Criminal law, Justice, Lawyering, Politics, Society

Manaport Declines To Testify Or Present Defense in Alexandria Trial

ManafortIn a brief exchange with Judge T.S. Ellis III, former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort declined yesterday to take the stand in his own behalf.  His defense then declined to present its own case and moved the trial to closing arguments. Given the highly damaging evidence offered by the prosecution, there is little that will be offered to actually refute the charges.  The decision to waive testimony and a defense case can be a strong strategic choice in a case where the defense savaged the prosecution. That is not this case.

As I have previously discussed, even if Manafort, 69, succeeded in tainting his former aide Rick Gates, Manafort still came off worse at trial. More importantly, the defense did little to refute documents and Manafort’s own words in emails on the underlying accounts and transactions.  This includes evading taxes on at least $16.5 million in income from his sources in Ukraine and more than $20 million in allegedly fraudulent bank loans.

Defense lawyers made a special effort, including submitting a last-minute brief, to persuade the judge to throw out four bank fraud charges involving $16 million in loans that Mr. Manafort obtained from a small Chicago bank in late 2016 and early 2017. Richard Westling, one of Mr. Manafort’s lawyers, argued that the bank, Federal Savings Bank, was not defrauded because its chairman, Stephen M. Calk, was determined to do business with Mr. Manafort, despite questions about Mr. Manafort’s wherewithal. He also argued that bank officials were well aware of Mr. Manafort’s true financial situation.

The last few days of the trial included emails where Manafort sought to secure a high level position in the Trump Administration for Federal Savings Bank Chairman Stephen M. Calk, who loaned him millions on highly questionable submissions.  That was one of the few connections drawn to the campaign in the trial.

Manafort made the standard Rule 29 motion for acquittal for lack of evidence.  Notably, Ellis (who has been controversial in his criticism of the prosecution) said that he thought Manafort made “significant argument” for acquittal on one set of bank-fraud allegations.  However, he said the decision would have to be left to the jury.

The failure to take the stand is certainly Manafort’s right, but it is folly to pretend that it does not taint a defense with a jury. Most jurors do not understand why an innocent man would not want to take the stand on his own behalf.  Martha Stewart is a good example of the perils of such a strategy.  The failure to present a defense or to testify only reaffirms the view of many that Manafort is playing for a pardon.  His two trials could be efforts to knock down as many counts as possible  while remaining both silent and loyal to the President.  It must have been viewed as a good sign when Trump recently compared the treatment of Manafort to the treatment of Al Capone.  If Trump decides to go into a full attack mode against Mueller, Manafort likely hopes that he could be a beneficiary among the possible pardons.

As I have previously stated, I believe that chances for conviction on some of these counts is quite high. This strategy own magnifies those odds against Manafort.

 

237 thoughts on “Manaport Declines To Testify Or Present Defense in Alexandria Trial”

  1. Manafort found guilty on eight counts.
    Cohen, makes plea deal, directly implicates the President in campaign finance violations.

    A bad day, a very bad day indeed, for Donald Trump.

  2. Crazy leftist judges who don’t care about the death of a child and certainly don’t care about grade school children being shot. It sounds like Linda Sarsour a female icon of the left is a supporter of these people.

    “Explosive Details Emerge About New Mexico Cult

    BY CLARION PROJECT Wednesday, August 15, 2018
    Clarion’s Ryan Mauro and Fox News unveil more chilling details about the Islamist compound of the New Mexico cult. We also hear about a judge whose ruling in the case my put the public in considerable danger. Watch the video:”

    https://clarionproject.org/explosive-details-emerge-about-new-mexico-cult/

    1. John Kiriakou, a fine american and CIA whistleblower, who exposed the unlawful and counterproductive torture of detainees at gitmo.

      Jimmy Dore, a progressive liberal who dares to question Hillary.

      How dare you link them here!

      1. “CIA and Saudis went in to overthrow Assad…. it brought in jihaadis and Russians…. 7 years of disaster started under Obama and continued under Trump… get out of Syria”

        1. the ‘Permanent state” not the Deep State. Listen to that you stupid Hillary shills. Trump is not the enemy. The permanent state of war and conquest and disregard for foreign nations’ sovereignty by the US “Permanent State” is the biggest threat to national security not “the Russians”

    1. hollywood – send an email to JT. His son Jack is responsible for this latest fix. 🙂 At least it wasn’t the vaunted Professor Luna.

      1. hollywood – JT seems to post his threads for the evening sometime between 12 pm and 1 am EDT. I usually start getting them at 10 pm MST right now. At that hour I forgive all misspellings. 😉

  6. There’s no mystery here, unless you haven’t been paying attention.
    Manafort isn’t talking despite being in solitary 23 hours a day. His defense was lacking. Why is that? Because he’s safer on the inside than he is on the streets.
    Manafort owes millions to Oleg Deripaska. Amidst the gigantic trade war last week Trump is giving Rusal, a Russian aluminum magnate, a sanctions waiver. The controlling shareholder of Rusal is none other than Oleg Deripaska. Trump gives Deripaska access to the US market where he will make well in excess of what Manafort owes him, and maybe set some cash aside for Manaforts family. In return Manafort will never talk and his family will be taken care of while he gets to keep breathing.
    This is not rocket science.

    2. Interesting. If you spool out alternate scenarios, what would have become of Manafort if Trump lost? Nothing to give Deripaska. Nowhere to hide if he wasn’t charged. Would he be swimming with fishes?
      It seems the defense is left with hoping against hope for a jury hung on all counts (good luck with that), or at some undefined point a pardon. If pardoned, Manafort still has the Deripaska issue. And what will he do for income? Now, where he is, he’s got three hots and a cot.

    3. Barbra, on this thread it’s not, er, ‘polite’ to suggest that Trump really knows any Russians. He ‘does’, of course. But the old-timers here think that Peter Strzok fabricated the Russia Probe. So commenters are under ‘peer pressure’ to accept that narrative.

      1. Months ago when they were standing in 1 inch water said nothing to see here. Now they are up to their waists, again nothing to see here, They think the water will drain off the flat edge of the world. And then complain that Hillary made a flat spot on the earth.

        1. Yeah, Fushwing, we’re making great progress in settling the “collusion” issue.
          Mired in mud up to their knees would be a better analogy for the investigators.
          They’ve produced nothing related to “collusion” , they’ve given no indication where, if anywhere, they’re going with that allegation, and it’s time for them to put up or shut up.
          The public’s confidence in Mueller and his investigation has eroded, and people need some answers …..not another two years from now, not after the November election, but now.

          1. I’m sure you were hoping for a quick Benghazi investigation too. Watch what you hope for, cause you are not going to like it when it comes out.

            1. Remind me Fishwings, who was the Special Counsel in either the Benghazi investigation, or in Hillary email investigation.
              I don’t think Hillary was President during either one of those investigations, but gumming up the Executive Branch with drawn out investigations, had she been elected, would be a good way to complain about the election results.

