Indicted!!!!!!!!

 The NY prosecutor who has made a name for himself by charging felonies an misdemeanors, and announcing that he won't incarcerate people for crimes that aren't "serious", has scrounged up an indictment of Trump.    There's an old legal saw that says that "A prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.", so the bar that's been cleared so far is pretty low.   In the grand jury process that prosecutors aren't bound by the same evidentiary rules they are in court, and there is no opportunity for the defense to present exculpatory evidence or question the credibility of the prosecution's case.   Again, the bar for indictment is pretty low.   Let's also consider that NY is a city that voted 75%-25% against Trump i 2020, which would seem to suggest that NY grand jury members might be more inclined to indict based on political views.     So, what's the point?

IF Trump has actually committed the crimes he's been charged with then he should be tried convicted and punished.   

What I hope will happen is that Trump is so determined to clear his name that he will fight this tooth and nail, while the prosecution's goal of keeping him from mounting an effective 2024 campaign is achieved.  Anyone who believes that there isn't a political component to these charges is simply deluded.  As someone who hopes the GOP nominates someone other than Trump, this could help that happen.

What I'm afraid might happen is that Trump will force this to a speedy trial,  and will either get acquitted or hand the jury.   This puts him in the position of being able to run in 2024 as someone who's beeen victimized by a political prosecutor and who has vanquished said prosecutor in court.  

I suspect that if this case against Trump were strong, that it wouldn't have taken years to finally get an indictment, which leads me to believe that Trump might not be convicted or that he'll be convicted of some minor offense.   I also suspect that this has the potential to help Trump in 2024 by convincing some of the folks who had not supported him in 2020 to vote for him in sympathy.  

Finally, since this case is essentially about an alleged violation of campaign finance laws, wouldn't it be wise to look at how other violations of campaign finance laws were handled when other candidates for federal office were found in violation?    It seems like if (hypothetically) there was a DFL candidate for president who has violated campaign finance laws sometime in the last 20 years, that we could expect Trump to be judged in a similar fashion.

No matter what, this is going to be a cluster #### and it's likely to help trump as much as it hurts him.  Much like my post where I talked bout how foolish it would be for the GOP to stoop the the DFL level and start politically motivated impeachment proceedings against Biden, I think that this prosecution is equally foolish and rife with potential unintended consequences.  

Not that this is earth shattering analysis, but for the next few months we're going to see Trump haters making it sound like He's been convicted of mass murder or some such nonsense, and we're going to see the MAGA crowd screaming that he's done nothing wrong and the he's being persecuted.  In other words, it'll be a mess until this is settled. 

I just skimmed...

 Dan posted something at his blog where he takes on his caricatures of how those he deems "conservatives" deal with our human sin nature.   I'm not going to deal with specifics, because I've gotten involved in this conversation before with Dan.    I'm merely going to point out that his entire argument seems to be that YHWH will not treat people in certain ways.   Yet as I skimmed his post, I saw absolutely zero examples of scriptural support for his positions.    As usual, his entire argument seems to be based on his individual, biased, unsupported, opinions about what he thinks YHWH should do.   My experience with this discussion is that Dan might throw out some vague, cherry picked, out of context, proof texts about YHWH being "loving", but nothing that specifically addresses the scriptural basis for concluding that YHWH takes sin very seriously.   He seems satisfied to pull out of context quotes from people like Sproul and ridicule him (ad hom?), than to actually make a biblically supported, positive case for his version of how things are. 

Interesting take.

 "If you believe that salvation is all your choosing, have the courage and conviction to stand before God and tell Him you would like to pause from thanking Him, and thank yourself. "

Derek Thomas

I hear a lot of christians who sound like they are confident enough to stand before YHWH and tell Him how good they were and how much they deserve His blessing.  I suspect that their encounter with YHWH isn't going to go the way they think it will. 

Dawkins, gets in trouble.

https://talk.tv/news/6378/richard-dawkins-there-are-two-sexes-and-thats-all-there-is-to-it-piers-morgan 

Richard Dawkins, a man who has for years been the darling of the left/materialist/naturalist/Darwinian crowd and who's credentials as an evolutionary biologist are beyond question, got in hot water with the left recently.   What was his crime?  He had the nerve to state unequivocally that he (as an/the expert on the subject) has found that the evidence tells him that there are only two sexes.  

Why is there a "racial wealth gap" in San Frascisco?

https://darrellowens.substack.com/p/half-of-black-students-can-hardly 

If the data shown in the above link is accurate, one could conclude that at least part of the "racial wealth gap" in one of the most liberal/progressive cities in America might be linked to the fact that less than 50% of black students appear to be unable to read the English language at grade level.   

This raises the obvious questions about why this might be the case.   Surely in a city and state that is controlled by liberal/progressives, racism shouldn't be the answer.   It seems impossible to believe that black parents are being prevented from teaching their children to read, and prevented from encouraging their children to read.    One might wonder if other "racial" groups perform equally as badly as "blacks".   One might also wonder if the children of "black immigrants" perform differently from non immigrant "blacks".   One can definitely wonder if giving reparations to the tune of "5,000,000 per person is going to help or hurt those who are basically illiterate.   I don't think that anyone would argue that "blacks" are not intelligent enough to read at their grade level. 

One thing that we know is that owning real estate is an good path toward building generational wealth.   Yet one wonders if someone who's unable to read the documents necessary to purchase real estate would be able to leverage this means to build wealth effectively?  

I suspect that those on the left will trot out the same old answers that revolve around more funding for the educational establishment, shutting down any non public schools, continuing to vote for the same folx who have been in power for decades, and more reparations.  

In all seriousness, how can anyone expect people who can't do something as basic as reading to succeed?

A (seperate) god for the oppressed?

 At Dan's blog, he's cherry picked a few proof texts that he believes make his case that there is a "god for the oppressed".  

The problem that immediately seems evident is that his proof texts all seem to be referring to the oppression of the Hebrews by others.   Obviously, when these proof texts are removed from the context, it's easy to build up a narrative that seems to back one's hunches.    So, when one removes the context, it's easy to pretend that these proof texts, support a pretext, that may not may not make sense in context.

Of course, it's all myth anyway, so we needn't take it seriously or literally. 

Snow

 As I was getting ready this morning, I saw a story about the record amounts of snowfall in CA and how horrible it is.   As I was listening to the story, I realized that there could have been an alternate perspective on this phenomenon.   Maybe the headline should have been, "Record snowfall should end CA drought".   It seems as if CA has a problem.  They regularly have periods of time when the lack of precipitation causes everything to dry up, which increases the danger of fires, and causes problems.  Then they get large amounts of rain and get mudslides.    I could be wrong, but it seems like humans have been able to collect water from precipitation for thousands of years, yet CA seems content to wring their hands as millions of gallons of water run off into the Pacific.   I suspect that this years melted snow pack, if collected, has the capacity to make a significant difference in the availability of water for the rest of 2023.  If only there was a way to channel all of that water into some sort of containment area and utilize it...

On a related note, the Wasatch and Uintas have also been getting huge snowfall totals this year.    So far it looks like the Great Salt Lake is up about a foot already and the bulk of the snow hasn't even melted yet.  

Ultimately, this huge snow year seems like a good thing for much of the west, but the MSM will never report that.