Today in Supreme Court History: August 12, 1795

8/12/1795: Chief Justice John Rutledge takes judicial oath.

Chief Justice John Rutledge

 

Comments

[Magister]

Alien vs. Predator (August 12, 2004) - not a great movie, nor the subject of any Supreme Court action, but it matches the date and it is more significant (just from the number of jobs asserted in the anti-piracy notice) than a Supreme Court justice who served only slightly more days than this was in theaters.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Well, for a truly disturbing movie is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9R9oysRLK4

[Magister]

I made it through 27 seconds but quit when Tucker Carlson blamed Nancy Pelosi for delaying the National Guard, which is pretty much the level of dishonesty that Dr. Ed 2 typically adheres to.

https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-235651652542

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Weird how the trustworthy and high-integrity journalists at the AP never mentioned testimony from the Capitol Police Chief.

https://www.npr.org/2021/01/11/955548910/ex-capitol-police-chief-rebuffs-claims-national-guard-was-never-called-during-ri

That's pretty weird, no?

Sund told the Post that House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving was concerned with the "optics" of declaring an emergency ahead of the protests and rejected a National Guard presence. He says Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael Stenger recommended that he informally request the Guard to be ready in case it was needed to maintain security.

Look who was saying "no". Pelosi's man Irving.

Weird this was missed by all those debooonkers and fact checkers!

[Dan Schiavetta]

Did Pelosi have day to day command over Irving?

This is nuts. You're saying that Pelosi deliberately (or negligently) put herself and the rest of the House of Representatives in physical danger.

To use a fire analogy, at worst this was a bad judgment call by a Fire Chief. We should not allow this to divert blame from the arsonists.

[Mr. Bumble]

Biggest threat to her life was Michael Byrd.

[Dan Schiavetta]

https://lawandcrime.com/legal-analysis/nbc-interview-sheds-light-on-capitol-police-lt-michael-byrds-legal-justification-for-shooting-ashli-babbitt/

Go to 2:16. You see that the police, after giving multiple warnings, had no alternative but to shoot when the rioters broke into the Speaker’s Lobby and Ashley Babbitt was the first one through.

This was well after Trump could have told these folks to stop the violence and go home.

In any other context you would have applauded the police for doing what they had to do.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

This was well after Trump could have told these folks to stop the violence and go home.

You believe he didn't do that?

[Dan Schiavetta]

He finally did, but well after they broke in, and well after numerous people begged him to do so, and after fanning the flames further by tweeting that Pence “failed to do what he should have done”. Of course, he was watching the riot on live TV.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

If he did, then why did you say this?

This was well after Trump could have told these folks to stop the violence and go home.

???

[Dr. Ed 2]

Did it ever occur to you that Trump was exercising good judgment -- being very much aware that he could easily make things a whole lot worse?

Imagine if he had said/tweeted "I am conceding the election to Biden, please go home."

That would have been incendiary and provoked exponentially worse violence.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Dr Ed,

The Democrats at Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and every media outlet censored his statements.

And now these deranged lunatics are blaming him for not saying anything.

Fuck these people.

[Purple Martin]

Specifically, Trump could said something sometime after 1:15p when numerous people started urging him to issue a calm down people statement (at 1:19p Trump went into his dining room and avidly watched TV coverage of the mob violence), and 2:44p when Babbitt was shot.

During this time, many people including Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and his daughter were repeatedly begging him to send a tweet telling his people to stop and go home. Instead, at 2:24p, he tweeted this:

Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!

Two minutes later he started to call Senators and others, urging further objection to the electoral count before, at 2:38p tweeting:

Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!

...well short of telling people to stop rioting and and leave the Capitol, as noted by Don Jr, who, one minute later, texted Mark Meadows:

He's got to condemn this shit. Asap. The Capitol police tweet is not enough.

...to which Meadows replied

I am pushing it hard. I agree.

Babbitt was shot five minutes later.

At 3:13p, Trump sent another Tweet, which did not tell people to stop and leave:

I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!

At 4:17p, Trump finally tweeted a video message to supporters asking them to peacefully leave the U.S. Capitol (it took three takes to get Trump to say the words, "leave the Capitol").

At 6:00p, Trump tweeted

These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!

Yes, we will.

[David Nieporent]

Did it ever occur to you that Trump was exercising good judgment — being very much aware that he could easily make things a whole lot worse?

Imagine if he had said/tweeted “I am conceding the election to Biden, please go home.”