            2. Benghazi is clear. US playing games in Libya stirring up sh*t, under bellicose Hillary pursuing her own rogue foreign policy, she failed to provide adequate security, and a US ambassador and guards lost their lives.

              oh and she failed to call in the cavalry, who were waiting within striking distance

              what else is there to say? it’s no exoneration that’s for sure

              1. Kurtz, feel free to post the findings of the Benghazi committee regarding the culpability of either Hillary or Obama.

                1. They both lied publicly and repeatedly and quite brazenly. There are still things we don’t know about the sequence of events that night.

                  1. Well those committees had years to investigate. What the hell were they dong??

                    1. They did not get the answers that they wanted to hear. 10’s of millions, countless hearings, 4 and half years of investigations 12 hours of live TV and they got nothing.

                    2. I think the investigation of the Benghazi Committe lasted for 2 years; I don’t know where some of the lengthier estimates are coming from.
                      When an Ambassador and others are killed at a U.S. diplomatic outpost, it’s bound to draw attention, and raise questions.
                      It didn’t help matters any when people like Susan Rice fronted the Obama Administration’s trial balloon that this was a “spontaneous” reaction to “the video”.
                      I forget the name of the White House writer and Spin Master who was scrambling to construct ” talking points” to distract from the issue that there was absolute choas in Libya, and some dangerous, organized terrorist group.
                      I think the Benghazi attack happened maybe 3 months, if that before the 2012 election.
                      The last thing that the Obama Administration wanted was attention drawn to the seriousness of the unraveling of Libya after they stupidly decided to defeat and depose Gaddafi.
                      That political desire to cloud the question of what actually happened was not hard to miss.
                      Leaving that aside, it’s probably a good idea to find out what happened when a planned, sustained attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound by heavily armed terrorists kills the Ambassador and 3 other people.
                      Members of Congress typically serve on multiple committees, and they have other responsibilities; this makes it impossible to do a full-time, day-after-day follow though for those committees.
                      They are more likely to meet in a start and stop approach, and it’s not as if they have 17 fulltime prosecutors working continuously toward completion.
                      That’s what prompted my earlier question to Fishwings about “who the Special Counsel was in the Benghazi investigation”.
                      If people like Fishwing and others are going to drawing half-assed “comparisons” between the length of the Trump/ Russia investigation and the Benghazi investigation, I’ll point out how lame that “comparison” is.

                    3. THE VOTE TO ESTABLISH THE BEGHAZI COMMITTEE WAS IN MAY, 2014.
                      THE FINAL REPORT WAS IN JULY, 2016.
                      I DON’T KNOW HOW FISHWINGS GETS 4 1/ 2 YEARS OUT OF THAT, BUT I HAVEN’T SEEN FISHWING’S CALENDER.

                2. Peter Hill,
                  The final Benghazi report was released a couple of years ago….I think it’s about 2,000 pages long.
                  Rather than Mr. Kurtz posting the findings, would you read the report, and then get back to us on your interpretation of the findings of the Benghazi Committee?
                  We’ll wait until you’ve read it cover-to-cover.☺😊

                  1. I think the White House Spin Master was Ben Rhodes….I couldn’t think of his name earlier.
                    He went through 10-15 different versions of the “right” talking points; i.e., the ones that would do the least poltical damage in the last months of the campaign.
                    That was the Obama Administration’s priority; the Benghazi Committee had different priorities.

      2. There are many ways to investigate, unfortunately, Strzok and others chose the wrong way. It actually is pretty simple when one looks at a person’s job description and then follows what is done and if they do the same for everyone. Does one need to ask what was different about Feinstein’s problem and other related problems? Of course, but the same standards didn’t exist. That is a tip-off that superficial thinkers can’t deal with. It requires a bit of thought and logic.

            1. talk about an FBI counterintelligence failure. where were the FBI geniuses like Sztroke when it came to alerting a high ranking senator that her daily driver was a Chinese spy?

        3. Allan – you are forgetting DWS and the 50 Congress critters who had a Pakistani spy doing all their IT work and sending copies to Pakistan. 😉 The Democrats seem to have a spy problem.

          1. Paul, you have to be careful that you don’t overwhelm Peter. He has limited abilities so we have to keep things simple. He actually thinks it is criminal to sell Russians and other people high priced homes.

      3. I think what concerns people, among other things, is the lead FBI Investigator on the Trump-Russia investigation who has a history of saying “we’ll stop him”, and talking about “an insurance policy” if Trump did win.
        Either you understand the significance of that, or you don’t, or you just choose to gloss over it, Peter.

        1. So, Tom Nash, does this negate all of the evidence put forth in the Manafort trial? All of the documents, e-mails, all of the testimony are now false because of what Strzok said? Only a Fox Disciple would conclude this, so keep listening to Hannity for your daily dose of counter-reality.

          Meanwhile, yesterday the results of 3 different opinion polls were released, and they show, once again, that most Americans don’t like or approve of Trump, they want the Mueller investigation to proceed, and that they want Trump to testify.

          1. Natacha,

            Tom, as you know, along with the other Trumpers on this thread, seized on Strzok’s termination as ‘proof’ the entire Russia Probe was fabricated by Stzok and Page. And the Trumpers’ sense of rage at Strzok, fueled by Trump’s tweets, reached unprecedented levels of self-righteous indignation.

            We’re supposed to forget that Trump’s odd links to Russia were not already well-know to mainstream media when Strzok first joined the investigation. Those links weren’t known to Trumpers because right-wing media never carried that news.

            So because right-wing media never featured those stories, Strzok must have manufactured the Russia Probe out of thin air. That was the basic narrative spiraling through this thread yesterday.

            1. “We’re supposed to forget that Trump’s odd links to Russia were not already well-know to mainstream media”

              Here goes Peter Shill again making statements that aren’t true. Odd links are neither bad nor good. Trumps links had to do with the sale of property and such sale brings money into the US. That is a good thing. Peter must not be used to being an entrepreneur and probably is used to being given money rather than producing it.

              Once again we ask Peter Shill exactly what significant thing that Trump did that was illegal and the proof behind that contention. He never can offer much detail because he doesn’t know very much. Just look at how Peter managed the comparison of JFK to Trump.

                1. What is the crime? These Russian billionaires paid for property that Trump developed. Where is the crime and where is the proof?

                  The Russian billionaires were anxious to bring dollars to America. Many Russians, Chinese and people from other nations have paid hefty prices for homes. They also have to pay state and local taxes every year. The annual taxes on some of those homes are in the vicinity of $1Million plus a year and they don’t even require much service from the community. They also hire numerous people to maintain their property that adds dollars to the local community. They buy multimillion dollar yachts that also have a high tax and then pay people to run the yacht and keep it in good shape. They eat in local restaurants and buy expensive dinners. They have expensive cars that are taxes and have to be maintained.

                  Peter, what are you complaining about? They are making sure a lot of Americans are employed and providing money to schools, roads etc. You have no idea of how economies function. What do you do for the economy? Leach?

