanded a credit card despite my age and my protests that I am covered by Medicare. Don’t have a Medicare number? Fuck you—pay me. When the $300,000 credit card deal collapsed, that should have been our response: fuck you—pay me. Instead we wasted hours squabbling with a guy who honestly believes that he was privileged to put his mitt into the piggy bank and pull out millions in cash. Millions that are wholly unaccounted for. When the FBI and the IRS claim that something happened, I tend to believe them. And lest you think that didn’t happen, let me point out that the USG wins something like 99% of its criminal cases. I had two federal acquittals and one hung jury in my career. Just two. They were outliers. Most defense lawyers never see even one.

Can Happen Here

The best way to deal with Trump is to ignore him. But we can’t–the media won’t let us.George W. Bush on his ranch? When was the last time you heard anything about him?Yesterday I saw four military helicopters flying in formation in the general direction of the jail.They closed I-85/75 and all the roads that crossed over it so snipers couldn’t have a shot. There are dozens of such roads. The roads leading to I85/75 were shut down as well. I-2o, I-285, etc. 

Basically Atlanta shut down.

A twenty-motorcyle police escort led the flotilla of SUV’s and an ambulance to the jail.And yet, we’re told that Trump is treated like any other defendant.

Sure.If Biden were smart, he’d issue a general amnesty for January 6th: the generosity of a winner. He could say the people were misguided but we need to come together. The advantage is that this takes Trump off the 24/7 news cycle. Biden might well beat the B-list of candidates that showed up at the first Republican debate. Not a single one was even remotely presidential. Maybe Christie, but he has no chance.

What’s going on in the world? I honestly don’t know: the only news last night was waiting breathlessly to see Trump’s mug shot. So what if Putin just executed a political rival, extrajudicial killings are commonplace, no big deal.

If you’re not protesting about Prighozin, you don’t get to complain about Khashoggi.

Was Ford right? Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon because a criminal prosecution of Nixon “would tear the country apart.”

Now we’ve got four prosecutions.

New Yorkers get it: Trump was always like this. No way an examination of his books and records would show spotless behavior. After all, this is a guy who couldn’t successfully run a casino.

If Trump is re-elected, expect martial law. And on that note, Trump’s mistake was not ordering the military to seize ballot boxes while he still had a chance.

As the helicopters flew overhead, I thought, “it only takes one general to command a stop to all this “to restore order.“That’s how it happens in the rest of the world.

Can happen here.

Double Standard

If you’re not protesting about Prighozin, you don’t get to complain about Khashoggi.

Double Standard

MbS is ostracized for Khashoggi while everyone stands around looking at their toes in the wake of Putin’s extrajudicial execution of Prighozin.

You read it here first.

test

My Mother the Juror

My mother served on a petit jury when she was 75 and had the time of her life. It was an excuse to dress up for court; the jurors exchanged pictures of their children or grandchildren and brought in food to share on Fridays. They stayed in touch for years afterwards.

One day, she sent a letter to the judge asking for a day off so she could see her oncologist. She included a package of candy in the envelope with the note, “I hear you like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.” The judge put the request on the record, granted her request and said, “unless anyone has an objection, I’m keeping the candy.”

In opening statements, the prosecutor painted a lurid picture of stolen money, boob jobs and strippers. Unfortunately, the first witness was a records custodian from BellSouth. My mother said that all men on the jury jockeyed for position since they thought the witness was one of the strippers. Poor girl.

At the conclusion of the trial, the judge read out the standard admonition to the parties telling them not to approach or bother jurors. He told the jurors they were under no obligation to speak to the parties about the case. There was a codefendant in the case; he was found not guilty. My mother went out into the hallway, cornered him, and shaking her finger at the “not guilty” man told him, “Buddy, you got a break. Don’t do it again.”

The trial took place in the West Palm Beach Division of the U.S. District Court, the same division—and perhaps the same courthouse at 301 Clematis Street—where Donald Trump is to be tried this fall.

Expect anything.

App Test

Let’s see if it works.

Initial Thoughts about Trump Indictment

It’s hard not to be dramatic in response to this. First, the indictment proves my point that classified information is radioactive. Lawyers should not accept a clearance in a criminal trial.

A Roosevelt moment. Republicans pushed the 22nd Amendment to avoid another Roosevelt. The Amendment ended up prohibiting another Reagan term. The risk to a sitting president is trumped-up criminal liability might be created after he leaves office. The safest move is to stay in office. Declare martial law? Inconceivable. But on Wednesday, indicting a former president was pretty much inconceivable.

Equal protection: Pence, Biden, Clinton and Obama all had classified info and were not indicted.

Politics: 70% of Americans believe this indictment is political as do I.

Does anyone honestly believe that Trump was acting as an espionage agent of a foreign government? I do not.

The case will be decided based on jury instructions, and I don’t think there are pattern instructions for this crime.

Whatever your views on Trump, this indictment is a huge mistake. The case will tear the country apart.

I don’t know why Trump kept the documents. Research for his memoirs? Probably it has something to do with his belief that he was rightfully elected. Does that turn the trial into a trial on the 2020 election?

With You and I

Mind your Pronouns

I heard a native speaker say, “They can come with you and I.”

This is incorrect. Here, the word “I,” a subject pronoun, is used instead of the correct “me.”

Would you say, “They can come with I?”

Of course not. You’d say, “They can come with me.

I ascribe this error to an episode of the television show Bonanza where a one-room frontier schoolhouse teacher forced her barely literate charges to always use the pronoun “I.”

Me can’t think of any other explanation.

Patti Smith

Patti is a poet; friend of Robert Mapplethorpe (she wrote about him in Just Kids.) She was part of the 70’s New York Lower East Side Renaissance, born too late for the Beats she nevertheless followed the spirit of Rimbaud and made friends with William Burroughs, he of Junky, Naked Lunch, and his wife’s murderer. She was an accomplished poet, seeing her work published in the zines of the day.

Patti’s breakthrough was to set her poetry to music; the poem Oath with a back-up band led to her first album, Horses. A collaboration with Bruce Springsteen and a #1 hit record followed.

Then she retreated to the Midwest and married life, only to emerge twenty years later as if nothing had happened. Before you adjudge Patti of “aberrant behavior,” keep in mind that the rules she follows are those of the French poetes maudites: Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud; those who sought insight through a derangement of the senses. Only by that standard can she be judged. Political activist she was not; something tells me that she would not suffer Republican book clubs in the Detroit suburbs at all. Patti a sell-out?

Pas possible.

Before the Pandemic

I had just returned to Saudi Arabia. This is the view from my office on the Dammam Highway.

Roast Beef v. Thailand

“Why do you like Thailand so much?” they asked.

