monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

If it wasn’t a failure, and if it wasn’t such a failure that Trump was blaming his staff - furious that they let it happen, why is Trump’s campaign manager getting ready to announce his resignation all of a sudden?

Just a co-inky dink, right true believer?

Ex post facto laws, statutes etc are prohibited in most countries, besides some autocracies and countries under dictatorship.

I don't think these are ex post facto laws. I think he is directing agencies to start enforcing laws that are already on the books.

But if they were actual ex post facto laws, our courts would be quick to strike them down.

Does 'retroactively' have a different meaning in the USA than elsewhere?

I’m terribly sorry if this is a stupid question - but, was your response in any way related to my latest post about the rally failure and campaign manager resignation?

Not at all related but I only hit the reply button. Sorry.

I'll try to change this bad habit.

I'd prefer to use the word loyalty to describe this. That's why I still think Fortune magazine is still my most fave magazine, notwithstanding the quality of its present-day articles is no match to the old days when John Huey was still Fortune's top editor. I'm not trying to blame its current editor in chief Clifton Leaf, who is also a veteran. You know Fortune magazine's current owner is loth to hire highly-paid writers who have already made their marks; instead, it has hired more young journalists.

My guess is that Fortune's management and Clifton Leaf want to find the next Mina Kimes, who left Fortune for Bloomberg and then joined ESPN years ago

Fox News still claims that Fox News is the most trusted TV news network in America. It's just like Justin Bieber swearing that he has never kissed a girl in his life.

Fox News even hired a journalist who used to write for the New York Times as a guest. And his own mission is to lay into the New York Times. Fox News just makes a point of telling its TV viewers that this guy used to work for the Times. The fact is, this guy didn't even have a chance to cover politics when he was still working for the Times.

By retroactively, he means that someone who damaged a statue three weeks ago should be prosecuted for it even though he is only ordering the prosecution today.

I believe the statute in question became law 17 years ago.

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/108/s330

I bet some janitors working for the Times are waiting for the chance to get hired by Fox News. You know it's tempting to call them former staff of the Times after joining Fox News.

Not a problem; I’m sure I’ve done it myself. Just needed clarity.

You can always tell that a leftist can't defend his demented ideology with facts or logic when he suddenly starts babbling about Fox News.

IMO, one of the mechanisms through which this "dumbing down" you were referring to works, is by narrowing the field of information sources to which one has access to, by keeping it focused on one or two sources, highly homogeneous ideologically. Then, one can use these few privileged channels to shape the discussion.

The Economist never saw the 2007 financial crisis coming. If anyone in their editorial board saw it coming, some other guy in there told him to shut up and get his money out of the stock market before the crowd gets a clue.

But that's a facttttttttttttttttttttttt. Fox News is always hiring such fawning journalists who used to write for liberal publications to denounce their former colleagues. Guess what? Fox News also has black news anchors. You just put a wool over your eyes when they start appearing, huh? Try a tapestry.

No one saw it coming, including Fortune magazine, even though it's a financial publication. Only Fortune's Shawn Tully wrote an article in 2006 or around that time that America's housing market was a bubble.

Robert Shiller also made the same statement in one of his books published in 2000 , in which he coined the term irrational exuberance. I remember Paul Krugman admonishing his fans about this in his own books after the financial meltdown that convulsed global financial markets. Which means he also failed to see it coming.

Well, I think what Susan Jacoby is trying to tell us in that book is people run the risk of becoming imbeciles once they capitulate to anti-intellectualism. In other words, she seems to argue that we just stop thinking what's right or wrong since we have lots of columnists and TV news anchors haranguing us and passing judgment on many issues for us. Fox News is a good example.

Time magazine happens to be the victim of cultural declination: it was the most-read news magazine in the 90s along with Newsweek; now both magazines pale to The Economist in terms of cultural influence.

This doesn't sound like a leader?????

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (/ˌrɒbɪˈnɛt ˈbaɪdən/;[1] born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who served as the 47th vice president of the United States from 2009 to 2017 and represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate from 1973 to 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, Biden is the presumptive Democratic nominee[nb 1] for president of the United States in the 2020 election.[2] This is Biden’s third run for president after he unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination in 1988 and 2008.

Biden was raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and New Castle County, Delaware. He studied at the University of Delaware before receiving his law degree from Syracuse University.[3] He became a lawyer in 1969 and was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970. He was elected to the U.S. Senate from Delaware in 1972 when he became the sixth-youngest senator in American history. Biden was reelected six times and was the fourth-most senior senator when he resigned to assume the vice presidency in 2009.[4]

As a senator, Biden was a longtime member and eventually chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. He opposed the Gulf War in 1991 but advocated for U.S. and NATO intervention in the Bosnian War in 1994 and 1995, expanding NATO in the 1990s, and the 1999 bombing of Serbia during the Kosovo War. He argued and voted for the resolution authorizing the Iraq War in 2002 but opposed the surge of U.S. troops in 2007. He has also served as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, dealing with issues related to drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties, as well as the contentious U.S. Supreme Court nominations of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. Biden led the efforts to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act.

In 2008, Biden was the running mate of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. As vice president, he oversaw infrastructure spending to counteract the Great Recession and helped formulate U.S. policy toward Iraq through the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2011. His negotiations with congressional Republicans helped the Obama administration pass legislation including the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, which resolved a taxation deadlock; the Budget Control Act of 2011, which resolved that year's debt ceiling crisis; and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which addressed the impending fiscal cliff. In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Biden led the Gun Violence Task Force, created to address the causes of gun violence in the United States.[5] Obama and Biden were reelected in 2012.