          2. I will try to explain something to Nagcookoo.
            I wrote about THE STRZOK INVESTIGATION OF TRUMP-RUSSIAN “COLLUSION”.
            Now Nagcoockoo can explain to me what Strzok’s bias had to do with Manafort’s financial crimes, or what the Manafort trial had to do with “Russian collusion” .
            Your trying to somehow tie together the Manafort trial and the central issue of “collusion”, and Strzok’s investigation of that alleged collusion.
            MUELLER HIMSELF DID NOT ALLEGE THAT CONNECTION….DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT THIS TRIAL IS ABOUT, WHAT THE CHARGES ARE?
            If I have to explain the most basic, fundamental things to you again and again, I’ll ask for your attendants’s email and have that attendant explain this things to you.
            My 11 year- old nephew has a better understanding of what’s going on than you do.
            You are all over the place, you make wild, unsubstantiated accusations that must be true because you “believe them to be true”.
            I’m not into giving remedial education for someone as abysmally ignorant as you.

  7. One way to encapsulate these discussions is to make the assertion that winning an election, no matter how thinly and no matter how deviously, is absolute protection against any accusations of illegal acts undertaken in order to win said election.

    1. Jay S.,…
      – The question, asked repeatedly here, is what
      “Illegal acts undertaken in order to win said election”.
      You need to advise Mueller on this…..between the FBI investigation that was folded into the Special Counsel investigation, the investigators have been d***ing around for two years, and so far all we have is expects like you talking about “illegal acts”.
      That’s why they need your guidance as to what illegal acts were committed by Trump or his campaign, because after two friggin years, they don’t seem to have a clue.
      It’s also news that “winning an election ….is absolute protection against any accusations of illegal acts undertaken to win said election.”
      There’s been no shortage of those accusations to explain Hillary’s loss.
      That statement by you is probably the dumbest comment posted I’ve seen here in a long time.
      Do you follow the news at all?

      2. How do you know what Mueller’s team has on Trump? Again, you are clearly a Fox Disciple. Here’s another little reality check: if there really, truly, is no evidence that Trump committed crimes, he wouldn’t be obsessing about Mueller. As to your question about whether people follow “the news”, the answer is: they do. The Fox channel does not put out “news’, just pro-Trump propaganda.

        1. How do you know what Mueller’s team has on Trump?

          This investigation has been ongoing for two years and all the indictments have been humbug bar those contra Manafort (matters which could have been handled by the U.S. Attorney and have nothing to do with Trump). That tells you something (if you’re minimally intelligent).

        2. Natcookoo is beyond all help and beyond all logic.
          This is a g d waste of time.
          This brilluant Fox News ploy is sheer idiocy on her part and has nothing to do with the issues.
          You are dumb as a post and seem to get dumber with every post.
          Unbelievable.

        3. We don’t know what Mueller knows, or does not know…..what, as Natacha puts it, “Mueller has on Trump”.
          And there is a reason for that….,after two years of investigations, first the FBI investigation headed by Strzok, then taken over by Mueller, nobody has produced anything “that they have on Trump”.
          Nor has Mueller informed the public where he’s at, or where he’s going, with this investigation’s primary purpose.
          I am attempting to explain these things in terms that even Natacha can understand.
          But if she is fixated on brilliant analysis😒😊😂 that concludes it’s only “Fox Disciples” that would raise these points, then her brain is too far gone to really register what is being explained to her in even the simplest terms.

    2. Jay, you’re right. 80,000 people in three states means that Trump has an absolute mandate to bulldoze anyone who gets in his way. It means that Trump can attack his opponents in daily tweets and declare them ‘enemies of the state’. Trump can tell any lie he pleases, and anyone who notes the lie is an enemy of the state. That’s how our founding fathers intended it when they designed the Electoral College System.

      1. No, I think what the Founding Fathers had in mind was ****ing around with a protracted investigation without reaching a conclusion.
        That’s the next best thing to overturning an election.

        1. You seem to lack patience, young man. Let’s see what the jury does with this case. Let’s see what the next jury does with Big Pauly’s next case. Let’s see Trump’s response. Let’s see which new indictments or pleas come down. Let’s see what happens in the midterms. You can wait till November 6, can’t you?
          So, get your popcorn and sit back and relax. This really isn’t “an investigation.” It’s multiple investigations, protracted or otherwise.

          1. I’ve been hearing the same thing since “Let’s see if Flynn flips” at the start of the Trump Administration.
            If you think that the public has infinite patience with this protracted state of limbo, look at some of the polling.

            1. The public is tired of being polled and poll axed.
              You’ll just have to wait. But while waiting, try to open your mind to the possibility of Trump’s guilt.

              1. Hollywood,.
                When I see an investigation drag on and on with no evidence produced of Trump’s guilt, and a mute Special Counsel who is “above” telling the public where he’s at or where he’s going in relation to the question of Trump’s guilt, it does not point to Trump’s guilt.
                If you and others are content to sit on your dead asses while this thing drags on and on, that’s fine.
                Just recognize that, increasingly, the public is less and less willing to sit with you.
                That’s why Mueller has left himself wide open to attack, and why those attacks are taking a toll on Mueller’s credibility.

                1. Tom, I think I can safely predict that you and those of your frame of mind will never see “the evidence.” That’s your MDS.

                  1. You can’t predict jack****.
                    The evidence has to be presented for ANYONE to see it.
                    Do you understand that concept, Hollywood?

                    2. Tom, when dealing with Hollowood one must recognize they are dealing with a fool.

                    3. Hollywood, you can not even “predict” the past; in fact, as I’ve pointed out, you have lied about a past exchange.
                      If you think you can “predict” the future when you distort the past, you should cling to that.
                      Lie more about things if that helps you; you don’t seem to have any hesitation about lying through your teeth, so do what works for you.

                  2. i am glad you think you can prejudge us so well. it raises confidence on our side that we can prejudge you too. the lines are being drawn!

              2. guilt of what? being the billy badass we were waiting for. that’s what. Hail to the Chief!

            2. Tom: I just saw yesterday’s polling results: 70% of Americans want the Mueller investigation to continue and for Trump to testify. Again, since you don’t watch real news, you wouldn’t know this.

              1. I just saw

                You shouldn’t be scoping your own rectum. It’s gross.

              2. The amazing thing is that when tracking both Obama and Trump approval ratings we see the two very close at the same times in their Presidency with positions changing back and forth. The amazing thing is the amount of good press given to Obama and bad press given to Trump. Without such favorable press, Obama would be far behind.

              4. Is that the same polling outfit that you said had Trump in the low 30s?
                About 50% of the public question Mueller’s obhectivity.
                The CNBC article I cited a few days ago noted that Mueller favorability ratings have been dropping by the month.
                I know when you only read David Brock publication and consume other pablum that you can’t be expected to know these things, so don’t overdo.

          2. Hollywood and others would do well to review the primary objective in appointing a Special Counsel, and the prioritization of the Trump/ Russia investigation that preceded the Sp.C.
            These sideshows are no excuse for not answering the “collusion” issue.
            Hell, the FBI had been investigating Manafort since at least 2014; it didn’t take a Special Counsel team to indict and try him.