Lunch in Chicago: six chicken wings, french fries and a roast beef sandwich.

$47.80.

’Nuff said.

Roast Beef v. Thailand

“Why do you like Thailand so much?” they asked.

Six chicken wings, french fries and a roast beef sandwich.

$47.80.

’Nuff said.

Six Hour Delay: BA Held My Passport Hostage in Dubai

My friend left his passport in the aircraft seatback at 0800 March 30 2023. Flt. 105 LHR-DXB. An unfortunate act, to be sure, for which he takes full responsibility. But BA made things worse: he realized that he didn’t have his passport while on the Arrivals train at DXB. Once on the train, it is impossible to return to the gate without setting off alarms. There were no BA personnel available upon exiting the Arrivals train. At DXB immigration, likewise there was no BA staff available. We advised DNATA staff who called BA.

(Even though we could not leave immigration for lack of a passport, I later learned that there are no BA employees tasked with dealing with customer service baggage issues in the baggage claim area of DXB. You outsource this function and these third-party employees are not authorized to leave the area to go to BA gates.)

BA initiated a search for the passport, which was found at 0900. BA did not, however, arrange to bring the passport to the Immigration hall. Keep in mind that returning to the gate was not possible.

1000 and no response from BA, besides, “We’re busy.”

1100 and no response from BA, besides, “We’ll get to it.”

In the meantime, we were treated to exclusive seats on the bench reserved for criminals and other potential deportees, subjecting us to humiliation.

1200 and no response from BA, besides “We’re busy.”

1300 and no response from BA, besides, “We’re busy now.”

1400 Passport finally delivered.

I’d like to know why you think this is acceptable behavior.

I’d like to know why BA staff felt that it was appropriate to make us wait for six hours. I’d like to know why BA has no staff available airside or landside at DXB. BA closed its office at DXB during the pandemic. DNATA staff advised that in case of an emergency, they have no way of reaching BA.

I’d like to know how you can possibly believe this behaviour is consistent with your airline’s purported high standards.

I am truly shocked by this, and I doubt it is the first time something like this has happened.

Case No. 24675455

The Mandalay Bay Massacre and Saudi Arabia

Some have suggested that the death of 58 concert-goers in the Mandalay Bay massacre in Las Vegas in October, 2017 was an attempted assassination targeting Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman. The holes in the official story of the massacre are many and the Saudi angle has not been fully explored.

The secret history begins with a coup: on July 17, 2017, Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, the Deputy Crown Prince, replaced the Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Nayef, the head of Saudi intelligence, in what is widely regarded as a coup. Alarmed at Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s rapid rise and leapfrogging over older family members in line to the throne, the conspirators decided to remove him from the line of succession. They were aided by friendly elements of the US intelligence services, who may or may not have known their ultimate intentions.

The top floors of the Mandalay Bay aren’t part of the hotel at all; they belong to the Four Seasons hotel, a hotel owned by Prince Walid bin Talal, a prominent Saudi investor and one of the Kingdom’s richest men. Prince Walid had a fleet of airplanes that included a 747 and for a while, even a double decker Airbus A-380, the world’s largest passenger plane. From an Islamic point of view, the Four Seasons is almost chaste: the Four Seasons hotel is unique among hotels on the Las Vegas Strip in that no gambling is offered. Thus, a Saudi staying at the hotel is insulated from charges of un-Islamic behavior. It is a perfect place to lodge for the future Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, the official title of the king of Saudi Arabia.

Stephen Paddock, the man blamed for the attack, was to supply CIA-provided weapons, purchased legally from gun stores, to the assassination team. The guns are stashed in his room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay. The hotel has always given conflicting information about how Paddock bypassed all the security the hotel had in place. No casino on the Vegas Strip has lax security. But with US intelligence as part of Paddock’s team, badges could be shown to bypass that security and carry bags without inspection to anywhere in the hotel.

The conspirators would pick up the guns on the 32nd floor and then head up the stairs to the Four Seasons where they would attack MbS. After he and his bodyguards were killed, they would return to the 32nd floor and escape in the confusion, perhaps with the credentials they had used to plant the guns prior to the commencement of the operation.

Two events happen to thwart the plot. MbS was not sitting with his entourage smoking sheesha in his suite at the 4 Seasons, instead he had put on Western clothes and melted into the Vegas crowds without his phalanx of bodyguards, walking to the Tropicana Casino, where he was enjoying himself playing cards, oblivious to the events that would soon unfold.

MbS bodyguards have in the meantime been alerted to the plot. They go to the Tropicana and pick up the prince, taking him to the McCarran Airport. There is a firefight at the airport. It is not clear whether this is shooting from the Mandalay Bay by frustrated coup plotters or a contingent that had somehow gotten wind of MbS’ flight to the airport from the Tropicana.

The FBI is busy arresting the coup plotters’ forces, which have now spread to other venues. There are sporadic shoot-outs. Two assassins are with Paddock in his room. They kill Paddock and do all the shooting of the concert-goers themselves in the hopes of creating a diversion that will permit them to escape.

They realize that the coup has failed and both commit suicide.

The CIA tells the FBI that the evidence of the coup attempt must be covered up. The FBI takes control of the crime scene and removes the bodies. Paddock is blamed for the massacre. The fact that the US government provided Paddock with the guns used for the massacre is buried along with the victims. The official story is that Paddock is a madman. The investigation turns up no motive for the attack.

How Paddock earned the vast sums needed to achieve “Whale” status is never quite clear. The story is that he regularly bet heavily, won at video poker, and that is why he was afforded privileges by the hotel. But no one wins regularly in Vegas, especially at any type of electronic slot machine. No one.

MbS returned to Saudi Arabia. A few weeks later, on November 4, Prince Walid was arrested, incarcerated at the Ritz-Carlton and the vast bulk of his fortune was eventually forfeited to the Saudi state. Prince Mansour, son of the former crown prince, fleeing arrest, was killed in a helicopter crash the next day.

Saad Al-Jabri was a top deputy to the former Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Nayef. He left Saudi Arabia in May, 2017. After the June 20 coup that ousted bin Nayef, Al-Jabri asked for and was granted political asylum in Canada.

On April 21, 2018, reports of another violent coup attempt were denied by Riyadh. According to the reports, MbS had been shot and wounded. Al-Jabri now claims that MbS sent an assassination squad to kill him five months later, in October, 2018.

There is little doubt that there has been one coup and countercoup attempt after another over the past three years. The Saudi government on March 6, 2020 arrested Prince Mohammed bin Nayef and accused him of planning a coup. If Al-Jabri can confirm that the Mandalay Bay massacre was linked to an attempted coup, he is indeed living on borrowed time. That is a story that must not get out.

