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noramoya · 6 years ago

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“When Michael Jackson died in 2009, Wade Robson—the former choreographer whose allegations of abuse are at the center of a controversial new documentary, Leaving Neverland—wrote in tribute to his friend:

“Michael Jackson changed the world and, more personally, my life forever. He is the reason I dance, the reason I make music, and one of the main reasons I believe in the pure goodness of humankind. He has been a close friend of mine for 20 years. His music, his movement, his personal words of inspiration and encouragement and his unconditional love will live inside of me forever. I will miss him immeasurably, but I know that he is now at peace and enchanting the heavens with a melody and a moonwalk.”

Robson was twenty-seven years old at the time. Four years earlier, he testified at Jackson’s 2005 trial (as an adult) that nothing sexual ever happened between them. Prior to the trial Robson hadn’t seen Jackson for years and was under no obligation to be a witness for the defense. He faced a withering cross-examination, understanding the penalty of perjury for lying under oath. But Robson adamantly, confidently, and credibly asserted that nothing sexual ever happened.”

WHAT CHANGED BETWEEN THEN AND NOW ? A FEW THINGS :

• In 2011, Robson approached John Branca, co-executor of the Michael Jackson Estate, about directing the new Michael Jackson/Cirque du Soleil production, Immortal. Robson admitted he wanted the job “badly,” but the Estate ultimately chose someone else for the position.

• In 2012, Robson had a nervous breakdown, triggered, he said, by an obsessive quest for success. His career, in his own words, began to “crumble.” That same year, with Robson’s career, finances, and marriage in peril, he began shopping a book that claimed he was sexually abused by Michael Jackson. No publisher picked it up.

• In 2013, Robson filed a $1.5 billion dollar civil lawsuit/creditor’s claim, along with James Safechuck, who also spent time with Jackson in the late ‘80s. Safechuck claimed he only realized he may have been abused when Robson filed his lawsuit. That lawsuit was dismissed by a probate court in 2017.

• In 2019, the Sundance Film Festival premiered a documentary based entirely on Robson and Safechuck’s allegations. While the documentary is obviously emotionally disturbing given the content, it presents no new evidence or witnesses. The film’s director, Dan Reed, acknowledged not wanting to interview other key figures because it might complicate or compromise the story he wanted to tell.

It is tempting for the media to tie Jackson into a larger cultural narrative about sexual misconduct. R. Kelly was rightfully taken down by a documentary, and many other high-profile figures have been exposed in recent years, so surely, the logic goes, Michael Jackson must be guilty as well. Yet that is a dangerous leap—particularly with America’s history of unjustly targeting and convicting black men—that fair-minded people would be wise to consider more carefully before condemning the artist. It is no accident that one of Jackson’s favorite books (and movies) was To Kill a Mockingbird, a story about a black man—Tom Robinson—destroyed by false allegations.

The media’s largely uncritical, de-contextualized takes out of Sundance seem to have forgotten: no allegations have been more publicly scrutinized than those against Michael Jackson. They elicited a two-year feeding frenzy in the mid-90s and then again in the mid-2000s, when Jackson faced an exhaustive criminal trial. His homes were ransacked in two unannounced raids by law enforcement. Nothing incriminating was found. Jackson was acquitted of all charges in 2005 by a conservative Santa Maria jury. The FBI, likewise, conducted a thorough investigation. Its 300-page file on the pop star, released under the Freedom of Information Act, found no evidence of wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, dozens of individuals who spent time with Jackson as kids continue to assert nothing sexual ever happened. This includes hundreds of sick and terminally ill children such as Bela Farkas (for whom Jackson paid for a life-saving liver transplant) and Ryan White (whom Jackson befriended and supported in his final years battling AIDS); it includes lesser-known figures like Brett Barnes and Frank Cascio; it includes celebrities like Macaulay Culkin, Sean Lennon, Emmanuel Lewis, Alfonso Ribeiro, and Corey Feldman; it includes Jackson’s nieces and nephews; and it includes his own three children.

The allegations surrounding Jackson largely faded over the past decade for a reason: unlike the Bill Cosby or R. Kelly cases, the more people looked into the Jackson allegations, the more the evidence vindicated him. The prosecution’s case in 2005 was so absurd Rolling Stone‘s Matt Taibbi described it like this:

“ Ostensibly a story about bringing a child molester to justice, the Michael Jackson trial would instead be a kind of homecoming parade of insipid American types: grifters, suckers and no-talent schemers, mired in either outright unemployment… or the bogus non-careers of the information age, looking to cash in any way they can. The MC of the proceedings was District Attorney Tom Sneddon, whose metaphorical role in this American reality show was to represent the mean gray heart of the Nixonian Silent Majority – the bitter mediocrity itching to stick it to anyone who’d ever taken a vacation to Paris. The first month or so of the trial featured perhaps the most compromised collection of prosecution witnesses ever assembled in an American criminal case – almost to a man a group of convicted liars, paid gossip hawkers or worse…”

— MATT TAIBBI

In the next six weeks, virtually every piece of his case imploded in open court, and the chief drama of the trial quickly turned into a race to see if the DA could manage to put all of his witnesses on the stand without getting any of them removed from the courthouse in manacles.

••• WHAT’S CHANGED SINCE THEN ? •••

In Robson’s case, decades after the alleged incidents took place, he was barbecuing with Michael Jackson and his children. He was asking for tickets to the artist’s memorial. He was participating in tributes. “I still have my mobile phone with his number in it,” Robson wrote in 2009, “I just can’t bare the thought of deleting his messages.”

Then, suddenly, after twenty years, his story changed and with his new claims came a $1.5 billion dollar lawsuit.

As an eccentric, wealthy, African American man, Michael Jackson has always been a target for litigation. During the 1980s and 1990s, dozens of women falsely claimed he was the father of their children. He faced multiple lawsuits falsely claiming he plagiarized various songs. As recently as 2010, a woman named Billie Jean filed a frivolous $600 million paternity lawsuit against Jackson’s Estate.

As someone who has done an enormous amount of research on the artist, interviewed many people who were close to him, and been granted access to a lot of private information, my assessment is that the evidence simply does not point to Michael Jackson as the “monster” presented in Leaving Neverland. In contrast to Robson and Safechuck’s revised accounts, there is a remarkable consistency to the way people who knew the artist speak of him—whether friends, family members, collaborators, fellow artists,recording engineers, attorneys, business associates, security guards, former spouses, his own children—people who knew him in every capacity imaginable. Michael, they say, was gentle, brilliant, sensitive, sometimes naive, sometimes childish, sometimes oblivious to perceptions. But none believe he was a child molester.

A fair documentary would allow those voices to be heard as well. Instead, Leaving Neverland presents a biased, emotionally manipulative hit piece that dismisses the perspectives of hundreds of first-hand witnesses in favor of allegations by two men contradicting their own sworn testimonies.

— JOSEPH VOGEL .

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jmrphy · 7 years ago

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Meta reflections on Jesse Pinkman’s new book, Enlightenment Now, with a special focus on the Joe Rogan chapter

Warning: This was supposed to be a really quick thing about the reception of Steven Pinker's new book, in part just to rev this blog back up as an easier-going place for short, fun stuff. Accidentally it became a 4k-word world-historical meta-narrative about the changing political coordinates of contemporary intellectual life on a razor-thin evidentiary base.

I just read RS Bakker's thoughts on the new Pinker book. I thought they were very stimulating and seemed important/credible—although I didn't grok everything in my one time through on the train. They did, however, motivate me to jot down a few thoughts that have been recurring to me lately. They're not really related to Bakker's post.

I'm not going to comment on the Pinker book, first because I haven't read it; second, because I don't like playing in already overpopulated peanut galleries, it pains my frail ego; third, because, as with many things today, it seems to me the real theoretical points of interest are at a meta level. There's a time and place to use proper names, no doubt, but individuals and their particular products are often red herrings, I think. If I use the name Pinker below it's just for shorthand; this will really be about the larger class of prestigious public intellectuals of which he is only one example (as opposed to, say, the high-brow but unpaid batshit blogger class, the personal-brand-with-a-patreon class, the Youtube philosophy for dummies educator class, the Alex Jones balls-to-the-wall flight from Earth class, etc.). It turns out there are wayyy more ways to be a famous and influential intellectual than anyone could have known when they were in grad school in the 70s or 80s, or even the 90s really.

In fact, I won't even use Pinker's name, to emphasize that I'm really not out here trying to ankle-bite this great and good scientist who is much smarter and more accomplished than myself. Wherever I might want to refer to Pinker as an example, I will instead refer to Pinkman. That way you'll think of Jesse from Breaking Bad, in the form of a prestigious social scientist instead of a meth kingpin.

Highly successful and publicly influential academic intellectuals are playing a very particular kind of game. The logic of this game made sense even ten years ago, but I'm not sure it does anymore. The logic is something like this "Get really smart, make real scientific contributions, earn legitimate credentials and status, then leverage this elevated status to shape the body politic toward the Good (and also be handsomely remunerated, admired, etc. — but hey, fair enough.) I've never met Pinkman or many other famous scientists but my sense is they have given much of their life to some version of this noble vocation. This is an archetypal Liberal identity-mold, a tried and true, recognizable Calling, in a world where such things are increasingly hard to find.

Well, the past decade has thrown up some data points that really make you wonder whether the basic terms of this model still obtain. A few things lately have given me the bad feeling that someone like Pinkman may have invested most of their life in a certain kind of bargain with Liberal Society that, sadly, Liberal Society has now reneged on. I say this is a bad feeling because, if true, it's very unfortunate and I genuinely feel for them.

So what's this bargain I speak of, in a little more detail? First, for background, remember that for much of our history highly talented and creative individuals are typically punished by their groups. Reverse dominance hierarchies, etc., you can't let super talented people get too ahead of the others because then they'll dominate, or group morale suffers, or the group disintegrates, or whatever. Bad things will happen. So they'd cut you down to size at every opportunity. But liberal society was willing to offer super smart and able people a bargain: If you're really smart and able, then you can go off and cultivate your smarts but only on condition that you respect Liberal Society. It's a pretty genius solution actually: let the ablest flourish above everyone else but make them pay a cut of their gains to the cohesion of the whole. Win-win. The society got all the benefits of crazy geniuses solving problems, without them dominating or collective cohesion suffering. The geniuses not only got to enjoy their objective superiority on full blast, they also got to feel like it was all about doing good for others. And maybe it is.

It is the right to generously bestow social improvement that is one of the great joys of being a prestigious intellectual--could you imagine how exhilarating it must feel to have earned, through a life of study, the exalted role of institutionally sanctioned Society Improver at grand scale, how genuinely good it must feel to know that all of your sacrifice and hard work now empowers you to improve the knowledge and character of millions, and the political health of a whole society? Understood a little more rational-choicely, this is one of the key income streams that liberal society pays to its most prestigious geniuses, in return for their lifelong loyalty to all of the official tenets of harmonious Liberal Society. I think the data is pretty obvious in showing that no matter how genius you might be, if you go off the rails of "reasonable discourse" beyond a certain degree you quickly lose all of your standing and influence (on this model, anyway.

