"Duly convicted" means the sentencing magistrate gets to say "lock him up", not the lynch mob public gallery.
Sorry, not understanding what you're getting at here. Is this some kind of "free Paul Manafort!" thing? Or some kind of omertà where the public is forbidden from comment on court sentences enforced in their name? Remember that the cases were drafted as The United States v. Paul Manafort.
I've already expressed my views on Manafort's imprisonment and they can hardly be characterised as a campaign to free him.
You can comment how you like, and I can understand the need to celebrate some judicial victories against teflon suspects, but I question the relevance of having to add an inmate number and their transfer to Riker's Island (as opposed to: from Federal to State custody). It brings back memories of how Dominique Strauss-Kahn's imprisonment there was portrayed, which had little to do with actual justice in my view. Will you only be happy if Trump has to do a perp walk, too?
Will you only be happy if Trump has to do a perp walk, too?
It wouldn't bother me if Donald Trump is eventually treated in the same way the American justice system treats other people reasonably accused of obstruction of justice are treated, but it's not the only thing that would make me happy. What does bother me is this implicit contention that such things are only for the little people, those who aren't rich enough or white enough to be treated with kid gloves by the system.
It amuses me even more that the investigation actually turned a profit.
It shouldn't do. Judicial investigations are supposed to be about serving justice, not making a profit.
The specialist court for prosecuting organised crime in France regularly tries cases that in my estimation are well beyond its designed remit thanks to inflated charges at the start of the investigation (frequently downgraded by the time the case actually comes to trial).
During the investigation (when the accused are supposed to be presumed innocent) it regularly confiscates assets including homes: good luck getting any of those back whatever the outcome.
At the inauguration ceremony of the previous senior prosecutor in my jurisdiction, the presiding magistrate of the court proudly announced the amount of money the court had netted in the past year as though he was a CFO and turning a profit was its main aim.
The less like institutionalised racketeering the justice system looks the better, to my mind, regardless of who is being convicted.
You misunderstand my point. It is amusing because Trump keeps calling the investigation a waste of money. As I pointed out above, it would be worth the cost anyway but it has not cost the American taxpayers a penny not by design but by an indirect method. The humour is how that fact undermines Trump's whole argument.
The virtue of statutes that confiscate ill-gotten gains is a different issue.
What does bother me is this implicit contention that such things are only for the little people, those who aren't rich enough or white enough to be treated with kid gloves by the system.
With this I entirely agree, but I think the point would be better made by giving Trump the full benefit of the criminal justice system at its best, not hoping he suffers all its worst aspects. (There is some social merit in shame, but I think there are better ways of shaming than a perp walk). Doing or hoping for the latter (imposing the worst) drags standards down rather than pushing them up.
(The French media have been up in arms about the "terrible" treatment by the prosecution of Renault's former CEO Carlos Ghosn following his arrest in Japan. I wish they could be up in arms about all the little people who get pretty much exactly the same treatment on a daily basis in their own country).
Torn: Manafort definitely should not get special treatment because of who he is. Conversely, the way the system treats so many human beings is just wrong.
The humour is how that fact undermines Trump's whole argument.
The virtue of statutes that confiscate ill-gotten gains is a different issue.
You're right, it is a different issue, and I confess it's one that I feel strongly about.
But I fear that trying to confront Trump's declarations, particularly his oft-repeated ones, as though they were some sort of "argument" that needs "undermining" is not going to work.
What does bother me is this implicit contention that such things are only for the little people, those who aren't rich enough or white enough to be treated with kid gloves by the system.
With this I entirely agree, but I think the point would be better made by giving Trump the full benefit of the criminal justice system at its best, not hoping he suffers all its worst aspects.
I disagree. One of the big factors in maintaining the American justice system in the ultra-punitive state it exists today is that the rich and powerful (i.e. those who have the most potential to change the system) know that they'll never be subjected to that system. If Trump (and those like him) are assured that, in unlikely event they fall afoul of the criminal justice system in a way an expensive legal team can't extract them from, they'll experience the system "at its best" and not as it exists for everyone else then any impetus for change will be severely blunted. Not to mention the inherent unfairness of a two-tiered justice system where the rich and powerful experience the system "at its best" and everyone else gets . . . something else.
Torn: Manafort definitely should not get special treatment because of who he is. Conversely, the way the system treats so many human beings is just wrong.