The recent history of Saudi Arabia shows that the government and the coup plotters routinely ignore international borders when planning or carrying out operations. Coup attempts explain so much; the Ritz-Carlton arrests, the assassination of Khashoggi—what if he knew of the coup?—and MbS’ hard stance towards domestic critics. In an article published in The New Yorker on November 6th, 2017, Khashoggi was called an advisor to Saudi diplomats, strongly suggesting that he was a dissident. Did Khashoggi learn of the coup against MbS? If Khashoggi did and failed to warn him, this could be the real reason for his elimination. If MbS came to believe that Khashoggi was not just a journalist but one of the coup planners, killing Khashoggi is completely understandable.

Much of what has happened is in the public record; what is not proven is whether or not the Mandalay Bay massacre was part of a botched attempt to assassinate Mohammed bin Salman. Parts of this story can easily be corroborated; for other parts there is no evidence, or that evidence has been suppressed. Keep in mind that the official story requires belief that the de-facto ruler of Saudi Arabia just coincidentally happened to be a few floors above a madman who single-handedly plotted and executed the largest mass murder in American history.

Or maybe it all just happened the way they said it did.

Underground Bahrain

Is there a Bahrain underground? This book answers that question and tells the story of its denizens.

Underground Bahrain

This book claims that there is an underground in Bahrain and tells the story of its denizens.

Interesting Book

This book claims that there is an underground in Bahrain and tells the story of its denizens.

Instead He Wrote Howl

Follow the Science

The LGBTQ Community Causes Earthquakes, Concludes Rabbi

Bremerton FAQ

The U.S. Supreme Court has approved private, voluntary prayer at high school football games. The opinion raises many questions concerning the Establishment clause and the separation of Church and State. I have put together a helpful FAQ to aid bewildered school administrators.

Q. Has the Supreme Court put prayer back in the schools?

A. Not really. At this stage, there must be a football-related reason to justify invoking a deity’s aid.

Q. If one coach prays in an effort to obtain the favor of a particular deity, what should the other team do to avoid a competitive disadvantage?

A. A school-approved “chaplains’ panel” should level the playing field. Holy men of all faiths may apply.

Q. May a santero football coach sacrifice a goat on the 50-yard line during football games?

A. Of course! As long as a time-out is called and the sacrifice is performed quickly, such as at the end of a quarter or during half-time.

Q. Is voodoo a permitted football religious practice?

A. It certainly is! The practice is often seen at schools found in Haitian neighborhoods in Miami.

It is well known that invoking Papa Legba can often steer an errant kick into a three-pointer.

Q. Are underaged players permitted to smoke cigars and spew rum during conference games?

Of course! Note that since the rum is not consumed but instead sprayed in the direction of the orisha that underage drinking rules are not implicated. However, these sacraments should be used only under the guidance of the school Babalawo.

Q. Is it OK to speak in tongues in a huddle?

A. The term “huddle” is now deprecated. The new term is “game time prayer circle.”

And yes, what would otherwise be private prayer that becomes loud and public because of divine intervention may not be restricted.

Q. It’s 4th and inches. Is it constitutionally permitted to call a time-out for private prayer?

A. Whether it’s 4th and inches or 1st and 10, tell Coach that there’s no time like the present for private worship.

Q. My school has lost its last three games. Can we use black magic to beat our next opponent?

Of course. Drawing a pentacle on the field is one way to insure missed tackles and regular turnovers.

Q. Is permitted school football prayer restricted to “mainstream” religions?

Glad you asked. No, it’s not. As long as you have an identifiable deity, there is no restriction on private worship.

Q. Are Scientology tents permitted at high school football games?

A. Of course!

Scientology counselors packing e-Meters will offer free counseling, pre-clear services and sign-up sheets.

Q. We have an atheist in our game time prayer circle. What can we do?

A. Under Bremerton, football field prayer must be voluntary. However, Coach can bench whomever he wants for lack of good character.

The Supreme Court may rule on religious issues, but will not overrule the personnel decisions of a head coach, especially at game time.

Q. Should Zoroastrian players be permitted to light small fires on the field in honor of their god?

A. Yes. Zoroastrian fire marshals can insure that small fires lit by worshipful players pose no threat to the groundskeepers

Q. Coach requires two hours of classroom per week where he writes X’s and O’s on the board so the team can learn new plays.

My question is: can we have voluntary prayer in the classroom?

A. Yes. Because football is the reason for the class, prayer at these sessions is permitted.

Q. Can someone explain the Bremerton decision to me?

A. Because celebrity athletes are particularly well-suited to answer church/state questions based on their athletic prowess, we have decided to pose this question to Phil Mickelson at the earliest opportunity.

Q. We scored a field goal with 12 seconds left on the clock. What is an appropriate way to give thanks?

A. This depends on your religious tradition. Consult with your football team’s chaplain for best practices.

Q. Our school board refuses to fund the football team chaplain. The team has a special need, as they have had three losing seasons. What can we do?

A. Some school boards recommend setting up inter-faith religious commissions to vet candidates for the football chaplaincy.

Q. Coach and I share the same Christian faith. The team’s defensive coordinator is, however, of the Jewish faith. What should I do?

A. Help the defensive coordinator to form a minyan when requested. All faiths are respected on the field under Bremerton.

Q. We have an atheist in our game time prayer circle. What can we do?

A. Under Bremerton, football field prayer must be voluntary. However, Coach can bench whomever he wants for lack of good character.

Q. It’s 3rd and long and a rattlesnake brought for half-time snake-handling prayer has escaped onto the field. Can Coach use one of his time-outs?

A. Time spent collecting the reptile will not be charged to either team as the free exercise of religion at school-sponsored events must be respected.

Q. What is private prayer?

Private prayer is the subvocal, unobtrusive invocation of an identified deity, performed after alerting the media as to time and place of the subvocalization and voluntary prayer circle.

Q. After our last scoring drive, Coach went for two instead of the easy point. The conversion attempt failed. I feel like God has abandoned me.

A. Football field faith crises are normal after a missed conversion. Talk to your school’s religious counselor for guidance.

Q. If the 1st Amendment permits prayer in schools, doesn’t the 2nd Amendment permit guns in schools? When can our defensive tackles take their .357 magnums to practice?

A. First, let us compliment your defensive line on a wise choice of personal firearm. Automatic pistols may carry more rounds, but they are harder to clean and clear. A revolver is a safer gun because it is easier to insure that no round is chambered.

As to your question, Justice Roberts, who leaked the Dobbs opinion, intimated that we will see developments in this area soon.

Soul-Eating Monster

Q. “We are playing the conference champions next week and our team has had a dismal record. What can we do, that is, in a spiritual sense, to insure victory?”