        2. Tom, just how long do you think investigations like this **ought** to take? — since you say these are too slow.

      2. Peter Hill never tires if whining about ‘”the 80,000 votes”, as though this was the only close election.
        A shift of about 4,000 votes in Hawaii and 5500 votes in Ohio would resulted in Ford beating Carter in 1976.
        A relatively small shift of about 60,000 votes, I think, would have tilted the 2004 election to Kerry….in spite of Kerry losing the popular vote by c. 3,000,000.
        These are just two “narrow margin” elections I can think of, offhand.
        I’m not sure that any election, except maybe 1824, has produced this much whining for this long.

        1. was al gore a whiner? or did he have a legit point of view?

          just a few votes can mean a big difference. that’s voting. get used to it.

        2. Ford won every state west of the Mississippi, including California. That was a bad omen for Jimmy Carter.

          1. No, the bad omens for Jimmy Carter were the CPI numbers, to which he responded with dithering.

            1. Oh, I’m sorry Spastic. Did I say Ford won California? I didn’t mean to imply that Trump’s in trouble for losing California. There is that old saying, of course, that, “As California goes, so goes the nation”. But forget I ever said that. I don’t want to upset anyone.

              1. flyover will go the way of california? only at the point of federal bayonets, and at some point, that too will fail

              2. the arrogance of California fruits and nuts is amazing. Only they fail to see it, living in Liberal Zion

            2. DSS, I think you are speaking at a level out of Peter’s reach. He doesn’t understand what the CPI represents or how it got as high as it got. It destroyed seniors and anyone on a fixed pension. It destroyed many others as well but not as completely.

              Jimmy Carter robbed seniors of their money to pay for failed programs.

              1. Look again, Allen. The budget deficit was lower under Carter than Ronald Reagan. So all those ‘failed programs’ that ‘robbed seniors’ weren’t really bloating the deficit.

                Carter inherited inflation that began 10 years earlier. Then the Iranian Revolution sent that inflation soaring by way of oil prices.

                1. Things might have turned out differently had the Carter Administration not courted the Ayatollah Khomeini.
                  There was a debate within the Carter Administration about continued backing of the Shah’s regime, or welcoming in a new regime.
                  Once the U.S. pulled support for the Shah, his position weakened, and it encouraged the revolutionaries.

                  1. There had been a recent incident where agents of the Shah’s secret police started a fire at a movie theater. Once those allegations surfaced, the shah was radioactive. Carter couldn’t possibly support him.

                    Nevertheless Khomeini never came across as all that sympathetic in the Western media. Khomeini was on record as saying he wanted to take Iran “back to the 13th Century”, or something to that effect.

                    Therefore Carter was facing an impossible choice as that revolution surged. What’s more, the Shah was known to have cancer. So there was no real point in going out on a limb for the Shah if the latter only had so long to live.

                    2. Peter,..
                      I don’t think it was ever determined who started that fire.
                      I don’t know if the Shah was diagnosed with cancer when the uprising started, or after he left the country…I’d have to check on that.
                      The Shah’s objective was to defer to a careraker government, headed by an opponent of the Shah.
                      _( He was assassinated in Paris years latter….I guess the Ayatollahs didn’t want to take any chance of competition returning to Iran.
                      The Shah’s government might have continued even in the absence of a healthy Shah. Once the U.S, did a 180 on the Shah’s regime, that send a strong signal to both the Shah’s government and to the military.
                      It looked like the Shah was unwilling to engage in a potential civil war, in using the amount of military force that would be necessary to put down the uprising.
                      That was especially true after Carter went from toasting the Shah as an island of stability in that region, to pulling all support for him.
                      Without clear direction from the Shah’s regime, his military leadership was plagued by indecision.
                      The Western press actually had a positive attitude toward Khomeni.
                      That image was helped along by statement’s describing Khomeni as “saintly” by Andrew Young, I think….Carter’s ambassador to the U.N.
                      It was not “an impossible choice” that Carter faced….you might review the debate with the Carter Administration, especially the input of Zgniew Brezinski.
                      There may not have been great choices, but there were “less worse” options.

                2. Peter, you use thin reasoning that is the simplistic result of listening to predigested talking points rather than actually understanding how everything is interlinked. Carter was an absolute disaster and when people get over the fact that Obama was part white they will find that he was a disaster as well.

                  I wrote a comparison between JFK and Trump and still wait for a reply that has merit.

                  1. Allen, how old are you?? Seriously. Are you over 80? Because it often seems to me like you’re suffering from the onslaught of dementia. And I don’t say that to be nasty. It happens to everyone who lives long enough. I only mention it because you often sound less than rational.

                    1. Peter, I thank you for your concern. My age is of no consequence. Your problem is a lack of intellect, not any dementia on my part. I have always been and continue to be involved in things that require substantial knowledge and an ability to deal with details. No one who knows me would consider your observation reasonable. Likely they would be questioning your sanity.

                      I am totally honest and blunt which sometimes upsets people. You act like a shill and you prevaricate. You are unable to have an in-depth discussion based on proof. You sound as if you had a liberal arts education and never was required to be innovative. That is fine but it has left you with an unarmed brain.

                    2. Peter,
                      I share your concerns about Allan. To me, however, he seems a very angry, narcissistic, relatively unsuccessful young man (perhaps in his 40s) who is blaming the world for his failings. Thus, he engages in name calling, condescencion, projection, denial, factual distortions and untruths in a poor attempt to create his own world with its own truths–thruths the rest of us shall never know. Alas, poor, Allan.

                    3. “Peter, I share your concerns about Allan.”

                      Of course you would Hollowood. You are a fool.

                3. Carter inherited inflation that began 10 years earlier.

                  And it got worse and worse during his tenure (after a period of modest improvement under Gerald Ford). This was Carter’s response:

                  1. Nothing (January 1977 – April 1978)

                  2. Appoint Robert Strauss ‘special counselor on inflation’. Strauss jets around the country trying to persuade industrialists to not raise prices. (April – Oct 1978)

                  3. Appoint Dr. Alfred Kahn as chairman of the Council on Wage and Price Stability. Kahn drafts a set of wage and price ‘guidelines’ and plans to limit federal contracts to those who’ve followed the guidelines. After a year, Carter persuades the AFL-CIO to endorse the guidelines. Price for their support: the guidelines won’t be enforced on federal contractors. (Oct. 1978-Oct 1979)

                  4. Paul Volcker, 3 months into his tenure as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, announces that henceforth, his agency will abandon interest-rate targets in favor of targeting the rate of grown of monetary aggregates (Monetary base, M1, M2, M3, and L). (Oct. 1979)

                  5. Carter gets spooked and insists Voelcker abandon his policy innovation and institute credit controls. This is sold as a bold new policy rather than a policy reversal. (March 1980)

                  6. Carter is blown out of office (4 November 1980)

                  7. Ronald Reagan confers with Paul Volcker and endorses his plans to contain monetary aggregates (February 1981)

                  8. Recession (July 1981 – November 1982). At the terminus, consumer prices decline for the first time since 1954.

                  1. please spas stop with the facts. you’re invading a liberal “safe space” with controversy.