(Note that the newer classes of public intellectuals have figured out that if you decline the liberal institutional bargain, then going maximally off the rails can be its own direct path to extraordinary intellectual influence and economic reward. But more on that later, let's stay on track understanding the fine print of the liberal intellectual's bargain with liberal society).

Here's where things get a little shadowy because the harmony of Liberal Society is quite sensitive. It's kind of like a precious baby, and we love babies and would do anything to protect them, but this is how hypocrisy enters in automatically, because Liberal Society requires everyone to presume everyone else is an adult, and to treat everyone as such. For instance, when two groups violently disagree over certain deep moral questions, well, liberal society doesn't allow them to deal with it violently (a good thing perhaps, as Pinkman has amply documented). But what does it do instead?

The simplest way to summarize all of the things that Liberal Society does to reduce violence: It papers over the conflicts, which is maybe a brilliant solution, or maybe an insane, explosive solution that simply hasn't exploded yet — the jury is still out on that one. If Group A thinks abortion is murdering babies, and Group B thinks prohibition of abortion is enslaving women, the only way to deal with such profound and high-stakes ethical disagreement, other than civil war, is to derive some symbolic artifice(s) that will let both groups live peacefully with the other. Hmm, thinks Caesar, do we have anyone around here good at generating clever symbolic artifices? In swoops the knighted genius. The genius is delighted to take a break from self-cultivation in order to contribute to Harmony, and Caesar, as well as the common people, are happy to have someone on hand to explain why I don't have to worry if my neighbor is Evil. Win, win, win.

Thus baked into the vocation of the modern liberal intellectual is, from the get-go, a highly dissimulated condescension and hypocrisy. The liberal intellectual gets their status precisely from a superior ability (earned or inherited, doesn't matter) but they are contractually obligated to treat the normal masses as equals, when they know damn well that in fact, the normal masses are dumber, more dangerous, and in need of Harmonizing by institutions (paper). Also, remember that the genius wants to help, it's extremely rewarding to sincerely help society, but the noble sacrifice the genius admirably contributes to the social good is precisely the papering over, of whatever the normal masses need papered over for their well-being. This is how a basic minimum of dissimulation, condescension, and hypocrisy is structurally embedded in the vocation or calling of the modern liberal intellectual. We might note in passing it's also an avatar of Plato's Philosopher-King, a conceptual-political thought-rut that many progressive intellectual personae tend to inhabit in one way or another (and yes, here, Pinkman is a Progressive, despite some infamy among SJWs).

OK, so the modern liberal intellectual might be forced to pay lip service to a few small Noble Lies, but it's soooo much better than all that homicide and war in the earlier chapters of Pinkman's violence book, that it seems like a no-brainer. "There are political realities, it's not my fault, all I can do is speak the truth in a way that helps society the most. If that means I have to use my words judiciously, is that really so bad?" an elite cognitive scientist might reasonably ask. The only problem is that this entire model presumes that the speech of the prestige intellectual will remain highly weighted relative to the speech of anyone else who might take it upon themselves to explain things publicly.

What if external circumstances change in such a way that the masses start to intuit that the knighted geniuses have quietly been playing a political game all along? What if, empirically, things just so happen to play out in such a way that a critical mass of pretty average people (on the right and the left, and in their own languages and for their own reasons), quietly update their mental and behavioral models of the world in the realization that: "Eureka! I have a strong suspicion that some really serious issues have been papered over for some time now... and I'm not going to be a dupe any longer. I see what's going on, and I can play this game, too..." Well, one thing to note is that if this updating were to occur, even on a massive and rapid scale, there's no reason to believe we would know it anytime soon after it occurred. The next thing to see is that, suddenly, the entire bargain that the prestige intellectual based his whole life's labors on would suddenly be off the table.

So long as your pronouncements are weighted well by institutionalized attention monopolies, your lifelong service to science mixed slightly with Harmony-producing fluff was a reasonable and even maybe noble project. If your prestige loses its weight, then tempering your extreme intelligence with little white lies would be all for nought, because you're about to be left in the dust by new startups who specialize in unreasonably extreme truth-telling ("red pills" and many other colored pills now available) and also unreasonably extreme hypocrisy (self-help bullshit, SJWism, etc.). You'll still have your niche, but your effect on people and society will rapidly fall towards zero (along with the overwhelming majority of other people, including most smart people).

It seems to me that as a sociological phenomenon, Pinkman's recent book dramatizes a lot of what I'm modeling here. I think the world has changed a lot very recently and with many things we're like the roadrunner who's already off the cliff, but we haven't yet looked down to see the vast empty space beneath our galloping gait. In a strange way, I think dumber people have been doing more correct updating as of late, and some of the smartest people have been stubbornly failing to update lately. Dumber people have updated to not listen to a word of what the mainstream intellectual culture says, but smart people have not yet been able to update in response to this updating by dumber people (in part because smart people don't have any way of hearing about how dumber people are updating, and they're not exactly accustomed to caring about it). The inertia of media representations enforces a substantial lag between increasingly rapid techno-economic changes in the distribution of powers and our meager human mental models of where that power is.

All of this has been quite abstract, and I mentioned above that I have some data points, so I'll just end with those. I might have tricked you, accidentally, because to be honest, I've extrapolated this whole bonkers historical meta-narrative from a few very measly anecdotal observations. Well first, I kind of had in mind things like Trump and Brexit, i.e. signals of widespread mistrust of dominant institutions and respectable liberal wisdom. So those are pretty big and real data points for the kind of perspective I'm articulating here. I also have a few more specific ones, although they are very tendentious.

The first one is so silly, you're really going to laugh at me for writing this long post in part because of this ridiculously tiny and personal anecdote. You can write your own blog, I for one sense significant causal evidence in this little story. Basically, I listened to the Joe Rogan podcast with Pinkman about his new book and... Pinkman was fine, he's a brilliant and likable guy... but... something was wrong. Very wrong. Don't tell anyone because it's kind of orthogonal to my personal brand and I have to stay on point, but I've listened to many, many Joe Rogan podcasts. And I'm a professional social scientist mind you, so if anything the Pinkman podcast should be more interesting and effective on me, relative to the average episode. But it was just so... "boring" is not even the word. Flat? Anachronistic? Bloodless? Zombieish? None of these quite convey it, but together they give some sense. The point is that, as a minor young academic but a relative connoisseur of the new media, for me something really significant in the machinery of intellectual experience was failing to fire, so much so that it was quite strange. I was surprised and confused. But now I think I understand it; it's everything I've said above.

The world that Pinkman seems to think he is in, is not the world we're actually living in now. The book will be successful economically of course, but it has no affective-identity constituency, other than people who are already socio-culturally neutralized or priced-in by the current equilibrium. It's hard to see how anything will move or shake from this type of project anymore. Most intellectual figures preach to a choir, of course, so Pinkman is no better or worse for that — but some choirs move and shake and generate novel ripples on world history, while others just sit there doing nothing other than precisely what was yesterday's world history. Some books and podcasts and youtube videos make people want to leave their friends and family to join a jihad, some give you strong confidence that a reality-TV star would make a great president, some give you the extraordinary realization that all of society is controlled by a white supremacist patriarchy; all of these lead to novel, unpredictable schisms and re-aggregations, new social formations and subcultures, which in their affective vitality bubble up, viralize or mutualize or enter into arms races, and end up producing system-level outcomes such as electoral victories, migrations, communicating-contagion shooting sprees, various contagious mental pathologies, as well as genuine self- and community-improvement dynamics, unequally distributed. There's nothing better or worse about the Enlightenment Is Cool niche; it's just that it's identity-affective character seems predicated on precisely what we've recently realized is already gone, as demonstrated by the whopping piece of incontrovertible evidence that was my personal lukewarm reception of Joe Rogan's podcast with Steven Pinkman.

You can say I should not generalize from my personal affective experiences, but my personal position seems like it'd be most conducive to liking and being affected by the Pinkman podcast! I'm not talking about the content of his book whatsoever, I'm talking about the reality he takes himself to be playing in. I don't think it's here anymore. First of all, the halo effect of prestige markers is weaker than ever I think. Once upon a time his prestige would have increased the excitement of listening to him. Today, much less. Second, all of the intellectual action today is coming from unique combinations of intellectual horsepower with identity alignments. Jordan Peterson is blowing up in part because he's a smart, credentialed intellectual with a message but specifically because he gives an image of admirable life for a certain type of person. It's not that JP lovers are now changing the world in a way Pinkman lovers will not, it's that JP's identity-affective alignment is not already priced in by the status quo from which Pinker's authority derives (JP tapped emotional needs not already being supplied, through new media, not prestige; hence the socio-political splash). Hell, Joe Rogan himself, who no Serious Intellectual would even call an intellectual, is making similar waves in the intellectual ecology because his basic intelligence and character combine with a certain affectively attractive performance of life that he offers to certain types of people. I could go on.

The problem for traditional public intellectuals on the Liberal Vocation model is that the image of life they herald is radically unavailable to most people so the aspirational inroad to affective alignment is close to nil; it's actually genuinely contemptible to many people (and this is getting worse as the very real racket-nature of much academia is becoming increasingly transparent; ironically the hard-science backlash against postmodernism might have unintended consequences in this regard); and the information they're able to share with the unwashed masses tends to be freely available anyway. Or worse, listeners/readers can usually find someone rehearsing the same information who also offers an identity-performance more affectively aligned with their own temperament and social position. So vanilla prestige intellectuals don't have a monopoly on the information, they no longer even have an advantage on trustworthiness given widespread mistrust toward most institutions, and they uniquely, sorely lack one of the biggest drivers of intellectual impact in the new ecology: affective-identity alignment with moving and shaking niche audiences. (Although note that, with the global internet, "niche" can very well mean several millions of people). To make matters even worse, their cultivated knack for walking the line of polite respectable "good taste" is actually a negative on the balance sheet of their social influence.

Here's another data point. I was struck by the nearly instant appearance of so many reviews and commentaries, almost all of which were ideologically colored. I don't mean that in a bad way necessarily, I just mean so many of the usual suspects were saying things to the effect you would expect them to say. And when most of those items would appear on my radar, my eyes would just glaze over. But think about the commentary that most struck me, and by "struck" I mean this combination of intellectual horsepower plus temperamentally conditional excitement. I'm talking about the post by RS Bakker that inspired this post (by the way I really wanted to just hammer out a quick 500-word thing, but this always happens, which is why I can't let myself sit down to "write a quick 500-word thing" very often). As I said, I read it quickly on the train, and at this point I don't even really remember what it said. All I know is that it had intelligent comments about Adorno and Nietzsche and their critiques of Enlightenment modernity. It was scientifically competent as far as I could tell, and then it had some kind of batshit scientific extensions I didn't really understand but which seemed promising maybe. It was only after I read the post that I wanted to see who this guy was, and from what I could grok apparently he writes fiction but also co-authored with someone in Nature? (!).