A. Put photographs of a soul-eating Naga everywhere in the champions’ dressing room, and build a life-size model to be placed on a trailer so that it can dragged onto the field during time-outs for private game time prayer. With souls at risk, victory for your team should be assured.

Football Prayer Rug

American Muslims: now that the US Supreme Court in Bremerton has approved midfield prayer during football games, it’s time to get an appropriate prayer rug for the next game.

Respectfully submitted,

Michael O’Kane

The US Supreme Court

The Court lost all intellectual integrity with Dobbs. It is now a political body whose decisions are no more persuasive than common advertising.

Film Firearm Rules

Alex Baldwin has some ‘splainin to do.

Rules on Set

1. No clowning around! Anyone pointing firearms at anyone (other than rehearsing) will be wrapped.
2. Do not point at anyone directly within 10 feet. Putting a gun with blanks to your head will blow a piece of your skull into your brain if the trigger is pulled.
3. When the Director, Stunt Coordinator, or weapons specialist, etc. yells “cut”: (1) take your finger out of the trigger guard, and (2) point gun at the ground.
4. Do not put your hands in front of the barrel. Do not put your hand on slides, charging handles, bolts, etc. as they move with great force on some models when fired. They can break your fingers, hands, etc.
5. Hot shells eject from semi-auto and full auto firearms. Be careful and mindful of who is to the right of you.
6. If an actor crosses in front of you, within 10 feet, stop firing!
7. Never point a gun at an actor’s face.
8. Live weapons and ammo are not permitted on the set. If you own a gun or carry a gun, GET IT OFF THE SET NOW! This includes ammo. Empty your pockets and lock ammo and guns away, preferably in your car. This includes real police officers that are being used as actors or extras – there is no security. You may use your firearm as a prop if it is EMPTIED OFF SET and inspected by the Weapons Master specialist, this INCLUDES ALL magazines in pouches. You are either an actor or a police officer, pick one.
9. Anyone that smells of liquor, beer, or marijuana WILL NOT receive a firearm, accept getting the written permission from the responsible person.
10. Do not try to take guns apart, fold stocks, flip switches, push buttons, etc.! If you have a fake firearm, attempting this will break off parts.
11. DO NOT DROP GUNS! The production is liable for any damage! If you cannot hold onto the gun, it will be taken from you. Plastic prop guns are fragile – treat them as such. Do not attempt to cock handles, push buttons etc. Light pulling of the trigger is OK. Rubber guns may be dropped if needed.
12. Do not put objects in the barrels of guns as they can kill when blanks are fired.

From bangkokvideoproductions.com

Mail in the Middle East

Mail in the Middle East is routinely not delivered. Is this a cultural issue (mail in Riyadh was once dumped in the town square on the chance the crowd might know the addressee) an institutional issue (declining revenues from decreasing first class mailings) or something else?

Discuss.

Picture is of the main post office in Ho Chi Minh City, often erroneously attributed to Gustav Eiffel. In fact, the building was designed by French architect Alfred Foulhoux.

Ten Tips for Going In-House

Identify your Enemy

This is probably the most important. Even if you join the large in-house legal department of a mega-corporation like Exxon, there will be an enemy. While the enemy might be individual, it might also be a group. You are in competition with anyone who enters at the same time you do. Contracting departments often are at war with the legal department and if they are successful in getting you fired, it’s one for their team.

Failure to identify your enemy means your tenure will be short. Legal ethics will only help as a sword, not as a shield. Someone may invite you to get involved in a matter or try to assign a case to you that is a battlefield where many have fallen. If others have failed, it’s for a reason. “I can’t get involved in that matter because of conflicts.” Sun-Tzu is your friend.

Learn the Back Story

Many matters that cross your desk will appear to be routine. Review of a contract; a non-disclosure agreement, updating corporate forms in view of new legislation or a court decision. Beware of those matters that while appearing routine contain only partial facts and only part of the story.

In a dispute between members of a joint venture, as the calendar year rolled around approving the company’s financials and renewing registrations is considered routine.

Your counterparty asks if these routine matters can be resolved, notwithstanding the parties’ disputes. You agree because of statutory requirements only to find that a not-so-bright light on your team has refused to cooperate on routine matters in a misguided effort to obtain an advantage over the substantive dispute.

“Oh no,” the genius said, “we can’t agree to paying the annual registration fee.”

“If you don’t the company will be delisted,” you respond.

“Then that will be their fault,” he claims, “because blah blah blah.”

Consider every matter a minefield, no matter how minor. Even when you know the backstory.

Go Out of your way to do favors

An in-house legal department may be a new animal for many within the organization. Before your arrival if they only dealt with outside counsel who weren’t part of the organization and subject to the company’s chain of command. They dealt with lawyers like they might deal with any other supplier or customer. Initially, they will not know how to deal with you. Attorney-client confidentiality is one area of confusion, because your client is the organization. No non-lawyer will understand this.

Win allies by going the extra mile and helping your colleagues outside the legal department meet their deadlines, even if it means goodbye to that 9 to 5 that you dreamt of before going in-house.

Keep an ‘Attaboy’ File

Every time anyone in the organization praises you, make a note if the praise is oral and a copy if written. These encomia should go into an “attaboy file.” You will need this information when it comes time for salary review or when someone in the organization, unhappy with your legal advice and tired of filing reclama after reclama, tries to get you thrown out the door. See “Identify your Enemy” above.

Time Records, Time Records, Time Records

The bane of lawyers is the requirement to keep detailed time records so that bills can be prepared for clients. One of the advantages of in-house practice, supposedly, is that there is no need to keep such records. Don’t believe it. You still need to keep them for a host of reasons, but here are four:

—identifying people present at a meeting if this becomes an issue (it will)

—justifying your salary (and value to the organization)

—aide-memoire for those off the cuff oral legal opinions

—keeping a follow-up to your to-do list

—proving corporate legal expenditures in court for fee reimbursement

Plaintiff lawyers, or any lawyer taking a fee on a contingency fee basis often believe that there is no need to keep time records. This belief evaporates the moment they are ordered to prepare a bill of costs in a matter where the client is entitled to attorneys fees.

Reconstructing time spent is a task for novelists because it is properly called narrative fiction.

Contemporaneous records are admissible in court. Reconstructions might be admissible, but then again, there is a high risk that they will be cut by the presiding judge if disputed. And they will be disputed.

Educate your Superiors

Unless your superiors are old court hands, they will not understand that there are certain activities that are a necessary part of lawyering. One example is talking to opposing counsel.

Your superiors may foolishly believe that this is some kind of betrayal and that no quarter should ever be given. The opponent should be met on the battlefield only. This attitude is stupid.