                  2. That is a pretty good explanation of what Carter did to manage inflation. Peter will now run away from the discussion and tell us how great Carter was. He even helped solve the oil crunch (Sarcasm). He told the entire country to buy sweaters.

                    I think his brother Billy may have had more common sense.

                    1. Brother Billy ran the family businesses from 1963 until his death. The media commonly left the impression that the only business he ran was a gas station.

                    2. Allan – didn’t Billy Carter want us to get drunk to stay warm? 😉

                  3. Good rundown, Spastic.

                    Paul Volker eventually got a handle on that issue! By jacking up interest rates he caused the so-called “Reagan Recession”. But it put an end to inflation.

        3. People are “whining”, as you put it, because Trump cheated. He is also patently unfit for office, and this has nothing to do with his politics, but his lack of intelligence, mental health, integrity, character and morals.

          1. No, you’re whining because he didn’t cheat and he has an unusual degree of preparation to sit in an executive position in the federal government.

            1. …because, after all, he builds golf courses with other peoples’ money and stiffs contractors.

              1. “…because, after all, he builds golf courses with other peoples’ money”

                Another financial genius who has as much understanding of the financial world as a 5-year-old.

                1. Usually we just have to explain what ‘equity capital’ is, which is a ratchet above Jay’s apparent understanding.

                  1. Equity capital: Money sent to Trump by Russian oligarchs and others over there, to finance Trump’s golf courses and hotels, in exchange for favorable treatment by the US towards Russia.

                2. Allan,
                  Can you dial it back? You are in danger of breaking the Condescension-o-meter.

                  1. Hollowood, does someone have to explain “equity capital” to you as well? I can’t help it if you or others have no aptitude on the subject matter.

                    2. “Nurse! Another shot of Chlorpromazine for this patient, stat!”

                      Hollowood, that is a pretty big word for you.

                      You are a fool.

              2. Trump has a lot of experience with BK. for the biggest sovereign debt issuer in history, maybe that’s a good thing?

  8. I think Manafort’s lawyer will use lots of words in his closing argument today, but it will essentially boil down to this:

  9. Rick Scott created one of the largest if not the largest health care insurance companies in the US and ran it while it defrauded the US taxpayer of over $200 million in Medicaid and Medicare dollars. He sold his shares shortly afterwards for over $300 million. Then his company, HCA Columbia was fined for almost two billion dollars. During the trial Scott took the 5th over two dozen times in response to questions about his involvement, the guy who created the company and ran it while the fraud was ongoing.

    Then Scott used tens of millions to buy himself the Governorship of Florida, twice. So, Manafort will probably be the next secretary of the treasury or maybe even Vice President, if Pence ticks off Trump. This is how America elects its representatives.

    The big question is will Trump pardon Manafort right away and take the flack or wait for the smart thing to do and pardon him in Dec. 2020?

    1. Mr. Basonkavich, you’re probably right. Trump should hold off for as long as he can to pardon Manafort. But I have to wonder how long Manafort can wait. It’s quite the pickle for the both of them. Maybe they’ve both earned an extended spell in the sweat lodge.

      1. For dangerous criminals incarceration, to prevent them from harming any innocent ones, is necessary first. Then their punishment acts as a deterrent. The punishment thing is subjective, but being locked up and perhaps abused for a number of years is punishment, there is a tit for whatever tat. The tit for white collar criminals such as Manafort, aside from playing chess with Bernie, should be regular time in a pillory on public display with very ripe fruit sold, proceeds to go to the victims. Scum like Bernie and Manafort don’t pose an immediate physical threat to anyone but their attitudes do damage society. Perhaps a day or two a month in the stocks will serve as an attitude adjustment and/or an example of how participate financially in society. Manafort can wear a different ten thousand dollar suit each time.

        1. Isaac,
          The U.S. did away with stocks and the like a long time ago.
          I don’t know what the criminal justice system is like in your native country or the other third-world countries, but that isn’t allowed in the U.S.

        2. here the liberal commentator calls out for a shameful punishment that was abolished under the 8th amendment of the US Constitution as cruel and unusual a long time ago.

          Canadian, get thee behind me!

          1. It wasn’t. The birch, the cane, and the pillory should be returned to use. The Singapore government shows you how it’s done:

            1. heinlein thought so. i would return caning before the stocks however. that encourages criminal activity against the detained person. caning is an efficient punishment that only results in a slight injury. its probably a hell of a lot more humane than long term incarceration.

              1. Kurtz

                I am not for physical punishment a la caning. The humiliation of being helplessly held in a restraining/exposing device-one could pad the openings-and being pelted with non lethal and non physically harming almost rotten fruit and vegetables is most appropriate for those who cheat while given the greatest advantages in life. A poor sap who gets jailed for robbing a bank while threatening innocents and perhaps killing, goes to jail and gets it that way. A person like Manafort or Trump, who throughout gets away without paying taxes and cheats while at the top, should be displayed and humiliated. The humiliation is the direct connection to the arrogance. If you are that concerned for this sort of scumbag, give them goggles. Imagine, a couple/few days a week, you could buy rotten tomatoes, that would otherwise be thrown out, and contribute to a charity. Eventually, over the course of a jail term, it might sink in.

                1. thus we see that a liberal invokes shame and abuse from third parties for punishment, like antifa out there throwing pee bottles on socalled neonazi demostrators invoking their first amendment rights to speech and assembly

                  i think after a fair trial a modest amount of cane swats would be good for petty crimes like vandalism, simple battery or assault, maybe first offense DUI, stuff like that. don’t waste social resources on jails when a fast flogging will suffice.

                  again, stocks are bad, and encourage people to commit crime just as you said. there is no legal license to throw rotten fruit at a detained person and it’s sickening that people like you still see that as a decent punishment even as you decry corporal punishments.

                  the liberal mind is a sick and twisted one, devoid of simple, clean, viewpoints, always full of vague nuance where none is needed, and tricky solutions to simple problems; seeking a circuitous route to some presumed social good, which more often than not is just more chaos in an undending cycle of continuous social atomization and loss of common value and purpose among the people.

                2. nonetheless my Canadian observer, Isaac Son of Bacon, i thank you for a stimulating remark.

  10. Defense counsel can argue in “closing argument”. I would focus on the lame charges and state to the jury that there is evil intent in the prosecution. If I thought I had some Trump supporters on the panel I would throw some Hillary dirt out there. I would talk about “the dirt” bandied about by the prosecutor, such as the price of a jacket paid for by Manafort. I would say: “Don’t let your kids go to work for the government–even in a high capacity job for a short time such as the term of a President..”
    “Reasonable doubt!” “Proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” “Your doubt is reasonable.” “Not guilty!”