AFZ
Indeed. But I think the 'tearing' sets in from the moment that any of us come to think there are two categories of people in the world (i) those who 'deserve to go to jail' and (ii) us.
By contrast, restorative justice introduces a less individualistic notion, and considers victim, offender, and everybody else as all being part of a community. Viewed thus, the fact that anybody has to go to jail can be seen as an indication of failure on the part of the community that allowed things to get to this point. But we're getting way off topic here.
Not to mention the inherent unfairness of a two-tiered justice system where the rich and powerful experience the system "at its best" and everyone else gets . . . something else.
What you are trying to make me mean by "at its best" is not what I mean.
What I mean by "at its best" is actually doing the criminal justice bit, rather than extrajudicial media-feeding stuff like perp walks. And applying the same standards for things like bail (one of the things the Japanese long denied Ghosn, who in my view was far more of a flight risk than lots of people I know rotting in jail right now).
The humour is how that fact undermines Trump's whole argument.
The virtue of statutes that confiscate ill-gotten gains is a different issue.
You're right, it is a different issue, and I confess it's one that I feel strongly about.
But I fear that trying to confront Trump's declarations, particularly his oft-repeated ones, as though they were some sort of "argument" that needs "undermining" is not going to work.
True.
If it helps, Manafort's assets were only seized after his guilt was established.
The seizure of the proceeds of crime and property used in the commission of crime is an important part of the delivery of justice.
Eutychus, I don't believe anybody on this part of the thread has sought to grace Trump's oft-repeated slogans with the dignity of calling them arguments. I understood them to have been repeated using irony. I started to explain why, but surely you know.
The seizure of the proceeds of crime and property used in the commission of crime is an important part of the delivery of justice.
Eutychus, I don't believe anybody on this part of the thread has sought to grace Trump's oft-repeated slogans with the dignity of calling them arguments. I understood them to have been repeated using irony. I started to explain why, but surely you know.
I did use that word. I think my views on Mr Trump are well established. I should have said 'assertions' or perhaps mindless, vile, incoherent, Twitter-based streams of consciousness from a narcassist who clearly cares for none but himself. Snappy, ha?
It is common for Trump to tweet about the cost of Mueller - it amuses me that there isn't one. Will that do for now?
The seizure of the proceeds of crime and property used in the commission of crime is an important part of the delivery of justice.
Yes it is, but performing the seizure during the period of presumption of innocence is problematic, as is a senior magistrate crowing about how much one's jurisdiction has raked in per annum. Both of those things have happened in the jurisdiction I live in.
What's a prisoner's punishment supposed to be? Is it supposed to include being on the receiving end of violence, rape, torture, murder?
What effect does that have on the prison staff?
We have Pelican Bay state (?) prison here in California. It literally drives men mad, per news investigations. (BTW, there's a prison by the same name in another state.)
According to these folks , about 8.5% of the US prison system was privatized as of August 2018. I suspect that with the advent of The Border Troubles that percentage has grown, though I haven't been able to google by how much. I mention this only because it's clear there's a move afoot to "privatize" this system.
There are three central problems here: determining the purpose(s) of the penal system; assigning responsibility for the penal system; and implementing the penal system in a way that's consistent with the rule of law.
The most basic question, I think, is what the penal system is meant to accomplish. Possibilities include security -- that is, separating lawbreakers from society for society's protection; retribution, or deliberately inflicting suffering on lawbreakers in retaliation for the suffering they themselves have inflicted; and/or rehabilitation, or the hope of reforming lawbreaking people into law-abiding ones who can safely be returned to society.
Clearly, serving a prison sentence does apparently reform some people. Equally clearly, prison sentences seem to "harden" rather than reform others. And it's not at all clear (to me, at least) that this society is particularly successful at separating lawbreakers from the law-abiding. Lawbreaking and law-evading seem to lie at the very core of our economic system, and goes on ubiquitously as a matter of routine, regular business practice (witness the Sackler scandal and the opioid crisis).
What does society expect to accomplish by establishing a penal system at all? Beats me, here in the US. The results we get from our current system -- the highest incarceration rate in the world, according to this source en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate -- and a staggering rate of racial inequality in the make-up of the incarcerated -- suggest that our current penal system is driven by motives quite different from security, punishment, or reform.