That would have been incendiary and provoked exponentially worse violence.

Did it ever occur to you that nothing you say is intelligent? That would literally be the opposite of incendiary.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Weird how you're perfect memory didn't remember him saying this in video:

"I know your pain, I know you're hurt," Trump said. "But you have to go home now, we have to have peace. We have to have law and order, we have to respect our great people in law and order."

[Dr. Ed 2]

Friendly fire isn't and not shooting other officers is a big thing! Byrd could have hit any of the three officers standing behind her -- that would never be praised. I hope...

[Dan Schiavetta]

The video does not bear that out.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The shoulder patches of the officers are clearly visible, Byrd's excuse is that they weren't wearing hats.

And what I didn't know until now was that there was a tactical team behind them! MORE cops for him to have hit.

He fired blindly and admitted it. That is not someone you want as a police officer -- it's not someone that other police officers want as a police officer...

And this is also someone who once left a loaded gun in a restroom -- I believe a Capitol Hill restroom, beyond security. One can only imagine the consequences of the wrong person having found it....

[BravoCharlieDelta]

He's a Democrat and killed a Trumper, so they dont' care.

[Magister]

It appears that the three officers were moving away before Babbitt was shot, and the angle would not have risked hitting them anyway. That painting on the wall was in serious danger, though.

(Of course, what Dr. Ed 2 would praise is entirely determined by partisan considerations. In a similar shooting of someone Dr. Ed 2 does not identify with, he would likely applaud someone who posted "Hahahaha love this, maybe rioters shouldn't climb through broken windows when a police officer with a gun pointed at them tells them not to.")

[Dr. Ed 2]

As a former range safety officer, I would disagree. The margin of safety is not "would have hit" but "possibly could have hit" although I challenge you to compare this to George Floyd, who WAS resisting arrest at the time.

[Magister]

It's unlikely you were ever a range safety officer, just because it would be so weird for you to post something true. But accepting it without deciding...

Range safety is different from police fending off a mob intent on killing members of Congress, at least one of whom was still present behind Byrd. How many insurrectionists should Byrd have let past before shooting one? If you're in the lead of a mob who would have killed people, shouldn't you expect you might be shot?

[Purple Martin]

Yeah Ed, I'm familiar with the either false or grossly exaggerated talking points y'all send each other, endlessly circling around the MAGAst echosphere, meaningful and believed in only by those already steeped in the lore. But just keeping parroting whatever it takes to let you sleep at night.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

I'm shocked that you even bother arguing with those fools anymore.

The truth has been repeatedly shown to them. They don't care.

It's the same stupid MAGA bullshit year after year.

[Mr. Bumble]

Except for the time not one thing in this statement is true.

[Dr. Ed 2]

“Did Pelosi have day to day command over Irving?”

She did that day — he said that he needed her approval.

“You’re saying that Pelosi deliberately (or negligently) put herself and the rest of the House of Representatives in physical danger.”

I’m not defending the judgment of 83-year-old Nancy Pelosi — who is showing indications of dementia….

“To use a fire analogy, at worst this was a bad judgment call by a Fire Chief. We should not allow this to divert blame from the arsonists.”

That’s like blaming the tragic Hawaiian fire on the initial 9AM fire that likely was sparked by a downed power line and ignoring everything else!!!

Ignoring a decade of warnings that the non-native grasses were exceedingly flammable and not only likely to cause a conflagration but already had elsewhere in Hawaii — and that they needed to be removed.

Ignored common sense of hanging around after you think a fire is out just to make sure that it really *is* out…

Ignored Post-911 DHS protocols for a shared radio frequency for first responders which would have enabled them to let others know when the fire blazed up and was out of control.

Having backup diesel generators at your water plant(s) so that you don’t lose your water along with you electricity in a fire — It’d been nice to have had water to fight the fire with….

Having an evacuation plan and/or making one up on the spot, like the USCG did when they called for boats to evacuate people to NJ.

This fire and venue is remarkably similar to the 1947 Bar Harbor (ME) fire when the local lobstermen from adjacent towns evacuated everyone straight out to sea — several miles out to sea as that was a forest fire with burning boughs landing on the boats for the first few miles.

Hawaii has lots of private boats — fishing boats, tourist boats, pleasure boats — all of which have radios and no one thought to ask for volunteers to evacuate the town?