So just reflect on this for a moment. Prestige scientist I admire writes book about philosophical/political topics I am highly interested in, he does a podcast that has no effect on me, a million reviews from prestige outlets come out and I can't feel any reason to care about any of them, and it just so happens that the one item in the intellectual ecology that affected me (e.g. motivated novel production on my part), was maybe the one fiction writer in the world who has a publication in Nature writing something on his personal blog (and I didn't even know anything about him until after I read the piece). That's so strange... or rather, it would be strange if we were living even in the 1970s or even the 1990s, but it's not at all strange today. Of course there exists in the world some scientifically sophisticated blogger able to talk deeply about Adorno and Nietzsche, of course he has a blog, and of course it would find its way onto my radar. Of course it would strike me, and of course as a young academic myself right now I am more motivated to write long blog posts than do my institutional duties. Of course, this is the new reality. The real puzzle is how and why the respectable prestige dancehall of liberalism v1.0 is still populated with a good number of really smart people, when all of the music is clearly pumping out of a variegated, thousand-room warehouse of the less compromising... liberalism flatlining at degree zero.

#theory #history #intellectuals #joe rogan #steven pinker #science #jordan peterson #enlightenment

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laurenredhead · 4 years ago

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Against Anonymity

Anonymous submission and selection seems a straightforward way to minimise bias in composer competitions. For this reason, it is often recommended and in fact very many composer competitions have already used anonymous submission and selection for some time. However, earlier this year, the organisation Sound and Music launched their Fair Access Principles in which they do not advocate for anonymity. Their CEO, Susanna Eastburn, recently wrote a blog post explaining why these are now of increasing importance as people become more aware of inequalities and seek to change them. As yet, no large-scale stratified study of anonymous selection in composer competitions exists for me to point to, but it is known that this doesn’t improve the diversity of composers who are selected. Here, I want to describe some of the reasons that that could be the case, and give some reasons that organisations should move away from anonymity (and what else they need to do as well). (I am aware that a lot of the examples I cite are drawn from research about gender. This reflects my background in that area, but also the fact that in classical music there has been more work on gender than on race. Racial diversity in classical music is an equally - if not more - urgent question than gender diversity at present).

One can read many studies and reports (such as this one and this one) that give evidence for the positive impact of blind auditions on hiring orchestral musicians, and the subsequent positive impact this has on women (most studied) and people of colour (less studied). However, even this is known to be fallible: some studies showed that if juries could see or even hear shoes that they associated with women performers they were less likely to select those candidates (such as described here). As a result, many auditions are now conducted without shoes.

But while this good evidence exists for orchestra performers, it doesn’t exist for composer competitions. Many anonymous competitions still select primarily white, male, composers. Here’s a blog post I wrote in 2012 about exactly this situation in the Gaudeamus competition, where a member of the jury - Annie Gosfield - replied to say that because anonymous selection was used this was not unequal and the problem could be lack of diversity in the entries. In 2018 the OPUS Competition run by the Britten Sinfonia was criticised for selecting only male composers, and they similarly responded citing anonymity as evidence of fairness. In many similar examples, organisations point to anonymous selection as evidence of their diversity work and commitments: it becomes a reason that they cannot be - and should not be - accused of bias, and where the results of such selection are not diverse this is held up as evidence either of the lack of self-selecting entrants from diverse backgrounds, or a product of unequal access to music and composition, about which the juries themselves can do nothing. It is this situation that I believe creates the justification for the criticism of anonymous selection as a method of increasing composer diversity. This method has not yet been shown to work. In fact, on rare occasions where the split of applicants (usually only the gender split) is revealed by an organisation, anonymous selection rarely even reproduces these ratios. I am sure that there will be some competitions that will be able to show that a larger ratio of women to men, or composers of colour to white composers, were selected, but overall this isn’t the case for such competitions. Thus: where blind auditions can increase diversity for orchestral musicians, for composers the same effect is not observed.

Of course, questions of how to encourage or enable more women, and composers of colour, and composers with disabilities, to apply to competitions is an important one, and the Sound and Music Fair Access Principles go some way to helping organisations to do that. However, consider the orchestral musicians’ shoes: where auditions are not held bare-foot, some women musicians wear men’s shoes as a way to minimise potential bias. Indeed, lack of diversity is such a problem that even the sound of a musician’s footsteps or the appearance of their toes beneath a curtain could lead to (unconcious) bias. In composer competitions, how do composers ‘remove their shoes’?

Even where names are removed from scores, there are many aspects of an entry to a composer competition that may be affected by the circumstances of the composer. For example, whether the work has been performed, who by, and how recently are all likely to better represent white male composers who perhaps are in higher education: more works by male composers are performed by professional ensembles, and composers in higher education are more likely to have access to opportunities to do this. This report by BASCA highlights this lack of diversity, and shows that if you are selecting from music that has already been performed and/or commissioned you are also not selecting from the most diverse pool of applicants. It also mentions lack of equality and diversity in numbers of composition students. Juries may also be impressed by music for larger ensembles, or music that has been completed more recently: again, this can select against diversity since people who have had recent parental leave are less likely to have newer works, and music for larger ensembles reflects inequalities in classical music composition even more so than other types of ensemble. Finally, the presentation of materials can also influence outcomes. In this post on tacit criteria I recounted an experience where I heard in a workshop that a certain score would definitely be selected based on its outside cover presentation. This is an example of a subtle cue that is learned by some composers as part of their education—or because they have studied with a composer who sits on a lot of juries—and not by others.

In the case of women composers, these are all examples of what Adrienne Rich would term ‘patriochialism’[1]: that, in order to gain acceptance, women’s contributions must become like those of their male counterparts to gain acceptance, what Diane Elam calls ‘the struggle for women’s rights to be men’.[2] It is easy to see how the same argument can be made for race, and for dis/ability: where Black or minority ethnic composers wish to participate they may be selected for their ability to produce work similar to that of their white counterparts; where disabled composers wish to do so, they are selected to produce work as if they were abled. This doesn’t mean that there is an essentialism to the music of any of these groups, but rather that people with the same backgrounds, reference points and experiences can produce work that easily speaks to each other and is recognisable as subscribing to the same aesthetic criteria that they have been taught denotes ‘quality’. All this says is that the classical music world is very unequal, and that it continues to reproduce its inequalities: on one hand this point is self-evident and well accepted, but on the other it is one that is often skirted around in order to deny that more work needs to be done to change this fact.

In order to maintain anonymity, an organisation could try to remove those opportunities for bias. They could ask for a brand new, unperformed, piece for an ensemble they select, and require it to be type-set in a certain music software. The problems with this are also obvious: it reproduces all of the circumstances that can lead to a lack of diversity in composer competitions by drawing on unpaid time and access to specific software, creating financial barriers to entry. Indeed, if an organisation were to do this—aside from the barriers to entry it would create—this would signal their value of anonymity over equality. In this respect, one can see anonymous selection in composer competitions as what Sara Ahmed has described as ‘non-performative’. She defines as non-performative ‘institutional speech acts that do not bring into effect what they name’ [her italics]. By using anonymous selection, institutions can claim inclusivity. By using anonymous selection to select composers to those who are similar to those already represented by those institutions, they indicate their commitment to diversity without actually creating diversity.

I am sure in response to this post I will receive many messages that tell me that anonymity is in fact very good, actually. Or that it is all of the other systems and institutions of classical music that need to change in order to make it work, but not composer competitions. These responses can be countered by Susanna Eastburn’s statement (in her blog post, referenced above), that,

‘all too often the arts, including our corner of them in new music, can think of diversity as a series of external shortcomings to be solved’.

Rather, if institutions wish to diversify the composers they work with, then they should actively select for these composers rather than waiting for them to be ‘revealed’ through anonymous selection. If institutions are committed to change, they must make changes. It is tempting to write something along the lines of, ‘this is important now more than ever’, but in fact I do not believe that is true: the lack of diversity in classical music is as urgent as it has ever been, yet more recently people have taken more time and energy to call for change. It is therefore important that change be real and meaningful: pointing to existing initiatives such as anonymous selection for composers is simply to point to the mechanisms that have not yet worked to achieve this.

[1] Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Insitution (New York: Norton, 1976), p.16. [2] Diane Elam, Feminisim and Deconstruction, (London: Routledge, 2003), p.60

#composer competitions #equality

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baekzhang · 7 years ago

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about the gda

so, even if i haven’t been much active these days (my procrastination during my semester is to thank for this...rip), i also haven’t been on twitter much, and didn’t get too much info about what is currently happening. but as a casual habit of mine to just check twitter during maths...well, about the gda: really what the fuck?

an award show that has a reputation of utmost credibility and prestige, this was honestly disappointing to see, especially after the mess that was mama 2017. it is incredibly unprofessional to not announce a change of criteria prior to the nominations. you can feel whichever way to the winner of the daesang category, really, you can be happy or sad, but we must not ignore that the award show has acted unprofessional, and has lost credibility.

and that for a show that is supposedly the most important and most prestigious, it’s actually ridiculous.

this is, of course, entirely about “album of the year”.

let’s start with the criteria:

40% album sales, 30% votes, and 30% expert judges.

this alone is ridiculous. something called daesang should not be based on 30% votes, really, especially not if the digital daesang had no inclusion of fan votes at all. (digital daesang is 80% sales and 20% judges).

they increased the amount of impact of judges and added a constant called fan votes. essentially, votes are there to reflect a sort of “quality”, therefore it gets judged by the public already. generally, what we have here is that more than half of the criteria (60%) was based on (subjective) opinions rather than the actual sales. and that’s the big problem about this. there is one thing about having solely expert jury judge an album, as well as a solely fan voting based award.

solely expert judge based award is a “host pick”.

solely fan vote based award is a “popularity pick”.

a solely on sales based award is a “best seller pick”, and the pick that should be of greatest importance in the determination of a daesang.

popularity should not be counted to such a big degree for that specific award because the gda already has “popularity awards”.

what should be assessed is pure record sales to a degree of at least more than the half of the criteria, and then expert judges can give a comment on “quality”, which is, in such a dynamic and diverse music market, hard to even discuss.

so, just like the digital daesang, the criteria should have been 80% sales and 20% expert judges because that is fair. yes, fan votes shouldn’t be counted in. because our “opinions” on an album are already reflected by the amount of albums sold. so, in theory, should also be the quality, which is why expert judges should really only occupy a small margin of the criteria, but people need to earn a living and serve a purpose somewhere, and the hypothesis of fans being solely laymen is very much acceptable because undoubtedly all of the recorded 4M+ EXO-L certainly aren’t music majors, so, if the gap between two nominees is only small, expert judges would serve as the flipping coin. that’s what they are supposed to be.

besides, there had not been an explanation on how those judges assess the quality of an album either. not that they’d have to present it with an exact scheme on how to win, but a rough explanation on whether it’s to do with actual musical quality, global impact (such as national and international chart rankings), or just mere subject (although, it’s always subject in that matter) preference.