I have to stop for now, but hope to return to this discussion.
No, [ Riker's Island ] really isn't a fitting abode for anyone. That's the problem.
I'd say the problem is more along the lines of the fact that we only hear complaints like this when someone wealthy and well-connected like Paul Manafort could potentially get sent there. Manafort's wealth and connections insure that he's already had, and will continue to receive, "the full benefit of the criminal justice system at its best", as @Eutychus puts it, with all his rights respected and competent legal counsel readily available, rather than the criminal justice system as it actually exists for everyone else who doesn't have Manafort's resources. I seen no reason to grant Paul Manafort any special treatment beyond the extraordinary level of privilege he already enjoys. If Riker's isn't a fitting abode for anyone, creating exceptions for those with the most potential influence to change the system (remember that Manafort spent most of his American political career promoting the "get tough on crime" party) is one of the surest ways to kneecap any efforts improving the system.
The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which is the statutory authority cited by the President, grants two types of authority. One gives the President the power to freeze the assets of foreign nationals and/or foreign governments. The other gives the President the power to suspend commerce (or types of commerce) with another nation. Nothing in the Act suggests that the President is given the power to levy tariffs on another nation. Indeed, there are many reasons to doubt that such a power exists.
First, Congress has delegated tariff authority in other statutes that do not apply here. For instance, the President can (and has) imposed tariffs on China in response to unfair trade practices based on clear statutory authority. The lack of such an express delegation in the IEEPA implies no tariff authority.
Second, there appears to be no precedent for a President using the IEEPA to impose tariffs. (I say appears because I cannot find an example. If there is one, then I would like to know.)
Third, there is no indication from the legislative history of the IEEPA that Congress intended to give the President the authority to raise tariffs.
Fourth, there is no judicial authority for the President's proposed tariffs. Moreover, the Supreme Court's careful analysis of the IEEPA in Dames & Moore v. Regan is considerably narrower than the President's view.
The argument in favor of the proposed Mexican tariffs is basically a crude kind of a fortiori logic. Because the President can ban commerce from Mexico under the IEEPA, he must be able to impose the lesser sanction of tariffs. The conclusion does not follow from the premise. The greater does not always imply the lesser, as Congress is not bound to delegate its authority that way. Indeed, Congress might well guard its taxing authority far more jealously because that authority is easier to exercise as compared to a commercial ban.
I am neither a lawyer nor particularly familiar with the law in question [PDF], but Magliocca's argument seems plausible, and this kind of cheap and disingenuous authoritarianism is pretty much par for the course for the Trump administration*.
If you'd like me to meet you half way, perhaps we could agree on giving Manafort a public defender instead of a paid-for lawyer? But not even his team seem to have extracted much, so far.
No, [ Riker's Island ] really isn't a fitting abode for anyone. That's the problem.
I'd say the problem is more along the lines of the fact that we only hear complaints like this when someone wealthy and well-connected like Paul Manafort could potentially get sent there.
At the last count, I've been inside 35 prisons in some 15 jurisdictions on 3 continents. You want "complaints like this"? I could give you "complaints like this" all day long, but I'd run the risk of being accused of crusading.
No, [ Riker's Island ] really isn't a fitting abode for anyone. That's the problem.
I'd say the problem is more along the lines of the fact that we only hear complaints like this when someone wealthy and well-connected like Paul Manafort could potentially get sent there. Manafort's wealth and connections insure that he's already had, and will continue to receive, "the full benefit of the criminal justice system at its best", as @Eutychus puts it, with all his rights respected and competent legal counsel readily available, rather than the criminal justice system as it actually exists for everyone else who doesn't have Manafort's resources. I seen no reason to grant Paul Manafort any special treatment beyond the extraordinary level of privilege he already enjoys. If Riker's isn't a fitting abode for anyone, creating exceptions for those with the most potential influence to change the system (remember that Manafort spent most of his American political career promoting the "get tough on crime" party) is one of the surest ways to kneecap any efforts improving the system.
I would like to refer the honorable gentlemen to the comments I made some moments ago:
Torn: Manafort definitely should not get special treatment because of who he is. Conversely, the way the system treats so many human beings is just wrong.
According to these folks , about 8.5% of the US prison system was privatized as of August 2018. I suspect that with the advent of The Border Troubles that percentage has grown, though I haven't been able to google by how much. I mention this only because it's clear there's a move afoot to "privatize" this system.