So we blame what likely will be a couple thousand deaths on whatever/whoever started the fire and not all of the incompetent bureaucrats who ignored standard “best practices”???

And even if it was just incompetence (and I’m starting to think it was more), are you going to blame all of January 6th on a bunch of drunken losers? No….

[Purple Martin]

(and I’m starting to think it was more)

Prediction…Ed will soon start repeating today’s crazy-right trope that the the Hawai’i fires were started by orbital direct energy weapons.

So, Jewish Space Lasers! Here we go again.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"Prediction…Ed will soon start repeating today’s crazy-right trope that the the Hawai’i fires were started by orbital direct energy weapons."

No, terrestrial direct energy weapons known as POWER LINES.......

Uninsulated power lines -- uninsulated because they didn't have the thermoplastics that we do now and rubber was not only prohibitively expensive but quickly destroyed by exposure to sunlight. And that's just a guess because it could have been a cigarette or even a broken Coke bottle that started the fire.

My point is that it doesn't matter what *started* the fire -- what matters is the INCOMPETENT RESPONSE TO IT....

And if there really were orbiting Jewish space laser weapons, (a) why wouldn't they be targeting Iran, and (b) why wouldn't all the anti-semites be tracking their orbits -- and publicizing that???

It is neither hard nor expensive to track the orbit of a satellite -- anyone with a telescope and basic competence in math & physics can do it. And the anti-semites have no shortage of microphones, every college campus would gladly provide them one.

So IF there really were Jewish Space Weapons up there, we'd be hearing about it. And we aren't, QED.....

[Dr. Ed 2]

Magister, I would watch the whole thing because there are some very disturbing allegations made far beyond that, including how the New Jersey State Police arrived *before* the Guard were permitted to assist -- that's 200 miles and five states away!

There's a lot more including an allegation that if the FBI & Homeland Security had told the CHPD/DC Police of what they knew, Trump would have used the Insurrection Act although General Milley allegedly was considering locking down the city and cancelling all the scheduled protests -- I don't see how that would have been different than Trump using the Insurrection Act.

Question: Could the Insurrection Act somehow justify shutting down Congress? Worst case, couldn't it have met the next day in Maryland? Or Delaware? How would Trump have benefited?

I'd watch the whole thing because this is going to get introduced by the defense at Trump's DC trial if the whole thing isn't thrown out.

[Magister]

I'll consider watching the whole thing after you apologize for your vile characterization of a message about the murder of Heather Heyer that started "Hahahaha love this" as merely introducing a traffic safety message. (That you would watch the whole of anything has always been a very poor recommendation.)

https://reason.com/volokh/2023/08/06/who-can-use-twitters-offer-of-legal-fees-if-you-were-unfairly-treated-by-your-employer-due-to-tweets/?comments=true#comment-10186313

[Dr. Ed 2]

Apologize for a police officer using insensitive language?

You'd have to fire 95% of the cops in this country if you wanted that kind of a standard.

But his point WAS valid -- if you do things which are inherently dangerous, no matter how noble your cause, you are likely to get hurt or killed. And it's your own damn fault.

[Magister]

You, Dr. Ed 2, characterized it as a "pedestrian safety" message, when it was clearly celebrating an intentional killing. Your characterization is what you need to apologize for.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Intentional?!?

The perp couldn't even SEE her (vehicles in front were higher) so how on earth could he have INTENDED to kill someone who he didn't even know was there?!?

Criminal negligence, yes, but clairvoyance is not an element of a crime -- at least not yet...

[Magister]

The attacker was convicted of first degree murder. I'm not sure if this must be intentional in Virginia law, but I expect so. More likely he intended to kill one or all of the people he initially ran into. A reasonable person would expect to kill someone if they rammed into a crowd of people at high speed intentionally, and the intention to do that was established at trial.

I understand that being wrong in comments is for you a natural state like a fish living in water, but this quibbling and doubling-down goes far beyond your usual half-remembered crap you don't bother to search on the internet before posting.

[Magister]

David Nieporent has corrected my acceptance of Dr. Ed 2's claim that Heather Heyer was hit indirectly. I had initially failed to find specific details about where victims were relative to the attacking car. More careful searching reveals she was among those Fields rammed into, and her DNA was found on the windshield of Fields' car.

I apologize for accepting something Dr. Ed 2 wrote without verifying it. Mea culpa.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Please cite your source on this one. It conflicts with published reports including a briefly published photo of her body on the ground -- adjacent to the front vehicle.