    1. By your standards, no one would ever get convicted of anything, unless it was Hillary.

      1. By Jay S.’s standards, a suspicion or an allegation is as good as a conviction when it comes to anything involving Trump and the 2016 election.
        If lame excuses for Hillary’s loss is the continuing refrain nearly two years after the election, that’s pretty pathetic.
        Musta been sumting illegal Trump dun to win ut seems to be a consolation prise that just keeps giving.

        1. Is it mere “suspicion” or “allegation” that Trump separated innocent children from their parents who lawfully have sought asylum in the United States, and, despite being ordered to do so, is incapable of reuniting about 700 of them? Is it mere “suspicion” or “allegation” that Trump bragged about grabbing the genitalia of women he found attractive? How about paying off a Playboy model and a porn star that he copulated with while married? How about calling black people stupid, or dogs, or Mexicans criminals and rapists? How about referring to African countries as shitholes? Then there’s his placing blame for the murder of Heather Heyer equally on White Supremacists and those opposed to White Supremacists. How about calling women fat pigs? Mere suspicion and allegations, or proof of racism, misogyny and xenophobia?

          Hillary won the election by 3 million votes. The mere accident of an outmoded Electoral College cost her the Presidency and saddled the American people with the dumbest and most-incompetent President in U.S. history.

          2. Natacha – is Omarosa above being called a dog because she is black? Do black people have a special category of words they can and cannot be called?

            BTW, talking of grabbing genitalia of beautiful women there is a great Marilyn Monroe story. She was on a film set having difficulties and finally turned and yelled to the cast and crew “Who do I have to fu** to get off this film?”

    2. And using Hillary as an excuse for bad behavior seems to play very well with the easily distracted, low-info Trump supporters.

      2. Barbra Barbour – as long as Trump gets exactly the same treatment as Hillary I do not mind. So far that has not happened. All her people got immunity deals. And then said nothing. She was never put under oath in her interview with the FBI. The memo clearing her was written months before she was interviewed. As long as Trump gets treated like that, I am okay.

        1. PC Schulte,…
          Maybe if they had raided her home to take possession of the server, or raided the office and residence of her Chief-of-Staff turned “lawyer” Cheryl Miller, they would have gained more information.
          But when the FBI Director composes a statement clearing her weeks before she’s interviewed, I don’t think there was ever a snowball’s chance in hell that she’d be indicted.
          The whitewash investigation is an interesting contrast from the tactics of the Special Counsel.
          It’s pointless to try to explain that to apologists for Hillary.

      3. Making unsubstaniated claims that illegal acts on the part of the Trump campaign won the election seems to play well with those who have TDS.
        You are in no position to talk about “low information voters” with a moronic comment like that.

        1. OK, the “TDS” comment proves, beyond any doubt, that you are a Fox Disciple.

          1. Natacha – you only have to be on this blog long enough to find TDS. And read the papers. People are being treated for it. Mental health professionals are raking it in. 😉

          2. The obsession with Fox News on the part oc Nagcookoo and a few others is interesting.
            When you don’t have an argument to holds water, just throw in a sure winner like “Fox News” or “Hannity”, as if you made some kind of a brilliant point.
            I can’t be 100% sure that you are demented soley because of TDS, since you may be demented from other causes as well.
            Your dementia seems to manifest itself mostly in relationship to the results of the 2016 election, and anyone obsessed to the degree you are c. 21 months after the election is clearly unbalanced.

      4. Barbra, anytime you wish to debate using facts and logic leaving out fantasies and untruths there are a whole bunch of people waiting for you to do so.

        Hillary was a terrible choice and that is a fact. Whether or not Trump would have won against another candidate is unknown but the DNC did not do itself any favors by using the tactics they did against Bernie Sanders. I think the DNC, Obama and Hillary Clinton are three of the major reasons Trump is now President.

        Whether one likes Trump or not they have to admire the GDP growth, now are 4.1% and the fall in unemployment which generally doesn’t fall so fast just before reaching what is considered full employment. Trump’s reduction of the U6 was 2-3 times as fast as Obama’s. There are many other positive things that could be stated, but those two alone are enough to applaud Trump.

        1. And, what about the record deficit, due to massive tax cuts mostly benefitting the uber-wealthy? Trump inherited a growing, robust economy, unlike Obama, who inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression. Nothing Trump has done accounts for economic growth, which is projected to fall precipitously next year. If the economy is so great, then why does Trump consistently poll at way less than 50% approval? it is because Trump is a pathological liar and malignant narcissist, and an all-around undesirable person. He is no role model or leader.

          1. “And, what about the record deficit, due to massive tax cuts mostly benefitting the uber-wealthy?”

            The record deficits are due to Democratic refusal to cut the budget. Trump wanted to do so but cannot do so alone. He rightfully wanted to quickly pass a military budget that would protect the nation. Democrats don’t seem to concern themselves with maintaining a strong military. They pretend and lately talk big but have always been appeasers and some even acted as stooges for our worst enemies.

            Some people kick a$$, Obama licked a$$.

            Obama destroyed our economy no matter what you say. Look at the numbers and then look at the graphs created comparing them to similar circumstances. When one has the ability to do that they realize how bad Obama was. You don’t have such ability and that is why you say so many stupid things.

          2. Natacha – since the uber-rich pay the most taxes I have no problem with them getting the biggest break. What do you have against Steve Jobs, Tom Hanks, etc. getting a tax break?

      5. The insults come fast and thick from the merry band of bs’ers here shilling for Hillary, the failed candidate, that the DNC chair said “robbed” the primary from Bernie.

        Not a big deal to you, but Brazile is hardly a Trump supporter.

        https://www.newsweek.com/clinton-robbed-sanders-dnc-brazile-699421

        But don’t listen to her. Keep on blaming Trump and all your prejudices about Republicans, I welcome your continued ignorance and self delusion.

        It’s important to keep Hillary in clandestine control of the national DNC. We are hoping she will try again in the next election!

  11. JT, I think you are wrong about putting Manafort on the stand. I think if the public has learned anything in the last 16 months it is the term “perjury trap.” I think juries are smarter than you think when it comes to criminal trials.

    1. You now there is a sure way to avoid the “perjury trap”….tell the truth!

      1. Justice Holmes – you cannot “tell the truth” if the FBI changes the 302s.

  12. The failure to take the stand is certainly Manafort’s right, but it is folly to pretend that it does not taint a defense with a jury. Most jurors do not understand why an innocent man would not want to take the stand on his own behalf. Martha Stewart is a good example of the perils of such a strategy.

    Again, I think you’d have to scrounge to locate an attorney experienced in criminal defense law who would put a client on the stand except as a Hail Mary pass. One I’m acquainted with offered that laymen have no idea how effective a wily prosecutor can be at making innocent people look guilty.

    2. Without considering the nature of this case, one shies away from placing a dislikeable defendant on the stand.

    3. Did the “wily” prosecutors make up the falisified tax returns, or the bank documents showing accounts and cash that were never reported or for which taxes weren’t paid? How about the e-mails in which Manafort lobbied to get a major cabinet position for the banker who loaned him money? How did the “wily prosecutor” make up this stuff?