There are three central problems here: determining the purpose(s) of the penal system; assigning responsibility for the penal system; and implementing the penal system in a way that's consistent with the rule of law.
The most basic question, I think, is what the penal system is meant to accomplish. Possibilities include security -- that is, separating lawbreakers from society for society's protection; retribution, or deliberately inflicting suffering on lawbreakers in retaliation for the suffering they themselves have inflicted; and/or rehabilitation, or the hope of reforming lawbreaking people into law-abiding ones who can safely be returned to society.
Clearly, serving a prison sentence does apparently reform some people. Equally clearly, prison sentences seem to "harden" rather than reform others. And it's not at all clear (to me, at least) that this society is particularly successful at separating lawbreakers from the law-abiding. Lawbreaking and law-evading seem to lie at the very core of our economic system, and goes on ubiquitously as a matter of routine, regular business practice (witness the Sackler scandal and the opioid crisis).
What does society expect to accomplish by establishing a penal system at all? Beats me, here in the US. The results we get from our current system -- the highest incarceration rate in the world, according to this source en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate -- and a staggering rate of racial inequality in the make-up of the incarcerated -- suggest that our current penal system is driven by motives quite different from security, punishment, or reform.
I have to stop for now, but hope to return to this discussion.
Adjusted link code. BroJames. Purgatory Host
We have some of our penal system in private hands. They are known fir loosing prisoners whilst transporting them and generally being bad at their job.
Aim high? No idea what that means in this context.
As far as I'm concerned, it means that gloating over Manafort's transfer to a notorious jail and generally hoping to impose maximum suffering on him above and beyond the actual requirements of criminal justice is straight out of the populist playbook Trump seems to use.
As far as I'm concerned, it means that gloating over Manafort's transfer to a notorious jail and generally hoping to impose maximum suffering on him above and beyond the actual requirements of criminal justice is straight out of the populist playbook Trump seems to use.
Has anything actually happened to Paul Manafort "above and beyond the actual requirements of criminal justice"? It seems to me everything that's happened to him, including the proposed transfer, is well within the bounds of the criminal justice system as it exists in the U.S. in 2019. Further, I'd suggest that a lot of the "suffering" Manafort has undergone has been self-inflicted. (e.g. if you're under house arrest the surest way to get sent to jail pre-trial is witness tampering. If you file a motion that the jail is too remote to confer effectively with your lawyers don't be surprised if you get moved to a new jail instead of returned to the house arrest you've already abused. Etc.) Manafort has a fairly egregious track record of abusing the trust placed in him by any kind of leniency granted by the criminal justice system, which would seem to justify enhanced security measures around his detention. If you want to argue that Riker's Island or solitary confinement are forms of cruel and unusual punishment (to quote something I heard somewhere) in and of themselves, that's fine. Where I draw the line is in creating a "Manafort exception" for the rich and well-connected, or in considering it beyond the limits of legitimate discussion to remind people that the Trump Campaign was, in large part, conducted like a criminal enterprise by enterprising criminals. Trying to create a code of silence around such things does not serve the public interest.
@Crœsos You are right. Manafort has behaved in a way that has shown absolute contempt for the justice process and in the strictest sense he has simply got what he ought to for his behaviour. The witness tampering is particularly noteworthy in this case. Although it's also worth noted that his sentence is very lenient compared to the sentencing guidelines for the offensives of which he has been convicted.
Let me put it like this: if it was up to me, he'd get a much longer sentence in much more humane conditions.
As far as I'm concerned, it means that gloating over Manafort's transfer to a notorious jail and generally hoping to impose maximum suffering on him above and beyond the actual requirements of criminal justice is straight out of the populist playbook Trump seems to use.
Has anything actually happened to Paul Manafort "above and beyond the actual requirements of criminal justice"?
Probably not, and breaking his bail conditions as he did shows just what a bad case of affluenza he has, but it was you that went to the trouble of telling us his inmate number and the name of his State penitentiary destination as an evident source of satisfaction because of its terrible reputation, before going on to say how terrible that destination was for everybody else.
You can't simultaneously point to Riker's Island as a prime example of how bad the US criminal justice system is (as you did) and make out that somebody's transfer there (in particular) is especially poetic justice in their case and suggest all this is nothing more than the actual requirements of criminal justice. At least not without being inconsistent.