In October 2015, after months of speculation, Biden announced he would not seek the presidency in the 2016 election. In January 2017, Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom with distinction.[6] After completing his second term as vice president, Biden joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was named the Benjamin Franklin Professor of Presidential Practice.[7] He announced his 2020 candidacy for president on April 25, 2019, joining a large field of Democratic candidates pursuing the party nomination.[8] Throughout 2019, he was widely regarded as the party's frontrunner. After briefly falling behind Bernie Sanders after poor showings in the first three state contests, Biden won the South Carolina primary decisively, and several center-left candidates dropped out of the race and endorsed him before Super Tuesday. Biden went on to win 18 of the next 26 contests. With the suspension of Sanders's campaign on April 8, 2020, Biden became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for the presidential election.[9] On June 9, 2020, Biden met the 1,991-delegate threshold needed in order to secure the party's nomination.[10]

First time I have seen this in context. +1

Florida man got 4 years for stealing 4 $15 phone chargers. He was beaten to death in prison

By Samantha J. Gross and

Ben Conarck
June 22, 2020 05:18 PM , Updated June 22, 2020 07:57 PM

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/special-reports/florida-prisons/article243711077.html



Christopher Howell Florida Department of Corrections

Christopher Howell was less than halfway into a four-year sentence at Lake Correctional Institution, a men’s prison near Orlando, when he died. He was serving time for stealing four phone chargers from a West Palm Beach Target.

He did not die of old age, by suicide or of COVID-19, a disease that has taken the lives of 19 inmates across the Florida prison system.

Howell, 51, was killed at the hands of a corrections officer, who beat him while the inmate’s hands were cuffed, multiple prison sources said.

The brutal beating happened Thursday. The Florida Department of Corrections says he was pronounced dead Friday at an area hospital.

A spokesman for the department said it cannot release the names of officers involved in ongoing investigations. Nor would it release the name of the victim, Howell, though prison sources did. He was listed as “deceased” in the department database Monday.

As is custom when an inmate dies by any means, the prison system listed him as “out [of] custody” effective June 19,

The department released a statement Friday night, naming no one and stating: “Any employee found to have acted inappropriately or illegally faces disciplinary action up to and including dismissal and arrest. FDC has zero tolerance for staff who act inappropriately and contrary to our core values: respect, integrity, courage, selfless service and compassion.”

Howell entered the prison system on Feb. 20, 2019, a month before the officer in question was hired. He had a projected release date of June 3, 2022.

Howell was arrested in September 2018 after he stole an $8 folding knife from a West Palm Beach Home Depot and then walked to a nearby Target and stole four $15 portable phone chargers. According to a probable cause affidavit, he gave back two of the chargers but when asked by an employee for the others, he said, “I have a knife, man,” and showed it, blade pointing out.

Howell was charged with theft and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon — a felony. According to the affidavit, Howell was labeled as “disabled” with a “juvenile disposition.” He was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the arrest.

Howell was beaten by the corrections officer after refusing a command in his cell and while he was still in handcuffs as two other officers watched but did not intervene, according to inmates and one officer who still works at the prison.

The details of the beating are unclear, but multiple people said Howell was left with a broken neck and was dead shortly after the assault, despite attempts to revive him.

All officers involved in the incident were put on administrative leave.

Lake Correctional has recently developed a reputation for violence by staff. Less than a year ago, footage of a beating at the prison, apparently recorded by inmates using a bootleg cellphone, provided a window into the brutality at the facility, which houses just over 1,000 men.

The video, uploaded to YouTube, appeared to show several officers crowding around an inmate, who was sprawled on the ground as officers took turns punching him in the head.



The department’s Office of the Inspector General and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement are investigating Howell’s death.

Advocates are planning to protest Tuesday at the office of Lake County State Attorney Brad King, where they will demand charges be filed against the officer who administered the beating. As of Monday afternoon, the officer had not been arrested.

Rep. Dianne Hart, a Tampa Democrat and longtime inmate advocate who spoke with Howell’s family and with sources inside the prison, called for the officer’s arrest.

“There have been over 60 arrests since August 2019 of correctional officers, contract workers, and medical staff for a variety of illegal activities including malicious battery on an inmate, sexual misconduct charges and introduction of contraband to name a few of the charges,” she wrote in a statement. “Is FDC the new breeding ground for illegal activities?”

One inmate, who is serving 27 years for various drug-related charges, said he used to live in a cell directly across from Howell, whom he described as a “good kid” with the “mind of a 10-year-old boy.” He described Howell as a “chubby dude” who is not someone who could defend himself.

He said one time he witnessed the same officer slap Howell across the face for not returning a food tray. In May, he said he heard of the officer breaking another inmate’s ribs.

“He’s an agitator,” the inmate told the Miami Herald Monday, referring to the corrections officer.

Another inmate, speaking through his mother, recalled a time in February when he was taken out of his cell in handcuffs and into a treatment room in the prison’s mental health facility. There, the officer punched him in the face twice and broke his nose.

The inmate said he wrote a witness statement and that the incident was investigated by the Office of the Inspector General. The officer stayed on the job.

Josh Shelar, who was released from Lake CI last week, says his 30 months there were marked by violence and fear. He recalled a time in January when he got a disciplinary report for being disrespectful and was taken to a captain’s office in handcuffs. He said he was beaten until he passed out and woke up with a dislocated knee. He had surgery and spent six months recovering in the infirmary.

“When I woke up, they told me if I wrote grievances against them they would take me to confinement and kill me,” Shelar said in a phone interview with the Herald. “It’s not uncommon there.”

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/special-reports/florida-prisons/article243711077.html#storylink=cpy