Even the most contentious cases require cooperation from opposing counsel and without communication there is no cooperation.

A factory of a certain size may have an in-house medical facility; a clinic or even a physician on call. No corporate officer would question an in-house physician as to why he prescribed Tylenol instead of aspirin to an employee who reported a headache but the same officer will feel privileged to question why you served standard form interrogatories or Requests to Admit to an opposing lawyer.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing; explain generally that conduct in litigated civil disputes is governed by the Rules of Civil Procedure. Offer to send a copy to the offending corporate officer. He will say yes, not read what you send him and in the future hopefully will keep his nose out of court business.

The Chairman’s Best Law Firm

Even though you are working in-house for a company and not a law firm, in reality you are still working for a law firm. That firm reports to the chairman or CEO of the company. You want him to think of your department as “his” law firm; you want the law department to be his first and most trustworthy stop for legal advice.

This means you must operate the law department as if it were a law firm. This will be difficult, because unlike other corporate divisions the law department will be seen as a cost, and not a profit center.

Don’t let anyone think of the law department in that way. Keep close track of the savings you bring to the firm, whether compared to the costs of outside counsel or simply as to areas where your law department has saved the company money.

Don’t Take Sides

Different divisions within the company will fight for resources, profits and the attention of the chairman. Promotions will be granted on merit, but they will too often be awarded to the less-worthy who has made it seem like a different division was less successful.

Invariably, the different sectors will come to you and ask you to take a side, suggesting, without actually denouncing, that programs or processes engaged in by a different division are not in the best interest of the company. They will ask you to back them up.

Don’t be tempted. You never get the whole story in this fashion and there is always more to the story. Try to remain neutral for as long as possible, unless an until the chairman raises the matter with you. If he doesn’t, it’s best not to get involved.

Of course, if someone comes to you with a story of fraud or other wrongdoing, you must report this to the chairman. Never forget who is your client.

The Gift of Time

While in the rush to complete a transaction there will still be many days where your work long hours, for the most part the ten or twelve—or more—hour days common to associates at Big Law firms will be a thing of the past.

This is nothing less than a gift of time.

Don’t waste it.

Dealing with Outside Counsel

You are in a position to help bring in the best lawyers for the company. But be careful: doing so means stepping on toes.

Long-term relationships with ensconced firms are disturbed at your peril. Lawyers at these firms can and will go over your head to claim that bringing in a new firm is a sign of immaturity (even if you’re over 50), ignorance (even if you know the case backwards and forwards) or incautious (even if the proposed selection was made after a rigorous tender process).

You can’t ignore these whispers because you will not always be there to hear them. Bring others in the firm—not just the law department—in on the decision. They will be your internal advocates, for they know the details better than you do. Tell the firm you’d like to make the award to where the opposition lies: they may have some useful comments.

In the end, don’t make it your decision. It’s the chairman’s decision, and if he decides to overrule your team and go with his golfing buddy, so be it.

Don’t complain or sulk, even if you feel a great error is being made.

Stay in your Lane

Unless you have an MBA or ran a business prior to becoming a lawyer (managing a law firm doesn’t count) don’t try to offer strategic suggestions for the future of the business.

You are not a businessman.

Look what happened to Citibank’s Charles Price. If you want to move into management, get an MBA.

The Dark Forest Hypothesis

So What If He Never Said It?

Manufactured Crime Wastes Law Enforcement Resources

They did it again. In the Liberty City 7 case, an FBI freelance troublemaker tried to convince a group of poor black men in Miami to blow up the Willis Tower in Chicago. The building was never at risk. The FBI and the troublemaker provided money, logistics and fake bombs.

In another useless sting, Ikaika Kange, a U.S. Army soldier who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was charged with assisting Da’esh, the Islamic State. Why provide PTSD counseling to troubled servicemen when you can accuse them of crime?

In a more outrageous case, seventeen year old Adel Daoud wrote a term paper about Osama bin Laden. His online research set off the NSA’s secret surveillance alarms. The FBI unleashed an informant on Daoud on a “no arrest, no pay” basis. Realizing that there would be no paycheck without a crime, the informant convinced Daoud to join ISIS (this was all pretend) and to bomb a saloon near Wrigley Field (more pretend). The informant provided Daoud with fake bombs as a courtesy since Daoud was unable to carry out the contrived plot himself.

During the informant’s performance, assisted by the stooge Daoud, the FBI swooped in, declared victory and arrested the teenager. Court appointed psychiatrists found Daoud to be susceptible to suggestion, borderline retarded and unfit to stand trial. A federal district judge found Daoud incompetent to stand trial, in part because of his belief in “lizard people.” It is not clear whether Daoud believes that ISIS and the lizard people are one and the same, or whether he was free to ignore the commands of the lizard people’s emissary. No matter: with Daoud’s arrest the informant got his payday. The informant in the Liberty City case had an $80,000 payday; the amount of cash wasted on Daoud has not yet been made public.

Unleashing informants to evangelize for ISIS is dangerous. Daoud was easy prey. An evangelizing informant may be successful in winning someone over to ISIS only to find that the new convert doesn’t want to perform in a scripted play. You see, he’s found this thing called the Internet, and he’s contacted the real bad guys who tell him, “no, we don’t know this evangelist, stay away from him. Conduct martyrdom operations yourself.” And then while time is wasted chasing the retarded, those who pose a real threat are ignored, freed to engage. A teenager who writes a term paper on Osama bin Laden should not be targeted by the government. Daoud was unstable and needed counseling. What happened to him is unforgivable.

Are the people of Chicago more safe because of these shenanigans? Here’s a thought: why not divert some of this law enforcement attention away from manufactured crime and towards real counter-terrorist activities, instead of make believe ones?

References: nbcnews com/news/us-news/chicago-bomb-plot-suspect-ruled-incompetent-belief-lizard-people-n638066 theintercept com/2017/04/20/more-than-400-people-convicted-of-terrorism-in-the-u-s-have-been-released-since-911/

The NSA claims they only track foreigners. U.S. citizens are unmolested, protected by a Constitution that bans searches into their papers and records without a warrant. The Daoud case proves that the term “foreigner” includes Chicago-area high school teenagers and the Constitutional ban illusory.

A Den of Thieves

Pennsylvania’s senator Fetterman just spent nine days in the hospital.

“Sheriff” Herschel Walker is out chasing criminals.

Anna Luna (née Meyerhof) is an ethnic impostor.

And then there’s George Santos.