another point to be addressed is the new change in criteria: leaving out repackages, and counting an album only if it has 6+ songs. a lot of people misunderstood that and spread that around, so i, too, was confused at first. no, if exo had 6 songs on their repack, it wouldn’t have been counted toward the criteria, but rather would have served as a separate nominee for the category (as far as i understood), which wouldn’t have made sense in any sort of way.

why? because repackages always were eligible for the criteria. because a repackage isn’t an album, neither an ep or a single. it’s part of the main album because it is not an independent album.

now, they made a new definition of “single album” (which completely defies all means of the music industry, as versions and repackages, which are essentially extended versions, are counted to “single album [sales]”) and said: “an album which has the same number of major tracks, same release date, and was distributed in korea”

essentially, with that definition they couldn’t kick out the chinese version. so, don’t say they didn’t count the chinese version, because they did, though, according to criteria, only the chinese version sales within korea (which has always been the case, since it’s korean awards and not asian...so technically mama should count chinese sales, but they’ve always been one of a kind and pulled criteria out of the air).

anyway, to come back to the point: they abandoned a criteria that was present since the start. they changed the criteria to allegedly create more “fairness”.

fairness is an up for debate matter. would the “single album” sales be bigger if it weren’t for the repack as the money, which was invested in it by the fans would have flown into the “single album”? most likely. but this is probabilities, and they aren’t part of criteria.

in conclusion, they abandoned a big part of fair distribution by reducing actual album sales to solely 40%. as well as a sudden exclusion of the repackaged albums of other groups.

yes, it could contribute to a final “fairness” in distribution, but it disregarded the fair competition. something that is essential for an award show.

fair competition is achieved when both sides know how the “game” works. obviously, that wasn’t the case because if it were the case, gda wouldn’t change the criteria during the awards, and certainly wouldn’t release an explanation after the award show. companies didn’t know what criteria to meet after all—gda told an athlete to run 200 metres sprint, instead of the actual 200 metres hurdles.

#the question is just why they did exactly that #i have my theories but oh well #also don't flood my inbox lol #this isn't about who wins but how the winner is assessed #and really award shows keep fucking things up because of whatever internal drama #and such things shouldnt influence criteria #because criteria exists for a reason #and it's wrong to change it during a competition

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thebeautyoftorah · 4 years ago

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MATOT/MASEI

bs'd

Shalom.

Last week's parsha is at the end. Sorry for sending you the Spanish version.

The thought from my book 'Healing Anger' is:

"Angry parents destroy the self-esteem of their children. Many studies demonstrate that children of verbally aggressive parents are four times more likely to have issues such as delinquency, depression, mental illness, and even bulimia, than those whose parents who don’t use verbal aggression."

Buy my book at http://www.feldheim.com/healing-anger.html

If you want to buy it from me in Israel let me know.

To join the over 4,000 recipients in English and Spanish and receive these insights free on a weekly email, feedback, comments, which has been all around the world, or if you know any other Jew who is interested in receiving these insights weekly, contact me.You have the opportunity to share in the mitzvah to honor a loved one by sponsoring my weekly review, or refua shelema (healing), shiduch, Hatzlacha.

Have a healthy Shabbat Shalom.

MATOT/MASEI-His Justice is Perfect This parsha tells us that if a person kills someone unintentionally is required to flee to a ir miklat (city of refuge) and remain there until the death of the Kohen Gadol. If he leaves the ir miklat, a relative of the victim can avenge the death by killing the murderer. The pasuk says[1] ..."he shall dwell in it until the death of the Kohen Gadol whom he had anointed with the sacred oil.”

Who is “he”? Contextually, “he” in the pasuk apparently is referring to the killer. Did the killer anoint the Kohen Gadol?

The Gemara explains that the pasuk was worded this way to teach an halacha: Not every killer was entitle of refuge. The Beit din was required to judge whether or not the killer was a candidate to live in the arei miklat.

We may ask: What would happen if the killing occurred while the Kohen Gadol was alive, but the Beit Din decided the case after that Kohen Gadol died and another Kohen Gadol was anointed? Does the killer go free immediately? The Gemara[2] answers that the killer does not go free until the demise of the second Kohen Gadol.

This is implicit in the pasuk we are discussing. It is referring to the Beit Din sending a person whom they deemed worthy of refuge to the arei miklat. When does he go free? Upon the death of the Kohen Gadol “asher mashach oto”, i.e., the Kohen Gadol who was anointed at the time that the Beit Din determined the killer worthy of refuge, not the one who was serving when the actual killing took place.

Rav Meir Simcha of Dvinsk (Meshech Chochma), elaborates on this point. The Torah justice differs significantly from all legal systems. They attempt to go into the mind of the criminal to determine why he committed the crime. Was he abused or suffered discrimination that caused him to commit the crime? Maybe he was not fully coherent when he committed the crime? Every year thousands of criminals are freed because the jury or judge trying their case felt that they were able to evaluate the motives of the criminal and based on their evaluation, or by a psychologist, the criminal should not be punished for his crime. In the Torah justice system, the dayanim (judges) are required to rule cases based on objective and calculated examination of the evidence, with no leniency for what they might consider to be extenuating circumstances. We have no way of determining people’s motives.

In cases of unintentional manslaughter, there were specific parameters by which Beit Din was required to send a person to an ir miklat. For how long? Beit Din did not set the killer’s sentence. He must stay there until the death of the Kohen Gadol. Modern justice systems set standard sentences, depending on the perceived motive of the crime and the level of recklessness of the killer. That seems very logical. Is the Torah system fair? Is it fair to punish killers equally no matter what their motives were?

The Meshech Chochma says that the Torah system is the fairest system because it is Divine. A person remains in the ir miklat for the precise amount of time that it takes for him to atone for his actions. Hashem evaluates the motives of each killer sent to the arei miklat and determines the term of the Kohen Gadol based on how long each killer is supposed to remain there. [Also in His infinite wisdom G-d evaluates how long the Kohen Gadol deserves to live].

For instance, Shimon inadvertently kills someone and based on the level of his negligence and other extenuating conditions, he should be in the ir miklat for 20 years. Now, if five years before the killing, two candidates were being considered for Kohen Gadol, one of whom is destined to live another 10 years and one of whom is destined to live for 25, Hashem will arrange for the Kohen destined to live for 25 years to be anointed, to ensure that Shimon serves out his sentence.

Even in a case when someone should only have to take refuge for 5 days, Hashem will make sure that the Kohen Gadol serving in those days is one who was meant to die 5 days after the killer walked into the ir miklat.

This is why the pasuk states, “asher mashach oto”. Since Hashem chooses the Kohen Gadol based on the terms of penance needed by the various killers in the arei miklat, it is as if the killers anoint the Kohen Gadol of their generation!

Considering the number of people in the arei miklat at any given time, the combinations and permutations necessary to determine who should be the Kohen Gadol are obviously beyond the scope of human calculation. G-d, however, is a Keil emunah ve’ein avel, a G-d of faith without iniquity [3]. Hashem will not allow a person who is only supposed to serve a five-day sentence to remain in the ir miklat for six days and He will not allow a person who requires 20 years of penance to leave one day earlier.

We view the world through human logic, and explain everything we see based on our understanding of the circumstances.

If we heard that an 80-year-old Kohen Gadol died, we would understand his death. Human logic dictates that old people die. But if a 40-year-old Kohen Gadol dies suddenly, we would wonder why he died. We would ask, “Was there a family history of heart disease or cancer? Did he smoke?”

The Meshech Chochma teaches us something amazing. What we view as causation is not it. The Kohen Gadol’s death was not determined on old age, heart disease, or any other illness. It was based by the need of the killers in the arei miklat to go free.

The same concept applies to all other events in life. What we consider to be the reasons for our health, wealth, success, or lack thereof, are usually not the real reasons. Causation is very confusing. Only Hashem, the G-d of faith without iniquity, with His Divine supervision knows the true reasons for the events in our lives. ___________________________________________ [1] Bemidbar 35:25 [2] Makkot 11b. [3] Devarim 32:4 Le Iluy nishmat Eliahu ben Simcha, Mordechai ben Shlomo, Perla bat Simcha, Abraham Meir ben Leah, Moshe ben Gila,Yaakov ben Gila, Sara bat Gila, Yitzchak ben Perla, Leah bat Chavah, Abraham Meir ben Leah,Itamar Ben Reb Yehuda, Yehuda Ben Shmuel Tzvi, Tova Chaya bat Dovid. Refua Shelema to all the people sick with the Corona virus, Akiva Shushan Ben Natalie Penina, Mazal Tov bat Freja, Hadassa bat Sara, Elisheva bat Miriam, Chana bat Ester Beyla, Mattitiahu Yered ben Miriam, Yaacov ben Miriam, Yehuda ben Simcha, Naftali Dovid ben Naomi Tzipora, Nechemia Efraim ben Beyla Mina, Dvir ben Leah, Sender ben Sara, Eliezer Chaim ben Chaya Batya, Shlomo Yoel ben Chaya Leah, Dovid Yehoshua ben Leba, Shmuel ben Mazal Tov, Yosef Yitzchak ben Bracha.

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bigyack-com · 5 years ago

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China’s Vaping Boom Alarms the Government