Probably not, and breaking his bail conditions as he did shows just what a bad case of affluenza he has, but it was you that went to the trouble of telling us his inmate number and the name of his State penitentiary destination as an evident source of satisfaction because of its terrible reputation, before going on to say how terrible that destination was for everybody else.
I mentioned his inmate number to remind people that just about everyone associated with Donald Trump is crook. It's a service I sometimes provide for duly convicted malefactors of great wealth and/or power. I did the same for Dennis Hastert 47991-424 over on my deathpool list. (Though Hastert is not associated with Donald Trump as far as I know.) I'm not sure the inmate number conveys any additional information not implicit in the fact that a prison transfer is reportedly planned.
I also specified (via link) Manafort 35207-016's current place of confinement at FCI Loretto in Pennsylvania but for some reason you don't seem to consider that to be a needless public humiliation, which says to me that your issue is with the existence of Riker's Island, not my having the gall to mention it exists. Again, I don't think maintaining a code of silence around the penal system benefits anyone. What would you prefer? Something like:
A former campaign manager for a past presidential campaign may soon be traveling from some type of federal facility to a state facility of similar type. There are reasons for this travel, and they may have implications for other things.
BTW, it's also possible that Manafort's breaking of his bail conditions is not due to "affluenza" but because he expected a presidential pardon, as the M****** Report suggests. A conviction in state court, which would be (presidentially) unpardonable might change Manafort's internal calculus on cooperation.
Riker's Island is a municipal jail and Manifort will probably go from there to a state prison once all procedures against him are adjudicated. The real significance of him being transferred to Rikers is that the man who currently claims the office of president cannot pardon Manifort since Manifort is no longer under federal custody.
I also specified(via link) Manafort 35207-016's current place of confinement at FCI Loretto in Pennsylvania but for some reason you don't seem to consider that to be a needless public humiliation
You felt the Riker's Island reference was worthy of being put in plain text, not buried in a link, which suggests it was for effect, and I think referring to anyone by their inmate number is humiliating.
If you like that sort of thing, why not advocate, say, a dunce capà la Chinese cultural revolution for "just about everyone associated with Donald Trump"? Apparently guilt by association is fine with you (provided it's the opposition's guilt of course).
There would be plenty of scope for reporting the real significance, as @Gramps49 rightly has it, of Manafort's transfer - resulting lack of presidential protection - without the snark and without obfuscation. But I guess unbiased reporting is too much to hope for these days.
While I take your point, Eutychus, the fact that the Mueller investigation has resulted in sentences, indictments, and charges of at least 40 individuals, er, associated with the Trump administration, it gets harder and harder not to find the entire crew suspect.
Add to the formal criminal issues the emoluments violations, the outright blatant lies coming not only from the President but from highly visible members of his hand-picked staff, and the deliberate policy steps taken to increase misery and poverty among ordinary citizens by relieving many of health coverage, income (via tariffs and refusal to increase minimum wage set at $7.25 in 2009), increase in tax burden by transferring that burden from the ultra-rich to the "middle" (so-called) class, etc. etc. Add in the attacks on religious freedoms, on people of color, on sexual minorities, on immigrants, on women's right to choose. Add to that the assault and battery on our air, water, soils, and infrastructure, and, well . . .
I'm sure that somewhere in this administration there toils some stalwart-and-stainless innocent, unwittingly taken on by Trump & Co., laboring unnoticed in some sleepy corner of the White House as a force for good and the rule of law, but frankly, I'm going to have to see this hero trotted out, scrutinized, and put on display before giving him, her, or it the benefit of any doubt. Of course, once such a display had been arranged, the luckless sod would be sacked.
If we're going to talk about justice being done, in this or any other context, it needs to be done on an individual basis. I find Trump and his entourage pretty despicable, but I'm wary of this "all Republicans are irretrievably corrupt" line. Systemic evils are a different thing to individual responsibilities, and I don't think lumping them together is helpful.
Are these systemic evils, though? Again, I take your point re: individuals receiving justice on that basis, but let's look at the Republican-controlled (OK, McConnell-controlled) Senate.
