Barbashin says Russia’s leaders expect Trump to issue ultimatums to both Kyiv and Moscow: if Volodymyr Zelensky balks at peace terms, the US will sever all military aid; if Putin drags his feet, the US will up the military ante and carpet-bomb the Russian economy.

I do not believe for one second that Trump will issue any ultimatums to Putin. Even if he does, there’s zero chance he would follow through on any threats to Russia.

Mario? He must have heard that they arrested Luigi.

Are they trying to imply that they actually thought about it once? I mean they’re cops… how can we be expected to believe that they actually thought?

Maybe, but in this case, as in many high-profile cases, the cops are determined to catch a guy, not necessarily the guy. Not that they care about this particular victim. They don’t. But they sure as hell don’t like looking like fools. If they felt that the real shooter had slipped away (after all, most murders do go unsolved these days) then they might be very inclined to find a patsy and frame him up.

Oh dear gods, do not say that. It’s just the sort of thing that he would believe. Don’t give him any ideas!

Someone needs to start a gofund me to finance a slew of advertising in New York espousing the virtues of jury nullification.

He can’t blanket pardon people.

Where did you get that idea? It’s been done before. In 1977 for example, President Carter, issued a blanket pardon to everyone who dodged the draft during the Vietnam war.

There are, in fact, very few limitations on the power of the pardon.

This ProPublica article is good reading. It discusses a company used by many insurers, including UHC, to deny claims using AI. The name of the company is EviCore. I suppose the “Evi” is supposed to be short for “evidence” but I think it is pretty clear that it’s just short for “evil.”

Your quote is included in this Financial Times piece (archived version) but it’s immediately followed sorry, preceded by my favorite. And by favorite, I mean one of the most vile things I’ve ever heard.

One former Cigna executive recalled how the US health insurer used to frequently face threats when claims were denied. “We’d have times when you’d deny proton laser therapy for a kid with seizures and the parent would freak out,” said the former executive.

Proton Laser Therapy is used to precisely kill tumors. You know, like tumors in a brain that are causing seizures. How dare those parents “freak out” just because you are refusing to cover their child’s cancer treatment? These fuckers are completely out of touch. They honestly think they have the moral high-ground letting kids die in order to increase shareholder value. I now really understand why the guillotine was invented.

CBS is saying that they found the backpack buried in some rocks in Central Park.

NYPD officers were in Central Park near West Drive on Friday, searching for anything with ties back to the gunman. Eventually, they discovered a backpack they believe belongs to the suspect, a high-ranking NYPD source told CBS News New York.

Former NYPD detective Felipe Rodriguez says he thinks the suspect pre-planned his hiding spot.

“It seems to have been buried in rocks and everything else. This was something that just wasn’t done in five minutes, and I am pretty sure that he was able to do this even before he committed the homicide,” Rodriguez said. “We actually have to look at the magnitude, and how big Central Park is. It’s really big, 256 acres at this point.”

Saturday, police said the backpack contained a jacket, but not the murder weapon. The recovered items were sent to the crime lab for forensic tests, which could confirm if they are the suspect’s.

10k reward for info

Which is frankly hilarious. UnitedHealthCare group grossed $90 billion in the last 12 months and they are offering only a $10,000 reward for help finding the assassin. I bet their next CEO gets 10 to 100 times that much in just a signing bonus.

*We conclude that, as a matter of history and precedent, the Takings Clause does not require compensation for damaged or destroyed property when it was objectively necessary for officers to damage or destroy that property in an active emergency to prevent imminent harm to persons. *

Except that the hostage had already been released. There was no imminent harm to persons because the police had the guy cornered alone in a house. They could have called in negotiators and waited the guy out. Their actions were by no means necessary to prevent harm.

Fuck Moscow Mitch.

Do they believe it? No. Did they mean to use this absurd law as a way to criminalize talking to a minor about abortion? Yes.

Most Republicans don’t really believe half of what they say. It’s all just tools they try to use to accumulate power in general and, in this case, to control women and their reproductive organs.

They don’t hate the idea of concentration camps. In fact, they like them if they’re for the people they’ve been trained to hate.

Your family should not be under more scrutiny than anybody else and they should not be a target of your political enemies.

What’s your point? If you break the law, you should be treated like everybody else

That is exactly my point. Others who have committed the same crimes are treated with a slap on the wrist. Republicans, in Hunter’s case, were insisting on heavy handed prosecution and were pushing very hard for a jail sentence. He deserved a pardon exactly because he was not being treated like everybody else.

Should Joe have pardoned Hunter? No it undermines the entire message of nobody is above the law

I disagree. Hunter’s prosecution was political in nature. Anyone else accused of the same crimes would not have faced even close to what he did. If it were anyone else I would still want Biden to pardon him.

So what? Maybe it should be but it isn’t. The Constitution places virtually no limitation on the Presidents ability to offer clemency and no one in the last 250 years or so has seen fit to amend the constitution to change that despite the fact that the Republicans have been abusing the power of the pardon since at least the Reagan years. Now you are complaining because a Democratic President has used it *appropriately *to pardon someone who was convicted in a politically motivated circus?

Yes, it is. So the Democrats, and anyone else who wants to try and resurrect it, need to get off their asses and start fighting dirty to rebuild it. The Republicans have been fighting to tear it down for more than 40 years using endless dirty tricks. Time to fight fire with fire. We cannot save democracy with sternly worded letters.