Models in tight dresses and high heels lounged in a yellow inflatable pool filled with plush toys and vaping equipment. Enthusiastic vapers lined up for free pens and pods, as clouds of mango, mint and rose mingled with the electronic dance music in the air. Attendees of the Shanghai eCig Expo had a lot to celebrate. Vaping has surged in China, drawing money from domestic and Western investors alike. In a country with nearly as many smokers as the entire United States population, the growth potential seemed limitless. “This,” said Frank Wang, an aspiring entrepreneur who wanted to open his own vaping shop, “is where you can make money now.” Perhaps not anymore.China has joined the United States and other governments in putting new pressure on vaping. Regulators have banned online sales of vaping products, and China’s major propaganda outlets have heaped on scrutiny, citing the potential health effects. The government is considering banning vaping in public places.Beijing’s crackdown threatens an almost exclusively Chinese industry that had been counting on the country as a haven. Ninety percent of the world’s e-cigarettes are made in China, and most of them are produced in Shenzhen, a southern city that borders Hong Kong. Some of the nation’s top e-cigarette brands, including RELX, FLOW and Yooz, have taken hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital funding from high-profile names like Sequoia China, IDG Capital and Matrix Partners China. The firms did not respond to requests for comment.The new scrutiny adds to the troubles for Chinese e-cigarette exporters, already hammered by the vaping-related health crisis in the United States that has sickened at least 2,200 people and killed 47. While exporters have long dominated China’s e-cigarette industry, the domestic market took off only about three years ago. Of the ten million e-cigarette users in China, most are young people who vape sleek, brightly colored devices with flavors like chilled strawberry and orange soda.Euromonitor, the global market research consultancy, said China’s e-cigarette market was worth $750.4 million in 2018, nearly triple the 2014 value. China has more than 300 million smokers, out of a population of nearly 1.4 billion. In the United States, 10.8 million adults vape.Juul Labs, which is under fire in the United States for marketing its e-cigarettes to teenagers and children, wanted to cash in too. But just days after starting business in China, its products were removed from Alibaba and JD.com, two of the biggest e-commerce platforms. Neither the government nor the company gave any explanation. Juul had paid to be at the e-cigarette fair in Shanghai starting in late October but withdrew at the last minute because of the crisis in the United States, according to Li Wangfeng, project director of the expo. Concerns are mounting about the hazards of vaping among the young, prompting many Chinese to call for regulations. A 2018 tobacco survey commissioned by China’s Center for Disease Control found that people 15 to 24 years old were the most avid vapers, with most buying their devices online. In recent weeks, the state news media has kept up its drumbeat of negative coverage of the industry. On Nov. 4, the most-read article on the website of People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official newspaper, noted that most e-cigarette companies continued selling their products online despite the ban. The next day, China’s state broadcaster, China Central Television, showed Beijing officials summoning companies to comply with the ban. The day after that, e-cigarettes were no longer available on Alibaba’s Taobao and JD.com, two of China’s most popular e-commerce platforms.For years, the Chinese government allowed the lucrative e-cigarette industry to thrive with no supervision. There was never any consensus on whether e-cigarettes should be classified as tobacco, health or electronics products and which agency should regulate them. Part of the problem, too, is that China’s top tobacco authority is both a regulator and producer of cigarettes. In an industry with low barriers to entry, manufacturers took advantage of this void. According to Tianyancha, a corporate database in China, the country has more than 9,500 e-cigarette companies. Many of these brands have haphazard quality controls that have resulted in knockoffs, unsafe ingredients and vape liquid leakage, but the authorities have rarely policed these companies. In March, CCTV said eight e-cigarette companies made vaping oils with nicotine levels that were higher than what the package stated.Alarmed by these reports, the government is set to force producers to comply with standards on ingredients and manufacturing, according to a draft viewed by The New York Times. Once the “national standard” is enacted, companies would be required to provide details on the number and dosage of ingredients, put warnings on packages, and devise ways of testing e-cigarettes to ensure compliance. The process would increase production costs, industry experts say, and is likely to put many small e-cigarette exporters out of business. But Ou Junbiao, head of the Electronic Cigarette Industry Committee of China trade group, said he welcomed the rules because they would give him clear guidelines. He said that previously many companies like his never dared to sell in China for fear of running afoul of the government.“Once the national standard comes out, I can follow its targets and make big investments,” said Mr. Ou, a former factory worker and owner of Sigelei, one of China’s top e-cigarette exporters to the United States, in his office in Shenzhen. “I won’t have to worry that something will happen but now I don’t know which day the sword would fall.” E-cigarette executives in China were unanimous in attributing the vaping-related illnesses in the United States to the use of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, and vitamin E acetate. The majority of the American victims had vaped THC, but some say only nicotine was involved. In Shenzhen, several vaping manufacturers have laid off workers, according to two labor recruiters. At the Shanghai expo, Chen Lin, a sales manager for a company that produces parts of e-cigarette atomizers, said his company’s sales fell 80 percent in the past month. “We basically have no orders coming in this month after what happened in the United States,” said Mr. Chen, who came to the expo to look for business partners. Within China, RELX has become the dominant seller of e-cigarettes and controls 44.4 percent of the market for closed vaping systems, e-cigarette pens that come filled, according to data from Euromonitor. It has nearly $286 million in financing, according to its founder, Kate Wang, from major venture capital firms like Sequoia China.Ms. Wang started RELX in 2017, after testing 20 e-cigarettes in the Chinese market and discovering they did not meet her expectations. She said she was motivated to help her two-pack-a-day father quit smoking. Jiang Xingtao, whose title is “director of flavors” at RELX, said that while vaping was safer than smoking tobacco, the jury was still out on whether it is definitively safe.He is collecting data in RELX’s lab in Shenzhen to determine the risks and wants to run clinical trials, singling out the flavoring ingredients. “We can guarantee that they are safe to be consumed through the stomachs, but is it safe enough to be absorbed through the lungs?” Mr. Jiang said. “To be honest, in this respect, neither we nor the industry has evidence that is particularly solid.”Yiwei Wang contributed research. Source link Read the full article

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battybat-boss · 6 years ago

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Trial Begins for Little Arizona Girl Placed with Pedophiles in Foster Care and Burned by Adoptive Mom

Samantha Osteraas stands trial for scalding a child she adopted, causing severe burns over most of her body. Photo source.

Commentary by Terri LaPoint Health Impact News

A woman who was approved by the State of Arizona to adopt a child out of the foster care system is on trial for child abuse. Samantha Osteraas faces 2 counts of child abuse for scalding a little girl entrusted to her care, causing 3rd degree burns to almost 80% of her body, causing all 10 of her toes to be amputated, and nearly costing the child's life.

During the trial, which is expected to end this week, 7-year-old Devani took the stand and told a jury that Osteraas held her down in the bathtub with a pink towel, according to the Arizona Daily Star.

She is only 7 years old, but the beautiful child known to family advocates as “the little girl in the blue dress” has been through more abuse than most of us can imagine.

This photo of Devani was taken before her horrific abuse in state custody. Photo from the AZ Childrens Lives Matter Facebook page.

Devani was taken at the age of 2 from her parents by Arizona's Child “Protective” Services – the Department of Child Services (DCS), but she was never abused in her parents' home.

Her horrors began after she was in the custody of the State of Arizona. Before she was adopted by Samantha and Justin Osteraas, she was placed by DCS into a foster home with a man who is now serving prison time for running a pornographic and pedophile ring out of his home.

See:

Arizona Child Removed from Loving Family and Placed into Foster Care Where She was Repeatedly Raped – then 80% of Body Burned

Trial begins for Tucson woman accused of scalding 5-year-old daughter in tub

Caitlin Schmidt of the Arizona Daily Star writes of the first day of the trial:

Deputy Pima County Attorney Alan Goodwin told the jury of 11 women and three men - 12 jurors and two alternates - that the evidence likely won't explain why Osteraas intentionally burned her daughter, but that it will prove she committed the act and failed to call 911 for several hours afterward.

The girl, who was 5 at the time of the incident, spent four months in a hospital after the scalding, undergoing “surgery after surgery after surgery” for skin removal and grafts. She also had to have all 10 toes amputated as a result of her injuries, Goodwin told the jury.

Detective Jeremy Butcher, the first responder to the scene, took the stand, testifying that he arrived at the house within minutes of getting the call because he lived in the neighborhood.

During opening statements, Goodwin called what Butcher saw when he entered the home “an image … an experience that's absolutely seared in his mind and seared in his memory forever.”

Deputy Pima County Attorney Dawn Aspacher had Butcher tell the jury what he saw and heard at the home, starting with a bloody smear on the front door.

Butcher said Osteraas was distraught as he walked to the master bedroom, where he found the child on the floor, her body a “dark-reddish and almost purplish hue.”

The child's lower half was covered with a towel and a red stain was visible on the floor underneath her. The child wasn't speaking or crying, but was “basically just staring straight up,” Butcher told the jury.

One juror wiped his eyes while Butcher recounted how he stayed with the girl until paramedics arrived. While her breathing was labored, he said, at one point she reached up towards the star-shaped badge pinned to his uniform shirt.

After the girl was taken to the hospital, Butcher and other deputies searched the home, finding what later turned out to be chunks of skin in several locations throughout the house, including the bathroom in which the child was bathed.

Photo of the floor of the bathroom where Devani was burned. Photo source.

During Butcher's testimony, Aspacher projected photos of the girl before she was taken to the hospital on one of the courtroom walls, the girl's beet-red skin eliciting gasps from the gallery.

Butcher's testimony ended with a photo of a large chunk of skin next to the bathtub's drain. Several jurors stared up at the screen even after the courtroom lights had been turned on and the image was no longer visible.

KOLD News 13 reports:

According to court records, Osteraas said she didn't realize the bath water was that hot.

Investigators said the water was almost 130 degrees and determined the burns were not the result of an accident.

In anticipation of the possibility of Devani being able to testify in court, News 4 Tuscon reported last week that:

The Pima County Attorney's Office has asked the court to allow a so-called facility dog, a specially trained K-9, to help ease the girl's stress while she testifies against the woman that she had once called her mom.

On Friday, October 12, Devani took the stand to tell the jury what happened to her.

Child burn victim tells Tucson jurors her mother held her down in a tub of hot water

Caitlin Schmidt of the Arizona Daily Star writes:

A 7-year-old girl who Pima County prosecutors say was intentionally scalded by her mother told jurors Friday that her mother held her down in a tub of hot water and prevented her from getting out.

Prior to the child's testimony, her attorneys filed a motion with Pima County Superior Court Judge James Marner to clear the courtroom of the more than 30 spectators packed into the gallery.

While Marner denied the motion, citing concerns for Osteraas' right to a fair trial and potential for a mistrial if the public's access was limited, he ordered that the girl's biological parents and grandmother - whose rights had previously been severed - would not be allowed in the courtroom during her testimony, after the child's therapist and a clinical psychiatrist submitted letters detailing the potential damage to the girl.

Wearing a pink-and-beige striped dress and a pink bow in her hair, the child took the witness stand, clutching a stuffed animal throughout the 20-minute questioning.

The girl told Goodwin she'd been burned “in a hot bath” and that her mom “put her in there” and said she had to stay, before holding her in the tub with a pink towel.

Goodwin asked the child about the brown shirt she wore under her dress, a medical garment designed to help the scars go away. The girl said she had scars on her back, tummy and legs.

When Goodwin asked the girl her mommy's name, she quickly answered, “Samantha Osteraas,” ending the state's questioning.

According to several news sources, the defense has taken the position that the scalding was unintentional and that Samantha Osteraas did not knowingly hurt the child.

Note: the defense that parents did not intentionally cause harm, even when demonstrably true, is generally not accepted in cases involving biological parents.

Child Protective Services routinely takes children and condemns biological parents even when they had no way of knowing about or preventing harm that came to their children.

See the stories of Matthew Marble in Tennessee and Kaya Thomas in South Carolina, who lost their children over something someone else did. Other parents are often held responsible for broken bones when the child has a medical condition they had no idea existed. See stories.

The trial for Samantha Osteraas is expected to end sometime this week.

Abuse Began in Foster Care, Not at Home

Devani was originally taken from her home after an argument between her parents which was falsely reported by a vindictive neighbor to involve domestic violence. The 2-year-old wasn't even home at the time, but at her grandmother's house.

Nonetheless, Arizona social worker Norel Alviti seized the toddler from her family.

After Michelle Tremor-Calderon provided proof that the charges were dropped, the social worker insisted that she take a drug test based on rumors from the neighbor.

Michelle passed easily. She had a history of drugs from 13 years prior, but that had long since been in the past.