[Magister]

In Kelly’s sequence of photos, her blue cap is visible moving to the right as the Challenger barrels into the crowd. In one haunting frame, Heyer’s head and glasses are visible near the center of the vehicle, directly in its path, between the ramming car and a white sedan stuck in the intersection. Her eyes seemed locked on those of the driver, identified later by police as 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/local/charlottesville-photographer-pulitzer-prize-photo/

A Charlottesville Police Department detective spoke Friday morning about soft tissue that was found on the windshield of Fields' Dodge Challenger.

Detective Jeremy Carper said that tissue was matched to Heather Heyer's DNA.

https://www.whsv.com/content/news/Detective-offers-graphic-depiction-of-Charlottesville-car-attack-scene-501646121.html

Now cite your source for your repeated claims.

[David Nieporent]

The murderer (you're not a cop; you don't need to pretend to be by saying things like "perp") could see her, and deliberately drove into her. He was not "negligent." That's why he was convicted of murder, not reckless driving.

There were no "vehicles in front." You have, as you so often do, invented a fairy tale version of events. He drove directly into the crowd of people. He hit another vehicle after he drove through the crowd, not before.

[Dr. Ed 2]

You lie.

https://cdn.abcotvs.com/dip/images/3935353_081118-ewn-10pm-charlottesville-vid.jpg?w=630&r=16:9

[Dr. Ed 2]

See also: https://uploads.dailydot.com/2019/07/charlottesville-rally-murder.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=scale&h=350&ixlib=php-3.3.0&w=700&wpsize=fp_800_350

[Dr. Ed 2]

See also: https://s.abcnews.com/images/US/charlottesville-protests-car-crash-ht-jt-170813_3x2_1600.jpg?w=1600

Note the wet spot on the street and the wet trail to the perp's car. That's the point of impact where the radiator ruptured, with all three vehicle going forward. Note woman in green on hood of middle car. Isn't that Hayer?

There's another photo, pre-impact, with the brake lights ON. I think that's significant...

[David Nieporent]

Why does Dr. Ed think that showing pictures of the aftermath of the murder, in which Fields' car is shown having crashed into other cars, refute the assertion that Fields "hit another vehicle after he drove through the crowd, not before"?

Note woman in green on hood of middle car. Isn’t that Hayer?

No. Even given the fact that you spelled Heyer's name wrong.

[Magister]

Heather was dressed in a plain black tee and pants, with her brown hair braided down her back. She stopped to engage a helmeted female alt-right protester in conversation, asking why she had aligned herself with a hate group of violent white men.

https://www.thecut.com/2017/08/what-heather-heyer-knew.html

Video on that web page of her talking to that protester shows a different woman than in Dr. Ed 2's last photo; braided darker brown hair, black shirt with sleeves.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

The conservative justices voted for the predator and the liberal justices voted for the alien.

[Mr. Bumble]

Weren't they both "aliens"?

[Syd Henderson]

Both "predators", too.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Chrysafis v. Marks, 141 S.Ct. 2482 (decided August 12, 2021): Court stays New York’s Covid eviction moratorium statute; holds that landlords must be given chance to challenge tenants’ self-certification of hardship (issue became moot three weeks later when statute was revised to allow challenge)

[Mr. Bumble]

Heads up: We are beginning to phase in a number of changes to the commenting system at Reason.com. Registered users can now see an enhanced profile page - accessible from the link near the top right of any page - which allows you to manage your muted commenter list and to see a complete listing of comments. Also, commenters are now able to edit comments during the first 5 minutes after posting. These initial changes also include new registration and password recovery forms. Stay tuned for bigger and better changes coming soon! Please send any trouble reports to [e-mail] and submit any feedback through our site feedback form.
Other than "edit" have there been any upgrades?

[Dan Schiavetta]

The "comment history" feature, AFAIK, has never been functional. I still am listed as never having commented here.

[Mr. Bumble]

Seem to remember that it used to work, but stopped doing so around the time the edit feature was added.

[Krayt]

The edit comments is buggy as it strips out certain html tags, mainly blockquote.