Race/Ethnicity Imposters

• Anna Paulina Luna
• George Santos
• Rachel Dolezal
• Sherry Stanley Jimenez
• William Montgomery McGovern
• Nelson Scott Simpson
• Vijay Chokal Ingam
• Chico Colon Meridan
• George Herriman
• Gregory Markopoulos
• John Roland Redd
• Archibald Belaney
• Sacheen Littlefeather
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren
• Jessica Krug
• Jeannine Cummins

Race/Ethnicity Imposters

• Anna Paulina Luna
• George Santos
• Rachel Dolezal
• Sherry Stanley Jimenez
• William Montgomery McGovern
• Nelson Scott Simpson
• Vijay Chokal Ingam
• Chico Colon Meridan
• George Herriman
• Gregory Markopoulos
• John Roland Redd
• Archibald Belaney
• Sacheen Littlefeather
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren
• Jessica Krug
• Jeannine Cummins

Plastic Money

After four days of using polypropylene currency:

I don’t like it. It doesn’t fold. It only bends. It’s slippery like a register receipt. It slides out of your pocket onto the floor.

I don’t want to be a Luddite. I thought I would like the new money. It doesn’t tear, and if you forget and leave bills in a pocket while doing the wash, they will be cleaned but not destroyed. Nor will they disintegrate, contaminating everything else in that wash cycle.

Many countries are slowly strolling out plastic money. The plastic bills don’t mix well with their paper cousins, still the predominant form. Paper folds. So you end up with a wad, some bills folded, others not.

The Cashless Future

Wuddabout the cashless future? I stood for one half hour behind two Malaysian ladies trying to install an app, change passwords, link to their banking, restore points, and God knows what else. Finally it was my turn to order coffee.

After insisting that I was sure I did not want to install their app, I paid with a card. Fortunately:

• the Internet was working
• the card terminal was working
• my bank’s end was working

Otherwise, the plastic cash in my pocket would have been useless.

Horizontal Space in Ulysses

If you need blank horizontal space in Ulysses, try using a UTF-8 space character.

Ulysses does not strip blank space where that blank space is a UTF-8 character, like U+2004 (three em space). While this symbol cannot be generated in Ulysses–like s̵t̵r̵i̵k̵e̵t̵h̵r̵o̵u̵g̵h̵ for example–if generated in an external program and copied to Ulysses, it will both be displayed in Ulysses and upon export.

New Treasurer for George Santos

Santos’ best bet now is to appoint a Portuguese-speaking treasurer living in a small town in Brazil. FEC inquiries would have to be translated; int’l mail would be lost or not delivered, and there is no requirement that a campaign treasurer speak English or live in the US.

Killer Cops

If the Memphis killer cops had been white, the country would be in flames.

A Perfect Day for an Exorcism

In order to expel evil from her home after the attempt on her husband’s life, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hosted an exorcism.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nancy-pelosi-priest-exorcism-husband/

The Nature of the Law

Monterey Park Motive

A bitter, lonely old man with access to an assault weapon decided to share the pain of loneliness and rejection with the regulars at the dance studio where he had gone for companionship.

The $750,000 Santos Mystery Solved

Drumroll please:

the mystery of the Santos $750,000 campaign contribution solved.

The $750,000 Santos Mystery Solved

Drumroll please:

the mystery of the Santos $750,000 campaign contribution solved.

santos #campaignfinance #santos

Lawyers: How to Differentiate

Lawyers fail to monetize their networks. This often has value. Instead, lawyers pretend that it doesn’t exist or is inaccessible, even as the Internet has proven over and over that networks have value. The network itself is proof of that value, but if you pretend it doesn’t exist, then there is no value. Look at your network and capitalize on it.

Collateral Damage

“Vaccines saved lives and flattened the curve. Sure, there was collateral damage like Hamlin and Presley, but there was collateral damage in Baghdad too and no one said ‘boo.’”

Lawyers: How to Differentiate

Lawyers fail to monetize their networks. This often has value. Instead, lawyers pretend that it doesn’t exist or is inaccessible, even as the Internet has proven over and over that networks have value. The network is proof of that value, but if you pretend it doesn’t exist, then there is a failure of value. Look at your network and capitalize on it.

Give Santos a Break

OK, he lied. He’s not Jewish, his grandparents had nothing to do with the Holocaust, he didn’t work at Goldman Sachs or even graduate from college.

So what? Let’s judge him on his performance rather than on whom he once claimed to be. Obviously, this man has skills: he ran a successful, federal congressional campaign and won as someone who had never held any kind of political office.

The fact is that no one is safe while the Congress is in session. Santos cannot possibly do worse than others who have held the office. If anything, his “embellishments” will keep him humble, a character quality otherwise sorely lacking amongst his new peers.

Riyals, Rubles or Renminbi

No one–except the US–is happy with the fact that the dollar is the world’s reserve currency. Remove its status and Europe will be happy to buy riyals, rubles or renminbi to purchase oil.

George Santos: American

Really, what is more American than the grift?

George Santos “embellished” his resumé, not worrying about the fact that identity politics trumps even outright lies. Santos claims to be Jewish, biracial, and finding one box unchecked, gay. He is Latino enough and there are Holocaust survivors in his family tree.

A claimed 9/11 death in the family makes up for a lack of military service, and when the New York Times finally looked into his background and uncovered his failure to graduate from college the fact that Santos is a high-school dropout was lost in the noise.

Shilling for sympathy, Santos had his mother die twice. He started a charity for animals and pocketed the cash, knowing that dogs and cats don’t complain. He is a liar and shameless, as any good grifter must be. None of this prevented his election to the 117th Congress.

If anything, he is the perfect candidate.

Give Santos a Break

OK, he lied. He’s not Jewish, his grandparents had nothing to do with the Holocaust, he didn’t work at Goldman Sachs or even graduate from college.

So what? Let’s judge him on his performance rather than on whom he once claimed to be. Obviously, this man has skills: he ran a successful, federal congressional campaign and won as someone who had never held any kind of political office.

The fact is that no one is safe while the Congress is in session. Santos cannot possibly do worse than others who have held the office. If anything, his “embellishments” will keep him humble, a character quality otherwise sorely lacking amongst his new peers.

Cali’s New Evidentiary Rule

No longer can rap lyrics be held against their author in a criminal trial, a new California law tells us.

Many would assert that rap glorifies the thug lifestyle, though arguments will ensue as to whether that lifestyle is merely a fashion statement akin to the “heroin chic” that glamour magazines pushed in the 90’s.

Still, violence by and against rap stars seems to be part of that world. Some of these killings, like the assassinations of Tupac and Biggie. The former CEO of Death Row Records, Suge Knight, is himself in prison, serving a lengthy term for murder.

Some would question whether rap lyrics’ discussion of violence is nothing more than an elaborate pose. After all, didn’t white rapper Vanilla Ice sing of prowling the streets of Miami with a 9mm handgun?