Health Impact News investigated Devani's story and learned that the original allegations against the parents were quickly proven to be baseless. Though they were dismissed, DCS kept the child in their custody. As we reported last year:

Without a shred of evidence, social workers allegedly were “concerned” about the possibility that the parents might, in the future, do something that would cause harm to their child, so DCS kept Devani in their custody, placing her in very real, and unimaginably horrific, foster care situations.

See:

Arizona Child Removed from Loving Family and Placed into Foster Care Where She was Repeatedly Raped – then 80% of Body Burned

It often seems that social workers are willing to dig deeper into biological family history than the history of the people that they place children entrusted to their care with.

In Devani's first foster home, there were scratches and bruises almost immediately. After Michelle complained, the foster person dropped the child off at DCS and washed her hands of the situation.

The second situation was far worse. Devani was placed in a house with foster parents, one of whom is currently serving a 17-year prison sentence for his prominent role in running a pornographic pedophile ring out of his house with the foster children that DCS placed with him. Law enforcement discovered a graphic video in David Frodsham's house with a little girl crying out for her mother as she was being sexually assaulted.

See:

Arizona Places 2 Year Old Child in Foster Pornographic Pedophile Ring – Foster Mom Burns 80% of Her Body

Devani's mother had long been reporting signs that her daughter was being molested in foster care, but social workers and the attorney appointed by the court to represent Devani, Thea Gilbert, told the court that the mother was simply “interfering with placement.”

Instead of recognizing that the woman who gave birth to the child had that “mama's gut feeling” that something was horribly wrong, state employees accused Michelle of sabotaging the department's efforts.

DCS looked the other way when Devani and other foster children in the Frodsham house of horrors showed clear signs of being victims of sexual abuse. It took the federal ICE agency to bring a stop to David Frodsham pimping out foster children in his house as part of his pedophile ring.

See:

Arizona Foster Care System Revealed as Pedophile Ring: Former Foster Child Tortured for Years Sues for $15 Million

The department refused to return Devani to her parents. DCS terminated parental rights, refusing all along to allow the child to live with any family members.

Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire

Guardian ad Litem, Thea Gilbert, was Devani's attorney through the years all the terrible abuse happened to her. Source.

DCS then placed Devani with the Osteraas family. Attorney Thea Gilbert had previously argued that David Frodsham should adopt Devani. Gilbert has remained Devani's Guardian ad Litem throughout the child's DCS history, and she approved the new placement. Samantha and Justin adopted Devani out of foster care and changed her name.

It was after this that Devani's life almost ended after being allegedly held down in a scalding hot bathtub. Mercifully, Devani is still alive and was able to testify in the Osteraas trial on Friday about what happened.

We will follow the story and update readers after the jury renders a decision.

Many times at Health Impact News, we have cited data that shows that children are at least 6 times more likely to be raped, molested, abused, or killed in foster care than if they had been left in their own homes, even if that home is less than perfect.

Devani's story is a chilling indication of this reality.

Another reporter with the Arizona Daily Star, Tim Steller, also challenges the knee-jerk reaction to remove children from their home “just in case.” He wrote this while Devani was still in the hospital after being abused in her adoptive home:

We're used to seeing how risky it can be for a child to stay with no-good parents.

That's because time and again over the last decade, we've learned of local kids whose families were under the scrutiny of the state child-welfare agencies but ended up dead at the hands of their parents anyway.

They conditioned the public, legislators and child-protective workers to react conservatively to avoid death and scandal. Taking kids out of questionable homes seems the safe alternative.

But the story of a 5-year-old girl, still clinging to life at Banner-University Medical Center and reported in the Star last Sunday by Patty Machelor, shows there's another side to those decisions: The risk that life outside a child's borderline home may be worse than it is inside. [Emphasis added by HIN.] (Source.)

Comment on this article at MedicalKidnap.com.

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blogcompetnetall · 6 years ago

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Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice http://www.nature-business.com/business-manafort-and-cohen-have-left-trump-at-a-precipice/

Business

(CNN)CNN Opinion asked expert legal analysts and commentators to weigh in with their takeaways from the Paul Manafort verdict and the Michael Cohen saga: what it all means and what comes next. The views expressed in these commentaries are solely those of the authors.

What does it say about the President? After all, aren’t we judged by the company we keep?

Up until now, Republicans in Congress have had little appetite to seriously investigate Trump, much less utter the dreaded “I” word: impeachment. But Congress’ blind support of the President could change drastically if proof is leaked, or otherwise surfaced by way of documentary evidence, that proves that Trump “coordinated and directed” Cohen to violate the law. Congress will then be seen as supporting an alleged criminal. And that can’t be good politically — especially in a midterm election year.

Meanwhile, Manafort’s close association with Trump does not bode well for the President. The former head of the Trump campaign is now a convicted felon. Manafort’s lies, misrepresentation, deceit and hubris landed him in this position. One can only wonder whether another bird with the same feathers will suffer a similar fate.

This leads to even more potentially bad news for the President. The upcoming midterm elections could very well change the dynamics of Congress by placing control in the hands of Democrats. Should this occur, the House will most assuredly go after the President and institute impeachment proceedings for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” All it takes is a majority vote in the House to impeach. And if the Democrats have control, it would mean they have such a majority.

That would then kick the case over to the Senate for an Impeachment trial, in which 67 senators (or two-thirds), would be needed to convict Trump, thereby removing him from office. That’s a heavy and unlikely lift indeed. But perhaps it will get much lighter if there is cold proof the President is an alleged criminal.

In that case, Republicans will have a hard time looking the other way.

Tuesday could mark the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency. A day that will go down in history indeed.

Joey Jackson is a criminal defense attorney and a legal analyst for CNN and HLN.

Caroline Polisi: Manafort’s trial sheds light on Mueller’s potential collusion case

The refrain from the White House over the course of Paul Manafort’s bank- and tax-fraud trial — the first in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation — is that the charges “have nothing to do” with the President or the Trump campaign. In fact, noting that some of the conduct charged stems back 12 years, the President

tweeted

, “These old charges have nothing to do with Collusion — a Hoax!,” an assertion meant to buttress his argument that the entire Russia investigation is a “witch hunt” (a phrase he has used so often, it’s become something of a tagline).

And while it may be true that the charges faced by Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, had relatively little to do with his time on the campaign, they allowed us to learn at least two important pieces of information that shed light into the opaque abyss that is Robert Mueller’s potential case of “collusion.”

1) Manafort was heavily in debt heading into his time working for the Trump campaign for free, the obvious implication of which is that he was hoping to leverage his position for his own economic benefit; and

2) He did take at least one definitive step toward using his position as a bargaining chip for his own personal benefit. As was revealed over the course of his trial, Manafort sought to offer a banker, from whom he’d been accused of fraudulently seeking loans, a role in the Trump administration. In the days after Trump’s election, the bank began issuing loans to Manafort that would eventually

total $16 million

Manafort will likely be serving prison time for these crimes, and he faces yet another trial in September. We may learn even more clues about the larger Russia investigation in that trial, no matter how much the President cries “witch hunt.”

Caroline Polisi is a federal and white collar criminal defense attorney in New York, a frequent CNN contributor and is of counsel at Pierce Bainbridge. Follow her on Twitter: @CarolinePolisi

Julian Zelizer: Trump’s alleged Teflon isn’t quite so durable

The legal and the political stories about the Trump presidency are converging. The Cohen and Manafort developments on Tuesday highlight the kind of people who the President has surrounded himself with and — in Cohen’s case — are willing to implicate Trump directly. While the outcome for President Donald Trump remains uncertain, the probable political costs to the GOP just went up significantly. Guilty pleas and guilty verdicts are not the stuff that great presidencies are made of. The “witch hunt” argument looks even less plausible than before, and an air of corruption surrounds the head of the GOP.

Most important, Republican candidates are campaigning in an environment with immense uncertainty about what comes next and with a President who is losing control of the narrative and his temper. At least on Tuesday, it appeared the President’s alleged Teflon is not quite as durable as some believe.

Julian Zelizer is a history and public affairs professor at Princeton University, editor of “The Presidency of Barack Obama: A First Historical Assessment” and co-host of the “Politics & Polls” podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @julianzelizer

Laura Coates: The prosecution would be wise not to get greedy

The people have spoken. And while it was not a total victory for the prosecution, it was a comprehensive defeat of the former chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Paul Manafort.

Tempting though it may be to retry a defendant on those charges on which the jury has hung, the prosecution would be wise to not get as greedy as they proved Manafort to be in a court of law. For the eight counts on which Manafort was convicted, he faces

upwards of 80 years

in prison, although the actual sentence is expected to be far less. Any additional convictions on the 10 unresolved counts could yield a sentence akin to a de facto life sentence.

If the prosecution is confident about these convictions surviving on appeal, retrying Manafort on the 10 remaining counts at the taxpayers’ expense — particularly with the upcoming trial on related charges in Washington — might inadvertently bolster the President’s claims the trial is about persecution rather than objective prosecution. Justice is, at times, a cost-benefit analysis.

One can’t help but wonder, however, whether the President will honor the tempered verdict or thump the proverbial chest of his pardoning power and undermine his own executive branch’s prosecutorial power. After all, we can’t have a “good man” being

treated worse

than say, Al Capone.

Laura Coates is a CNN legal analyst. She is a former assistant US attorney for the District of Columbia and trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. She is the host of the daily “Laura Coates Show” on SiriusXM. Follow her @thelauracoates

Paul Callan: Manafort’s only hope is a presidential pardon

Paul Manafort had a great team of lawyers who despite long odds and their client’s ostrich coat held the Mueller team to only eight conviction counts in an 18 count indictment. The defense lawyers can rightfully claim a partial victory. As they presumably raise toasts to themselves, though, their 69-year-old client will put his prison jumpsuit back on and consume jailhouse food. He will then await his fate, and likely some entertaining and snappy remarks, from Judge T.S. Ellis when Ellis imposes a probable sentence of at least 10 years or more in prison.

While defense lawyers swap war stories about the trial, Manafort will also probably be thinking about his next trial, in Washington, where he may add another 10-20 years to his prison tally. Unless Manafort has some valuable anti-Trump information to trade for a get out of jail free card, his only hope is a presidential pardon.

He will, I imagine, be watching the President’s Twitter feed carefully from now on. And fortunately, Manafort may soon also be able to discuss the nuanced subject of presidential pardons with a man who is unlikely to ever get one, Michael Cohen, Esq — who will soon share Manafort’s fate in a federal correctional facility.

Paul Callan is a CNN legal analyst, former New York homicide prosecutor, and media law professor.

Alice Stewart: I have stopped believing

It is not unlawful to lie to the media, but it is unscrupulous to lie to your supporters. Honorable people have given this President more than his fair share of mulligans with the assurance that unethical and unlawful behavior is a part of his past. Now, the “rigged witch hunt” and related corruption has appeared at the front door of the White House.

In the span of an afternoon, our family-values party has a President whose former, longtime personal attorney pleaded guilty to paying off a porn star and former Playboy playmate “at the direction of a candidate for federal office” and a former campaign chairman convicted of multiple fraud counts.