Senators are individuals who have the capacity for individual action -- they vote individually, they sponsor/co-sponsor bills, debate in committee and on the floor as individuals and so on. Yet with a handful of exceptions (many of whom were retiring), these individuals choose -- as individuals -- to act in concert. The Democratic-controlled House has passed something like 200 bills --the Violence Against Women Act, the infrastructure bill, immigration reform, and many, many more. These bills lie moldering away in the Senate, because the Senate Majority Leader will not allow them to come to the floor. He's an individual. Those going along with him are individuals as well but choosing to allow this. That's not a systemic problem. It's a problem of individuals consciously collaborating in evil.
Bad policy decisions aren't the same as actual illegal activity. The distinction is, I think, pretty much why "Lock her up!" was felt to be so aggressive, and blurring the distinction is, I think, a symptom of populism.
Comments
Sorry, not understanding what you're getting at here. Is this some kind of "free Paul Manafort!" thing? Or some kind of omertà where the public is forbidden from comment on court sentences enforced in their name? Remember that the cases were drafted as The United States v. Paul Manafort.
You can comment how you like, and I can understand the need to celebrate some judicial victories against teflon suspects, but I question the relevance of having to add an inmate number and their transfer to Riker's Island (as opposed to: from Federal to State custody). It brings back memories of how Dominique Strauss-Kahn's imprisonment there was portrayed, which had little to do with actual justice in my view. Will you only be happy if Trump has to do a perp walk, too?
Um, yeah.
It wouldn't bother me if Donald Trump is eventually treated in the same way the American justice system treats other people reasonably accused of obstruction of justice are treated, but it's not the only thing that would make me happy. What does bother me is this implicit contention that such things are only for the little people, those who aren't rich enough or white enough to be treated with kid gloves by the system.
You misunderstand my point. It is amusing because Trump keeps calling the investigation a waste of money. As I pointed out above, it would be worth the cost anyway but
it has not cost the American taxpayers a penny not by design but by an indirect method. The humour is how that fact undermines Trump's whole argument.
The virtue of statutes that confiscate ill-gotten gains is a different issue.
AFZ
(The French media have been up in arms about the "terrible" treatment by the prosecution of Renault's former CEO Carlos Ghosn following his arrest in Japan. I wish they could be up in arms about all the little people who get pretty much exactly the same treatment on a daily basis in their own country).
Torn: Manafort definitely should not get special treatment because of who he is. Conversely, the way the system treats so many human beings is just wrong.
AFZ
You're right, it is a different issue, and I confess it's one that I feel strongly about.
But I fear that trying to confront Trump's declarations, particularly his oft-repeated ones, as though they were some sort of "argument" that needs "undermining" is not going to work.
I disagree. One of the big factors in maintaining the American justice system in the ultra-punitive state it exists today is that the rich and powerful (i.e. those who have the most potential to change the system) know that they'll never be subjected to that system. If Trump (and those like him) are assured that, in unlikely event they fall afoul of the criminal justice system in a way an expensive legal team can't extract them from, they'll experience the system "at its best" and not as it exists for everyone else then any impetus for change will be severely blunted. Not to mention the inherent unfairness of a two-tiered justice system where the rich and powerful experience the system "at its best" and everyone else gets . . . something else.
Indeed. But I think the 'tearing' sets in from the moment that any of us come to think there are two categories of people in the world (i) those who 'deserve to go to jail' and (ii) us.
By contrast, restorative justice introduces a less individualistic notion, and considers victim, offender, and everybody else as all being part of a community. Viewed thus, the fact that anybody has to go to jail can be seen as an indication of failure on the part of the community that allowed things to get to this point. But we're getting way off topic here.
What you are trying to make me mean by "at its best" is not what I mean.
What I mean by "at its best" is actually doing the criminal justice bit, rather than extrajudicial media-feeding stuff like perp walks. And applying the same standards for things like bail (one of the things the Japanese long denied Ghosn, who in my view was far more of a flight risk than lots of people I know rotting in jail right now).
True.
If it helps, Manafort's assets were only seized after his guilt was established.
Eutychus, I don't believe anybody on this part of the thread has sought to grace Trump's oft-repeated slogans with the dignity of calling them arguments. I understood them to have been repeated using irony. I started to explain why, but surely you know.
I did use that word. I think my views on Mr Trump are well established. I should have said 'assertions' or perhaps mindless, vile, incoherent, Twitter-based streams of consciousness from a narcassist who clearly cares for none but himself. Snappy, ha?