  13. The decision to waive testimony and a defense case can be a strong strategic choice in a case where the defense savaged the prosecution. That is not this case.

    Just to point out that Prof. Turley’s experience as a trial lawyer approaches nil.

  14. If Trump pardons Manafort, then Manafort will have to commit criminal contempt of court in order to avoid incriminating Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner. If Manafort commits criminal contempt of court, then Trump will have to pardon Manafort a second time for criminal contempt of court. Unless, of course, Trump grants Manafort a preemptive pardon for criminal contempt of court at the same time that Trump pardons Manafort for bank fraud, tax evasion and all the rest. Chances are that Trump will wait for the conclusion of Manafort’s D.C. trial before pardoning Manafort, anyway. Manafort’s pardon could become a campaign issue in the midterm Congressional elections. If that issue plays poorly for Republicans, then Trump might leave Manafort slowly twisting in the wind until the American people return their verdict at the polls on election day in November of 2018.

    1. If Trump pardons Manafort, and Manafort has no incriminating testimony against Junior or Kushner, Manafort will not commit criminal contempt of court by not incriminating those two.
      So there would be no need for Trump to “grant a preemptive pardon for criminal contempt” or “pardon Manafort a second time”.
      “Chance are” that if Trump pardons Manafort, he will wait until the of the trial, or after the midterms, or after the 2020 elections, or as he’s ready to leave office.
      Or Trump may not pardon Manafort. So Trump may, or may not, pardon Manafort.
      And he may, or may not, pardon him twice.
      And if he pardons Manafort he may, or may not, pardon Manafort before the mid-terms, after the mid-terms, after the 2020 campaign, or right before leaving office.
      I hope this solid analysis is helpful…..because, like L4D, I always avoid convoluted speculation.😊😄😂

      1. Your fear of guesswork has become morbid. Do you have an emoji for morbid fear of guesswork? \_O_/

        1. The emojis for repeated speculation stacked on top on conjecture topped off with guesswork are at the end of my previous comment.
          I think I previously used this😧emoji for emojiphobia.

          1. I’ve used these😯😦😧 as well for phobias…I hope they don’t post differently from what’s appearing on my screen before I hit “Post Comment”.

            1. Different emojis did appear from what I entered in my comment.
              Damn Russian hackers💂

              1. Russians hacking The Buckingham Palace Guard. Excellent guesswork on The Brexit Referendum. I retract my previous diagnosis of your morbid fear of guesswork.

              2. Tommyrot’s fav game:

                https://gamehelp.guru/answers-tips-cheats/find-the-emoji-level-king-of-the-hill-answer/

                “Every now and then a game changes a genre for the better. Well this is one of those situations. Instead of being given emojis to guess a word, you are given words and need to choose the emojis! Fun! It is lots of fun, and is great for all ages. If you get stuck, then find your answers here! We have sorted them by the starting letter of the word!”

                Great for kids of all ages…, but child’s play, nonetheless.

                1. Anonylinks is severely lacking in the ability to put forward an original thought, or use original wording.
                  That is why there are mostly either quotations or links that comprise the bulk of her comments.
                  I’d stay “anonymous” too if I posted only filler links,and filler quotes.

        2. Diane, perhaps there isn’t such an emoji of such nonsense but there is a word for your behavior, STUPID.

          1. Allan,
            – I don’t think she’s stupid. Delusional, Dishonest, Duplicitous….yes
            But not stupid. I just hope I don’t get into trouble like Bill Martin for “defending” her in this comment.

            1. Stupidity even afflicts the supposedly well educated. I am not accusing Natacha of being well educated.

      2. Tom, don’t encourage Late4Yoga’s ramblings. When she is concise, she is actually amusing and a good sport.

          1. L4Yoga enables both David Benson and Marky Mark Mark – I agree with Bill Martin, I think you do have a good sense of humor and you are better when you are more concise.

            1. Flattering L4D will not get you concision from L4D. Flattering yourself will not get you concision from L4D. Here’s an idea: Flatter Peter Hill, instead, and see if that’ll get you any concision from L4D. It’s worth a try. Of course, I won’t be here at the time that you attempt it. But you could make up for a small portion of the derogation you threw at Original Ken.

              1. L4Yoga enables both David Benson and Marky Mark Mark – someone opened their Thesaurus today. I don’t expect concision from you, that would be too much to ask. However, you could stop the repetitiveness.

                I hope it doesn’t make you too upset, but I do not remember the original Ken. He must not have been important enough to make an impact on my synaptic processes. Ken, as a name is familiar, however, that is as much of a synaptic connection as I can make.

                1. In that case you’ve probably forgotten anonymous’ skill with the archives as well. I remember sometime around New Years of 2018 when you said the Sheriff was going be found shot to death on Ken’s front lawn. It was not an accusation against Ken.

                  1. L4Yoga enables both David Benson and Marky Mark Mark – I vaguely remember that exchange, but I remember it was a little more complex than that.

                    2. anonymous – when you are teaching and every 9 weeks you have to learn 90 new names, you tend to flush the old ones. I was introduced to a woman’s husband one time and he said, truthfully, “It doesn’t make any difference, I won’t remember it tomorrow,” I gave him lots of points for honesty. I cannot remember his name either. 😉

                    4. P. S. Progress comes in strange ways. They seem to have satisfied themselves with firing FBI agents rather than gunning down Sheriffs. Who’d’ve thunk they could be so easily pacified?

                    5. Quite a few people remember this exchange, it has been pointed out before. It shows PCS’ character well — false machismo with a reminder of who has the most weapons/ammo — a perspective he has stated many times.

                    6. R. Lien – if it came to a battle between conservatives and liberals, who do you think would be the better armed?

                    7. anonymous – Fishwings is the Original Ken? BTW, that is a true statement.

                    8. PCS being coy, it’s so adorable. He can’t remember anything, but he does “remember it [the exchange] was a little more complex than that.”

                      https://jonathanturley.org/2018/08/15/manaport-declines-to-testify-or-present-defense-in-alexandria-trial/comment-page-1/#comment-1770809

                      “Ken – the sheriff is going to end up dead on your front lawn, as are you when the revolution comes.” — PCS

                      https://jonathanturley.org/2018/01/01/a-year-later-an-investigation-in-search-of-a-crime/comment-page-1/#comment-1688731

                      A theme PCS has written many times.

                    9. R. Lien – I noticed you didn’t put up my several used comment where I say when the revolution comes I will be one of the first against the wall. However, once again, you are taking one sentence out of a conversation. I said that to Ken is response to something he said.

                    10. yeah it matters. Remember Comrade Mao and what he said. Our side is waaaaay better armed supplied and also, and this matters, very coherent social group, and more now than ever.