Rudy “truth isn’t truth” Giuliani

spins

that there is “no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President.” The truth is — campaign finance violations are wrong. Paying off a porn star and a Playmate is wrong. Not being truthful about these payments is wrong.

In addition, Robert Mueller is not finished, and the truth of Russian collusion remains to be seen.

Amid the fraud fog, a crowd of enthusiastic supporters awaited their fearless leader in West Virginia on Tuesday night. The sound system may have sent the subliminal message: “Don’t Stop Believing.” But I have stopped believing.

Alice Stewart is a CNN political commentator and former communications director for Ted Cruz for President.

Page Pate: Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain

The verdict was no surprise. The sentence may be.

One “guilty” verdict on bank fraud is enough to send Paul Manafort to prison for

up to 30 years

. And, in this case, the judge has the authority to sentence a defendant up to the maximum allowed by law.

But he doesn’t have to. The crimes Manafort was convicted of Tuesday — including tax fraud, bank fraud and hiding foreign bank accounts — do not require a mandatory minimum amount of time in prison.

There are

sentencing guidelines

in the federal court that will recommend a lot of time in custody based on the amount of money involved in this case, but the judge doesn’t have to follow those guidelines. Given the

judge’s sharp rebukes

of the prosecution during the trial, it’s certainly possible he will give Manafort a sentence much lighter than the guidelines suggest. He could conceivably even give him probation, although the government would likely appeal the sentence if he went that far.

The other possible outcome is that President Donald Trump issues a pardon for Manafort, even before the second trial starts. The promise of a pardon would virtually eliminate the chance Manafort tries to cut a deal now and cooperate against Trump, and it would be consistent with Trump’s

earlier comments

about what a “good man” Manafort is and how “unfairly” he has been treated.

Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain.

Page Pate, a CNN legal analyst, is a criminal defense and constitutional lawyer based in Atlanta. He is an adjunct professor of law at the University of Georgia, a founding member of the Georgia Innocence Project, a former board member of the Federal Defender Program

in Atlanta and the former chairman of the criminal law section of the Atlanta Bar Association. Follow him on Twitter

@pagepate.

Shan Wu: Winners and losers in Manafort trial

Winners

Mueller Prosecution Team: The Paul Manafort case was a must-win case for them, and they did manage to pull it off. Even though they failed to win a slam-dunk conviction on all 18 counts, they did enough to claim victory and performed well under enormous pressure without any leaks in their confidentiality and before a difficult judge.

Manafort Defense Team: From a defense lawyer’s perspective this was a victory for a legal team that took on a case largely presumed at the outset to be an easy win for the prosecution. Instead, the defense gained credibility with the jury from day one and fought the Mueller team to a virtual tie, eight counts to 10. They kept on the good side of the judge and wisely rested their case without exposing their client to cross-examination.

The Jury: The jury worked through a complex and document-heavy case with remarkably sharp focus and smarts. They are a credit to the criminal justice system.

Losers

President Trump: Tuesday was a historically bad day for the President, as his former campaign manager and former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, were convicted and pleaded guilty on the same afternoon. His claims of a so-called witch hunt will be undercut by the jury’s reasoned and obviously impartial verdict against Manafort — and Cohen’s conviction exponentially increased his legal liabilities.

Judge T.S. Ellis: The judge repeatedly made the trial about himself rather than the case at hand — and his rushed use of the so-called “dynamite charge” opens up potential issues that could put aspects of this verdict at risk on appeal.

Paul Manafort: Despite a strong showing from his defense team, at the end of the day Manafort is now a convicted felon on multiple counts. For him, jail time is very likely. It’s a remarkably long fall from grace for a man who helped elect the President of the United States.

Rick Gates:

Forced to admit in front of the world that he had an extramarital affair, stole from his mentor, and committed criminal fraud — Gates’ experience in this trial was a

brutal

one, especially for a once-successful political operative with a young family and now two felony convictions of his own. It remains to be seen whether the Mueller prosecutors will deem his cooperation worthy of a truly easy sentence, but whatever the sentence may be it cannot be substantively worse than the punishment he already has sustained.

Shan Wu is a former federal prosecutor who briefly represented Rick Gates. None of his opinions are based upon confidential or privileged information.

Read More | ,

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice, in 2018-08-22 04:40:04

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0 notes

internetbetterforall · 6 years ago

Text

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice

Business

What does it say about the President? After all, aren’t we judged by the company we keep?

In that case, Republicans will have a hard time looking the other way.

Tuesday could mark the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency. A day that will go down in history indeed.

Joey Jackson is a criminal defense attorney and a legal analyst for CNN and HLN.

Caroline Polisi: Manafort’s trial sheds light on Mueller’s potential collusion case

tweeted

total $16 million

Caroline Polisi is a federal and white collar criminal defense attorney in New York, a frequent CNN contributor and is of counsel at Pierce Bainbridge. Follow her on Twitter: @CarolinePolisi

Julian Zelizer: Trump’s alleged Teflon isn’t quite so durable

Laura Coates: The prosecution would be wise not to get greedy

The people have spoken. And while it was not a total victory for the prosecution, it was a comprehensive defeat of the former chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Paul Manafort.

upwards of 80 years

in prison, although the actual sentence is expected to be far less. Any additional convictions on the 10 unresolved counts could yield a sentence akin to a de facto life sentence.

treated worse

than say, Al Capone.

Paul Callan: Manafort’s only hope is a presidential pardon

Paul Callan is a CNN legal analyst, former New York homicide prosecutor, and media law professor.

Alice Stewart: I have stopped believing

Rudy “truth isn’t truth” Giuliani

spins

In addition, Robert Mueller is not finished, and the truth of Russian collusion remains to be seen.

Alice Stewart is a CNN political commentator and former communications director for Ted Cruz for President.

Page Pate: Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain

The verdict was no surprise. The sentence may be.

One “guilty” verdict on bank fraud is enough to send Paul Manafort to prison for

up to 30 years

. And, in this case, the judge has the authority to sentence a defendant up to the maximum allowed by law.

There are

sentencing guidelines

in the federal court that will recommend a lot of time in custody based on the amount of money involved in this case, but the judge doesn’t have to follow those guidelines. Given the

judge’s sharp rebukes

earlier comments

about what a “good man” Manafort is and how “unfairly” he has been treated.

Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain.

in Atlanta and the former chairman of the criminal law section of the Atlanta Bar Association. Follow him on Twitter

@pagepate.

Shan Wu: Winners and losers in Manafort trial

Winners

The Jury: The jury worked through a complex and document-heavy case with remarkably sharp focus and smarts. They are a credit to the criminal justice system.

Losers

Rick Gates:

Forced to admit in front of the world that he had an extramarital affair, stole from his mentor, and committed criminal fraud — Gates’ experience in this trial was a

brutal

Shan Wu is a former federal prosecutor who briefly represented Rick Gates. None of his opinions are based upon confidential or privileged information.

Read More | ,

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice, in 2018-08-22 04:40:04

#Nature of Business in the Current Market

0 notes

magicwebsitesnet · 6 years ago

Text

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice

Business

What does it say about the President? After all, aren’t we judged by the company we keep?

In that case, Republicans will have a hard time looking the other way.

Tuesday could mark the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency. A day that will go down in history indeed.

Joey Jackson is a criminal defense attorney and a legal analyst for CNN and HLN.

Caroline Polisi: Manafort’s trial sheds light on Mueller’s potential collusion case

tweeted

total $16 million

Caroline Polisi is a federal and white collar criminal defense attorney in New York, a frequent CNN contributor and is of counsel at Pierce Bainbridge. Follow her on Twitter: @CarolinePolisi

Julian Zelizer: Trump’s alleged Teflon isn’t quite so durable

Laura Coates: The prosecution would be wise not to get greedy

The people have spoken. And while it was not a total victory for the prosecution, it was a comprehensive defeat of the former chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Paul Manafort.

upwards of 80 years

in prison, although the actual sentence is expected to be far less. Any additional convictions on the 10 unresolved counts could yield a sentence akin to a de facto life sentence.

treated worse

than say, Al Capone.

Paul Callan: Manafort’s only hope is a presidential pardon

Paul Callan is a CNN legal analyst, former New York homicide prosecutor, and media law professor.

Alice Stewart: I have stopped believing

Rudy “truth isn’t truth” Giuliani

spins

In addition, Robert Mueller is not finished, and the truth of Russian collusion remains to be seen.

Alice Stewart is a CNN political commentator and former communications director for Ted Cruz for President.

Page Pate: Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain

The verdict was no surprise. The sentence may be.

One “guilty” verdict on bank fraud is enough to send Paul Manafort to prison for

up to 30 years

. And, in this case, the judge has the authority to sentence a defendant up to the maximum allowed by law.

There are

sentencing guidelines

in the federal court that will recommend a lot of time in custody based on the amount of money involved in this case, but the judge doesn’t have to follow those guidelines. Given the

judge’s sharp rebukes

earlier comments

about what a “good man” Manafort is and how “unfairly” he has been treated.

Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain.

in Atlanta and the former chairman of the criminal law section of the Atlanta Bar Association. Follow him on Twitter

@pagepate.

Shan Wu: Winners and losers in Manafort trial

Winners

The Jury: The jury worked through a complex and document-heavy case with remarkably sharp focus and smarts. They are a credit to the criminal justice system.

Losers

Rick Gates:

Forced to admit in front of the world that he had an extramarital affair, stole from his mentor, and committed criminal fraud — Gates’ experience in this trial was a

brutal

Shan Wu is a former federal prosecutor who briefly represented Rick Gates. None of his opinions are based upon confidential or privileged information.

Read More | ,

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice, in 2018-08-22 04:40:04

#Nature of Business in the Current Market

0 notes

blogwonderwebsites · 6 years ago

Text

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice

Business

What does it say about the President? After all, aren’t we judged by the company we keep?

In that case, Republicans will have a hard time looking the other way.

Tuesday could mark the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency. A day that will go down in history indeed.

Joey Jackson is a criminal defense attorney and a legal analyst for CNN and HLN.

Caroline Polisi: Manafort’s trial sheds light on Mueller’s potential collusion case

tweeted

total $16 million

Caroline Polisi is a federal and white collar criminal defense attorney in New York, a frequent CNN contributor and is of counsel at Pierce Bainbridge. Follow her on Twitter: @CarolinePolisi

Julian Zelizer: Trump’s alleged Teflon isn’t quite so durable

Laura Coates: The prosecution would be wise not to get greedy

The people have spoken. And while it was not a total victory for the prosecution, it was a comprehensive defeat of the former chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Paul Manafort.

upwards of 80 years

in prison, although the actual sentence is expected to be far less. Any additional convictions on the 10 unresolved counts could yield a sentence akin to a de facto life sentence.

treated worse

than say, Al Capone.

Paul Callan: Manafort’s only hope is a presidential pardon

Paul Callan is a CNN legal analyst, former New York homicide prosecutor, and media law professor.