It is common for Trump to tweet about the cost of Mueller - it amuses me that there isn't one. Will that do for now?
AFZ
I feel sorry for anyone there, whatever they've done. Rikers is a very bad place.
A fitting abode for very bad guys.
No, it really isn't a fitting abode for anyone. That's the problem.
What's a prisoner's punishment supposed to be? Is it supposed to include being on the receiving end of violence, rape, torture, murder?
What effect does that have on the prison staff?
We have Pelican Bay state (?) prison here in California. It literally drives men mad, per news investigations. (BTW, there's a prison by the same name in another state.)
There are three central problems here: determining the purpose(s) of the penal system; assigning responsibility for the penal system; and implementing the penal system in a way that's consistent with the rule of law.
The most basic question, I think, is what the penal system is meant to accomplish. Possibilities include security -- that is, separating lawbreakers from society for society's protection; retribution, or deliberately inflicting suffering on lawbreakers in retaliation for the suffering they themselves have inflicted; and/or rehabilitation, or the hope of reforming lawbreaking people into law-abiding ones who can safely be returned to society.
Clearly, serving a prison sentence does apparently reform some people. Equally clearly, prison sentences seem to "harden" rather than reform others. And it's not at all clear (to me, at least) that this society is particularly successful at separating lawbreakers from the law-abiding. Lawbreaking and law-evading seem to lie at the very core of our economic system, and goes on ubiquitously as a matter of routine, regular business practice (witness the Sackler scandal and the opioid crisis).
What does society expect to accomplish by establishing a penal system at all? Beats me, here in the US. The results we get from our current system -- the highest incarceration rate in the world, according to this source en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate -- and a staggering rate of racial inequality in the make-up of the incarcerated -- suggest that our current penal system is driven by motives quite different from security, punishment, or reform.
I have to stop for now, but hope to return to this discussion.
Adjusted link code. BroJames. Purgatory Host
BroJames
Purgatory Host
The purpose and function of prison is discussed here. Intriguing to me is that also spun off a Trump discussion...
AFZ
I'd say the problem is more along the lines of the fact that we only hear complaints like this when someone wealthy and well-connected like Paul Manafort could potentially get sent there. Manafort's wealth and connections insure that he's already had, and will continue to receive, "the full benefit of the criminal justice system at its best", as @Eutychus puts it, with all his rights respected and competent legal counsel readily available, rather than the criminal justice system as it actually exists for everyone else who doesn't have Manafort's resources. I seen no reason to grant Paul Manafort any special treatment beyond the extraordinary level of privilege he already enjoys. If Riker's isn't a fitting abode for anyone, creating exceptions for those with the most potential influence to change the system (remember that Manafort spent most of his American political career promoting the "get tough on crime" party) is one of the surest ways to kneecap any efforts improving the system.
In more Trump-related news, blogger Gerard Magliocca argues over at Balkinization that Trump no legal authority to impose tariffs on Mexico.
I am neither a lawyer nor particularly familiar with the law in question [PDF], but Magliocca's argument seems plausible, and this kind of cheap and disingenuous authoritarianism is pretty much par for the course for the Trump administration*.
If you'd like me to meet you half way, perhaps we could agree on giving Manafort a public defender instead of a paid-for lawyer? But not even his team seem to have extracted much, so far.
At the last count, I've been inside 35 prisons in some 15 jurisdictions on 3 continents. You want "complaints like this"? I could give you "complaints like this" all day long, but I'd run the risk of being accused of crusading.
I would like to refer the honorable gentlemen to the comments I made some moments ago:
My thanks, BroJames.
We have some of our penal system in private hands. They are known fir loosing prisoners whilst transporting them and generally being bad at their job.
As far as I'm concerned, it means that gloating over Manafort's transfer to a notorious jail and generally hoping to impose maximum suffering on him above and beyond the actual requirements of criminal justice is straight out of the populist playbook Trump seems to use.
I know. In this context, meaningless.