                      The more you pillory white male native born heterosexuals, the stronger our shared social identity becomes.

                      and trust me a lot of others besides us, are on our side

                      keep pushing for CW2, but one day if it comes, you may end up with severe buyer’s remorse

              2. I have to wonder, does being circumspect about concision constitute circumconcision? A painful thought.

                1. Oh how I love puns. They’re no more painful than a good circumelectrocution.

              3. The only flattery I have heaped on you, L4D, is of your excellent parody of a propagandist and hyper-partisan hack who is estranged from the facts.

        2. Bill Martin,…
          I guess she must be something of a good sport to serve as the resident pinata here.
          And I have conceded that her parody of a shameless propagandist is amusing.

          1. Tom, I just got a smack down from Late4Yoga when I kind of tried to defend her honor. As Popeye once said quoting Confucious: “Woman, she is fickle…ark, ark, ark”

            1. Honor is a crock of cockamamie. And Verdi’s Don Giovanni was a satire. Do the head-scratching, Tab.

              1. L4Yoga enables both David Benson and Marky Mark Mark – Don Giovanni is listed as an opera buffa comic opera. A no point is it described as a satire. Maybe you went to a different opera?

                  1. L4Yoga enables both David Benson and Marky Mark Mark – Verdi’s opera is Don Carlo, based on a Schiller play. Do you actually follow opera or are you just trying to impress us?

                  1. Mr Kurtz – For as great an opera as it is, it deserves more study, however, one of the articles is about Shaw who stole from several superb authors to write a short piece. Of those, the only satire is Shaw’s. The opera is still an opera buffo.

            2. Bill Martin,…
              The delusional can be unpredictable and dangerous; the best defense is a good offense.
              Don’t make that mistake of defending her honor again.😉😃

              1. Krazy Kat Rambler says piñatas serve with honor that must be defensively offended.

              2. “Appeasement only makes the aggressor more aggressive.”
                — Dean Rusk

    2. Alpha male Trump is going to take care of alpha male Manafort who refused to rollover or squeal like a pig for vindictive persecutor Muler. But first let’s not rule out hung jury.

      1. Social dominance, at most, could only ever be a maladaptive recessive allele that could not ever confer any differential reproductive success on any phenotypic individual who expresses that homozygous recessive genotype without precipitating the inevitable decline and extinction of that individual’s lineage amongst the broader population due to the cumulative effects of inbreeding depression. And, even then, a constant gene flow from socially submissive individuals of either the heterozygous or homozygous dominant genotypes migrating into those lineages would be necessary to keep the maladaptive recessive allele for social dominance extant in the population at very low rates of incidence that would continue the long-term viability of population as well as the ongoing differential reproductive success of the socially submissive alleles.

        Since the cultural artifacts of the human political imagination running amok in the world remain a far simpler exegesis for the theory of social dominance hierarchy, itself, one probably ought not so readily knuckle under to the popular, yet pseudoscientific, myth that it’s all about some guy or gal named Alfie.

            1. Three Alfies thumping their chests with three sleepy-faced emojis is about as cute and cuddly as three buttons on the chest of one teddy bear. [Pshaw!]

                1. According to Barbra Barbour, currently at the top of the page, Beta Trump appeased Alpha Deripaska to assure the silence of Beta Manafort. And now we know what Beta Trump’s aluminum tariffs were all about. I’d bet Alpha Vlad feels suitably appeased as well. Unless it makes Putin lick his chops, instead.

                2. We always have the profound thoughts😊😄😂 and links of Anonymous to take up the slack.

    3. oh, don’t be so sure about all that. it’s a judge who declares contempt in a proceeding and a lot of things would need to happen. of course maybe you are smarter than everybody so i will keep on checking in on you in case you lay the golden egg from your cloacal mouth

  15. What is the over/under on how many more times the Jon Turley Hype Machine is going to post that mug shot of Manafort?

  16. Having jury tried over 200 criminal cases to verdict I would respectfully disagree. I have gotten some of my best trial results by keeping the defendant off the stand, and relying on the argument that the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

    An unspoken subtext in this case is how many Trump supporters (if any) are on this jury. Judge Ellis prohibiting the question from being asked during jury selection does not make it go away.

    If there are none, expect a relatively quick verdict. If there are one or two strong supporters who believe (as Judge Ellis said at a pretrial hearing) that Manafort is being prosecuted solely to get him to roll on the President, expect a long deliberation and maybe a hung jury.

  17. Darn,,…I was looking forward to hearing Manafort descibe how Gates screwed him over, and left an innocent Manafort holding the bag.☺😉

  18. Mueller, with “unfettered power,” is pursuing President Trump through the political persecution of Paul Manafort.

    “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.” – Lavrentiy Beria

    Peter Strzok was fired Monday; most of the corrupt 7th Floor is gone or on its way out.

    The DOJ is schizophrenic and increasingly paranoid under the feckless “Rosenstein/Sessions Tag Team.”

    The Obama Coup D’etat in America will succeed or truth will out.

    1. How exactly is there an Obama coup d’etat? Obama has been out of office for many months now. He has no control over any aspect of the federal government.

        1. I’m guessing that the act of investigating a campaign for the Presidency is a coup d’état if, and only if, a) the candidate who was investigated wins the election and b) the candidate who won the election was not Hillary Rodham Clinton. But that’s only a guess based on Trump’s claim that she lost an election that she was supposed to have won.

          1. I’m guessing the attempt to topple a duly elected U.S. President is a coup d’etat.

            I’m guessing the proof in the pudding is the fabricated “dossier,” deceit in the FISA court, the removal of Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Ohr et al. and more to come.

            Please posit that the decimation of the 7th Floor etc. is not indicative, probative, of a coup d’etat.

            1. How do you know the dossier was fabricated? Parts of it have been authenticated, parts of it have not been authenticated, but none of it has been refuted.

              1. Parts of it have been authenticated,

                It’s been determined that it’s the authentic concoction of Christopher Steele.

              2. I got a dossier that says Hillary liked to wear a dog collar and play puppy and pee herself while Huma Abedin yanked at the leash and calledher “My B*****”

                I just heard that from reliable sources. I can’t authenticate it. Like nobody can authenticate the reliable sources that says Donald had a Russian whore pee on him.

                Pee pee parties are hard to authenticate but that didnt stop Steele from making one up!

        1. When one day one hears “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome” ex wanna be?

        2. Michael Aarethun, the quotation from Caliban in Shakespeare’s play is imprecise.

        1. Who dispatched Flynn and Kushner to open back-channel communications with Russia within 48 hrs of the polls closing on November 8th, 2016?

          1. L4Yoga enables both David Benson and Marky Mark Mark – are you saying there is an illegality here because Mueller has not found one.

        1. omarosa is not pulling a coup she is just a goof. avenatti is not pulling a coup he is just leveraging a high profile client’s mischief to get free advertising.

          Obama is not pulling a coup either. Obama is constantly over-blamed and under-rated as a president by republicans. Just as Clinton, in retrospect, seems not as bad as he was, so too Obama was not quite so bad. A lot of bad things that happened under Obama would have happened anyways.

          Moreover, Hillary was a troublemaker for Obama aplenty. A lot of that will never see the light of day. Some of that info is out there too.

Comments are closed.