Alice Stewart: I have stopped believing

Rudy “truth isn’t truth” Giuliani

spins

In addition, Robert Mueller is not finished, and the truth of Russian collusion remains to be seen.

Alice Stewart is a CNN political commentator and former communications director for Ted Cruz for President.

Page Pate: Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain

The verdict was no surprise. The sentence may be.

One “guilty” verdict on bank fraud is enough to send Paul Manafort to prison for

up to 30 years

. And, in this case, the judge has the authority to sentence a defendant up to the maximum allowed by law.

There are

sentencing guidelines

in the federal court that will recommend a lot of time in custody based on the amount of money involved in this case, but the judge doesn’t have to follow those guidelines. Given the

judge’s sharp rebukes

earlier comments

about what a “good man” Manafort is and how “unfairly” he has been treated.

Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain.

in Atlanta and the former chairman of the criminal law section of the Atlanta Bar Association. Follow him on Twitter

@pagepate.

Shan Wu: Winners and losers in Manafort trial

Winners

The Jury: The jury worked through a complex and document-heavy case with remarkably sharp focus and smarts. They are a credit to the criminal justice system.

Losers

Rick Gates:

Forced to admit in front of the world that he had an extramarital affair, stole from his mentor, and committed criminal fraud — Gates’ experience in this trial was a

brutal

Shan Wu is a former federal prosecutor who briefly represented Rick Gates. None of his opinions are based upon confidential or privileged information.

Read More | ,

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice, in 2018-08-22 04:40:04

#Nature of Business in the Current Market

0 notes

internetbasic9 · 6 years ago

Text

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice https://ift.tt/2LbcY9P

Business

What does it say about the President? After all, aren’t we judged by the company we keep?

In that case, Republicans will have a hard time looking the other way.

Tuesday could mark the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency. A day that will go down in history indeed.

Joey Jackson is a criminal defense attorney and a legal analyst for CNN and HLN.

Caroline Polisi: Manafort’s trial sheds light on Mueller’s potential collusion case

tweeted

total $16 million

Caroline Polisi is a federal and white collar criminal defense attorney in New York, a frequent CNN contributor and is of counsel at Pierce Bainbridge. Follow her on Twitter: @CarolinePolisi

Julian Zelizer: Trump’s alleged Teflon isn’t quite so durable

Laura Coates: The prosecution would be wise not to get greedy

The people have spoken. And while it was not a total victory for the prosecution, it was a comprehensive defeat of the former chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Paul Manafort.

upwards of 80 years

in prison, although the actual sentence is expected to be far less. Any additional convictions on the 10 unresolved counts could yield a sentence akin to a de facto life sentence.

treated worse

than say, Al Capone.

Paul Callan: Manafort’s only hope is a presidential pardon

Paul Callan is a CNN legal analyst, former New York homicide prosecutor, and media law professor.

Alice Stewart: I have stopped believing

Rudy “truth isn’t truth” Giuliani

spins

In addition, Robert Mueller is not finished, and the truth of Russian collusion remains to be seen.

Alice Stewart is a CNN political commentator and former communications director for Ted Cruz for President.

Page Pate: Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain

The verdict was no surprise. The sentence may be.

One “guilty” verdict on bank fraud is enough to send Paul Manafort to prison for

up to 30 years

. And, in this case, the judge has the authority to sentence a defendant up to the maximum allowed by law.

There are

sentencing guidelines

in the federal court that will recommend a lot of time in custody based on the amount of money involved in this case, but the judge doesn’t have to follow those guidelines. Given the

judge’s sharp rebukes

earlier comments

about what a “good man” Manafort is and how “unfairly” he has been treated.

Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain.

in Atlanta and the former chairman of the criminal law section of the Atlanta Bar Association. Follow him on Twitter

@pagepate.

Shan Wu: Winners and losers in Manafort trial

Winners

The Jury: The jury worked through a complex and document-heavy case with remarkably sharp focus and smarts. They are a credit to the criminal justice system.

Losers

Rick Gates:

Forced to admit in front of the world that he had an extramarital affair, stole from his mentor, and committed criminal fraud — Gates’ experience in this trial was a

brutal

Shan Wu is a former federal prosecutor who briefly represented Rick Gates. None of his opinions are based upon confidential or privileged information.

Read More | ,

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice, in 2018-08-22 04:40:04

#Nature of Business in the Current Market

0 notes

computacionalblog · 6 years ago

Text

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice

Business

What does it say about the President? After all, aren’t we judged by the company we keep?

In that case, Republicans will have a hard time looking the other way.

Tuesday could mark the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency. A day that will go down in history indeed.

Joey Jackson is a criminal defense attorney and a legal analyst for CNN and HLN.

Caroline Polisi: Manafort’s trial sheds light on Mueller’s potential collusion case

tweeted

total $16 million

Caroline Polisi is a federal and white collar criminal defense attorney in New York, a frequent CNN contributor and is of counsel at Pierce Bainbridge. Follow her on Twitter: @CarolinePolisi

Julian Zelizer: Trump’s alleged Teflon isn’t quite so durable

Laura Coates: The prosecution would be wise not to get greedy

The people have spoken. And while it was not a total victory for the prosecution, it was a comprehensive defeat of the former chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Paul Manafort.

upwards of 80 years

in prison, although the actual sentence is expected to be far less. Any additional convictions on the 10 unresolved counts could yield a sentence akin to a de facto life sentence.

treated worse

than say, Al Capone.

Paul Callan: Manafort’s only hope is a presidential pardon

Paul Callan is a CNN legal analyst, former New York homicide prosecutor, and media law professor.

Alice Stewart: I have stopped believing

Rudy “truth isn’t truth” Giuliani

spins

In addition, Robert Mueller is not finished, and the truth of Russian collusion remains to be seen.

Alice Stewart is a CNN political commentator and former communications director for Ted Cruz for President.

Page Pate: Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain

The verdict was no surprise. The sentence may be.

One “guilty” verdict on bank fraud is enough to send Paul Manafort to prison for

up to 30 years

. And, in this case, the judge has the authority to sentence a defendant up to the maximum allowed by law.

There are

sentencing guidelines

in the federal court that will recommend a lot of time in custody based on the amount of money involved in this case, but the judge doesn’t have to follow those guidelines. Given the

judge’s sharp rebukes

earlier comments

about what a “good man” Manafort is and how “unfairly” he has been treated.

Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain.

in Atlanta and the former chairman of the criminal law section of the Atlanta Bar Association. Follow him on Twitter

@pagepate.

Shan Wu: Winners and losers in Manafort trial

Winners

The Jury: The jury worked through a complex and document-heavy case with remarkably sharp focus and smarts. They are a credit to the criminal justice system.

Losers

Rick Gates:

Forced to admit in front of the world that he had an extramarital affair, stole from his mentor, and committed criminal fraud — Gates’ experience in this trial was a

brutal

Shan Wu is a former federal prosecutor who briefly represented Rick Gates. None of his opinions are based upon confidential or privileged information.

Read More | ,

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice, in 2018-08-22 04:40:04

#Nature of Business in the Current Market

0 notes

terrancedkennedy · 7 years ago

Text

The William Dudley Speaks...Still Waiting For Inflation

I might be the last generation of people that remembers EF Hutton. It was a middle-of-the-pack brokerage that got bought out as the industry consolidated in the late 80s. They had these ads that had the catchy tagline, “When EF Hutton speaks, people listen.”

Today, when the William Dudley speaks, people listen. Let’s go straight to today’s AP interview with the man himself and drop the money quotes:

“My outlook for the economy hasn't changed materially since the beginning of the year. Continue to look for growths around 2%, slightly above trend, growth sufficient to continue to tighten the labor market.”

Steady as she goes, then?

“If (economic growth) evolves in line with my expectations, I would expect -- I would be in favor of doing another rate hike later this year.”

Fair enough...not backing off...we hear you, Bill. But really, why do you still want to hike?

Now the reason why I think you'd want to continue to gradually remove monetary policy accommodation, even with inflation somewhat below target, is that 1) monetary policy is still accommodative, so the level of short-term rates is pretty low, and 2) and this is probably even more important, financial conditions have been easing rather than tightening.

Stocks are hot...right.

There are long lags between getting to a tight labor market and that actually showing up in higher wages, and those wages then pushing into inflation.

Ok, here’s where it gets interesting...despite unemployment at or below their estimate of full employment (or NAIRU, if you will), we’re still waiting for that “lag” to stop crushing inflation readings.

What we have to do, though, to discern is, what we see on inflation, is this temporary or is this something that's going to be more persistent? I think the jury is out on that.

Can you give us a “best-by” date on that jury? That leaves this….which may be one of my favorite central banker quotes of the year:

“The reason why inflation won't get up to 2% very quickly on a year-over-year basis is because we've had these very low inflation readings over the last 4 or 5 months. So it's going to take time for those to sort of drop out of the year-over-year calculation.”

To summarize:

Growth, still good

Labor market, still tight

Inflation, still invisible. But just you wait until the low numbers roll out of the index. Bill...I know some Argentines that can take care of that for you. Call me.

But I think if you look at inflation sequentially, in other words what's inflation likely to actually do over the next 6 months, I'm expecting somewhat higher readings than what we've had over the last 6 months.”

Rookie question...how has your inflation forecasting performed over the last five years?

In fairness to Bill and the Fed, inflation forecasting is a mug’s game. Let’s take a look at a few charts that might shed light on what he’s thinking.

This is the “inflation dashboard” at the Atlanta Fed. I’m not sure how often labor costs have been at the 99th percentile while expectations have been in the 20s, but it must be pretty rare.

Let’s drill down into labor costs:

Creeping higher--I’ll agree with Bill, the jury is still out here. Could settle in at the top of the band.

More people are getting raises. Although I wager this is more typical, and the past several years have been anomalous. Again, supportive. I’ll save space and dispense with the unemployment and first-time claims chart...you know what they look like.

So Dudley is right--the labor market is showing signs of tightness beyond simply the unemployment rate. But what about prices?

Both headline and trimmed mean PCE are trending downwards. No signs of trouble here.

The broader CPI trimmed mean index looks even more encouraging for the dovish camp.

And his points on asset prices being in line with the state of the economy? Well, credit expansion doesn’t argue there is anything amiss. Again, consistent with the “steady as she goes” approach to monetary policy.

Same for capacity utilization--some room to run on the runway here.

With inflation expectations crawling back into their grave, the market has clearly cast its lot with the dovish camp.

In all...I hate to say it...but the evidence ties out to much of what Dudley says. He glossed over the *actual* inflation data way too easily--something the TIPs market clearly picked up on--and there isn’t much to suggest that is going to change anytime soon….other than labor costs. So we’re back in the cycle of watching the data for the next clue on monetary policy.

Only now do I think the market has it about right on the odds for a December hike at something like 30%....that is about what we have been conditioned to fade Fed governor pronouncements.

Regarding the broader point on risk appetite, and financial conditions--carry on!! All there is here is a tepid endorsement of what we knew already--yet high-frequency data is showing some signs of weakness. Let the party go on…

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