[Dan Schiavetta]

today’s movie review: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, 1986

One of the many assets of the original Star Trek franchise is that it could do so many genres well, for example comedy. The original series had A Piece of the Action and The Trouble with Tribbles. Here we have a movie that’s 75% comedy and a lot of fun to watch. A signal disrupts Earth, causing floods and uncontrolled wildfires (no, it wasn’t the summer of 2023), and it’s found that it matches that of humpback whales and only a whale-answer will quell it. Kirk hatches a plan to hijack a Klingon ship and go back to 20th century Earth, with his original crew including a not-quite-back-to-normal Spock in a post-op bathrobe, who was brought back to life in the previous movie and as McCoy puts it, isn’t exactly working on all thrusters. We have Spock’s diving into a zoo aquarium to try to mind-meld with a whale, to Kirk’s consternation.

Also the crew’s attempt to fit in with 1986 San Francisco. We might forget now how often profanity was used in public (think of Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny), and they can’t say those words here, but Spock at first has trouble with the rough language and then can’t shake it (back on the Enterprise he keeps saying “damn” before everything). Chekhov, trying to spy, is caught and can’t understand why they would be so suspicious of a Russian (his innocent “can I leave now?”). Scotty forgetting that to operate a computer one has to use a keyboard. Even Kirk has trouble using his vaunted womanizing skills with Hicks as an environmental scientist. In that pre-Walkman and iPod era, boomboxes in public were a real nuisance (I still haven’t forgiven Earth Wind & Fire for advertising them, and as for Spike Lee casting them as a symbol of black empowerment. . . ); Spock gets applause from the other passengers on the bus for neck-pinching the owner and turning the damn thing off.

Finally McCoy barging into the operating room saving the heroine (Catherine Hicks) with his 24th century (or is it 25th?) gizmo. Today’s conservatives might point out that he ignores the other doctors’ demand to use a mask, but on the other hand the message of the film is one of preserving the environment, and the premise of the plot is that whales have gone extinct, which is why they have to go back into the past to get one.

[Sarcastr0]

Still my favorite of the Trek movies. I like the drama episodes most, but like my movies to have a light touch.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Wasn’t it Chekhov’s life that McCoy saved? Chekhov had hit his head and they were about to use “drills and chisels” much to McCoy’s chagrin. Of course they somehow overpowered what (in 1986) would have been layers of USN security, I forget how.

And pulling radiation out of the side of an aircraft carrier, notwithstanding both distance and multiple levels of shielding. Right — he’d have had better luck pulling radiation out of the granite blocks on the pier…

My two favorite lines;

“Of course he is a Russian, but he must be a retarded Russian.” “It’s amazing that these people ever made it out of the 20th Century.”

[Magister]

The best original Star Trek movie.

McCoy gave a dialysis patient a pill that causes her to regrow a kidney; given that he's carrying that sort of thing with him, he probably doesn't need to wear a mask while operating, perhaps because the transporter can fix any infections that might result. (Apparently surgical masks went out in the 22nd century in the Star Trek universe.)

[Dr. Ed 2]

Masks are psychological -- when the virus is less than a tenth of the weave of the mask, it becomes like a screen door on a submarine.

The water molecule, being way smaller than the mesh of the screen, goes right through it....

[Sarcastr0]

The best original Trek movie only? Do you like First Contact more?

[Magister]

The best of the Star Trek original series movies. I will not compare those to later Star Trek movies. Especially after my Alien vs. Predator comment got hijacked by political crap.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Unavoidable here, unfortunately. However to that movie’s credit it does have a connection to John Rutledge, whose birthday is celebrated here by Josh Blackman (remember him)?

John was the brother of Edward Rutledge, who was portrayed in the film 1776 by John Collum, who [200 words lost due to computer foulup] which was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, who also directed Alien v. Predator.

[Magister]

Hmm...

... who was in All Good Things (2010), along with Frank Langella as Sanford Marks, who was also in Nixon/Frost (2008) where he portrayed Richard Nixon, who famously had 18 minutes of erased Watergate tapes, which could easily have contained those 200 missing words if there were some sort of time travel like in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986).

Wait, that's ending up with the wrong movie. The Nixon/Frost thing must be a misstep, because it drags in politics again.

OK, I'll try working backwards instead:

Alien vs Predator director Paul W. S. Anderson also directed Pompeii (2014), in which Kiefer Sutherland appeared as Corvus, and who also appeared as John in Melancholia (2011), which was about a planetary collision threatening the destruction of the planet Earth, not unlike the possible destruction of Earth due to the future extinction of whales in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) ---

OK, Star Trek IV is a movie connection black hole. This is very frustrating. I don't understand what I'm missing.

[Dan Schiavetta]

She was very cute in the first Spider-Man movie.