A prosecutor would be eager to use such lyrics in a criminal prosecution. After all, Google searches for “how to dispose of a body” can and are introduced as evidence of premeditation.

Hollywood knows not a little about make-believe and saw this as a dangerous trend. Hence, the new protective evidentiary rule.

But there’s nothing new about the use of literature in criminal cases. Kawashima Yoshiko was a member of the Chinese imperial family who, not entirely unsurprisingly, cast her lot with the Japanese occupiers of the puppet state of Manchuoko, as they had restored her family to a much-reduced, Japanese-controlled throne.

She spoke fluent Japanese, was raised in Japan for a time and commanded an army.

And she was trans, deciding that she would no longer be a woman. “Yoshiko” is her dead name, she adopted the name “Ryosuke” as her male name.

Accused of treason after the fall of Japan and the second fall of the Qing Imperial House, she was tried in a Chinese court, where a novel about her life was entered into evidence. Not a record or a report: a novel. A novel not written by Ryosuke and fictionalized. No matter: she was convicted and shot.

I doubt that the California legislators considered the facts of her case when considering the new legislation. The new evidentiary rule is largely symbolic since a judge may waive it and allow song lyrics to be considered by the jury.

And presumably, novels as well.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshiko_Kawashima

Horizontal Space in Ulysses

If you need blank horizontal space in Ulysses, try using a UTF-8 space character.

Ulysses does not strip blank space where that blank space is a UTF-8 character, like U+2004 (three em space). While this symbol cannot be generated in Ulysses–like s̵t̵r̵i̵k̵e̵t̵h̵r̵o̵u̵g̵h̵ for example–if generated in an external program and copied to Ulysses, it will both be displayed in Ulysses and upon export.

Dobbs Leak Investigation Update

Militarized Police

If anyone doubts how militarized US law enforcement has become, look at these badged, armed idiots showing the results of their posse’s patrol.

Dark Forces

Apparently, this is still needed since the conspiracy theorists have suggested that dark forces have secretly united to co-sign Samuel Bankman-Fried’s symbolic bond.

There was no requirement that the personal surety bond–remember, not corporate surety–be signed by those whose net worth were sufficient to match the inflated bond amount. Because it’s a personal surety bond, the amount is theater. Not a cent was required to be paid. Not one thin dime. If it were a corporate surety bond, he’d still be in the can.

Schooling for Seniors

While previously I focused on Southern Illinois University’s “Returning Scholar Program” and its $70/semester cost, the trend of seniors returning to school is picking up.

Here’s an orientation session for senior “scholars” in Galway:

https://www.advertiser.ie/galway/article/133339/university-of-galway-to-hold-information-event-for-mature-students

Stackexchange Editor Problem

How to Find a Lawyer Overseas

Need a lawyer overseas? How do you find one?

It really depends on the country and the type of case. For BigLaw, see if a national firm has a presence in a foreign country.

For criminal cases, use the NACDL directory. The Big 4 are repeating history and practicing law again–remember Anderson Legal?

A foreign connection does not a foreign case make. If trial venue is in the US, a need to take evidence abroad does not convert your case into a foreign one.

Beware of foreign lawyers who think they know US procedure. If you haven’t been paid yourself, don’t even bother.

Expect a lot of irrelevant hocus pocus.

Never notarize a document in Hong Kong. Use 28 USC 1746 whenever possible; save yourself a trip to the Embassy and the thousands local Hong Kong lawyers will demand for no good reason.

The Santos Protocol

A New Way to Find a Job

Today’s job hunt should start with careful invention following the example of Congressman George Santos (R.NY) and the preparation of a resumé that need not align with fact.

In this post-truth, Santos Protocol, Inventing Anna world, a fact is whatever you claim it to be.

Disagreement can be shrugged off as opinion and fact-checkers mere haters.

A good legend avoids mentioning licenses that might be verified. A refutation can be met with the rejoinder that typos, mis-spellings and apostrophe’s often lead to confusion, whether this has applicability to your name or not.

Contractors are never employees and NDA’s can cover as much time as you like.The former status can be used to claim a wide range of affiliations, the latter provides cover for time periods spent unemployed.

The Santos Protocol: you can be anyone. You are anyone. Fiction is narrative and you are entitled to your own truth. And moreover:

A good lie is better than the truth.

The Santos Protocol

A New Way to Find a Job

Today’s job hunt should start with careful invention following the example of Congressman George Santos (R.NY) and the preparation of a resumé that need not carefully align with facts.

In this post-truth, Santos Protocol, Inventing Anna world, a fact is whatever you claim it to be.

Disagreement can be shrugged off as opinion and fact-checkers mere haters.

A good legend avoids mentioning licenses that might be verified. A refutation can be met with the rejoinder that typos, mis-spellings and apostrophe’s often lead to confusion, whether this has applicability to your name or not.

Contractors are never employees and NDA’s can cover as much time as you like.The former status can be used to claim a wide range of affiliations, the latter provides cover for time periods spent unemployed.

The Santos Protocol: you can be anyone. You are anyone. Fiction is narrative and you are entitled to your own truth. And moreover:

A good lie is better than the truth.

How an Apostrophe Almost Landed Me in Jail

John Delorean

I feel for those whose surnames include a ‘de, di, la’, an ‘al-’, ‘el’, ‘ben’ or ‘ibn.’ Or ‘von’. And of course, anyone who has the misfortune to have an apostrophe in their name. I feel for you.

John DeLorean (not De Lorean, which would put him in this select group) was on trial in federal court in the Eastern District of Michigan during a time when I had several cases in the same building. Every now and then I’d stick my head into the DeLorean trial—you didn’t get a sense of how tall DeLorean was when you saw him on television, but in the courtroom with his height and shock of prematurely white hair he was perhaps the most distinguished looking defendant I had ever seen.

He had a car company in Ireland—no stranger to the apostrophe, he—and I couldn’t help thinking that the Michigan venue was chosen to punish DeLorean as much for having the gall to compete with American car companies as anything else.

DeLorean was acquitted, an extremely rare occurrence in federal court during the past half-century. The criminal rules of procedure are slanted heavily towards the prosecution in federal court, but this is not the time to write about that unfairness. This is about an apostrophe.

BCCI

Few know that the many-tentacled criminal case against the Bank of Credit and Commerce International first went to trial in Detroit. I represented one of the defendants. BCCI was a bank founded by a Pakistani mystic and had branches in America, Europe and Asia.

The bank did not have a license to do business in Saudi Arabia, but an expert witness later noted the fact that despite this deficiency, many members of the Saudi royal family had accounts at the branch in Riyadh. At that time, he said, Saudi banking laws were mostly cosmetic.