Has anything actually happened to Paul Manafort "above and beyond the actual requirements of criminal justice"? It seems to me everything that's happened to him, including the proposed transfer, is well within the bounds of the criminal justice system as it exists in the U.S. in 2019. Further, I'd suggest that a lot of the "suffering" Manafort has undergone has been self-inflicted. (e.g. if you're under house arrest the surest way to get sent to jail pre-trial is witness tampering. If you file a motion that the jail is too remote to confer effectively with your lawyers don't be surprised if you get moved to a new jail instead of returned to the house arrest you've already abused. Etc.) Manafort has a fairly egregious track record of abusing the trust placed in him by any kind of leniency granted by the criminal justice system, which would seem to justify enhanced security measures around his detention. If you want to argue that Riker's Island or solitary confinement are forms of cruel and unusual punishment (to quote something I heard somewhere) in and of themselves, that's fine. Where I draw the line is in creating a "Manafort exception" for the rich and well-connected, or in considering it beyond the limits of legitimate discussion to remind people that the Trump Campaign was, in large part, conducted like a criminal enterprise by enterprising criminals. Trying to create a code of silence around such things does not serve the public interest.
Let me put it like this: if it was up to me, he'd get a much longer sentence in much more humane conditions.
AFZ
You can't simultaneously point to Riker's Island as a prime example of how bad the US criminal justice system is (as you did) and make out that somebody's transfer there (in particular) is especially poetic justice in their case and suggest all this is nothing more than the actual requirements of criminal justice. At least not without being inconsistent.
I mentioned his inmate number to remind people that just about everyone associated with Donald Trump is crook. It's a service I sometimes provide for duly convicted malefactors of great wealth and/or power. I did the same for Dennis Hastert 47991-424 over on my deathpool list. (Though Hastert is not associated with Donald Trump as far as I know.) I'm not sure the inmate number conveys any additional information not implicit in the fact that a prison transfer is reportedly planned.
I also specified (via link) Manafort 35207-016's current place of confinement at FCI Loretto in Pennsylvania but for some reason you don't seem to consider that to be a needless public humiliation, which says to me that your issue is with the existence of Riker's Island, not my having the gall to mention it exists. Again, I don't think maintaining a code of silence around the penal system benefits anyone. What would you prefer? Something like:
That seems needlessly obfuscatory.
If you like that sort of thing, why not advocate, say, a dunce cap à la Chinese cultural revolution for "just about everyone associated with Donald Trump"? Apparently guilt by association is fine with you (provided it's the opposition's guilt of course).
There would be plenty of scope for reporting the real significance, as @Gramps49 rightly has it, of Manafort's transfer - resulting lack of presidential protection - without the snark and without obfuscation. But I guess unbiased reporting is too much to hope for these days.
While I take your point, Eutychus, the fact that the Mueller investigation has resulted in sentences, indictments, and charges of at least 40 individuals, er, associated with the Trump administration, it gets harder and harder not to find the entire crew suspect.
Add to the formal criminal issues the emoluments violations, the outright blatant lies coming not only from the President but from highly visible members of his hand-picked staff, and the deliberate policy steps taken to increase misery and poverty among ordinary citizens by relieving many of health coverage, income (via tariffs and refusal to increase minimum wage set at $7.25 in 2009), increase in tax burden by transferring that burden from the ultra-rich to the "middle" (so-called) class, etc. etc. Add in the attacks on religious freedoms, on people of color, on sexual minorities, on immigrants, on women's right to choose. Add to that the assault and battery on our air, water, soils, and infrastructure, and, well . . .
I'm sure that somewhere in this administration there toils some stalwart-and-stainless innocent, unwittingly taken on by Trump & Co., laboring unnoticed in some sleepy corner of the White House as a force for good and the rule of law, but frankly, I'm going to have to see this hero trotted out, scrutinized, and put on display before giving him, her, or it the benefit of any doubt. Of course, once such a display had been arranged, the luckless sod would be sacked.
Senators are individuals who have the capacity for individual action -- they vote individually, they sponsor/co-sponsor bills, debate in committee and on the floor as individuals and so on. Yet with a handful of exceptions (many of whom were retiring), these individuals choose -- as individuals -- to act in concert. The Democratic-controlled House has passed something like 200 bills --the Violence Against Women Act, the infrastructure bill, immigration reform, and many, many more. These bills lie moldering away in the Senate, because the Senate Majority Leader will not allow them to come to the floor. He's an individual. Those going along with him are individuals as well but choosing to allow this. That's not a systemic problem. It's a problem of individuals consciously collaborating in evil.