The main allegation in the American criminal prosecution of BCCI was that the bank laundered drug money. My case involved the owner of a truck that allegedly was the vehicle used to deliver ten kilos of cocaine to a group of Chaldeans (the term then used for Iraqi Christians in Detroit) who sold it from their bodegas. The money was then collected and transferred to the American branch of BCCI in Tampa.

The first criminal prosecution then, took place in Detroit, where DEA agents had tracked my client’s truck and seized it when it arrived to offload its Colombian merchandise.

Most people don’t realize how local the practice of law is. Lawyers in every state, and sometimes even within the same state, raise barriers to lawyers from out of state. I was coming from Miami, a snowless city three hours away by airplane. I was suspect.

These not-so-warm feelings extended to the local judges, who were promoted from the same pool of suspicious lawyers. It is only when judges join the multi-state federal courts of appeal that these ill feelings start, only start, to dissipate. They never disappear entirely.

Whenever I can be admitted to practice locally, I’ll always fill out the paperwork and pay the fee in an attempt to avoid the local prejudice. Sometimes this works, but more often than not, it doesn’t.

The Clerk’s office in Detroit would admit me to practice for a ten dollar bill and I would get a pretty engraved certificate that I could put up on the wall in my office, the one with the picture of the red jeep I brought from Panama, the one with the DoT safety exemption, though they did make me get rid of the split rim tires.

When I returned to Miami, I put the beautiful new certificate of my eligibility to practice law before the judges of the Eastern District of Michigan in a glass frame and hung the frame on the wall. Were most of my clients not already in jail, they surely would have been impressed by this official document. Every now and then I would clean the dust off the glass if the accumulation made it hard to read.

The Broken Frame

The criminal justice system is a process. Arrests are the intake, then the poor accused journey through the federal system until they are convicted and sent to federal prison. The system waits for no one. A client, arrested in Detroit on another case, asked me to represent him.

I prepared a document of representation, called a Notice of Appearance and sent it by Federal Express to the Detroit courthouse on West Lafayette Boulevard, to the attention of the same Clerk’s office that a few months before had been happy to receive my ten dollars.

A few days later, I received a call from the judge’s clerk. He told me that the judge had prepared a Rule to Show Cause and wanted it read to me personally, so that I could not claim that I had not received it.

The Clerk started reading. “This Cause having come before the Court sua sponte (that is, at its own initiative) in the matter of Michael O’Kane’s filing of a Notice of Appearance in this matter, a rule to show cause is hereby issued why he should not be held in contempt of court for attempting to file a Notice of Appearance while not a member of the bar of this court, a full and thorough inquiry into the books and records of the Office of Clerk of Court having been conducted which show that he has never been admitted to practice in this court. Done and ordered in chambers, in Detroit, Michigan, this 10th day of September, 19XX.”

I tried to tell the judge’s clerk that I was admitted but he cut me off. “There’s no point in arguing,” he said, “you will have to make a formal application to the court.” Federal judges can put you in jail and in a criminal case—which this technically was—they can send the Marshals to pick you up anywhere in the country, even in Guam.

I imagined the 30 hour bus ride to Michigan, sitting with shackles around my ankles behind an iron grate behind the driver and two men with shotguns. Prosecutors call this “diesel therapy,” a form of torture. I had made no more enemies in Detroit than I had in other new cities, so I had no illusions: the judge would be happy to send me to jail as a warning to others.

What stood between me and a stint in federal prison—there’s one near the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor—was a pretty certificate behind a glass frame on the wall. I had no other proof.

The Burden of Proof

The certificate eventually came out from behind the glass only partially defaced, because a corner had fused to the glass. The solution was to break the glass, like you might do to get an axe in case of a fire. I have always wondered what you would do with an axe, standing in the middle of a burning building. Start vandalizing burning walls? What good would that do? What good is an axe against metal doors, anyway?

But break the glass I did, in an effort to put out this judicial fire. I had to make a photocopy of the certificate; bits of glass reflected the light while on the glass platen giving the effect of glitter. I tried to send a fax to the clerk’s office but they informed me they did not take faxes from out-of-state attorneys.

I explained that I was a locally-admitted attorney who was out of state and they simply repeated that out of state attorneys were not allowed to send faxes. They did offer the helpful suggestion that I call the judge’s chambers; but the helpful suggestion turned out to be less than useful when I reached an answering machine.

I thought that all I needed to do was send a copy of the certificate to the judge, but I was not to get off so easy. The clerk might misfile the certificate or not know what to do with it. After all, the Office of the Clerk had already reported, after thorough search no less, that the pretty certificate did not exist. Given that there was an official finding that the certificate did not exist, the fact that I held it in my hand was irrelevant. The judicial finding controls.

Pleading

To file the a copy of the certificate, with its glitter and all, I had to prepare a pleading describing what had happened. As I didn’t know what happened except that the certificate in my hand was deemed not to exist, I had to argue that it did exist after all.

But I had to do so in a polite way, apologize for any inconvenience that I had caused the court and opposing counsel—the fact that I had made no mistake did not excuse me from the need for an apology for the lack of an apology would weigh heavily on appeal given the presumption of correctness of a lower court’s findings, especially after thorough inquiry.

I made five copies, included a self-addressed stamped envelope to receive a stamped copy of the pleading and went to the Federal Express office at the quiosque on 27th Avenue and US 1, just across the street from the Shell gas station.

We Don’t Make Mistakes

Officially, I never heard the end of it. There was no ruling from the judge finding that the pretty certificate in fact existed, nor an order quashing the Rule to Show Cause.

I wasn’t satisfied. I asked a friend to visit the Clerk’s office on my behalf in an effort to try to figure out what had happened. A few days later, he called.

“It’s the apostrophe in your name,” he said. They alphabetized it as if it were a letter, so that O’K comes before OK. But the clerk that searched went right to the K’s and didn’t look at the apostrophes. Your name didn’t come up, so they told the judge who had asked if a certain Miami lawyer was admitted.

They couldn’t admit their mistake because if they did; then every time the Clerk’s office made thorough inquiry lawyers could claim that a mistake had been made, “just like in the O’Kane apostrophe case.” So the best course was to say nothing more, do nothing more and hope that the matter would be forgotten.

Yes, I was out of pocket the cost of Fedex and long distance calls and I had spent a worried afternoon drafting the pleading, but so what? I should be happy I wasn’t dragged to Michigan by the U.S. Marshal and forced to sit shackled behind the two marshals with shotguns.

There was no order, so there was nothing to appeal. And no, I shouldn’t expect an apology. “We don’t make mistakes.“